IceTV have Southland starting at midnight. Other 'official' guides show it as 11:50 pm.
IceTV (ACT Guide) seem to have done the same thing with Grimm (Prime Southern Wed 28 Nov); the official guide on Yahoo shows it starting at 20:30; IceTV have it starting at 20:35. Perhaps it's an attempt to game the networks on their fiddling with actual vs scheduled start times. I'd rather IceTV didn't.
Hi prl,
We work very hard to determine the most likely start times. The networks do not seem to care about their viewers and constantly run shows late to maximise viewer engagement (read: advertising revenue).
Being more accurate with our schedule is one of the benefits of IceTV, which the majority of our viewers appreciate.
Is there something about your comment I'm missing?
Hi, Luke. the problem I see with trying to beat the networks at this game is that if IceTV predicts a late start, and it starts earlier than the projected start time, then the recording misses the start of the show. So users need to adjust start padding to try to compensate. But I don't think all of IceTV's supported PVRs have start padding.
Maybe Luke is saying they have more information than we do.....
Quote from: Luke at IceTV on November 25, 2012, 03:18:03 PM
Hi prl,
We work very hard to determine the most likely start times. The networks do not seem to care about their viewers and constantly run shows late to maximise viewer engagement (read: advertising revenue).
Being more accurate with our schedule is one of the benefits of IceTV, which the majority of our viewers appreciate.
Is there something about your comment I'm missing?
While this works most of the time, I have now come across a few where they have actually started shows early. It is really a can't win situation. I rarely put padding at the beginning of shows, mostly because it is hardly ever needed but also, makes clashing with other programs more likely. One can only have so many tuners :P
Hi all
I can see that Southland, mentioned above, was amended to 11.50pm earlier today. This wasn't a case of us guessing something would run late, Ch 9 had a midnight start time for the show originally but now they're saying Person of Interest will only run for 50 minutes tonight.
With regards to start times in general, the biggest complaint (by a country mile) that IceTV used to get is that something started late and people missed the end. It had become so bad that some primetime lineups on commercial networks were running 20 mins late almost every night. We needed to respond to that feedback so we started making more adjustments to start times. We definitely get less complaints about this issue as a result.
Our adjustments aren't just guesses, they are based on a combination of monitoring actual start times and re-monitoring the EIT on the day of broadcast. If we aren't sure we will stick with the advertised time but if, for example, a show runs 5 minutes late week after week then we will schedule it that way 7 days out (eg. Grimm next week). It is then re-checked on the day of broadcast (eg. Southland today).
Thanks
Also, with regards to shows starting early, while this is less common we know that it does happen.
Our own observation is that it tends to be on the secondary channels like GEM or 7TWO, and on the main channels outside primetime - that is, the less popular channels and later time slots where it's harder to sell advertising.
We're careful not to over-estimate overruns, but if every source out there says 10.30 pm for the start time and it goes and starts at 10.26 instead because the network didn't sell as many ads then there isn't a lot we can do. :(
Quote from: Madeleine at IceTV on November 25, 2012, 06:59:05 PM
Our adjustments aren't just guesses, they are based on a combination of monitoring actual start times and re-monitoring the EIT on the day of broadcast. If we aren't sure we will stick with the advertised time but if, for example, a show runs 5 minutes late week after week then we will schedule it that way 7 days out (eg. Grimm next week). It is then re-checked on the day of broadcast (eg. Southland today).
And a great job you do IMO. To get it right as often as you do while the commercial networks try their best to 'muck us around' is testament to your efforts. I am happy to do my little bit when I notice something amiss and hope it is seen in that light.
Quote from: Madeleine at IceTV on November 25, 2012, 07:22:46 PM
Also, with regards to shows starting early, while this is less common we know that it does happen.
We're careful not to over-estimate overruns, but if every source out there says 10.30 pm for the start time and it goes and starts at 10.26 instead because the network didn't sell as many ads then there isn't a lot we can do. :(
I'm now one of the pre-padders - I think that's the only safe way. Fortunately, I have quite a few tuners available to me, but it can still get tricky sometimes.
Yes, a little bit of pre-padding is a probably a good idea if your PVR is capable of that.
Pointing out things to us is useful so no worries in that regard. We appreciate feedback.
Quote from: Paul55 on November 25, 2012, 04:10:59 PM
Maybe Luke is saying they have more information than we do.....
I'm sure they do. But they still don't actually know when the network will start airing the program.
Quote from: csutak40 on November 25, 2012, 04:23:09 PM
While this works most of the time, I have now come across a few where they have actually started shows early. It is really a can't win situation. I rarely put padding at the beginning of shows, mostly because it is hardly ever needed but also, makes clashing with other programs more likely. One can only have so many tuners :P
If you don't have enough tuners in Win7 media center you can use the soft padding option in Interactive. Or even soft padding at the start and hard padding at the end.
Quote from: Madeleine at IceTV on November 25, 2012, 09:33:24 PM
Yes, a little bit of pre-padding is a probably a good idea if your PVR is capable of that.
Pointing out things to us is useful so no worries in that regard. We appreciate feedback.
Yeah, tonight's Graham Norton started early (well, at least earlier than the 8.35 marked by IceTV)
Quote from: csutak40 on December 01, 2012, 11:26:30 PM
Quote from: Madeleine at IceTV on November 25, 2012, 09:33:24 PM
Yes, a little bit of pre-padding is a probably a good idea if your PVR is capable of that.
Pointing out things to us is useful so no worries in that regard. We appreciate feedback.
Yeah, tonight's Graham Norton started early (well, at least earlier than the 8.35 marked by IceTV)
Yes, and now last Sunday's (9 Dec) episode of Homeland, too (ACT guide, Beyonwiz DP-P2). It was scheduled in the official guides as 20:30, the IceTV schedule had it as 20:35, and because I have 2 min pre-padding set, the recording actually started at 20:33.
We missed the beginning (all of the titles and an unknown amount of program material).
Looks like I'll need to increase my pre-padding to compensate for the additional schedule randomness being introduced by IceTV. I don't know what people whose PVRs don't have pre-padding are supposed to do.
IceTV's schedule (ACT) for Homeland Dec 16 is for a start time of 20:35 again. The published schedule remains at 20:30.
"Never miss your favourite show again."
Quote from: prl on December 11, 2012, 07:02:39 PMI don't know what people whose PVRs don't have pre-padding are supposed to do.
It can be done manually by setting the start time for the scheduled recording however many minutes early you want for pre-padding. I have to do this for my (now steam-driven) Topfield.
By the way I have for many years relied on 10 minutes pre-padding. Most of the time this is unnecessary, but on occasion it has paid off.
The gotcha for this old Topfield is that when Ice re-schedules a start time, and the Topfield wakes up to record, it sometimes has enough time before the recording was originally set to start, to download and register the new start time which, because it is steam driven and has no provision for automatic pre-padding, leaves the Topfield with no pre-padding.
Despite exhortations over the years to program IceTV with device-dependent pre-padding the argument from Ice still seems to be that it is up to the PVR.
It looks like IceTV (ACT guide) has decided that tonight's Grimm (Seven/Prime) episodes are going to start 10 minutes late, 20:40 and 21:40 respectively. The Yahoo guide is showing it as a single 2-hour block 20:30-22:30.
Time to bump up my pre-padding!
The PRIME EIT EPG is showing 20:41 to 22:38 so the ice guide times should cover it.
Yes, it seems that the earlier episode started at about 20:42 and the later one at about 20:40.I've bumped up my pre-padding to 10 min anyway.