ICETV thoughts

[Dazza]

I have a Toppy 5000 from the old days (anything greater than 6 month is considered old now!!).

We used to get toppy new firmware on a regular basis, multiple updates to epguploader, PBK, Justepg egc.

When TEDS became compatible with ICETV I thought it was fantastic.

However while it was fun (solving problems with TAPS, TEDS etc), I understand that general users (ie my parents or the TIVO market) need reliability.

I understand the frustration from many users, but lets face it. if you are sending messages to forums you probably know enough to "torrent" a missed show while the issues are sorted out with the firmware and interactive.

Potentially a system such as TIVO, while not perfect, may be suitable for the general public, I will still be setting up an icetv system for my sister, but I would probably will go with a TIVO or FOXTEL system with my parents. 

I think the service ICETV offers is great. I have been a subscriber since the Toppy 5000 came out but I think ICETV it is still a "hobby" service. I cant expect my parents or friends to buy a device to run ICETV if I am not around to "fiddle" with the settings to get the device to work.

If NINE can get their act to gether an support icetv, I think this service can mature.

(2nd post, original post in No recordings for Prime)

[prl]

...
If NINE can get their act to gether an support icetv, I think this service can mature.
...

ROTFL

[MD]

Our problem is that the PVR manufacturers state that they are IceTV compatible, and sell the boxes on the market, before the software is properly tested.  It leaves IceTV in an impossible position - we can't stop the sales process yet our software is not properly de-bugged by the PVR manufacturers. We then have to muddle through a nightmare of bug fixes to Korea who are only moderately successful in the fixes.  And so on..

We have the software to be a real "Tivo on steroids" but it needs the PVR manufacturers who want to use us as a sales tool to come to the party.

I hope this doesn't sound like an excuse but we are really trying hard, whilst fighting 9 in court, and we will give you a genuinely brilliant product.  It just takes time with limited and stretched resources.

Give Topfield and Beyondwiz a rev up for us.

[tonymy01]

But it all seems to work ok for me on the Wiz with the simplest of setups, just put the ICE username & password into the Wiz, choose the device you setup on the ICETV pages, and enjoy EPG and timers with no (major) hassles (here in Sydney anyway, for regional viewers it might be a bit more quirky), there is only the question of whether ICE reschedules timers when event details change, it doesn't appear to at the moment.
Regards

[Gary]

We have the software to be a real "Tivo on steroids" but it needs the PVR manufacturers who want to use us as a sales tool to come to the party.

I hope this doesn't sound like an excuse but we are really trying hard, whilst fighting 9 in court, and we will give you a genuinely brilliant product.  It just takes time with limited and stretched resources.

Give Topfield and Beyondwiz a rev up for us.

I'm not quite sure how to read this as the first paragraph sounds like you have a fuller range of features already, and the second paragraph sounds like you still need to develop them.

Either way, if you want us to rev up the companies, we need to know what you are offering, or can offer, so we know what we are missing out on.

Then we can rev them up with specifics.

[Vortical]

Our problem is that the PVR manufacturers state that they are IceTV compatible, and sell the boxes on the market, before the software is properly tested.  It leaves IceTV in an impossible position - we can't stop the sales process yet our software is not properly de-bugged by the PVR manufacturers. We then have to muddle through a nightmare of bug fixes to Korea who are only moderately successful in the fixes.  And so on..

We have the software to be a real "Tivo on steroids" but it needs the PVR manufacturers who want to use us as a sales tool to come to the party.

I hope this doesn't sound like an excuse but we are really trying hard, whilst fighting 9 in court, and we will give you a genuinely brilliant product.  It just takes time with limited and stretched resources.

Give Topfield and Beyondwiz a rev up for us.

Is there any reason why Ice can't help with this process also?

You probably would have a much better chance convincing them to implement the firmware development properly and in a way it would work.

As beta testers are not privvy to how eveything is implemented.

[Marc]

I'm not quite sure how to read this as the first paragraph sounds like you have a fuller range of features already, and the second paragraph sounds like you still need to develop them.

In a lot of respects, both assumptions are true.

We have a lot of data that generally goes unused. As well as show names, high def flags and repeat flags, we also have genre data, series IDs, actor names, director names, release year for movies and much more. These aren't used to full effect by most of the devices we support (yet), but probably will in the future. For example, a manufacturer could implement automatic recording based on an actor name (this does actually exist for some products we support, but only a couple), or automatic recording based on our Recommendations.

We have very rich data.

"the second paragraph sounds like you still need to develop them" This is also true. There's certainly a lot of ways we can continue to expand the Interactive side of IceTV, adding new features to the website, widget, mobile phone site and iPhone application and pushing forward in other new areas.

We have plenty of room to move for the future and will continue to aggressively add new and useful features, especially ones that fill the holes left by the PVRs we work with.

If there is something you think we need, then please get in contact. Unlike some larger companies, we really do listen and want to ensure we're very responsive to what's needed by our customers.

[Gary]

Thanks for the response Marc.

It does make for one obvious suggestion which is why not use all the extra data you have to offer other ways to create timers on IceTV Interactive?

Rather than just allow searching on the whole title, it could allow timers or recommendations to be generated based on the actor or director and also on partial titles or keywords.

For example, the recent series of Blackjack movies where each title was unique but using Blackjack would have automatically created all the timers not just one by one.

[Marc]

It does make for one obvious suggestion which is why not use all the extra data you have to offer other ways to create timers on IceTV Interactive?

I can't give any indication of date, but I think you can count on us doing something like that ;)

[Gary]

It does make for one obvious suggestion which is why not use all the extra data you have to offer other ways to create timers on IceTV Interactive?

I can't give any indication of date, but I think you can count on us doing something like that ;)

That's fine and all that I was hoping for (though the sooner the better ;D)

It's just that the earlier post seemed to focus on needing the PVR makers to make changes and this obviously doesn't need that.