Season Pass Question

[s.newave]

Thinking of purchasing a S3 but have a quick question regarding the season pass feature. Does Tivo use the same guide data as my cable co (RCN NYC)?

Reason i ask is because i have found that the SPEED channel in particular does not label shows that effectively. For example instead of labeling shows as "Formula One" or "MotoGP" they will label them as "Automotive Racing" or "Motorcycle Racing" which encompasses a wide range of shows and needless to say makes it impossible to setup some type of season pass using my current cableco dvr. Can a Tivo do this with any better success?

Also i have noticed that some shows do not have a "new" flag letting you know it is a new show, does the Tivo guide do any better with this issue or is it still based on my cable co's guide data?

thx

[husky55]

Thinking of purchasing a S3 but have a quick question regarding the season pass feature. Does Tivo use the same guide data as my cable co (RCN NYC)?

Reason i ask is because i have found that the SPEED channel in particular does not label shows that effectively. For example instead of labeling shows as "Formula One" or "MotoGP" they will label them as "Automotive Racing" or "Motorcycle Racing" which encompasses a wide range of shows and needless to say makes it impossible to setup some type of season pass using my current cableco dvr. Can a Tivo do this with any better success?

Also i have noticed that some shows do not have a "new" flag letting you know it is a new show, does the Tivo guide do any better with this issue or is it still based on my cable co's guide data?

thx

Tivo will use the same guide published by the cable company in the specific location. Your CC will determine which channels you will receive.

How Tivo does season pass is based of what is published and what time and what channel the season pass is set to.

It does make a distinction between first run and repeat.

[DrWho453]

It does make a distinction between first run and repeat.

Unless the program does not have a description and then Tivo will record it whether its a repeat or not. Take USA for example, they would get pretty lazy sometimes and not put the descriptions in for the 4400 or the Dead zone so they would only show the generic description such as "Alien abductees return to earth" or "John wakes up from a coma to discover he can see the future". Since these are not a true description, Tivo tries to record them even though they are usually repeats. I ended up creating a wishlist to tell Tivo not to record the program if it has the generic description.

[s.newave]

That’s what i was afraid of. So basically Tivo will work off the same guide that my current RCN DVR does. What benefits then does the Tivo season pass specifically have over my current DVR if any? One of my major gripes with my current dvr is the inability to adequately schedule recurring shows such as the ones i mentioned above?

Is there a way for Tivo to detect if it is recording a show that you have already recorded based on other fields besides the title?

[bkdtv]

Thinking of purchasing a S3 but have a quick question regarding the season pass feature. Does Tivo use the same guide data as my cable co (RCN NYC)?Despite what was suggested above, the cable company is not responsible for their guide data. They are only responsible for channel mapping (which networks are on what channels). Cable companies license (purchase) their guide data from Gemstar or Tribune and pass it on to customers.

TiVo licenses its guide data from Tribune Media, which is generally considered the better of the two guide data providers, with more reliable updates and first-run information. If your cable company uses Gemstar for their guide data, then TiVo would probably be an improvement. If your cable provider uses Tribune, then the listings will be comparable. If your provider uses Tribune, the program descriptions will often say (C) Tribune Media Services.

If there is no copyright information on the RCN guide data, you can compare it against Tribune's online guide @ http://www.zap2it.com/. The program descriptions at that site are the same that you get on the TiVo. TiVo does provide some additional information not on that site, but the titles and descriptions are the same.

With the latest TiVo software, it is possible to automatically filter out (i.e. not record) repeats that have a generic description, but which lack a repeat flag. If every episode, new and old uses the same description, without a first-run or repeat flag, there's not much you can do about that, aside from setting a manual recording for that program. You can schedule manual daily, weekly, Mon-Fri, etc recordings and the program name does appear in your recorded list.

http://mysite.verizon.net/~fiosdvr/tivo/nowplaying.jpg

Closing Bell is shown at 3pm and again at 4pm (non-repeats) with the same program description. I only want the 4pm version, so I use a M-F manual timer to record that program, as seen above.

Of my 60+ season passes, I only need a manual recording for Closing Bell and one other program.

[btwyx]

You can see what the guide data is like, by using the online scheduling.

I've never had any problems recording Formula 1.

[s.newave]

Wow bkdtv thanks for your informative post. Pretty much exactly what i was looking for.