HD flag on SD services?

[prl]

I only noticed this on Beyonwiz IceTV with the new beta firmware that shows the HD (and some other) flags in the EPG, but I see the same thing on the new IceTV Yahoo! Widget (2.0b5), so presumably this is a content issue rather than being about the EPG viewer (ACT data).

Pretty much uniformly, if a show is flagged as HD on the HD service and is being simulcast on the corresponding SD service, the IceTV SD entry carries the HD flag as well. It seems odd to me that any SD guide entry would carry the HD flag. For an example, see the flags on Law & Order SVU 20:30 tonight, simulcast on SC 10 in both SD and HD, and flagged as HD on both services in the IceTV Yahoo! Widget. Similarly for Medium (SC 10, 21:30); How I Met Your Mother (Prime 20:00); The Footy Show (WIN 20:30); and so on.

[Jason W]

Indeed it would be nice if this could be fixed. This has been raised previously by myself in January 2008 and by others in 2007 and 2005.

I'm not sure there's any good reason to have this flag set on SD channels at all. That's what the HD channel feeds are for. When I get some free time I still plan to write a script to strip the HD from from the SD channels.

[Russell at IceTV]

Hi guys,

Originally we included the HD flag on SD channels because we had a lot of customers that said they didn't always check the guide for the HD channels, and having that indicator there let them know that they could also record the show on the HD channel if they wanted.

Now that the HD channels are getting a lot more use, we added the new "Copy SD shows to HD channels" feature to the My Account page.  This feature copies all SD shows to the corresponding HD channels, so that the guide for the HD channels contains all shows, whether they're in HD or not.  (basically you're betting on the fact that the SD show will be broadcast on the HD channel also, although we can't guarantee that it will actually be shown)  One of the side effects of this feature is that if it's enabled, the HD flag is removed from HD shows on SD channels.

Since the way people use the HD channels is changing lately because there's more content available, maybe it's time we looked at this feature again and thought about removing the HD flag from all SD shows, regardless of the "copy" feature.  Comments are welcome.

Thanks,
Russell

[Jason W]

Originally we included the HD flag on SD channels because we had a lot of customers that said they didn't always check the guide for the HD channels, and having that indicator there let them know that they could also record the show on the HD channel if they wanted.

I guess some people have PVRs that don't let you just say "Record this program on any channel" with a channel preference list configured elsewhere.

Since the way people use the HD channels is changing lately because there's more content available, maybe it's time we looked at this feature again and thought about removing the HD flag from all SD shows, regardless of the "copy" feature.  Comments are welcome.

Yes please. I don't want the HD flag on SD channels at all but some users may. Perhaps this HD flag should be an option like "Copy SD to HD" is.

[prl]

Originally we included the HD flag on SD channels because we had a lot of customers that said they didn't always check the guide for the HD channels, and having that indicator there let them know that they could also record the show on the HD channel if they wanted.

I guess some people have PVRs that don't let you just say "Record this program on any channel" with a channel preference list configured elsewhere.

The Beyonwiz is like this. You can only use the EPG to program a timer if there is an EPG entry for that service. If you do the trick of initially setting the timer from one service, and then edit the timer to switch it to the HD service, it updates the recording name from the HD service, so you then have to re-enter the name manually :(

I would use Copy SD to HD if it made some effort to follow whether programs are actually simulcast. I wrote a tool to do that for the TF7000 PVR IceTV EPG that did a much better job of this that IceTV does.

Since the way people use the HD channels is changing lately because there's more content available, maybe it's time we looked at this feature again and thought about removing the HD flag from all SD shows, regardless of the "copy" feature.  Comments are welcome.

Yes please. I don't want the HD flag on SD channels at all but some users may. Perhaps this HD flag should be an option like "Copy SD to HD" is.

I agree.

[j s]

Originally we included the HD flag on SD channels because we had a lot of customers that said they didn't always check the guide for the HD channels, and having that indicator there let them know that they could also record the show on the HD channel if they wanted.

This is how I use it for Nine and the ABC so personally I would like it to stay (or at least be an option) but I can understand the alternative view.

My preference would be for the option to be on a "per network" basis as I do look at the HD EPGs for 7 & 10 (and soon 9 perhaps) due to the differing scheduling. But for the ABC it would be nice to continue to be able to see when they are going to show one of their rare HD shows.

[markb]

You guys are crazy. The HD flag, even on SD channels, is useful. Why would you want information to be taken away? It's a tiny flag which costs nothing to display. I much prefer to see this flag in the EPG on my SD Topfield because I know it means that the SD broadcast is also likely to be top shelf quality. It also prompts me to view the HD show on my TVs built-in HD tuner if I so desire. ICE, please don't take this feature away from me!

[BigMick]

Guys you have to realise there are a lot of different PVRs / PVR software out there and they are almost universally going to assume that if a show is flagged as HD then it will be broadcast in HD format. Some of them will make assumptions based on this - eg I just discovered Sage will record a HD flagged episode of (the same) show in preference to an SD one (which is exactly what I want it to do).

Fair enough if people want these things on SD shows as a reminder but if you are going to do anything non-standard like that my view is it must be an option rather than forced on everyone. I'd like to see ICE address this ASAP.