Why does IceTV not update Time of Showes

[icetv@craigrayner.com]

Hi,
One of the reasons I paid for the service provided by Ice TV was the PROMISE that Ice TV would update the time that a show will appear on TV.  So far, less than impressed, when the channel is clearly advertising 7 days out that the the show will be on at 8:40-9:40 but Ice TV guide still records at 8:30-9:30.  Even with padding, I still miss out on the end of shows, and now have to add HOURS to the padding to get the end of shows, (at the moment 20 minutes) that fills the hard disk of the recorder with unwanted material.

So, why does Ice TV not update their guide when the tv station has crlearly changed the screening time of the show.

Craig

[Leon K]

Hi Craig,

We update the guide constantly throughout the day, however the broadcasters have variable advertising slots that vary the length of shows making it impossible to predict exact show times. This is why padding is crucial in Australia for Free to air TV. We recommend 3 minutes pre and 20-30 minutes post padding to cover this variation.

Regards,
Leon

[prl]

I ... have to add HOURS to the padding to get the end of shows, (at the moment 20 minutes) that fills the hard disk of the recorder with unwanted material.
...

HOURS is much more than you usually need. Except for breaking news days, the scheduling games the networks play don't mess with the schedules nearly that much. The worst I've seen was a Big Brother final that ran about 50 minutes over (some time ago, so long ago that Gretel Killeen was still hosting). But that's quite unusual.

For the commercial networks' prime time, the main evening news will start on time, but by the time the news and any following current affairs programming has run, they'll no longer be running to their published print schedule.

I've got by with 5 min pre-padding and 25-min post padding for a long time now, with very few losses of the end of programs. Because IceTV rounds their program start and end times to the nearest 5 minutes, I don't think that Dave's suggestion of 3 minutes pre-padding is enough.

What can cause problems is when you have a crowded recording schedule and padding can't be added to all the recordings, because the available recording slots are taken up by other recordings starting up.

If you have a 2-tuner PVR, and you set, say, ABC1 to record 20:00-20:30, SBS1 to record 20:30-21:00 and Nine to record 20:00-21:00, the ABC1 and SBS1 recordings can only have padding at the expense of the other recording.

[Dave at IceTV]

Also, any back-to-back recordings on the same channel won't have any padding at the end of the first show or start of the second show (at least not on a Humax PVR like Craig has).

There was at least one firmware version for Humax PVRs that did not add any padding no matter what padding amount was set in the menu. In some cases it even shortened the recording by the padding amount instead of extending it. The solution for that is to make sure the Humax PVR has the latest firmware installed (Humax calls it software). The current version is 1.08.26