Channel 74

[coolbaci]

Hi,

Any news on Channel 74 (Melbourne) and when it'll appear in ICE?

Thanks

[Madeleine IceGuide]

We don't have any plans at the moment to add Channel 74 - aka TV4ME - to the guide.

74 is a datacasting channel, just like Australian parliament or Christian TV and we have never covered datacasting in our guide.

If we receive a lot of requests then we may revisit the issue but frankly, interest levels for this "branded content" channel over the past few months have been very low.

Thanks

[PestMaster]

Well, channel 7 in Brisbane are advertising the fact that its online now.
I'm not sure I understand why you don't include it in the guide
How about reconsidering your decision

[Madeleine IceGuide]

Why aren't we including it in the guide?

Firstly, it's not a new FTA channel like 7mate or 7TWO, it's a datacasting channel. There have been quite a few of these temporary datacasting channels in Australia over the past few years and we haven't covered any of them. (Sorry, fans of federal parliament.)

Secondly, TV4ME is owned by Prime Media who also own Ch 7. Since we receive no co-operation from the commercial networks when creating our EPG, all commercial channels must be manually scheduled. That means manually entering every program, then manually scheduling every day's guide, then manually checking the schedule for changes each day, as well as researching and writing original descriptions for everything so there's no copyright breach etc. etc. 

Thirdly, we've only had a few people ask about this channel since it started four months ago and the content consists almost entirely of infomercials.

I can ask the tech guys if it's possible to create a channel populated with non specific half hour timeslots. That way if there is an infomercial you want to record at 9am each day you could set it manually. Creating full guide data, however, is not on the cards right now for all of the reasons mentioned above.

[prl]

Hi, PestMaster and coolbaci. Have you looked at either the TV4ME schedule (available on both the Yahoo and NineMSN TV guides, and the FTA EPG), or looked at it any of its content?

I'm with Madeleine on this. I really don't think its worth IceTV's effort. I'd rather they spent the effort on something else. Almost anything else.

[coolbaci]

Hi,

I only asked about this because I saw an ad also. This channel has never been found (for me (with an MPEG2 device, I believe the channel was MPEG4 before)) when doing service scans in the past, when I saw the ad I scanned and it showed up and thus I considered it new. I'm aware of the content but considering they are advertising about advertising now this might be queried more.

[prl]

It seems to be a bit of a movable feast whether it's in MPEG2 or MPEG4. AFAIK it's only ever been MPEG2 here in Canberra, but they've run it in MPEG4 in some places recently. They may also have gone back to MPEG2 in some of them, as well.

[bodogbodog]

Heres the guide for the next month for Channel 74 - TV4ME - how hard would it be to add it to the guide  ;D

Drivel
Rubbish
Filler
Advertorial

It runs on a continuos loop....never changing....

[brianh]

....Oh, I don't know - I think there's room to include some useful guide details, like the program that has been on just now in Sydney - It could be covered a bit like this...

"The Renovator" - Made for TV movie-length action presentation, the hero of this piece shows a hard-sell approach as he tackles any problem thrown at him.  Shows that power can be used for good, but like all these types of heroes,  is a bit of a tool..... 

[prl]

"Psychic TV - Live and Interactive" - I see you take out your wallet. I see you take your credit card out of your wallet. I see you dial the number on the screen ...

::)

[markb]

I'm with Madeleine on this. I really don't think its worth IceTV's effort.

But it takes naf-all effort to put *something* into the TV4ME slots. At the moment we bring up the guide display and get a complete gaping hole for the TV4Me channel which looks like crap. Even a generic message repeated every hour or two would look better and give comfort to the end-user that his guide is at least working.

This once again highlights the obvious difficiency in ICE's implementation, at least on the topfield. End-users should be able to select some channels to use FTA guide data, e.g. here where ICE can not be bothered providing any data.

[prl]

I'm with Madeleine on this. I really don't think its worth IceTV's effort.

But it takes naf-all effort to put *something* into the TV4ME slots. At the moment we bring up the guide display and get a complete gaping hole for the TV4Me channel which looks like crap. Even a generic message repeated every hour or two would look better and give comfort to the end-user that his guide is at least working.

This once again highlights the obvious difficiency in ICE's implementation, at least on the topfield. End-users should be able to select some channels to use FTA guide data, e.g. here where ICE can not be bothered providing any data.

Madeleine has already said, here in this topic, that she will ask the IceTV technical people if something like that can be done, for 30min slots. The programming, such as it is, on TV4ME appears to be mostly half hour slots.

The Beyonwiz implementation IceTV/FTA EPG is similar, either all IceTV or all FTA. Perhaps if the PVRs simply used FTA data for the EPG on any LCNs that aren't being filled by IceTV. But that is something that would need to be done in the PVR, it's not something IceTV can do themselves, beyond suggesting it to their PVR manufacturer partners.

[bodogbodog]

and now the guide contains data for the TV4ME channel
nice one IceTV
Maybe I missed it but you should have a way of letting people know their requests have been answered - good for customer sat (which for me is already sky high anyway)
Now back to important things like what infomercial shall I watch on another wet dreary Sydney summer weekend.....

[Madeleine IceGuide]

We would definitely let you know if we added a channel but we haven't changed anything recently. It sounds like you're receiving mixed guide data.

[bodogbodog]

Mystery to me
Interesting

Just looked at my latest guide data

From now until 11am on Thursday 16 February its showing "No Data Available." then programme data until 5pm on Saturday 18 February then back to "No Data Available."

It must be picking it up from inband data

It really doesnt matter to me as I am very unlikely to want to record infomercials - but like all things technology its a case of wanting to get to the bottom of it!