Virgin Media Tivo - schedule problems.

Has anyone else got problems with BBC Schedules not loading on their TIVO. My TiVo BBC channels schedules are only going up to next Sunday night. ITV and all other channels go to Friday night. Go on holiday later this afternoon and worried come next Sunday BBC programmes will stop recording and it will be a reliance on I Player and the 30-day limit to catch up.

This is normal. The BBC usually have shorter schedules than other channels. They’ll automatically update as they’re added.

Their also very good at swapping channels say from BBC1 to BBC2 part way through a programme, particularly live sport

AIUI the BBC EPG unit and RedBee Playout operations generate that data (about channel switches, delays, re-scheduled shows etc., as well as the dynamic 'show start' triggers) that is distributed to all platform operators automatically. Whether the platform reacts is based on their EPG solution I guess ?

Virgin? I don't think they are. Their EPG is appalling at updating - with every update V+/Tivo/V6 I keep hoping they'll implement some sort of live EPG, even if it's just for the 'reactive' channels like BBC/ITV but no, nothing. The "this is a live event, would you like to add some more time?" mitigates it a bit but it really should be automatic.

Sorry I'm a bit late to this thread, but the nature of the TiVo scheduler precludes updates much more frequently than the 5ish hours it is currently.

Personally I'll take the extra functionality of TiVo over the alternatives, it's not a major issue if you're aware of live events IMO.

I wonder if this is a sign of the US-centricity of TiVo - where ATSC 'in band' EPG data is far less likely to be dynamic (and in some cases is downright terrible) than it is in Europe, where DVB 'in-band' data can be very accurate indeed.

The TiVo out-of-band EPG is richer, but there should be a way of properly marrying it to the DVB in-band data to achieve the best of both worlds.

TiVo updates over here have been lagging since they were bought out Rovi, which happens to be a EPG data supplier. My TiVo only connects to the network every one to two days to check for a new schedule. Before once in a blue moon there’d be an incident in the morning with a special in primetime and it would be updated. Granted we never have the type of instant program update Europeans have.

Yep - it's a pity that the US has never used PSIP to its full potential. I guess the fragmented, affiliate, nature of TV transmission in the US means it would be more difficult, or even next-to-impossible, to distribute EPG data for other stations in the same market (as the UK does)

Some stations carry a TV Guide branded service. It’s not universal and many TVs don’t have the option for the guide only current program information. Also the big difference is that our schedules are so different, yes primetime and morning shows are consistent but the time frame over night and day side vary from station to station.

Not sure I follow about 'schedules are so different'? Surely each channel has its own schedule? Every channel has a different schedule doesn't it? The schedule is the schedule? The content of the schedule shouldn't change the reality of generating an EPG should it?

I guess if you are opt-ing in to a parent feed that you don't schedule for large periods of the day then you would need to source the metadata for that parent feed to integrate into your local variations, and that could be complicated to implement, unless a well engineered solution is available.

You just need to effectively capture that metadata accurately and then distribute it on your own platform and to other platform operators? AIUI a lot of US stations don't do this that effectively (I guess they don't see financial return in it) - and when their PSIP data is reasonably accurate it is only for their own channels, and often for only 24 hours or a couple days ahead? It may also be explained (or be a catch 22 loop) as to why OTA DVRs are less popular in the US (other than TiVo?) Here if you use a DVR driven by DVB EIT data, recording a show on a reactive channel like the BBC or ITV, you will almost always find the recording starts very cleanly with the announcement into the show. They aren't perfect - but they are usually very consistent.

The UK transmitter operators (when there were multiple transmitter providers) decided to share schedule metadata between transmitters (on a regional basis), as well as other platform-wide data (such as other transmitter frequencies) As a result we have a well-co-ordinated national EPG system, as do many European countries. This is helped by nationwide transmitter operators - but the broadcasters themselves syndicate their EPG data effectively to multiple platform operators and have engineered solutions to do so.