Best way to detect timer clashes

[kidhazy]

What's the latest thinking on the best way to detect timer clashes when timers are created through ICETV Interactive?

I had the situation last night where one of my timers did not get set as it clashed with 2 other already scheduled timers and there would have been an overlap.

I only noticed there was a clash as I went back to ICETV website and manually worked out that there would have been a clash.

With more of my timers being series or keyword based, I tend not to look at the timers that are planned for the next few times to see if there will be a clash.
The "My Week" view does help, but you still need to manually check the timers that look close together to see if there will be a clash.

Has there been any progress on highlighting potential clashes, or notification of when a timer could not be created?

Thanks,
kidhazy.

[grampus]

I would think that its pretty much up to the user to check it out.
I check out "My shows" daily to see if I have any overlaps.
If I have a mental aberration, and miss an overlap, hopefully I have had the timers created early enough to be sent to the device, and see the yellow triangle.

It might be a bit difficult for IceTV itself to do the checking with surety. I would think that due to the newer devices being able to do 4 shows at once, Ice may not be able to make the decision with complete confidence that the device its talking to can handle the overlap or not.

[AMLagonda]

New recorders can record 4 shows at once but only on 2 stations ,Ive had over laps on 3 seperate tv stations so even a new PVR wouldnt have helped me.

[kidhazy]

<snip>
If I have a mental aberration, and miss an overlap, hopefully I have had the timers created early enough to be sent to the device, and see the yellow triangle.
<snip>

It's the little yellow triangle I've never seen.  Maybe I'm not looking often enough, but I can't remember seeing it for any of the situations where I've had overlaps.

It would also be nice, that if ICETV Interactive knows enough to put up a yellow triangle, how about trigger an automatic email to our account email notifying us of the error.

I might do some testing tonight.

Thanks.

[grampus]

<snip>
If I have a mental aberration, and miss an overlap, hopefully I have had the timers created early enough to be sent to the device, and see the yellow triangle.
<snip>

It's the little yellow triangle I've never seen.  Maybe I'm not looking often enough, but I can't remember seeing it for any of the situations where I've had overlaps.

It would also be nice, that if ICETV Interactive knows enough to put up a yellow triangle, how about trigger an automatic email to our account email notifying us of the error.

I might do some testing tonight.


Thanks.

I believe TV interactive doesn't know enough to put up the triangle by itself.
The notification comes from the device itself.  It's really the only one that can make the decision.
The yellow triangle comes on mine after the BW has contacted the server, downloaded the timer, then the decision is made.
I can then make my mind up to delete what I want, or delete and install the timer on another box.

[prl]

...
I believe TV interactive doesn't know enough to put up the triangle.
The notification comes from the device itself.  It's really the only one that can make the decision.
The yellow triangle comes on mine after the BW has contacted the server, downloaded the timer, then the decision is made.
I can then make my mind up to delete what I want, or delete and install the timer on another box.

Yes, that's all correct, but it would be nice to be able to get some sort of notification sent by the IceTV server when it has negotiated with the PVR and found that it couldn't set a timer. Even having a bit more information in the yellow triangle's tooltip about why there was a problem with the timer would be an improvement.

[kidhazy]

...
I believe TV interactive doesn't know enough to put up the triangle.
The notification comes from the device itself.  It's really the only one that can make the decision.
The yellow triangle comes on mine after the BW has contacted the server, downloaded the timer, then the decision is made.
I can then make my mind up to delete what I want, or delete and install the timer on another box.

Yes, that's all correct, but it would be nice to be able to get some sort of notification sent by the IceTV server when it has negotiated with the PVR and found that it couldn't set a timer. Even having a bit more information in the yellow triangle's tooltip about why there was a problem with the timer would be an improvement.

Yes, I was assuming that the yellow error triangle was only appearing after some 'discussion' with the PVR.  But maybe this is the problem with the Topfield/ICETV interaction - and maybe the error notification is not coming back to Interactive.  I'm running a Topfield 7100. 

[prl]

... maybe the error notification is not coming back to Interactive.  I'm running a Topfield 7100. 

There's no useful information about why the error occurred returned from Beyonwiz PVRs, either.

[tonymy01]

Last night was a bad night for me too.   Thanks to this crazy multi-channeling junk (losing HD grr), the networks had 5 shows I wanted to watch/record at 8.30pm last night (on Seven, Ten, Eleven, ABC2 and 7MATE).   So I figured I would watch the ABC2 one live and juggle my prefs between my Topfield 5k (I use perlTGD to set timers for that using ICE data) and the Wiz (going against what I record typically on the Wiz vs Topfield just to get everything) but then didn't get home from work till 11pm.. doh.

[kidhazy]

Well I did some testing on my Topfield 7100PVRt last night, and not a single 'error' - yellow triangle was to be seen when I deliberately set multiple clashing timers.

At one stage I had 5 timers showing on Interactive as nice solid red dots at 10:30pm for Seven, ABC2, GO!, Nine and TEN.  Of course the Topfield only ended up with 2 timers being set.

I'll contact support and see what they've got to say.  I can't remember whether they ever got any error handling working on the 7100.

[kidhazy]

FYI, for those still running a Topfiel TF7100PVRt.

ICETV support have confirmed that the 7100PVRt doesn't send back error information on timer creations, so ICETV Interactive will happily flag more than 2 timers as being successfully set successfully even when they haven't been.

This is an issue with the 7100PVRt firmware which ICETV will report to Topfield.

Unfortunately, due to the age of the 7100PVRt we doubt if there will be any firmware updates to fix the issue.

[grahford]

Yeah they pretty much passed the buck back to the firmware manufacturer when I asked the question as well.

I don't understand it.  They know what pvr I have as well as my email address, (both from the account page).  They know what shows I've set to record.  Why can't they manage clashes from their end?  Or at least make it easier to detect.

[prl]

It's not just Topfield PVRs that are handled this way. AFAIK, all PVR timer clashes are handled by the PVR, not IceTV. Ice sends the timers it wants to send, and the PVR is supposed to send back an error if a timer can't be sent. If the 7100 doesn't send back the error, the 7100 is breaking the protocol, and the fix needs to be in the 7100 firmware.

Doing it this way means that the IceTV server doesn't have to try and second-guess how the PVR's timer management works, and for example, the IceTV server probably wouldn't have had to be changed when some Topfield models went from supporting two recordings to supporting four.

[csutak40]

Last night was a bad night for me too.   Thanks to this crazy multi-channeling junk (losing HD grr), the networks had 5 shows I wanted to watch/record at 8.30pm last night (on Seven, Ten, Eleven, ABC2 and 7MATE).   So I figured I would watch the ABC2 one live and juggle my prefs between my Topfield 5k (I use perlTGD to set timers for that using ICE data) and the Wiz (going against what I record typically on the Wiz vs Topfield just to get everything) but then didn't get home from work till 11pm.. doh.

Yeah, know how you feel - too many shows on at the same time!     The good news is, you can probably download the show from ABC2 from iView (in your spare time  )

[prl]

...  The good news is, you can probably download the show from ABC2 from iView (in your spare time  )

The bad news is that you can't download from iView, only stream. So the OP will probably need to watch it on their computer monitor, unless they have some sort of Web browser capable device attached to the TV.