Coming Soon Useless

[Dave at IceTV]

Agreed. Once we know their start date that date should be inserted, before the show airs. And weekly shows that started more than 15 days ago should get removed from the list regularly.

Yes. We all know this and continue to point it out / complain about it.

I was stating how it's supposed to work, not necessarily how it is currently working. I am sure that the priority has been on getting the guide perfect before concentrating on get coming soon perfect.

[Dave at IceTV]

It's a matter of balance rather than personal choice. Currently there is too much emphasis on daytime repeats of lifestyle shows and not enough on first run primetime drama etc. Man cannot live by bread alone, even if it is brioche.

Agreed. First run primetime shows should be the first priority.

Also any show that is good enough to make it into the weekly newsletter emails should also be included in coming soon.

I keep thinking that a personalised 'coming soon' would be great. So 'Coming Soon' would list shows based on the type of shows you normally record. Maybe one day...

[prl]

Thanks Dave.

What, me, break something? 

 I tried clearing the data (which also cleared the cache), and that didn't change the Recommendations; neither did uninstalling and reinstalling the app.

My phone is currently wanting to upgrade from KitKat to Lollipop (at last!); I'll give it another go when that's done.

[simoncasey]

Agreed. Once we know their start date that date should be inserted, before the show airs. And weekly shows that started more than 15 days ago should get removed from the list regularly.

Yes. We all know this and continue to point it out / complain about it.

I was stating how it's supposed to work, not necessarily how it is currently working. I am sure that the priority has been on getting the guide perfect before concentrating of n get coming soon perfect.

Making that clear instead of appearing to defend what is being done and criticising the complainers would probably result in less frustration for users and less complaints.

[raymondjpg]

Also any show that is good enough to make it into the weekly newsletter emails should also be included in coming soon.

I probably should have made it clear that my comments regarding "Coming Soon" apply equally to the weekly newsletter emails. In other words the usefulness for me of "What's on this week" (as for "Coming Soon") is in drawing attention to upcoming new (or returning) material that I don't normally see advertised because I don't watch much live TV, and make a habit of stripping ads and relentless ABC promotional material from my TV captures before watching them.

I know that there is no accounting for taste, but the weekly newsletter lately while concentrating on food shows and documentaries has been less useful to me than in the past when it alerted me to such (my taste) worthwhile drama shows as The Fall, Fargo and Homeland. There might also be recognition of new drama from New Zealand such as the Brokenwood Mysteries and maybe even some home-grown Australian drama (not ongoing soaps) if any such does exist any more.

[prl]

...
My phone is currently wanting to upgrade from KitKat to Lollipop (at last!); I'll give it another go when that's done.

Update done. Still only getting The Embassy in Recommendations. Cleared Data/Cache, same. Uninstalled/reinstalled the app. Still the same.

[tonymy01]

...
My phone is currently wanting to upgrade from KitKat to Lollipop (at last!); I'll give it another go when that's done.

Update done. Still only getting The Embassy in Recommendations. Cleared Data/Cache, same. Uninstalled/reinstalled the app. Still the same.

I get that Monday, but flick the whole screen left or right to get a couple for Tuesday and even more Wednesday. An icon on the screen is broken but apart from that looks like I get recommendations beyond what you are getting.
Mekon River, Dateline and Rabbit Proof Fence.

[prl]

  I forgot that you have to flick on the part of the screen that has stuff on it 

I can see The Embassy, The Mekong, Dateline & Rabbit-proof Fence. As with tonymy01, all the image links are broken (which means that the "flickable" part of the screen is quite small).

[Daniel Hall at IceTV]

I forgot that you have to flick on the part of the screen that has stuff on it 

I can see The Embassy, The Mekong, Dateline & Rabbit-proof Fence. As with tonymy01, all the image links are broken (which means that the "flickable" part of the screen is quite small).

It does look like the script that is responsible for updating IcePicks on the phones was not doing the right thing, I have pushed a manual update now and will monitor over the next couple of days.

[prl]

Thanks, Daniel. I can now see Recommendations for all of the coming week, starting with "Invisible Universe" and ending with the "Coming Soon" ABC New Year coverage.

I also saw one item (Friday's Peter Wright version of The Nutcracker) marked as "Top Repeat", markup that I don't think I've ever seen before. But maybe I just wasn't paying attention. But wouldn't ET also warrant that markup?

[Mozi]

I keep thinking that a personalised 'coming soon' would be great. So 'Coming Soon' would list shows based on the type of shows you normally record. Maybe one day...

Nice idea Dave. Maybe something that would be easier to implement (I don't know) in a shorter time frame would be a setting somewhere were the USER can choose whether or not we want to see repeats included in the "Coming Soon" or not.

And as a follow up improvement, maybe something where we can choose to include/exclude Coming Soon shows that fall into certain timeframes, eg prime time, night time, day time? At least that would be feasible for all those shows that already have a date/time allocated to them in Coming Soon.

Just an idea or two.

[prl]

...
I keep thinking that a personalised 'coming soon' would be great. So 'Coming Soon' would list shows based on the type of shows you normally record. Maybe one day...

IceTV has been there before, but with something that really didn't work properly. I think I'd rather have what we have now than a "personalised" system that tells me about programs I already have set to record or have marked as favourites.

[simoncasey]

...
I keep thinking that a personalised 'coming soon' would be great. So 'Coming Soon' would list shows based on the type of shows you normally record. Maybe one day...

IceTV has been there before, but with something that really didn't work properly. I think I'd rather have what we have now than a "personalised" system that tells me about programs I already have set to record or have marked as favourites.

Yes, I agree. Maybe the recommendations could be personalised but I don't think coming soon needs to be. It will be like the google ads that keep advertising things that I just bought.

[prl]

The comment about recommendations that I was already recording was the actual behaviour of one instance of the old system. Then, IIRC, it was changed to remove the stuff that was already marked as being recorded or a favourite.

But it was done by getting the top 10 matches with what it thought were my preferences, then removing the stuff I'd already marked in IceTV. So instead of giving me ten recommendations, about half of which I'd already marked, it gave me half as many recommendations. 

I'm sure there must be a better way...

[simoncasey]

The comment about recommendations that I was already recording was the actual behaviour of one instance of the old system. Then, IIRC, it was changed to remove the stuff that was already marked as being recorded or a favourite.

But it was done by getting the top 10 matches with what it thought were my preferences, then removing the stuff I'd already marked in IceTV. So instead of giving me ten recommendations, about half of which I'd already marked, it gave me half as many recommendations. 

I'm sure there must be a better way...

You would also need a way of ignoring recommendations so that they went away permanently otherwise the same shows would keep coming back as recommendations.  The Amazon type approach of "people who recorded this show also recorded that show" may work but would have limitations as it would only work retrospectively, ie there would be no data on new shows as nobody would be recording those.

A mixture of the popular and coming soon might also be good. Ie coming soon shows would appear on the recommendation list if people set series recordings on them.

The key thing I think is to try and automate the process as much as possible otherwise it becomes inconsistent, subjective and labour intensive for the icetv people. There is a lot of information on recordings in the icetv database so being able to filter the coming soon list into recommendations should be possible.