Guide Updates - Accuracy Issues

[STC]

And on tonights guide platter, more unknown, nondescript and totally wrong shows for your viewing pleasure. Bon Appetit!

Is this worth a Connect ticket?

[crawfish]

And on tonights guide platter, more unknown, nondescript and totally wrong shows for your viewing pleasure. Bon Appetit!

Is this worth a Connect ticket?

I tried it twice. Both times, Microsoft asked me untimely, inane questions and ultimately closed the cases as "unreproducible". I mean, I only gave them a week's notice and regular updates during the time frame in which they could do something. Instead, they asked me about future screw-ups after the ones I already reported had transpired. My experience is that Connect is lip service.

[barnabas1969]

Interesting. Mine picked up a show at 9pm that was titled Myth Busters - Driving in Heels. I watched an episode last night... it was about fan requests... they blew up a few water heaters (made a cannon out of one of them). It didn't have anything about driving with heels in it. I just checked... and the one I deleted is the one that was recorded at 9pm (supposedly the one about driving in heels). I thought I deleted the one I watched... maybe I selected the wrong one when I deleted it? If the one about driving in heels was supposed to air at 9pm, it seems that I recorded the right one... and accidentally deleted the wrong one.

Sorry I missed this earlier. Last week's episode was about driving in heels. This week's episode was a fans request revisit of older myths...notably the water heater cannon and rocket man. The problem is Zap2it's listings showed this week's episode as Driving in Heels, which isn't correct. The correct listing was Revenge of the Myth.

Yes, I see that now. I did a little more digging last night. I'll admit that it is a little frustrating. It is also recording reruns that I've already recorded in the past.

[nathagt]

I couldn't agree more. This has been so frustrating. There are some channels (Discovery, Animal Planet, TNT, History) that are almost always inaccurate. It didn't used to be like this. It's hard to be excited about the Q and Echo when the guide is completely unreliable. And that Connect ticket system is a joke.

[richard1980]

Yes, I see that now. I did a little more digging last night. I'll admit that it is a little frustrating. It is also recording reruns that I've already recorded in the past.

Are the reruns marked with generic episode descriptions (like "Hosts test urban legends")? If so, that explains it. The generic episode data doesn't contain the correct new/rerun information, so WMC doesn't know it is a rerun. Instead of not recording, WMC records the episode just to be safe (just in case it is a new episode).

[STC]

And that Connect ticket system is a joke.

Microsoft
Connect
Your feedback improving Microsoft products

[WScottCross]

As I expected, my Zap2It ticket got a canned response directing me to the "experts" forum and was completely off topic from my actual ticket. I responded back explaining again what the actual issue was and this time I got a more appropriate response stating that they would have their listing team "look into it". Holding my breath starting.... now............

[carljanderson]

my guide is up to the 18th. There are reports on WEC that there is a guide that goes 20.

Must resist the temptation to manually to see if the automagic update works.

[STC]

I'm trying to get more of a handle on this situation;

Before the migration (info erkotz gleaned from the bowels of MS), before any of the guide update problems, I recall a few instances of channel lineup errors where my Cable Co would change the lineup, but did not inform Zap2it. I bump into the inconsistency and inform Zap2it.

About two or three days later the changes appear in my MC guide.

At that time, the guide updates were daily and would appear to have come very fresh from Zap2it either that day or the day before. Sure, there were errors, but by no means the amount I am seeing today. It seems like there are literally days and days between one or more of the data hand-overs.

This naturally increases the inaccuracies to us the end user. It's really making my whole families MC experience poor at present.

Microsoft, PLEASE address this ASAP. You are killing the product yourselves, and probably don't even realize it!

[richard1980]

FWIW, I've had this "placeholder" issue for quite a while now....much longer than this issue with the guide updates not coming in. There's a thread on WEC that I started way back in January 2011 where I had the issue (the main topic of the thread was how the guide updates were not correcting my scheduled recordings, but the root cause of that issue was Zap2it's "placeholders").

[slowbiscuit]

FWIW, I've had this "placeholder" issue for quite a while now....much longer than this issue with the guide updates not coming in. There's a thread on WEC that I started way back in January 2011 where I had the issue (the main topic of the thread was how the guide updates were not correcting my scheduled recordings, but the root cause of that issue was Zap2it's "placeholders").

Tivo also has these placeholders for many cable channels (e.g., generic ep info for Mythbusters) so it thinks it should record them in the ToDo List (usually a few days out). These almost always get corrected with the right (repeat show) info before they would actually record, so almost all of the 'new only' season pass recordings that are done are valid.

WMC is never as timely as Tivo in this regard, and/or the new/repeat flag is not set correctly for WMC so it records old stuff all the time.

[STC]

FWIW, I've had this "placeholder" issue for quite a while now....much longer than this issue with the guide updates not coming in. There's a thread on WEC that I started way back in January 2011 where I had the issue (the main topic of the thread was how the guide updates were not correcting my scheduled recordings, but the root cause of that issue was Zap2it's "placeholders").

Richard, would you agree that recently things have gotten much worse? Presumably the placeholder errors you describe are happening more often with the longer delay in updates? My guide is measurably worse. When I get some time I will examine a days broadcasts and list the inconsistencies.

[barnabas1969]

Yes, I see that now. I did a little more digging last night. I'll admit that it is a little frustrating. It is also recording reruns that I've already recorded in the past.

Are the reruns marked with generic episode descriptions (like "Hosts test urban legends")? If so, that explains it. The generic episode data doesn't contain the correct new/rerun information, so WMC doesn't know it is a rerun. Instead of not recording, WMC records the episode just to be safe (just in case it is a new episode).

Yes, that's what I'm seeing on many of them. But even when the description is correct, I sometimes get the same shows recorded again.

[crawfish]

Yes, that's what I'm seeing on many of them. But even when the description is correct, I sometimes get the same shows recorded again.

All this has been going on for years. Back in late 2009 and early 2010, there were several months where the guide was quite unreliable, and we talked about it at the old TGB. The last few months have seen a resurgence of the unreliability. I've always said you need to babysit the Media Center scheduler, and it's looking like this will never change.

[richard1980]

Richard, would you agree that recently things have gotten much worse? Presumably the placeholder errors you describe are happening more often with the longer delay in updates? My guide is measurably worse. When I get some time I will examine a days broadcasts and list the inconsistencies.

I first noticed the issue after having received my InfiniTV, presumably because that's when I went from having about 10 channels in my guide to having close to 500 channels. It appears to me Zap2it has had this "placeholders" practice for a long time, but in the past (from what I've seen), Zap2it has generally been very good about correcting the errors far enough in advance so that WMC would end up downloading the correct data before actual air time (it should be noted that this statement is true for the errors that I actually noticed and kept an eye on...so it is quite possible the listings were full of errors for shows I don't record). However, it appears to me that over the last 6 months or so, Zap2it's error rate (placeholders) has slowly gotten worse, and now it's through the roof, especially for the Discovery family of channels (although the errors are certainly not limited to Discovery's channels...I see them on several other channels as well, but I see them on Discovery more than anywhere else.) Now I can't say for sure, but it also appear that Zap2it has gotten a bit lazy and is now correcting errors much closer to actual air time.

With that said, this issue of not getting consistent updates to the EPG has further complicated the issue slightly, but only WRT getting corrections to guide data that was already wrong. Basically this download issue has just exposed the guide errors that have been present all along. Normally the errors go unnoticed because they end up getting corrected before air time, but now the corrections aren't coming in, which is causing people to record the wrong stuff or see the wrong listings when they go to watch live TV.

What still remains a mystery to me is who is responsible for the listings updates not being available to WMC? I am not convinced this is entirely Microsoft's fault, despite their migration. I wonder exactly how much Zap2it has to do with it? Does Zap2it push listings to Microsoft? Or does Microsoft pull listings from a Zap2it repository? Either way, I think there's a real possibility that Zap2it is simply not providing the information to Microsoft. Like I said, it appears Zap2it has gotten lazy when it comes to correcting their listings, so maybe they've gotten lazy about providing data to Microsoft.

[adam1991]

Allow me to present this idea: could this be a conspiracy of the entertainment industry, to dissuade us from recording TV?

[mark1234]

Allow me to present this idea: could this be a conspiracy of the entertainment industry, to dissuade us from recording TV?

They wouldn't be this subtle!

[lurch66]

I have to agree with the "placeholder" problem on discovery getting much worse lately. The main 2 shows I record are Mythbusters and Deadliest catch. Both of witch are recording something like 8 to 10 episodes on air day because the generic description/placeholder. It is even recording the wrong show all together now. I hope this gets fixed soon.

[mmatheny]

FWIW, I've had this "placeholder" issue for quite a while now....much longer than this issue with the guide updates not coming in. There's a thread on WEC that I started way back in January 2011 where I had the issue (the main topic of the thread was how the guide updates were not correcting my scheduled recordings, but the root cause of that issue was Zap2it's "placeholders").

Tivo also has these placeholders for many cable channels (e.g., generic ep info for Mythbusters) so it thinks it should record them in the ToDo List (usually a few days out). These almost always get corrected with the right (repeat show) info before they would actually record, so almost all of the 'new only' season pass recordings that are done are valid.

WMC is never as timely as Tivo in this regard, and/or the new/repeat flag is not set correctly for WMC so it records old stuff all the time.

What guide service does TIVO use?

[STC]

^ Zap2it, but it seems TiVo STB's get data far fresher then MC HTPC's do.