Seven's new channel: 72

[bodogbodog]

An email is now on it's way out to everyone to let them know it is available.

Thanks - all worked fine for me on Win7 Ultimate - channel found and labelled correctly and once added guide listing appeared (still to try the Vista Ultimate Media Center to see how easy that one is)
now just the padding on Win7 Interactive to resolve......

Update - the Vista MCE worked as well - a little more complex (incl doing an IceTV update and then associating the guide with the channel) - but a lot easier than I remember for previous "new" channels like Go and 10HD

[Daniel Hall at IceTV]

Does anyone know what's happening with Seven's regional affiliates? The IceTV web page doesn't have the new service in their ACT guide yet.

At this stage Canberra will not get the channel as of Sunday. Newspaper reports indicate that Southern Cross will begin broadcasting on December 1. Prime, including ACT, will not get 7TWO until January.

[Daniel Hall at IceTV]

An email is now on it's way out to everyone to let them know it is available.

Thanks - all worked fine for me on Win7 Ultimate - channel found and labelled correctly and once added guide listing appeared (still to try the Vista Ultimate Media Center to see how easy that one is)
now just the padding on Win7 Interactive to resolve......

Excellent news, the way its been added this time should mean we won't have all the problems in MCE that happened in previous new channels.

We are still testing and working on Beta2, but at this stage I can confirm that padding will be disabled in the app for Beta2 so that it uses the Media Center padding.

[Madeleine IceGuide]

Noticed it was there about 30 mins ago - BTW "Heroes" on Wednesday is a double episode

We can't amend programs based on info from other guides while we are still establishing our own guide data but we'll keep an eye on the promos for Heroes to see if they indicate a double episode.

I have been studying the guide for 72 and noticed Brothers & Sisters on Thursday at lunchtime.  Any way of knowing if this is a new ep, or a repeat?

We cannot determine episodes for most shows at this early stage. However, daytime shows are likely to be repeats rather than first runs.

FYI, the last ep of Brothers & Sisters shown on ch7 was the Season 3 finale, 'Mexico', in late July.  If you have a title for the ep showing on 7TWO then you can double check it here.

http://epguides.com/BrothersandSisters/

[prl]

Does anyone know what's happening with Seven's regional affiliates? The IceTV web page doesn't have the new service in their ACT guide yet.

At this stage Canberra will not get the channel as of Sunday. Newspaper reports indicate that Southern Cross will begin broadcasting on December 1. Prime, including ACT, will not get 7TWO until January.

Thanks, Daniel.

By the way, step 5 in your emailed update instructions for Beyonwiz:

For Beyonwiz users you may need to do the following:

   1. Re-scan the channels if necessary to pick-up the new 7TWO channel.
   2. Go into the "Setup" of the Beyonwiz.
   3. Go across to the fourth tab at the top of the screen, it will be labelled "System".
   4. Go down to "Initialize".
   5. Select "Clear IceGuide Disk Cache".
   6. Click "Yes" to confirm this.

can't be done on a DP-H1, because the Initialize screen doesn't have a Clear IceGuide Disk Cache operation. I've mentioned this twice on the Beyonwiz beta forum since IceTV caching was introduced on the DP-H1 (if it has an external recording HDD).

[Matt-]

The current known guide information for 7TWO is now in the guide, and the channel is enabled in the regions that will be receiving it on Sunday.

I just re-fetched the guide data and, sure enough, there it is!

Thanks for the great content.

[Neon Kitten]

The current known guide information for 7TWO is now in the guide, and the channel is enabled in the regions that will be receiving it on Sunday. An email is now on it's way out to everyone to let them know it is available.

As with any new channel full guide information will take at least two weeks before it is available.

This really is a bit of a farce.

Yep, the "known" guide info is in the Ice Guide. And the "unknown" info is sitting there as "7TWo - Coming Soon". Neatly divided into the blocks that match the programming that we can't talk about lest we be sued.

I understand, obviously, the circumstances etc etc, but if Seven was going to take issue with the use of their "intellectual property", surely the fact that the show time schedule has already been copied from "verboten" information would be ammo enough?

This rubbish situation needs to be challenged and defeated once and for all. I mean, they DO want us to watch their new channel, right?

[prl]

...
This rubbish situation needs to be challenged and defeated once and for all. I mean, they DO want us to watch their new channel, right?

Well, start talking to your local Federal MP about making pretty large changes to the Copyright Act. The Act's intention is to give the copyright holder exclusive (with a few limited exceptions) rights to make copies. Just because something has been published,  like 7TWO's schedule, doesn't free it from copyright. Quite the contrary.

copyright, in relation to a work, is the exclusive right: ... to reproduce the work ...  to publish ...  to perform ...  to communicate ...  to make an adaptation of the work ...

I can understand IceTV's caution about this.

[Madeleine IceGuide]

I understand, obviously, the circumstances etc etc, but if Seven was going to take issue with the use of their "intellectual property", surely the fact that the show time schedule has already been copied from "verboten" information would be ammo enough?

We divided the days into Coming Soon blocks to make it easier to amend once we receive more info but the blocks themselves haven't been copied from anywhere. Some will correspond with actual timeslots (it's no great stretch to assume a program will be on from 8.30-9.30pm) but a lot of them won't.

[Mark]

Excellent news, the way its been added this time should mean we won't have all the problems in MCE that happened in previous new channels.

Daniel -- kudos and thank you to all responsible for looking into this issue.  Addition of the new channel could not have been smoother on Vista MCE this time out.  I enabled channel 72 about a week ago (when it was still called "7 digital 2" according to MCE), and of course it has just been saying no data available all week.  But as soon as the guide data became available I see it has renamed to "7TWO", and the EPG data automatically associated with it!  I have done literally nothing and it is all working perfectly.

Nice job!  ;D

[Neon Kitten]

We divided the days into Coming Soon blocks to make it easier to amend once we receive more info but the blocks themselves haven't been copied from anywhere. Some will correspond with actual timeslots (it's no great stretch to assume a program will be on from 8.30-9.30pm) but a lot of them won't.

Ah, ok. It was just the fact that there were blocks of varying lengths in there that made me wonder.

I still think all of this is ridiculous. I understand why you have to do it, but it's ridiculous.

[Matt-]

I still think all of this is ridiculous.

As do I.

How a television station can think that a TV schedule is IP is absolutely beyond me.  We're trying to watch your content here!

I wish I was given the opportunity to participate in ratings as you can be sure that certain television stations would be suitably punished for their behavior.

[prl]

I still think all of this is ridiculous.

As do I.

How a television station can think that a TV schedule is IP is absolutely beyond me.  We're trying to watch your content here!
...

They think so because the Copyright Act, and presumably a bunch of case law, tells them that it is. IIRC, Telstra won a case that says that a list of names and addresses against numbers (i.e. the telephone book) was copyrightable. I think that that's why Telstra (or Sensis?) joined Nine's case against IceTV, because they feared that a judgement in IceTV's favour might compromise the monopoly rights that copyright gives them on publishing the phone book.

The real argument here is about the nature of copyright. The TV stations are simply using that law to protect what they think is their interest. You may think they're mistaken about what their best interest is, but the Copyright Act gives that decision to them over any material that it covers.

The judgement on Nine vs IceTV might have loosened it up slightly, so that time and title information may not be copyright, but with the appeals and the mess that that caused, I have no idea now just what the case leaves IceTV as being allowed to do with the TV stations' published schedules, nor is it clear just how much advantage of the decision IceTV is taking. It looks very much as though they've gone back to their original method of predicting most of the schedule, and using the published schedules only to make corrections.

Not a lawyer.

[prl]

I still think all of this is ridiculous.

As do I.

How a television station can think that a TV schedule is IP is absolutely beyond me.  We're trying to watch your content here!
...

They think so because the Copyright Act, and presumably a bunch of case law, tells them that it is. IIRC, Telstra won a case that says that a list of names and addresses against numbers (i.e. the telephone book) was copyrightable. I think that that's why Telstra (or Sensis?) joined Nine's case against IceTV, because they feared that a judgement in IceTV's favour might compromise the monopoly rights that copyright gives them on publishing the phone book.

The real argument here is about the nature of copyright. The TV stations are simply using that law to protect what they think is their interest. You may think they're mistaken about what their best interest is, but the Copyright Act gives that decision to them over any material that it covers.

The judgement on Nine vs IceTV might have loosened it up slightly, so that time and title information may not be copyright, but with the appeals and the mess that that caused, I have no idea now just what the case leaves IceTV as being allowed to do with the TV stations' published schedules, nor is it clear just how much advantage of the decision IceTV is taking. It looks very much as though they've gone back to their original method of predicting most of the schedule, and using the published schedules only to make corrections.

Not a lawyer.

[Mitch IceGuide]

Just to reiterate. The new channel will not be fully available for some weeks.