What is the possible reason for the EPG provider change?

[gary94080]

we all know "what" happened.

Microsoft switched from Zap2It to Rovi and we all got screwed. it is unbelievable that they would do this with such poor quality control. it is like the threw out all corporate knowledge when they made the switch.

does anyone know the "why"?

it is not like they severed all ties with Zap2It since Zap2It still does the over the air guide and Rovi (for now?) is messing up the cable guide.

[STC]

$ and some shifty handshakes.

[rmeden]

I'm just using OTA/ATSC and my Zap2it.com guide stopped and now I get Rovi.

I suspect they didn't want to pay for two guide sources. (Guide data is not cheap!)

They also didn't throw out "all corporate knowledge when they made the switch". It was thrown out ages ago, as you can tell by all the updates we've seen recently.

[Scallica]

we all know "what" happened. does anyone know the "why"?

$

[STC]

Shifty handshakes by upper management to satisfy upper upper managements decreasing budget FTW.

[mdavej]

Rovi won the contract for Xbox One. WMC is a legacy product. Makes perfect sense to leverage the guide provider for your active product (Xbox One) to support your legacy product until it gets shut down altogether. I'd say part of the blame lies with Zap2It. I'm sure they could have kept the contract if the price was right. If WMC usage is really as small as MS claims, probably isn't worth Zap2It's trouble anyway.

[STC]

Say no more. A nod's as good as a wink to a blind bat. Eh? Eh?

[gary94080]

I'm just using OTA/ATSC and my Zap2it.com guide stopped and now I get Rovi.

I suspect they didn't want to pay for two guide sources. (Guide data is not cheap!)

They also didn't throw out "all corporate knowledge when they made the switch". It was thrown out ages ago, as you can tell by all the updates we've seen recently.

in the San Francisco area we get Rovi for digital cable and Zap2It for over the air. I don't think I have seen any discussion on how that breaks out, whether it is regional or national.

[tzr916]

in the San Francisco area we get Rovi for digital cable and Zap2It for over the air. I don't think I have seen any discussion on how that breaks out, whether it is regional or national.

You need to re-run tv setup and get them both on Rovi.

[dabretty]

Late to this party, haven't visited in a while. Is this possibly why the guide basically sucks now for college and pro football? They pretty much all say "Teams To Be Announced" for the last month or two.

[audinutt]

Exactly why

[gary94080]

in the San Francisco area we get Rovi for digital cable and Zap2It for over the air. I don't think I have seen any discussion on how that breaks out, whether it is regional or national.

You need to re-run tv setup and get them both on Rovi.

I didn't need to do anything when the changeover happened. also since the cable systems are no longer required to provide unscrambled local broadcast HD I have no need for the OTA lineup but that is how it is shown under the guide information.

[mdavej]

in the San Francisco area we get Rovi for digital cable and Zap2It for over the air. I don't think I have seen any discussion on how that breaks out, whether it is regional or national.

You need to re-run tv setup and get them both on Rovi.

I didn't need to do anything when the changeover happened. also since the cable systems are no longer required to provide unscrambled local broadcast HD I have no need for the OTA lineup but that is how it is shown under the guide information.

We (wrongly) assumed you cared about getting the correct OTA listings. Since you don't care that they're wrong, then you're right, you don't need to do anything. All of North America should have switched to Rovi by now.

[gary94080]

We (wrongly) assumed you cared about getting the correct OTA listings. Since you don't care that they're wrong, then you're right, you don't need to do anything. All of North America should have switched to Rovi by now.

I had no problem with getting the guide, just extremely frustrated with the quality.
my original post had just "why" as the subject, which got changed by a moderator to its current form.
there must be a glitch somewhere since guide information still indicates OTA is still coming from Zap2It. perhaps it is due to not having any antennas connected to my computer.

[mdavej]

Of course there is a glitch. Many have had the same issue. That's why we told you to run setup again.

We're all frustrated with the guide quality. I was so frustrated, I abandoned WMC entirely.

[tzr916]

...there must be a glitch somewhere since guide information still indicates OTA is still coming from Zap2It. perhaps it is due to not having any antennas connected to my computer.

My pc did the same thing. Even though I only have cable, I had to run tv setup again to get both on Rovi. I have no idea if leaving the other on Zap2it would have any affect on my cable guide, but no point in leaving it when all it takes is tv setup to get them both on Rovi.

[Space]

Rovi won the contract for Xbox One. WMC is a legacy product. Makes perfect sense to leverage the guide provider for your active product (Xbox One) to support your legacy product until it gets shut down altogether. I'd say part of the blame lies with Zap2It. I'm sure they could have kept the contract if the price was right. If WMC usage is really as small as MS claims, probably isn't worth Zap2It's trouble anyway.

I am sure Zap2it knows that they have a superior product, so why lower the price? I'm assuming that Microsoft thought Rovi was "good enough" and went with the lowest bid, leaving all WMC and Xbox One DVR users with a flawed product.

One hope is that Microsoft will actually care about the Xbox One DVR being successful and realize there is a problem. Maybe convert it to use zap2it (or really start getting on Rovi's case to improve quality), but that is a very small hope.

[gary94080]

if I was having a problem getting the guide I would go through the setup process.

the only problem outside of the quality that my current guide has is that it mislead me in to thinking that Zap2It still provided the OTA data.

I have two reasons not to run the setup unless absolutely needed.
1. it is really slow
2. I have to go and hide about 2/3 of the lineup that I don't get or don't watch.

[mdavej]

Understood. We know some listings get stuck on Zap2It and that you have no reason to fix yours. No problem. The point is everybody in North America should be on Rovi by now, and if they aren't, they need to run setup to fix it.