On behalf of IceTV I would like to apologise in advance for any inconvenience the delay in publishing the program guide data for the new HD channels within our IceTV EPG service is causing our loyal customer base.
As most of you are aware, we are still in a current legal battle with Channel Nine (although we won the case in August), and we are still not authorised to use any of the published information available from the 3 major free-to-air TV networks, despite repeated attempts to gain official access.
What this means, is that we cannot and do not gather any program guide information directly from the TV network's websites or from any 3rd party website or published source that contains their own copyrightable information. The way in which we independently compile our own copyrightable guide listings is the very reason why we won our court case against Channel Nine in August. While we are still fighting them we must continue to use our accepted methods.
SevenHD started broadcasting their HD content on the new channel on Monday the 10th of December although very lightly, while TenHD began this Sunday (16/12/07). We had previously advised everyone that the likely turn around for us would be 2-3 weeks and we are still hopeful in achieving this as recently suggestested with "coming in early 2008" comments.
... Copying their published information is a direct breach of copyright and therefore if we did go ahead and simply copy this information, our service would be no different to that of the illegal, "scraped" EPG services available and ultimately our service would cease to exist and our subscribers suffer.
We are not prepared to jeopardise our current service by doing this and we will continue to use our methods of prediction and independent compilation, even if it means that it may take 2-3weeks in order to have our listings made available.
Rest assured that our team is working very hard to release our own independent TV guide listings for these new Channels within the IceTV EPG as soon as humanly possible.
We are aiming for a possible release of this information in early 2008 and by this time we suspect that the two networks will have more consistent HD programming in place for us all to enjoy.
As soon as we can, we will include the information in our IceTV EPG service and we will notify all our users of great news.
We simply cannot put it any straighter than that... staff are literally working around the clock to get this information up and running for everyone and we are confident based on our current progress that we will be ready to release the information by mid January, which is what we meant when we said in "early 2008". Copying direct information from the TV networks or writing applications that do... is not an option.
...now ICE have removed the Ch70 and Ch12 HD
As both Seven and Ten are now utilising their new HD Channels and broadcasting a vast array of different content to that which is on their SD Channels, the EPG data we displayed in the IceTV EPG was becoming very inconsistent and this inaccuracy is what led us to removing the listings altogether. I accept that this was a rash move on our behalf and one that should have been better communicated to everyone, but we were receiving an increase in complaints from customers who were recording shows only to find something completely different later on.
Or they might put up prices "because of the extra work load" for the new HD channels!!! Wouldn't that be popular!
This is something we have never done and we have done the exact opposite. Over the time that we have been providing a service commercially, we have consistently lowered the cost of our subscription and offered numerous discount promotions for everyone to take advantage of at regular stages. While also doing this, we have increased the features and functionality across the many different device platforms that we are compatible with and included these as part of the IceTV service .
Having said all of this... I do want to once again apologise for any inconvenience this process is going to cause our customers in advance. I appreciate the frustration that some of you have with not being able to utilise the HD program guide information for the new channels, but I ask that you remain patient during this time and be reassured that we will resume the fantastic service that we have consistantly delivered in the very near future for everyone to enjoy.
On behalf of IceTV, I thank you all for your patience and for your continued support.
If you would like to discuss this matter further, please don't hesitate to contact me directly via email (
info@icetv.com.au) as I will be working throughout the Christmas break and will be personally making sure that we try to achieve the above as soon as possible.
In the meantime we hope you all have a fantastic Christmas and a Happy New Year and as always, we thank you for choosing IceTV.
Regards,
mattk
General Manager
IceTV Pty Limited
