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Wouldn't the best solution be to merge them?  That's how TED handles it and I'm quite happy with that arrangement.

I used to be pretty happy with that arrangement on my TEDS/Toppy installation as well. But now I get each program recorded separately each with its own padding, whether on the same channel or same stream using one tuner, or different channels (having four tuners is great). When I press play on one of the recordings it starts playing at the time the program was supposed to start, not at the beginning of the file. So I have a lot less hunting around to find the start of the program, and none at all if the program started on time.

I'm liking this new functionality.

It has all sorts of problems, on which I won't comment here until I test drive the Win7 version.

G'Day Judy,

I was in the same situation as you, although with a few less Toppies to manage! I just had a TF6000PVRt and TEDS Suite running on an old laptop connected to it. It worked fine, but I was getting a lot of grief about not being able to receive HD channels, especially as there was a cheap set top box out in the back room connected to an old 30" Sony CRT TV that could receive HD!

Anyway, you will find that WMC on Windows 7 does work a bit better than on XP, but it doesn't do much more. I built a new HTPC on Windows 7 (didn't like the idea of Windows 8 yet, as the choice of add-on bits is limited and untested for a HTPC) and ran WMC for a while. For TV alone it worked okay, but I wanted a better Media Centre than WMC could provide. So I looked around at XMBC, Media Portal, Plex, Media Browser ( 2 and the fledgling 3), J River Media Center, Media Monkey, Argus TV, NextPVR, and others I don't remember.

I picked "J River Media Center" as it provides Live TV and Recording, EPG, and TV Show, Movie, Video, Image and Music Media Server capabilities. It is not perfect. The documentation consists of a Wiki and the Forums, and leave quite a bit to be desired. But the CEO and CTO post on the forums and reply to questions, so access to the company is great. There is also a strong group of "Beta Testers" that hang around on the forums a lot. It reminds me of the old original Toppy forum in Australia, where you could actually get quality technical help when needed. JRMC also provides superior sound and video reproduction, having been developed for audiophiles. Lots of the stuff people have to muck around with in XBMC is already there is JRMC.

Mind you, while it works out of the box, it does require quite a bit of fiddling to get the best out of it, and match it to your amp, receiver, or other hardware capabilities. It is also very configurable, a part of it I am still grappling with. There is a steep learning curve.

It is far less capable than TEDS in managing recordings, but it will series and individual program record, and has global padding for recordings. It doesn't have keyword recording, but allows you to look through a whole list of TV Series it is aware of (from current and previous EPG data I think) and "Subscribe" to any of those.

I'm not sure if it will record two channels from one broadcast stream (Sister LCNs) yet, but I put a Quad Tuner Digital Now card into my HTPC, so the overlapping programs hasn't been an issue yet. :) It also handles Time Shifting differently, which seems to give it an advantage. It will run a time shift buffer (set to four hours by default!) and a recording on the same channel in parallel. Neat! When you start a completed recording which has padding included, it start playing where it thinks the actual program should be, not at the start of the file. A little skipping forward or back, and it is easy to find the start of the program, if the station didn't start it on time. Excellent. :D  (Frankly, I'm not sure if it doesn't do that for an in-process recording as well. I think it might, rather than jumping to the Live TV position.) Still learning here. It may be more suited to a geeky person, or a determined one! But I think the company recognises a more consumer based, user friendly application is their future.

JRMC is a Media Server, so you can watch anything stored on it on any networked DLNA capable device on your network. I can manage he server from my PC in my office, set recordings, watch programs, move, edit file names, tag files, create play lists, start a program playing on the TV in my lounge, or stop it, or play a music play list. They have a web based remote, plus and Android app, some third party providers for other remote controllers. You can even manage your server away from home, or stream content to another location over the internet, and setup is pretty easy! I like the potential, even if it isn't all perfect yet.

I am using IceTV's EPG in XMLTV format via WebGet, which is what TEDS was doing as well. It works but I am still trying to work out my future with IceTV. There some options for getting EPG in Australia, but IceTV is still the best option I have seen. However, some of the nice features of IceTV, particularly the web based management of your TV viewing and IceTV Interactive, are under threat of being usurped by over the internet management of a JRMC server, if they get their act together and build better TV recording selection functionality.

Getting away from PVR firmware issues to normal PC BIOS and Windows issues is  . . . Wonderful :D

Bottom line: You have been playing around with PVRs and TEDS as long as I have, based on how long I have seen you on forums, and you have been able to make them work. So if you have built a Windows 7 HTPC, do yourself a favour and have a look at J River Media Center. http://www.jriver.com/ Take a long look, because they provide a 30 day trial, and you might need that long to be convinced. Enjoy.

Hmmm, I always do a System Backup straight after a new install, or reinstall. Perhaps next time it could save you some time.

Usually if the time is out it is due to region settings in Windows or IceTV Interactive or something similar. Take a poke around in those areas. The EPG data is provided in UTC / GTM I believe, and uses the region setting to offset to the correct local time. Seven hours ahead is a little strange though, unless it is actually 17 hours behind. That would be a region setting of Los Angeles, or somewhere on the West Coast of the USA.

Thanks for the response Heinz, and welcome to your new position as CEO of IceTV.

I was getting a little concerned about the lack of response, but now I am blessed with your first post on the Forum. Excellent!

Unfortunately I won't be able to join you for the get together in Sydney, unless something changes radically at my end. I am located in Melbourne. However, I may be able to provide some comment on your product strategy, although it would be from my selfish point of view.  :)

Thanks for the links. I had seen both forum threads previously, but as they are other people talking about what you are doing, I was hoping to get a more direct answer. Mind you, the likes of Peter Gillespie and others who have been around PVRs, EPGs, and such in Australia for some time do have quite a bit of credibility. I have been using PVRs since the Topfield TF6000PVRt was introduced, along with TEDS Suite with IceTV EPG data for most of that time. I've kept an eye on all developments and discussions along the way, and lamented the lack of a simple solution for many problems, along with many other people. The SMH article was of more interest.

In summary, it seems that your strategy is to introduce an IceTV branded PVR, which may fix many ongoing issues with PVRs, but also continue providing EPG data in XMLTV form to people who wish to use just the data. I'm not sure how IceTV Interactive fits into that scenario for users who do not have a compatible PVR or use Windows Media Centre. I have moved beyond simple and constrained PVRs and now use a Home Theatre PC. I looked at, and read much about WMC, but decided I needed to look elsewhere to find a better user experience. It also appears that WMC may have a short life span remaining. Hence my comments about WMC in the first post of this thread.

It looks like I will be going ahead with J River Media Center as my new Media Server, Manager, and delivery application. It is still a little green in the ease of use area, but it has great potential, and excellent sound and video reproduction. As it covers Music, Images, Movies, Video and TV recording, it meets my breadth of requirements. In the Australian environment, however, it still needs an EPG data source, as I do not wish to rely on the inband EIT EPG data. Of course, IceTV Interactive doesn't integrate with it, so I am just using the XMLTV feed, as I did with TEDS Suite.

So, there is an opportunity for IceTV to provide better integration with more Media Center solutions, including open source solutions such as XBMC, Media Portal, and of course J River Media Center. There is some overlap between existing or planned capabilities of such MCs and IceTV Interactive. That could be competition or cooperation. I would like to see cooperation, as J River don't have very deep functionality in the TV area, particularly in series recording, program selection via keywords or rules, etc. Even TEDS Suite did that far better than J River does. But the likes of Argus and Big Screen EPG are also providing an equivalent, though different solution to the problem of automatic scheduling of recordings. There is also only daily importation of EPG data in J River, with virtually no control over when and how that happens, and there is no timely update such as Freeview claims to support. Padding of recordings also leaves a lot to be desired.

Perhaps there is an opportunity for some technology sharing, with the cooperative development of an outstanding integration solution? Your cloud based EPG management is still unique, and has appeal, but it will be over-run by the ability of smart phones to connect to a home server over the internet and set, change, delete scheduled recordings, and indeed view content, unless IceTV makes their capability ubiquitous and irreplaceable beforehand.

Anyway, enough of that. If you wish to share more of your future product plans in a more definitive form, I may make some contributions, if I think I can add value.

Thanks again for the response. IceTV is still a high value proposition for me, and anybody who needs EPG data in Australia, so please do lead it to bigger and better things.

Rod

Well, two weeks now and still no response.

Perhaps no one from IceTV is monitoring the forums any more. (It is pretty quiet around here.) That is sad.

Perhaps there is no good news to share, and sharing anything would be worse than saying nothing. That is even more sad.

So, one week and 32 views later, but not one comment...

I guess IceTV Interactive doesn't have a future. Well maybe it is just that no one can talk about it. But the boat is sailing. New applications, or new functionality in old applications, are being delivered right now. If I don't understand how IceTV Interactive may fit in, it won't be part of any future solution for me. Maybe IceTV will be just an EPG data provider. Even in that area the over the air EPG and other solutions may provide a sufficiently good solution.

Come on IceTV, share some insight into our future relationship!

So I have built a HTPC, have been using Windows 7 Media Centre for a few weeks, with IceTV Interactive installed, I'm getting my antenna upgraded to support my DigitalNow Quad DVB-T Receiver, and I'm looking for Media Centre software to use long term. Why? Well because WMC isn't the best Media Server, and Microsoft seem to be losing interest in developing it.

I have no interest in W8 Media Centre at this time, since there are more choices on W7, hence I'm posting in this forum.

One of the issues in selecting new Media Server/Centre software is finding a good overall solution, including TV/DVR/PVR capabilities, either in an All-In-One solution or with well integrated, mature components. Part of that solution must be a great EPG, with reliable program data. So okay, IceTV is a great source of Australian EPG data, so I should use it. IceTV Interactive works well with WMC. But I don't want WMC. IceTV can also supply XMLTV format data to lots of other solutions...

But what is IceTV doing about supporting other solutions better? I see that at one time IceTV was on the WMC bandwagon and going full steam ahead:
http://forum.icetv.com.au/iceforum/index.php/topic,2698.msg15628.html#msg15628

There was even going to be a native plugin, and Windows 8 MC support:
http://forum.icetv.com.au/iceforum/index.php/topic,3348.msg17421.html#msg17421

But then something went wrong and IceTV took a U-turn on WMC in 2012. Perhaps IceTV saw the writing on the wall for WMC, and realised that they were backing a dying product?:
http://forum.icetv.com.au/iceforum/index.php/topic,3348.msg17848.html#msg17848

It was seven months ago that you couldn't reveal anything Luke. So what is the position now? Surely you can share something, which may be relevant to my Media Server / Centre software selection?

Please.

Are you partnering with someone to provide a PVR solution?
      If so, what will it be, how will it work with IceTV for scheduling recordings, what web and/or streaming components will be provided?
Perhaps building a native plugin for some other application?
      Which one, how far along are you, can we see anything yet?

You get the idea. IceTV IS a great source of EPG data, but these days I don't want to have to build up a solution from lots of little, hard to integrate components, as I did with my old Topfield. Share a little about IceTV's plans for the future. Or point me to where you already have shared.

Thanks.