Guide data

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I don't think so. Bad guide data is an ongoing annoyance that causes several missed recordings and even more duplicated recordings that fill up the hard drive and causes even more problems.

The problem lies squarely with EV. They switched guide suppliers in 2006 and the guide data has been inaccurate ever since. Since EV provides the electronic guide as a feature of its service, it's EV's responsibility to supply an accurate guide to its customers. If that means paying a little more to a better guide supplier or twisting arms to get the current supplier to fix the problems, then EV could. EV's customers certainly have no standing to do so. EV clearly refuses to since the problem has gone on so long. EV supplies credits to customers who report missed recordings or lost programming due to guide problems. It's not like they are unaware of the issue.

It's not often that the issue is a typo or simple error. It's the same missing or inaccurate information week after week. The information is often easily available from broadcasters but just isn't entered into the system for up to 50% of programs. When episode information is available, it is always wrong and has been for many months. That's more a sign of neglect or negligence than anything else.
 
New shows or returning shows are making a return to tv...wooohooo.

Me thinks I best check my 9200 guide to make sure it is going to pick up the new Prison Break episode. Nope!. So I check to see why it decided to skip my timer event, says it has a original air date of 2007 therefor making the receiver think it is a repeat. Only problem is the description is correctly posted, just the air date is wrong.

Man I hate Bev's guide service. There is no way I should have to check my timers every day to make sure they work. Is this a CRTC worthy complaint or is just a complaint I file to Expressvu? I know if it just goes to Expressvu it will never be answered.

Rant off....
 
I accept that the guide Data supplied must contain hundreds if not thousands or errors, does this mean that they just upload it and forget.?

I think that must be how it is done, maybe employing 1 person part time.

Remember the "Race To Mars" that was talked about on DHC late last year, well it was a 2 Part Series, yet the first Episode clearly said Episode #2 in the guide, does this single person at Express Vu not CHECK any of the Data.( I still have the screen shots too)

A 1 hour segment on CNN 2 weeks ago was listed with a first shown date way back in 2004, I know they constantly repeat shows but a Live News Show.? Come On.

They are not spending much cash right now on the Guide Data, maybe if they just spent a little more it could be improved, even a small amount.

There are 3 distinct Date Formats used in the Guide Data on the 9200, maybe this is one reason for the errors.......
 
Your rant is unwarranted and unjustified.

Why is it Bev's fault that the provider of the guide information is doing a crappy job?

Please explain to me how the PVR is supposed to know that some idiot at the source typed in the wrong original air date?
 
If you pick new episode you are asking for a lot of problems. It doesn't matter if you look at as a new episode airing or new episode on hdd. Personally I look at as a new episode airing and it doesn't work very often.
 
I may be wrong here Hugh but if Bell is the supplier for TV to your home it is there responsibility that guide data is typed in correctly. I don't know if they do this themselves or contract it out.

I also use BTV and find there guide data much much better than BEV's. AFAIK BTV contract out getting a accurate 2 week guide. When there is an issue I can only contact snapstream.

Why should Bell not be responsible for THEIR guide data?
 
The episode that is airing today, was actually SUPPOSED TO AIR last year, but was not. So in fact the information provided to Bell was originally correct before the network decided to hold off on airing the episode until now.
 
aa_aa said:
Is this a CRTC worthy complaint or is just a complaint I file to Expressvu? QUOTE]
You may want to start with someting simple........

Have you called and asked them (Bell) about it? The CRTC won't give a rat's ass about it if you haven't (and they may not anyway).

Has Bell provided you a contractual obligation to supply accurate guide data?

I look at it as a "bonus" when it works. I prefer manual timer that record date/time slots (like the 5900). Doesn't skip based on guide data.
Click to expand...
 
In a sense, yes.

If the accuracy of the data feed is 99% then it still means thousands of errors a month. That's life.

All data feeds have errors because of input errors at the source. These errors cannot be corrected unless the source verifies the accuracy and makes the changes.

Now perhaps Bell could investigate a new guide supplier but since they all data providers get their info from the source (the station or network that broadcasts the show), I doubt any data provider would be better than any other.
 
Why is it that I do not and have not EVER recorded DR Who on my 9200 yet when I told it to record "All New" episodes, I get NOTHING.

I would have expected the software to view it as "All New on the Hard Drive", not a show that has NEVER been aired before....

I see that The Soprano's is about to be shown again, from Episode Number 1, you will not be able to choose "All New" to capture these episodes as they have already been shown before......

Its crazy.
 
The guide data on my Windows Media Center HTPC seems to be a lot more accurate than the EVu guide data. The only problems I have with WMC is that many of the small local stations only report generic series info for reruns of things like Law & Order or CSI, rather than specific episode data (same problem on EVu). In both cases, if you've asked for "new" episodes, the PVRs err on the side of caution and record the episode since they can't tell.

As for BEv and "new" episodes, they should perhaps rename it to "first run" since that's what it means to them. The variation some people are looking for seems to be "new to me", which is difficult to do well since you need both good guide data and a way to remember what has/hasn't been recorded. For example, if you recorded this week's CSI, watched it, then erased it, should it get recorded if it runs again in a few weeks/months/years?
 
Does anybody has any frustrations with the Program Guide lately? It seems that a lot of shows' descriptions are not accurate, or the date is wrong, or a combination of both.

I have the HD PRV. When using the recording feature, I use to set it to "All New Episodes", but with the screw-ups in descriptions and dates, this feature is pretty much useless now, as the PVR either records either all shows or none. Then I have to go through shows manually and delete the duplicate episodes.

Does anybody know if this is a Bell issue, a receiver issue or a channel issue. Anybody else experiencing the same thing, or is it just me?

Thanks in advance.
 
I've got a 9200, a 5900 and a 3100... Everything is fine except the description for the Maury show. There is 2 shows on weekday on CW11, one at 9 and one at 10. The description of the show at 9 is the one of the 10 o'clock show and the description of the show at 9 is the one of the show who plays at 10
 
Hugh I don't really see how my rant is unwarranted or unjustified.

I pay Bell Expressvu a certain sum of money for them to provide me a service, a service which they advertise will do certain things. One of those things happens to be automatically turning my receiver on, going to the correct channel and recording an event that I request of it. When the unit fails to do that, be it because of a software glitch, bad guide data or whatever, it is their responsibility. It's not like I can choose to have my dvr receive a different set of guide data from another source.

I suppose what really frustrates me is that I checked this info against another providers dvr (non HD) and it had the correct info.

I stand by my assumption it is their responsibility.
 
While I agree it is BEV's responsibility I don't think it has anything to do with the CRTC.
 
This happens with every show. Episode 1 always shows up as #2, episode 2 as #3, and so on... Episode information is often missing as well, which causes multiple recordings of the same show. I've noticed that episode information is missing more often on some stations, especially Canadian stations. That points to a possible problem with broadcasters supplying incomplete information. However, the missing information is often available from other stations showing the same program on the same day. Other television guides often have complete and accurate information, pointing to a lack of attention to detail on the part of EV's guide service.

It's as if EV has someone just typing in the information without attention to accuracy or detail. No effort is made to provide missing data or to correct erroneous information. It's an underfunded, amateur operation at best.
 
Okay, so the CRTC should be notified and Bell sanctioned because, of the thousands and thousands and thousands of TV programs a week, one had the original airdate set to 2007 when in fact it should be 2008.

First, lets sue ExpressVu for a million bucks because of the damage caused to its subscribers and while we're at it, lets sue TV Guide , TV Times and the newspapers because I bet they published the wrong information too in their tv listings.

Second, to make sure a listing is never wrong again, the CRTC should force Bell to hire a team of people to verify the accuracy of every guide listing of every program on every channel for every week of the year.

I estimate that at 400 channels / 24 hours a day, you might actually need more than a 1,000 people every week to check the data of every program on every channel on every day.

For 1,000 people at $40,000 a year that is $40,000,000 million a year (double that with benefits, office expense overhead etc) to $80 million a year. Considering a 25% markup that would be $100 million a year spread over 2 million subscribers that is $50 a year.

Are you willling to pay an additional $50 a year to Bev for this fact checking?
 
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