Please provide a Grid view for Interactive TV Guide !

Started by jorkrim, July 08, 2009, 02:06:20 PM

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tonymy01

Yep, exactly.   It doesn't have to get too complicated, simply have a priority scheme from 1 to 10 for your shows, and make sure if you have 2 tuners setup in ICE, to have the higher priorities scheduled to the 2 slots over the low priorities, hopefully with a different colour icon and report/email/rss feed to indicate the others weren't scheduled due to lower priority.
The PVR soft padding should not come into the equation, as that padding is designed (depending on the priority that was set) to not interfere with normal timer creation.  Of course there will always be situations where you miss out on the end few minutes of a show with padding with:
showX
showY
.........showZ

But that is not something ICE needs to be concerned with.  If the Wiz has soft padding priority of none, then one of X or Y will be truncated to the exact end of the timeslot that ICE said it would be (and the beginning of Z similarly).

Regards
Regards
Tony

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

prl

Quote from: Trial_Master on July 29, 2009, 02:16:47 PM
...
prl

I'm curious how the BW latest firmware (I'm not using it due to H1 issue) now handles tuner allocation. Have they improved the situation?
There aren't any tuner resolution bugs for "Once" timers listed in the bug list for 01.05.301. That's not to say that it's working perfectly and occasional comments that could be tuner allocation bugs do pop up. There are some problems with false conflicts between "Weekly on specified days" timers (say, every Tues and Sat, as The Bill used to be scheduled) and other timers (bug B2(a) in the general bug & wishes list for 01.05.301). As far as I know, the H1-specific tuner allocation bugs have not been fixed (bug 1(a) in the DP-H1 bug & wishes list for 01.05.301).
Peter
Beyonwiz T4 in-use
Beyonwiz T2, T3, T4, U4 & V2 for testing

prl

Quote from: grahford on July 29, 2009, 02:18:35 PM
Quote from: prl on July 29, 2009, 02:12:31 PM
That would need a fairly sophisticated model of the recorder's tuner allocation algorithm, including a model of padding, particularly the "hard" "soft padding" priorities in the Beyonwiz like pre- and post-padding priority, which can reserve a timer unconditionally outside of the scheduled time slot for a program. IceTV would also need to know all the padding settings to make this work. The Beyonwiz is also known for the, let's say, quirky nature of its tuner allocation algorithm in some firmware versions.

I would just like to say to it, "I have 2 tuners.  Please let me know if I've accidentally set 3 shows to record at the same time.  Don't worry about padding, just let me know if the scheduled start and end times overlap.  I'll work it out by hand if I'm aware of a possible issue.  An email alert would be great.  Ta."

The history of problems with the Beyonwiz having timer conflicts when there isn't any such conflict suggests that the problem may be less simple than it first appears. Remember that even though IceTV only ever sets Once timers, any conflict detection will need to deal with all timer types on the recorder, because users can also set timers there.
Peter
Beyonwiz T4 in-use
Beyonwiz T2, T3, T4, U4 & V2 for testing

prl

Quote from: tonymy01 on July 29, 2009, 02:52:42 PM
...
The PVR soft padding should not come into the equation, as that padding is designed (depending on the priority that was set) to not interfere with normal timer creation.  Of course there will always be situations where you miss out on the end few minutes of a show with padding with:
...
But the "hard" settings (pre- and post-priority) of Beyonwiz padding can and do interfere what the timers actually do. Post-padding with post-padding priority and reasonable time settings (15-30min) could easily completely prevent the recording of a short adjacent timer without there being any "conflict" between the timers with padding ignored.
Peter
Beyonwiz T4 in-use
Beyonwiz T2, T3, T4, U4 & V2 for testing

grahford

Quote from: prl on July 29, 2009, 03:01:25 PM
Remember that even though IceTV only ever sets Once timers, any conflict detection will need to deal with all timer types on the recorder, because users can also set timers there.

Not something I care about.  I only use icetv to handle my programming.  I would be happy if icetv kept track of any clashes in the timers that I've entered directly through it.  I don't expect it to reach into my device and look for additional timers.

prl

Quote from: grahford on July 29, 2009, 03:21:39 PM
Quote from: prl on July 29, 2009, 03:01:25 PM
Remember that even though IceTV only ever sets Once timers, any conflict detection will need to deal with all timer types on the recorder, because users can also set timers there.

Not something I care about.  I only use icetv to handle my programming.  I would be happy if icetv kept track of any clashes in the timers that I've entered directly through it.  I don't expect it to reach into my device and look for additional timers.

Maybe, but IceTV wants to cater to all its users, including those like me who do have manual timers. It already examines the timers set manually in the recorder. If you set a manual recording, you'll see it in IceTV. Hard to manage a mix of manual and IceTV recordings otherwise.
Peter
Beyonwiz T4 in-use
Beyonwiz T2, T3, T4, U4 & V2 for testing

grahford

Quote from: prl on July 29, 2009, 03:31:20 PM
Maybe, but IceTV wants to cater to all its users, including those like me who do have manual timers. It already examines the timers set manually in the recorder. If you set a manual recording, you'll see it in IceTV. Hard to manage a mix of manual and IceTV recordings otherwise.

This makes it even harder for me to understand why it can't notify of any clashes in shows that it knows about.  I don't want it to DO anything about them, just let me know about it.  Email alerts would be fantastic.  Or at the very least, give me a grid layout so I can quickly, visually see the clashes without having to work them out. 

I don't think icetv understands how mad my wife gets when our toppy decides to drop her favourite show because icetv told it scrubs had moved into a timeslot where there was already 2 shows, (that it knew about), being taped ;)

tonymy01

Yep, agreed, it has happened to me a couple of times now.
Also, while we are at it, I wish ICE would have the past day or two in the EPG also.   Nothing worse than seeing a fave show didn't get recorded, and to start to investigate if there was ever a timer set for it, but to not be able to look back in time (even just a day... I often start investigating after midnight when looking for a show that was meant to record before midnight), and not knowing if the show was even listed.   And then trying to see if the show is therefore listed next week instead, but ICE doesn't have the following week in their system yet....
e.g. Was the USA Biggest Loser on last weekend?   I tried to determine this on Monday, as I didn't get my normal weekly recording, and couldn't see anything listed for the night before, nor for the next Sunday night, but their data didn't go that far.   Now seeing my RSS feed details I see it is showing up this Sunday.   I dunno why the RSS feeds go to sleep also sometimes with Outlook, and it misses days at a time of ICE updates... which is yet another nice thing to see if a show was scheduled to record... when it works.
Regards
Tony

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

strangr

it's interesting how talk of grid view has died off.

it is the most simple thing to do, yet you wont do it. You'd get far more subscribers if you had a grid view. You current list view is one of the hardest things to view, hard to see where conflicts are and is just over the top with minute by minute lists.

It's a joke.

oh well my subscription is back for renewal in a month, lets hope it's done by then or back to FTA guide for me that is mind you provided in grid view.

grahford

I guess it's one of those things where if it only impacts a small group or one of the developers then it's pretty much pointless to continue to talk about it.  I guess they have more important things to code, like yahoo widgets over a native vista/win7 one :)

lorenthehaloboy

I, and about 90% of my clients (not all) think it is one of the few flaws with Interactive, not having a Grid view.  We find it very hard to see when a particular program is ending, so as not to queue up too many over-lapping programs etc.  I also find it a lot easy to read, and I like to record the program directly after say the golf I tape, as it always runs well overtime.  Grid view, that is easy, in the current view, I have to hunt for the next show on that channel.

Mac37

Quote from: lorenthehaloboy on December 01, 2009, 01:30:02 AM
  Grid view, that is easy, in the current view, I have to hunt for the next show on that channel.

In the dropdown box for time/channel, you could click on the appropriate channel and see just the shows for that channel.

Mac
Mac
Beyonwiz T2 X 2
IceTV Interactive EPG - HDMI to   Linden TV 65

j s

Quote from: strangr on September 03, 2009, 11:59:57 AM
it's interesting how talk of grid view has died off.

it is the most simple thing to do, yet you wont do it. You'd get far more subscribers if you had a grid view. You current list view is one of the hardest things to view, hard to see where conflicts are and is just over the top with minute by minute lists.
Why do you think it's simple?  Have you ever done it?  I did one for ToppyWeb and it certainly wasn't simple. I do agree though that it can be much easier to read.

BTW are you a member of the Horizontal or Vertical EPG grid camps?  That's another topic of debate.

Another factor for Ice while it was having legal issues with Nine avoiding as many similarities with other online EPGs that might be construed as evidence of copying. Despite the legal victory that concern might still apply, just as they still need to use their "predictive" methodology.

prl

Quote from: j s on January 19, 2010, 09:52:07 AM
...
Another factor for Ice while it was having legal issues with Nine avoiding as many similarities with other online EPGs that might be construed as evidence of copying. Despite the legal victory that concern might still apply, just as they still need to use their "predictive" methodology.
I don't get it. As far as I know, the Nine case was solely about the EPG content, in particular about IceTV's use of the published program guides for last-minute correction. There was nothing in the case about any IP infringement of "look and feel" of other program guide sites, so I don't know why any concerns about that would be "despite the legal victory". It wasn't relevant to that question. IANAL.
Peter
Beyonwiz T4 in-use
Beyonwiz T2, T3, T4, U4 & V2 for testing

j s

IIRC there was a lot of argument in the case about "arrangement" of the data. I'm pretty sure the grid structure of some of Nine's "schedule" documents was also pat of their submission.

I could be wrong though - I never made it through the entire transcript. And much of it made little sense anyway. I was just suggesting it as a possibile factor.