[starman]

So, the other day, ABC had a show on from 8:01 to 9:01 which prevented my TiVo from recording 24 at 9:00pm. Because of the nature of the show, and the fact that Fox doesn't rerun the show, the only way to see it before the season ends in a few weeks was to download it. This leads me to a question - if one network forces my TiVo to bump another show on another network by these less than scrupulous means, does that fall under entrapment if I HAVE to download the show I missed from the internet? Networks don't offer a way to watch a show that you missed, so what's the alternative?

Mike

[MaxPower2k3]

wait for the season to come out on DVD? i dunno. but it is really annoying, even without a TiVo. You end up missing a couple minutes of something, whether it's the end of the current show or the beginning of the next show you watch on another channel. With ABC, the 8 o'clock show goes from 8:01 to 9:01, and then the next show is a minute farther off, from 9:02 to 10:02.

I don't really think it's the networks' faults, though. it's pressure from advertisers who hate TiVo and will pay more if people are less likely to TiVo the show.

The other alternative, i suppose, is a dual-tuner DVR?

[starman]

My TiVo is dual-tuner, and I'm not waiting 9 months to watch the last 3 shows of the season because ABC decided to have a hissy-fit.

Mike

[trip]

Originally Posted by starman

My TiVo is dual-tuner, and I'm not waiting 9 months to watch the last 3 shows of the season because ABC decided to have a hissy-fit.

Mike

just get a bit-torrent then download it.

[hayesk]

I don't get it. Why didn't Tivo record the show? Was it not in the programming schedule? I can see it missing one minute, but if Tivo didn't record it at all and it was in the schedule, then Tivo should fix it.

[lavar78]

Originally Posted by hayesk

I don't get it. Why didn't Tivo record the show? Was it not in the programming schedule? I can see it missing one minute, but if Tivo didn't record it at all and it was in the schedule, then Tivo should fix it.

TiVo doesn't record two shows if one overlaps with the other (even by just a minute). It just records the higher-priority show. I guess they could allow it to record the second program in some cases, but what would be a good cutoff point? If you can miss the first minute, can you miss the first three? Five? Ten?

[jnrjr79]

I rent a DVR box from my cable company (Comcast). It automatically knows the time changes (9:01-10:01, for example), and adjusts accordingly so I don't miss anything. I don't know if other companies' boxes are like this or if DVR through a dish provider is, but it might be a solution to avoid the Tivo situation. However, I'm sure that's an unappealing situation as you paid good money for the box in the first place.

[ReggieX]

This is less to do with advertisers hating the small number of people with PVRs and more about the networks trying to 'trap' people into staying on their channel when one show ends. It's the same strategy as the 'special' longer episodes of some shows they run. And pretty frickin' lame.

If you had been using a VCR set from 8:00 to 9:00, and then 9:00 to 10:00 on the other channel, you would have missed the last minute of the first one.

[dreilly1]

Originally Posted by jnrjr79

I rent a DVR box from my cable company (Comcast). It automatically knows the time changes (9:01-10:01, for example), and adjusts accordingly so I don't miss anything. I don't know if other companies' boxes are like this or if DVR through a dish provider is, but it might be a solution to avoid the Tivo situation. However, I'm sure that's an unappealing situation as you paid good money for the box in the first place.

It's not the time change that was his problem, it was the fact that because of the time change, the TiVo registered a conflict between the two shows. It resolves conflicts by dropping the lower priority show.

If you know this in advance on your TiVo, though, you could try overriding the 8:01 show with a one-time manual recording from 8 to 9. This ought to remove that weeks' season pass entry for the 8:01 show, and bring the 9:00 show back onto the list, while otherwise keeping your season passes intact. I haven't tried it on my TiVo, but I imagine it would work....

[Goldfinger]

Can't you manually program a tivo like a plain old VCR ?

[starman]

Originally Posted by Goldfinger

Can't you manually program a tivo like a plain old VCR ?

Yes, but that's like driving a car next door.

Mike

[Goldfinger]

Originally Posted by starman

Yes, but that's like driving a car next door.

Mike

Err, If you just programmed it manually it would work perfectly, no ? It's not that it hurts.

[ghporter]

This was either a case of ABC being too dumb to keep their programs on time, having a real issue with a news report to run, or intentionally "bumping" their program because they know the demographics of that show's audience lines up with "24's" audience. I would not put that last one past any TV network.

[starman]

Originally Posted by Goldfinger

Err, If you just programmed it manually it would work perfectly, no ? It's not that it hurts.

No, because if the show changes time slots, I'll miss it. That's the POINT of having a TiVo!

Mike

[starman]

Originally Posted by ghporter

This was either a case of ABC being too dumb to keep their programs on time, having a real issue with a news report to run, or intentionally "bumping" their program because they know the demographics of that show's audience lines up with "24's" audience. I would not put that last one past any TV network.

This has been a problem with networks for almost a year now. If you read the TiVo forums on avsforum.com, people are quite pissed off about it.

Mike

[Goldfinger]

Originally Posted by starman

No, because if the show changes time slots, I'll miss it. That's the POINT of having a TiVo!

Mike

And how many times does that happen ? Over here something like that almost never happens. Unless sometimes when there is a live sports game and when the TV station is not sure is they will be able to broadcast it or not.

[zerostar]

I have never had this problem with my DirecTivo? It has dual tuners so I don't see why it would drop a show unless you have 2 shows set to record and 2 right after that?

I usually set my season passes to record 1 minute early and 1 minute later so I catch the next weeks previews at the end.

If you do indeed have 2 shows and 2 more back to back consider changing the season pass to record 1 minute later on end of the first show and 1 minute later on the beginning of the second show.

Lastly, if these are SD TiVo's you can get them for free from DirecTV if you have been a good customer, I setup 2 in the living room and can have 4 shows recording at once and 2 more in the bedroom if needed.

And no, I don't watch that much TV but it was free so...

Now I sit and wait for 6.2 upgrade and I will try to get MRV working on all of them, if now off to 4.0

[awaspaas]

Originally Posted by Goldfinger

And how many times does that happen ? Over here something like that almost never happens. Unless sometimes when there is a live sports game and when the TV station is not sure is they will be able to broadcast it or not.

How often? Lost and Alias have started 1-2 minutes late every week for the last month or so.

(I can't wait for them to open the hatch! And why did the kid tell Locke not to open it??)

[dreilly1]

You can program the TiVo manually, and it's not really any more difficult than programming a VCR. In fact, I find it easier, since you use the same remote and a full-screen display to program it. I have a manual season pass set up to record SportsCenter once in the morning, because if I set up a regular season pass for it then it will constantly record new episodes since ESPN always repeats it!

Perhaps what TiVo needs to do is alert you whenever the scheduled time on one of your season passes changes, especially if it ends up modifying which shows get recorded...

[starman]

Yes, I KNOW you can program it manually, but seriously, am I supposed to check the schedule on my TiVo every f-----g day to see what network bonehead decided to bump one of my shows off? The point of the TiVo is "set it and forget it". I shouldn't have to manage the thing.

Mike

[cpt kangarooski]

starman--

So, the other day, ABC had a show on from 8:01 to 9:01 which prevented my TiVo from recording 24 at 9:00pm.

Well, I guess Tivos aren't all that, then, if they can be fooled so easily. (And on a related note, this is why I find it amazing that they don't have several tuners and digitizers to handle just this sort of thing, as well as to allow capturing several things at once)

Because of the nature of the show, and the fact that Fox doesn't rerun the show, the only way to see it before the season ends in a few weeks was to download it.

Or to have actually watched it, instead of trusting that a dumb machine would record it.

This leads me to a question - if one network forces my TiVo to bump another show on another network by these less than scrupulous means, does that fall under entrapment if I HAVE to download the show I missed from the internet? Networks don't offer a way to watch a show that you missed, so what's the alternative?

To not watch it. It's not entrapment, and you're overreacting something fierce. It's just TV. It's not even important. And they didn't force your Tivo to not work (it's not as though they're obligated to assist it), and they sure didn't force you to download anything.

[IonCable]

Samething has been happening to me with my replayTv. I used to watch DVR ER and CSI, but NBC started to start ER at an odd time. I just stopped watching ER. It wasn't one of my favs, I stopped because it was inconvient now. I'm guessing this kind of thing will only get worse.

[starman]

Uh, yes they DID force my TiVo to not work correctly since the TiVo works on the schedule that's downloaded to it. Duh. If it's told to start and stop at :01, that's what it's going to do. That's how networks bump a competing show from your TiVo.

Yes it does have two tuners. Learn how a TiVo works.

The TiVo was TOLD to record over 24. The TiVo isn't stupid. I guess you don't actually understand how a TiVo works.

It's quite obvious you came in here completely ignorant of the situation.

Mike

[C.J. Moof]

The +1 minute thing is exactly why ABC lost me as a viewer of Lost. It got too annoying to not see the last minute of the show every week, as I had mine set to record The West Wing at 8.

I've found I'm happier with the downloaded versions anyway- they're off of HD feeds, compressed quite nicely, and without commercials. This week my Tivo overheated (looks like I cut off the ventilation in my new entertainment center), and didn't record 24. It was on bittorrent in about a half hour after broadcast.

[GSixZero]

Originally Posted by starman

Uh, yes they DID force my TiVo to not work correctly since the TiVo works on the schedule that's downloaded to it. Duh. If it's told to start and stop at :01, that's what it's going to do. That's how networks bump a competing show from your TiVo.

Yes it does have two tuners. Learn how a TiVo works.

The TiVo was TOLD to record over 24. The TiVo isn't stupid. I guess you don't actually understand how a TiVo works.

It's quite obvious you came in here completely ignorant of the situation.

Mike

I have two tivos and I know how you feel. It totally sucks to have to juggle shows like that, but this has nothing to do with networks wanting to bump shows. Say there are two shows, A and B, A ends at 9:01 and B starts at 9:00. If the shows are of equal popularity, it's just as likely for half the viewers to have B higher in the priorities. That means A won't get recorded. Networks aren't trying to bump competing shows off Tivo, because they'd be just as likely to get bumped.

The reason they do this is for the ad dollars. Networks usually have a few shows that are rated way above average, and squeezing an extra minutes of advertising into them makes them lots of cash. I think the Friends finally ran 12 minutes over how long they said it would be. (8:30-9:12 or 8:00-9:12).

They're not out to get you. And it's not entrapment for two reasons. You don't HAVE to download it. Watching TV is by no means a necessity. Entrapment is when law enforcement traps you into breaking the law. ABC, CBS, NBC, and FOX are not law enforcement entities.

[cpt kangarooski]

starman--

Uh, yes they DID force my TiVo to not work correctly since the TiVo works on the schedule that's downloaded to it.

They aren't obligated to keep to that schedule for your convenience. Tivos should start adding buffers to the beginning and ending of scheduled recordings to cope with this.

Yes it does have two tuners. Learn how a TiVo works.

That's not enough. Hell, I said several, which already implies three or more. IMO a Tivo ought to be able to capture from three channels simultaneously. If tuners and digitizers were modular, you'd be able to just slot more in if that were not enough (probably need some sort of disk array too).

If it had this ability, you'd be able to schedule two adjoining recordings, which the Tivo might begin and end early and late respectively, to be on the safe side, and thus record from both simultaneously for a little while. Meanwhile, you'd still be able to watch a third show, and if you liked, to record it too.

Frankly, I have looked at the Tivo -- it's nice enough, I guess, but it doesn't do enough to appeal to me. Also I don't like having to pay for schedule data, which is free and unprotectable anyway, basically.

[starman]

Well, maybe "entrapment" was the wrong word, but you can't say that TV isn't important or not a necessity. When you're hooked on a show like 24, you know damn well that you have to watch the shows in order and not miss any, especially with 3 shows left in the season.

Networks don't offer an alternative, nor do they rerun their shows. Survivor is never rerun. The Apprentice is never rerun. The Amazing Race is never rerun. What alternatives do you have with a TV series that has no reruns? You can't even wait a few weeks for "the rerun" because it never happens.

Mike

[cpt kangarooski]

starman--

Well, maybe "entrapment" was the wrong word, but you can't say that TV isn't important or not a necessity.

Yes we can. I've never watched any of the shows you mention, and I seem to be doing okay. Food, shelter, clothing, medicine, education -- these are necessities. TV shows are not.

When you're hooked on a show like 24, you know damn well that you have to watch the shows in order and not miss any, especially with 3 shows left in the season.

The lesson then is not to get hooked. Addicts behave in weird ways; it's good not to be one. Still, if you really want closure, you can always make up your own ending. It'll be just as valid as anyone else's, and may satisfy you more. Plus the act of developing it is at least a creative exercise, rather than just passively watching what someone else did.

[GSixZero]

Why don't you buy another Tivo? I've got two, which makes for zero conflicts with a little forethought into my programming.

[starman]

Originally Posted by cpt kangarooski

starman--


Yes we can. I've never watched any of the shows you mention, and I seem to be doing okay. Food, shelter, clothing, medicine, education -- these are necessities. TV shows are not.



The lesson then is not to get hooked. Addicts behave in weird ways; it's good not to be one. Still, if you really want closure, you can always make up your own ending. It'll be just as valid as anyone else's, and may satisfy you more. Plus the act of developing it is at least a creative exercise, rather than just passively watching what someone else did.

This isn't a thread about whether or not TV is an addiction. WTF are you doing in here?

Silly that someone with the name "Capt. Kangarooski" says he doesn't watch TV.

EDIT: Uh, looks like Capt. Kangarooski's doing a 360:

From here:
http://forums.macnn.com/89/macnn-lounge/243198/get-tv-shows-legally/

Xeo: I regularly download certain weekly shows that I can't otherwise watch.
CK: Fine with me

So again, why are you here making a stink?



Mike

[Randman]

Dude, you need to take a serious chill pill. You sound like ca$h in this thread. It's only a TV show.

I don't have a tivo but wouldn't setting 24 as the higher priority work?

The other option is wait and get the shows on DVD. No commercials and you can watch when you want how you want. I do it for 24 and CSI.

[cpt kangarooski]

starman--

This isn't a thread about whether or not TV is an addiction. WTF are you doing in here?

You seem to be saying that your desire to see certain TV shows is so great that it justifies breaking the law. That's at least a little odd.

Silly that someone with the name "Capt. Kangarooski" says he doesn't watch TV.

I didn't say I don't watch TV. I said I didn't watch any of those shows. There are a couple of shows that I do like to watch, but I don't care whether I manage to or not. I'll just as readily go do something else. I don't watch much TV though, that much is true. In fact, given that I said that I don't have a Tivo because it isn't good enough at recording, how could that be reconciled with the (incorrect) notion that I don't watch TV?

Also, I didn't pick out the name.

[starman]

Originally Posted by cpt kangarooski

starman--


You seem to be saying that your desire to see certain TV shows is so great that it justifies breaking the law. That's at least a little odd.

Why did you say it was OK for Xeo to download stuff while he was in Japan, but it's not OK for me? I fail to see why there's a significant difference when in both cases, there's no other way to watch a show you missed.

This is exactly why we needed something like the iTMS - there was no way to download singles. If networks gave us a way to download content, there'd be no discussion, would there?

Mike

[starman]

Originally Posted by Randman

Dude, you need to take a serious chill pill. You sound like ca$h in this thread. It's only a TV show.

I don't have a tivo but wouldn't setting 24 as the higher priority work?

The other option is wait and get the shows on DVD. No commercials and you can watch when you want how you want. I do it for 24 and CSI.

Setting 24 as the higher priority would bump the earlier show.

Why should I have to wait up to a year to watch the last 3 shows of the season because I missed one? You might as well say that TV itself is no longer relevant, and everything should go directly to DVD.

Mike

[cpt kangarooski]

starman--

Why did you say it was OK for Xeo to download stuff while he was in Japan, but it's not OK for me? I fail to see why there's a significant difference when in both cases, there's no other way to watch a show you missed.

When did I say this?

I think that it might be, but there's no certainty. Personally I don't care tremendously, and I'd be happy to have it made legal for certain. But it still is far from a necessity.

This is exactly why we needed something like the iTMS - there was no way to download singles. If networks gave us a way to download content, there'd be no discussion, would there?

Sure there would -- it wouldn't be free, and when two goods or services are identical, people prefer the free one.

[starman]

Originally Posted by cpt kangarooski

starman--


When did I say this?

I think that it might be, but there's no certainty. Personally I don't care tremendously, and I'd be happy to have it made legal for certain. But it still is far from a necessity.



Sure there would -- it wouldn't be free, and when two goods or services are identical, people prefer the free one.

Whether or not it's a necessity is your opinion. This is not about whether or not TV is a necessity, it's about the studios forcing people to find other means to download shows because they themselves bump the competition without telling the user. You might as well start a discussion about the high price of gas, when someone comes in and says "well, I don't think cars are a necessity".

And yes, you did say it. I linked it above.

Mike

[dreilly1]

Originally Posted by cpt kangarooski

Well, I guess Tivos aren't all that, then, if they can be fooled so easily. (And on a related note, this is why I find it amazing that they don't have several tuners and digitizers to handle just this sort of thing, as well as to allow capturing several things at once)

It takes quite a bit of bandwidth to sling video data around in real time, and the type of processors that are capable of being sold with a $200 TiVo can only handle so much. And the TiVo is always encoding data and recording it to its hard drive, even when it's not actually recording, because of its 30-minute buffer thingy. And it's always playing a stream, whether you're watching a recording or watching "live" TV. (TiVo "Live TV" is actually a second or two behind, because of the time it takes to encode and decode the signal).

I have a Series I tiVo which is quite old now. It only has one tuner not necessarily because tuners are expensive, but because the processor can't encode more than one stream at a time while simultaneously playing a stream.

Mike probably has a DirectTV TiVo. These came with two tuners from the beginning because DirectTV already comes encoded in a digital format, you only need the DirectTV hardware to get more than one stream from the sattelite and the disk speed to record more than one stream while simultaneously playing one back...

[cpt kangarooski]

starman--
I think you're misunderstanding what I said.

Xeo said

regularly download certain weekly shows that I can't otherwise watch. Like when I was in Japan, there was just no other way for me to watch those shows. It's not legal but morally it doesn't bother me. My morals aren't shaped around the law. Some of my actions are, though. Just not this one.

And I replied

Fine with me. I don't think that copyright has any moral or immoral value at all. (well, maybe piracy is a little bit moral in that it helps preserve and disseminate creative works, which is good, but not amazing)

And I still hold to this. I don't think you're a bad person because you download TV shows. Similarly, if you habitually drove over the speed limit, or painted your house in a manner that didn't comply with local ordinances, I wouldn't think you were a bad person. This is orthagonal to whether or not it's legal, however, and even in that earlier thread I did say that it was difficult to tell whether it'd be legal to d/l TV shows, and that in fact merely taping them with a VCR (or presumably a Tivo) isn't necessarily legal either.

it's about the studios forcing people to find other means to download shows because they themselves bump the competition without telling the user.

Channels, probably, not studios. But I still don't think they're forcing you to do anything. They're just not making it easy for you. And they don't have to make it easy for you; why should they?

You might as well start a discussion about the high price of gas, when someone comes in and says "well, I don't think cars are a necessity".

Actually that's a relevant point in that discussion. If gas ends up costing too much, forms of transportation other than cars start looking highly attractive, e.g. subways in cities, buses and trains for medium distances, possibly airplanes for longer distances. Plus old standbys such as walking, biking, and pedicabs. Even when a car is still the most useful form of transport in a given situation, it might be more sensible to rent the use of one (e.g. a taxi or a rental) rather than to privately own one. Alternate energy sources also start looking good, for how we make these things work if we can't cheaply use petroleum.

[cpt kangarooski]

dreilly1--

It takes quite a bit of bandwidth to sling video data around in real time, and the type of processors that are capable of being sold with a $200 TiVo can only handle so much. And the TiVo is always encoding data and recording it to its hard drive, even when it's not actually recording, because of its 30-minute buffer thingy. And it's always playing a stream, whether you're watching a recording or watching "live" TV. (TiVo "Live TV" is actually a second or two behind, because of the time it takes to encode and decode the signal).

I have a Series I tiVo which is quite old now. It only has one tuner not necessarily because tuners are expensive, but because the processor can't encode more than one stream at a time while simultaneously playing a stream.

Yeah, but Tivos first came out in what, 99? In seven years I'd think that they'd be able to get better chips, without seriously jeopardizing the price of the box. Tivo has been sitting on their laurels, IMO, which is a problem Apple had, and look what happened to them.

If we were talking HD, then this would be a concern at the present time. For NTSC, I don't think it's such a huge deal. At the very least, I'd hope that multiple Tivos would network themselves together in an intelligent manner so that they merely added more resources, but that interaction with them was the same. I haven't looked into Tivo much lately, so I dunno if they have this cluster/grid computing approach now, but if not, they need it, and they need it to be seamless.

[GSixZero]

Yeah, I love Tivo, but they've seriously gotten lazy. Nothing major has changed since it's launch in the 90's.

I want Tivo server, basically a master tivo that will receive guide data and arrange recordings on multiple Tivo's to minimize conflicts.