Skippa/IceTV queries

[Rat]

IMO that also confirms that the shows will be processed on your own box and not on a server.

[prl]

IMO that also confirms that the shows will be processed on your own box and not on a server.

Yes. I agree. Ad skip processing is in the Skippa, not on IceTV servers.

[JPP]

IMO that also confirms that the shows will be processed on your own box and not on a server.

Yes. I agree. Ad skip processing is in the Skippa, not on IceTV servers.

That could imply that frequent ad detection updates may have to be downloaded (no doubt under an automated push update) in order to keep up with commercial broadcasters trying to circumvent Skippa's ad detection.

[prl]

IMO that also confirms that the shows will be processed on your own box and not on a server.

Yes. I agree. Ad skip processing is in the Skippa, not on IceTV servers.

That could imply that frequent ad detection updates may have to be downloaded (no doubt under an automated push update) in order to keep up with commercial broadcasters trying to circumvent Skippa's ad detection.

I don't see how. Once the program has been recorded and analysed for ad breaks, whether on the Skippa or centrally, nothing the broadcaster does could possibly change the ad skip information, unless they've stolen Gully's TARDIS.

Of course, if they could guess how the Skippa system identifies ads, they might take action to craft their broadcasts to frustrate that. But even if an ad skip script needed to be downloaded again from a putative server after hand modification or reprocessing, it's still only a small amount of data; ad skip scripts don't need to be large, no more than ~16-20 bytes per ad.

[JPP]

Of course, if they could guess how the Skippa system identifies ads, they might take action to craft their broadcasts to frustrate that. But even if an ad skip script needed to be downloaded again from a putative server after hand modification or reprocessing, it's still only a small amount of data; ad skip scripts don't need to be large, no more than ~16-20 bytes per ad.

That's what I was talking about Peter. It wouldn't take that much effort for them to analyse how the Skippa does it and then change the ad break "coding". Only time will tell if they consider it worth their while.

[Rat]

I don't think it will bother the TV networks much at this stage. A thousand or so Skippas V's millions flocking to Netflix, not to mention all the people who go to the toilet in the ads breaks, there must be a way to stop that

[csutak40]

I have a question, which may be simple.  I am not very familiar with how IceTV works as I mostly been using TEDS. 

The question occurred to me, reading the Altech Forum, where some people are having problems with doubled up recordings.

I know that there is a choice of first run or repeat, also how many do I want to record each day.  So, I wondered....  If I set it to one (first run) it may miss the second episode of a series that the networks decide to show two episodes back to back.  However, if I choose "all" then it may, indeed, end up doubling up, if the same show happens to be showing on both the SD and HD channel.  Am I correct in my presumption?  If so, is there a way of avoiding this?

[Paul55]

If you want all first runs of a series, just select 'first run' and 'all'.
If you choose 'first run' and '1' you will miss the second episode of the back to back example you use.

[csutak40]

If you want all first runs of a series, just select 'first run' and 'all'.
If you choose 'first run' and '1' you will miss the second episode of the back to back example you use.

I didn't explain myself properly.  What happens if I choose 'first run' and 'all' and the same first run episode is showing at the same time on both the SD and HD channels? 

[Dave at IceTV]

What happens if I choose 'first run' and 'all' and the same first run episode is showing at the same time on both the SD and HD channels?

You will get 1 recording of any new episodes of that show. IceTV will only schedule a recording on 1 of the simulcast channels (and never both).

Each series has a quality setting with choices of: prefer hd, prefer sd, only hd or only sd. By default this would be set to 'prefer hd'.

You would only need to change the quality setting in rare situations where you wanted to force a show to record on a certain channel.  ABC news is a good example. Every showing is a new episode and it's on channel 24 every hour but only on ABC1 at 7pm. Most people just want to record the 7pm showing so they would need to set their ABC News series recording to "Only SD" which will prevent it recording on the HD channel 24.

[Dave at IceTV]

Hi Judy,

Skippa will only record 1 copy of a show at a particular time. i.e. It won't record multiple copies of the same show when shown at the same time on simulcast channels (like 7, 70 and 71, or 2 and 21, or 1 and 12) or simulcast on a HD and an SD channel.

The frequency setting only affects different episodes

As Paul suggested, you only want to set the quantity to 1 if you had 'All episodes' set and you didn't want multiple different episodes recording each day.

Say you're a mum or dad and you want to record playschool for the kids but different episodes of playschool are on the same channel 10 times a day and they are all repeats. If you don't want your kids watching 10 episodes each day you could set that series recording to only record 1 per day or 2 per day.

The quantity setting is also handy when recording repeats and the same repeat episode is shown multiple times each day. Say each day old M*A*S*H episodes are showing at midday and then the same episode is shown again at 10pm. You would set it to 1 per day to only record the midday showing.

[gibster]

IMO that also confirms that the shows will be processed on your own box and not on a server.

Yes. I agree. Ad skip processing is in the Skippa, not on IceTV servers.

That could imply that frequent ad detection updates may have to be downloaded (no doubt under an automated push update) in order to keep up with commercial broadcasters trying to circumvent Skippa's ad detection.

I don't think this is something we're really going to have to worry about. 5 to 10 thousand Skippa users? Probably not worth their time. Now if it were 5 or 10 million, then I would think it would be an issue.

gib

[csutak40]

Thank you, Dave