Timers one hour out

Started by juzzman, October 01, 2008, 11:08:56 AM

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juzzman

Yesterday on interactive i noticed some strange timers that i had not ever set.

They seem to be one hour early than series recording on the same channel.

eg. House wed 8.30 ten sd (this is a known series recording)

     Bondi rescue wed 7.30 ten sd (never set this to record)
     Kenny's World wed 8.00 ten sd (never set this to record)
House timer shows no icon, but bondi and kenny's world  show the once off record icon.

Today i set topgear Aust to record , refresh screen  topgear  aust has no icon but two shows
one hour later on sbs have record once icons next to them.

eg. topgear aust mon 7.30 sbs (no icon, this was set to record)
     South park    mon 8.30 sbs (record once icon, i never set to record)
     Bogan pride   mon 9.00 sbs (record once icon, i never set to record )

willys

Thanks Juzzman, I was about to post on exactly the same thing.

I was trying to set Spicks and Specs to record tonight but I'm getting the 7.30 report instead.

I'm guessing it has something to do with day light savings starting this week.

Unfortunately I can't check till i get home whether it has updated correctly.


prl

There were some similar reports on the DTV forum. It looks like one of the Sydney broadcasters was transmitting times that were an hour out.
Peter
Beyonwiz T4 in-use
Beyonwiz T2, T3, T4, U4 & V2 for testing

Daniel Hall at IceTV

We are currently looking into this issue.

This however looks like be just a display issue at this stage, the timers are being set correctly in the database, but for some reason they are being displayed incorrectly in the Upcoming Shows page and TV Guide pages of IceTV Interactive.
Regards,

Daniel.
CTO.

juzzman

That was what my mind jump to daylight savings , but surely after
what happened last change it cant be happening again.

DLS  hasn't started yet.  
Quote from: prl on October 01, 2008, 11:21:43 AM
There were some similar reports on the DTV forum. It looks like one of the Sydney broadcasters was transmitting times that were an hour out.

But this was on ice interactive site,  before any timers had been sent to my Beyonwiz.

prl

Quote from: juzzman on October 01, 2008, 11:26:02 AM
That was what my mind jump to daylight savings , but surely after
what happened last change it cant be happening again.

DLS  hasn't started yet.  
Quote from: prl on October 01, 2008, 11:21:43 AM
There were some similar reports on the DTV forum. It looks like one of the Sydney broadcasters was transmitting times that were an hour out.

But this was on ice interactive site,  before any timers had been sent to my Beyonwiz.
You're right. Sorry, I didn't read carefully enough.
Peter
Beyonwiz T4 in-use
Beyonwiz T2, T3, T4, U4 & V2 for testing

Daniel Hall at IceTV

The good news is that this display issue has been resolved now so all timers should be showing up correctly under the IceTV Interactive webpages.
Regards,

Daniel.
CTO.

juzzman

Quote from: Daniel Hall on October 01, 2008, 03:10:14 PM
The good news is that this display issue has been resolved now so all timers should be showing up correctly under the IceTV Interactive webpages.

Thanks Daniel for the speedy fix, it was getting hard to follow what was set and what wasn't.

tonymy01

Just be warned everyone!   My beyonwiz timers for this week, all the ones created by ICE prior to last night, are all one hour too early.   Only timers created today are correct.    So it looks like ICETV uses a fixed GMT offset and doesn't adjust the offset "in advance" for DST.    So you need to delete all your timers and get them resent, and then everything is back to normal.
It certainly wasn't adjusting the Wiz clock by one hour that has anything to do with this, as I have a daily "wakeup" timer for 4am that is still at 4am.    So it is clearly timers set by ICE interactive that obviously used a 10hour offset despite the timers being for a time when the 11hour offset should be in place.   Once the DST transition happened, it appears that ICE interactive correctly uses an 11hour offset.
Regards
Regards
Tony

Beyonwiz DP-S1 & Topfield 5K (using PerlTGD to upload ICE EPG/timers for the 5K, normal ICE interactive for the Wiz).

Daniel Hall at IceTV

Quote from: tonymy01 on October 05, 2008, 07:50:13 PM
Just be warned everyone!   My beyonwiz timers for this week, all the ones created by ICE prior to last night, are all one hour too early.   Only timers created today are correct.    So it looks like ICETV uses a fixed GMT offset and doesn't adjust the offset "in advance" for DST.    So you need to delete all your timers and get them resent, and then everything is back to normal.
It certainly wasn't adjusting the Wiz clock by one hour that has anything to do with this, as I have a daily "wakeup" timer for 4am that is still at 4am.    So it is clearly timers set by ICE interactive that obviously used a 10hour offset despite the timers being for a time when the 11hour offset should be in place.   Once the DST transition happened, it appears that ICE interactive correctly uses an 11hour offset.
Regards

Please see http://www.icetv.com.au/cgi-bin/websupport.cgi?op=show_faq&faq_id=144&faq_cat_id=2.

The problem is that the Beyonwiz (and Topfield TF7100HDPVRt) are not fully daylight savings aware, so it will apply the same timezone to all timers and guide information for the entire week, so while the timers that were previously sent down before today (the day of the change) for today or after were sent down with the correct +11 timezone the PVR was only applying the old +10.
Regards,

Daniel.
CTO.

tonymy01

See Daniel, if you detailed your protocol in full we can lay the blame to the appropriate people.   So what you are saying is that the timers that ICE send the PVR are in GMT only.   This is a recipe for problems as it means the PVR has to not only auto adjust for DST, but to understand that "this timer is in 4 days time, which is 2 days after the DST transition, and thus I have to adjust the time for the entry with an extra hour".
If the protocol for how timers were determined, updated, deleted, uploaded, we might have some idea about how to get the best out of interactive.    I deleted all my timers on the Wiz and ICE interactive simply refuses to update the timers now (and I followed the FAQ on how to go into your account details and trigger the timers to get resent.    It has only sent about 4 timers and I had about 24timers, including sending 2 timers for last night).
So this whole mess needs some more thought I think.   Probably your timers, if they are sent in GMT time, should also have a GMT offset info to be sent with the timer info, and the PVR can use this offset info to determine what time to set the timer for.
Regards
Regards
Tony

Beyonwiz DP-S1 & Topfield 5K (using PerlTGD to upload ICE EPG/timers for the 5K, normal ICE interactive for the Wiz).

futzle

While I agree with Tony that it's important for this information to be easily available to users, I wanted to applaud the use of UTC as the basis for IceTV timers.  Working with local time is fraught with difficulty, especially when DST ends (Example: there are two instances of 2.30 am on Sunday 5 April 2009 where I live).  I place the blame for this mess squarely with the PVR manufacturers, who insist on storing timers in local time without really understanding that the same local time-of-day isn't always a multiple of 24 hours away.  Well, also, I blame capricious government bodies for failing to make a rule and stick to it.  Also Benjamin Franklin for getting the silly idea in the first place.  But I digress.

Unfortunately there are an awful lot of PVRs out there with dodgy DST code.  (I happen to be the owner of one that's pretty good now, thanks to EPG_Uploader.)  Including an offset attribute (like "+600" or "+660") might be a simple hack that could help PVRs without the brains (or with old unmaintained firmware) to work out this year's DST rule for themselves, but my homebrew EPG code will continue to ignore it and work with UTC as God intended.

(I can't get the damn "re-send timers" to work either, FWIW.)

deangelj

I don't understand! If timers are stored in local time, and as a user I want to record a show that is due to start at say 1:00pm Tuesday 1/11, ie. my local time of 1:00pm, what has DST got to do with it? If the desired local time is stored then as long as the PVR has the correct time, the timer will fire correctly, right?

cheers,
John


deangelj

any comment from icetv staff?

cheers,
John

tonymy01

Unfortunately not, and I have complained until I have been blue in the face on some of the quirks that make this experience less than brilliant, with zero response.   I pm'd Daniel with my thoughts during the week, with zero response also.

Regards
Regards
Tony

Beyonwiz DP-S1 & Topfield 5K (using PerlTGD to upload ICE EPG/timers for the 5K, normal ICE interactive for the Wiz).