"To Be Announced" all over the place

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Tonight one of my tivos recorded "To Be Announced" - CBS 11:30 PM. I didn't recognize the show, had to look it up. Don't watch CSI:Miami, but that shouldn't be relevant anyway. So why the heck did it record? It's in My Shows not Suggestions. Suggestions would make sense since by now To Be Announced is one popular show!

I do have a 1P for Stephen Colbert during the week at 11:35 PM CBS, and last week asked it to record TBA for that time slot, but not via a 1P for TBA, that's for sure. Could that be it?

What an exasperating mess all over the place. I miss Tivo!

I'm in the SF Bay Area - Comcast, Santa Cruz market.

 

Anecdotal, but... When reviewing my To Do List post-Rovi migration, I came across a couple one-time scheduled recordings for "To Be Announced" shows at odd times (Sat evening, Sunday afternoon) that I didn't recall setting.

 

This is not very promising. Channel 19-3 LAFF showed TBA this evening. It was not TBA earlier today. I ran setup again, which is the first I've ran it since the cutover. It now has program info for 19-3. This was a common occurrence in WMC, though, when channels would seem fine then eventually go to TBA. I have received numerous lineup changes over the past week, though, so they must be active in correcting lineup issues. Hopefully they are being as active with guide issues.

 

I don't know what it was like yesterday, but as of right now, I have data up through 10/2. (Though it may not be ALL of 10/2. Last show is at 6:00 PM and I think I normally have more shows recording later in the night on a Sunday)

 

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Not just OTA. My lineup for TWC in Winchester, KY was missing guide data for the first 65 channels (1-65). I learned from WMC a year ago to pick the Richmond, KY lineup that was presented in the WInchester, KY zipcode options. Setting up the TiVo Bolt recently I learned TiVo did not present that option in my zip code. I needed to put in the Richmond zip code and choice TWC Richmnd standard cable to get it right for my area. I just submitted a ticket to TiVo\Rovi to add this choice to the Winchester zip code in guided setup because it is not obvious. At least in the WMC setup Microsoft gave the Richmond option with my zip, otherwise I wouldn't have thought to try it on the TiVo this past weekend.

 

I have listings through Sun 10/2 at 12:30P. Which is good because a few days ago, I had listings to 9/30, then back to 9/28 and back up to 9/30 again. At least they're continuing in the right direction now. All that I've checked have OAD info and full episode descriptions.

I still have some issues with a few channels with the wrong number and missing listings for those, and I submitted a ticket. Not hopeful for a quick resolution on that, but the majority of stuff is working correctly.

[Fingers crossed]

 

Seems CBS is having an issue with 9/29 from 8pm to 11pm. It's all TBA on zap2it, tvguide, tv.com but not on titantv.com. It's has Thursday Night Football.

 

I meant WMC itself. It is not supported. No company behind the users. Hard to make noise when the app isn't supported anymore.

 

Really? You think that your machine is tapping directly into the Rovi database and not into one conditioned by Tivo?

You are bashing guide data when it appears you have either a connection bug or bad data conditioning by Tivo.

 

OMG! Bad data in = bad data out. Seriously? Bad data conditioning by the TiVo team? It doesn't matter that the old TiVo team has servers in the mix. Channel 33.2 (WYTV-DT2, MyNetworkTV) currently has TBA for a huge block of this Saturday from 12:30pm until 10:30pm. BOTH TiVo and TVguide.com show this. The common factor there sure isn't a TiVo server or TiVo team. What is the common factor? INCOMPLETE Rovi DATA!. Gracenote via Zap2it, already has the guide data shown below.

12:00 PM
College Football "James Madison at Maine" LIVE
3:30 PM
College Football "Appalachian State at Akron" LIVE
7:00 PM
College Football "Louisiana Tech at Middle Tennessee State" LIVE

Give me an R. Give me an O. Give me a V. Give me an I. What's that spell? Rovi! What's that spell? Rovi!

Should I send you some pom-poms to go with all this cheerleading?

 

HaHa! It gets even worse. I can't make this up.

Rovi (via TiVo online and TVguide.com) has an entire half day messed up for WYTV-DT2, as shown below. It's not just the college football that's bad.
11:30 AM Infomercial
12:00 PM Copper Chef
12:30 PM To Be Announced 3 hr
3:30 PM To Be Announced 3 hr 30 min
7:00 PM To Be Announced 3 hr 30 min
10:30 PM Scandal — Crash and Burn 1 hr
11:30 PM Elementary — The Past Is Parent 1 hr
12:30 AM Castle — XX 1 hr
1:30 AM Blue Bloods — Family Ties

Gracenote (via Zap2it) shows the below guide:
11:30 AM Paid Programming
12:00 PM College Football "James Madison at Maine" LIVE
3:30 PM College Football "Appalachian State at Akron" LIVE
7:00 PM College Football "Louisiana Tech at Middle Tennessee State" LIVE
10:30 PM Scandal "Paris Is Burning"
11:30 PM Elementary "Evidence of Things Not Seen"
12:30 AM Castle "XY"
1:30 AM Blue Bloods "Family Ties"

Rovi currently has the Paid Programming/Infomercial correct at 11:30am, and Blue Bloods correct at 1:30am. The 13.5 hours in the middle there is a complete cluster. Rovi correctly has Scandal, Elementary, and Castle after football (actually TBA in their listings), but all the episodes are incorrect. And yes, college football starts at noon. That first game listed has a noon start time. What a mess. As I said before, the Rovi team has an inefficiency somewhere that they seriously need to address. Either the station owners send Rovi programming updates later than they send it to Gracenote, or, Rovi takes longer than Gracenote to process that data. Maybe they will fix the Saturday listings in the next few days, maybe not. However, there will be many other times that this inefficiency will be reflected in our guides at air time. This is what we experienced with WMC, and it's still the same issue with the inaccuracy and inefficiency of Rovi guide data.

 

Unfortunately this looks like a case where data for smaller regional stations aren't as good as for major metropolitan areas. I'm in NYC and the listings I have for this Saturday match FiOS's which match what's on zap2it. I wouldn't have any way to know if this is an issue with how those stations are providing their data to Rovi or how Rovi is processing them.

 

Unless the station is providing correct data to Gracenote and incorrect data to Rovi, I don't think it much matters what the station is providing.

The fact is that Gracenote takes that data from the station (whether correct or not) and somehow is able to provide correct and timely listings, Rovi is not able to do the same.

 

Apparently it does matter, because my guide data for ABC this Saturday is good while the one for WYTV is not. That's the only fact here. I'm not saying Rovi is not to blame or is doing fine. I'm just saying the quality of the data varies by station. And unless any of us are in Rovi, TiVo, Gracenote, or any one of the components involved, we don't know exactly where the blame lies or how much of each party is at fault.

Edit: Point here is that maybe Gracenote is doing something above and beyond what is reasonable to expect from any other company, or Rovi isn't doing enough when it receives incomplete or invalid data, or somewhere in between. Most of us here wouldn't know because we're not privy to their inner workings.

 

No. you are claiming the source data comes and goes on a daily if not hourly basis. Not thinking there may be a glitch in the translation of data which seems more likely than source data just disappearing suddenly and somehow reappearing magically.

You just mixed two different use cases. Data not there yet versus data appearing and disappearing again.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Why is 9/29 Thu night on CBS primetime still TBA? Isn't it Thursday Night football? Tomorrow (9/22) is Texas @ Patriots. Next week (9/29) is Dolphins@Bengals. Why isn't the latter in the guide data? Is there something else that might air?

 

It's not mixing two separate issues. I have no idea where you got that from, or that I insinuate that data magically appears and disappears. But since you bring it up....

A server is not going to translate [11:30pm, Elementary, "Evidence of things not seen"] into an incorrect [11:30pm, Elementary, "The past is parent"]. The sever is just not going to translate and transpose an incorrect episode name or one single field. It is incorrect on Rovi's end from the beginning. This incorrect listing propagates through the multitude of servers until it gives our TiVo's incorrect listings. At some time, hopefully, Rovi will correct the episode name. Or in the case of TBA, Rovi will add in the program name and info. Who knows if or when they will correct this. Once they do correct it, it will take time to propagate through however many servers it passes through again until it reaches the TiVo box. Yes, the correct info, may hopefully, magically appear on the frontend TiVo box once it connects back to the TiVo service....if that TiVo server ever receives the correct listings from the Rovi servers. A transpose issue would have entire fields not matching up correctly, such as the episode name showing up in the seriesID field. Again, what's the common component between incorrect/incomplete TiVo listings and incorrect/incomplete TVguide.com listings and also incorrect/incomplete WMC listings? Rovi is that common component. It's basic troubleshooting. If the data is bad at 3 different frontends, then those frontends are getting bad data from their source, which is Rovi.

 

OK, but there are a few programs where the title on online.tivo.com doesn't match what's on the Tivo box.

I think you're both correct, both things are happening (bad data and bad processing) which is why we're running around in circles trying to figure it out.

 

Didn't check yesterday, but no TBAs in my CBS data for tonight. Everything's got the correct program descriptions, AFAIK.

FWIW, I do see two TBA's on CBS this Sunday. 4PM and 10:30PM (EDT). Next ones are 8PM on Thursday, 9/29, 2PM on Sat, 10/1, 11:35/12:35 Sat-Sun, 10/1-2 and 9AM, Sun 10/2. So only a 6-7, out to 10/3. Doesn't seem out of the ordinary, IMHO.

 

By default, TiVo online will have corrected listings before your TiVo box. When you access TiVo online, you are getting the latest listings and corrections straight from the TiVo servers. In other words, your browser is not storing listings, it is pulling those listings from a TiVo server as you view them. Your TiVo box downloads and saves listings, and that is what you view on your TiVo box, instead of what is currently on a TiVo server. You don't have the latest listings and corrections on your TiVo box. You only have the listings from the last time your TiVo connected to the service, which could have been a day or two earlier. A listing could be corrected by Rovi and passed through to TiVo servers, during the day or two that your TiVo box is still running on older cached/downloaded listings.