Media Center EPG: Rovi Guide Data Quality

[Bob.Blockerlundt]

cycletourist, thanks for posting your latest replies from Rovi - even if just to confirm "At this time we don’t have an estimate on when this will be fixed.".

...
The first reply was Aug 4.

Case #1994040
Subject: "CLU Update - Windows Media Center - series record, generic desc"

Hi,
We will look into the issues of generic descriptions with no listing of guests on the late night shows.

Regarding the series record problems, We believe we have identified the problem and Microsoft and Rovi are working towards the best solution. At this time we don’t have an estimate on when this will be fixed.

I'll get back to you about generic info.
Suzy

Odd that they keep saying they are looking into the series problem. It seems to me that it is already fixed.

The original issue was that series was not recording at all because all subsequent episodes were marked as "an earlier showing was already recorded" - this seems to be fixed. But I think there are still some reports of certain shows not showing up with the "Record series" option, or some series recording multiple showings of the same episode, or other series related problems. Basically, a bunch of behaviors that was not the way it used to work. Not sure if they are treating these as separate issues, or lumping them together as "series problems" (plural).

Second reply was Aug 12:

We are still working with Microsoft on a solution to the series record and generic description issue. Star rating will no longer work with Rovi data as Microsoft isn't taking a feed that provides that info. Release year is being looked into by MS as Rovi is providing that data in the feed.
Suzy

So, star ratings are never going to be provided (WTH?) I mean, just how difficult can this be?
...

Yikes, that's news to me. And this is only one broken item they plan on not fixing. I wonder what else won't make the cut.

[SugarFree]

I have contacted Rovi directly about the first three problems and heard back twice.

Looks like "Suzy" is sending us boilerplate. I got those same exact two letters from 'her' as well. I complained again last week -- with the entire laundry list of everything, nothing of which has been fixed and for good measure added that I hadn't heard anything since the 4th -- and on Friday, got this:

I apologize for the lack of update, but we're still working with Microsoft on some of these issues. We aren't getting much of an update from MS either as they are still doing testing.
Suzy

I'm just a simple country girl - but shouldn't the testing have been done *before* the changeover?

[Mike_TV]

Has Microsoft provided a timeline? I was initially hoping and expecting everything to return to "normal" within a few days. But I realize that was just my own assumption, and not promised by Microsoft directly. Thinking about that, I am now wondering if the projected timeline is on the order of 6 days, 6 weeks, 6 months, or what.

Also, has Microsoft provided a list of known issues they are going to fix? Are they planning to fix everything, or just a subset?

I assume the project team has internal discussions about scope and estimated release dates. It would be nice to have more transparency on this. Even ball park figures. That would help us decide if we might be okay waiting it out with the current brokenness, or if we should just start transitioning to alternatives now (something I wasn't planning on doing until Windows 7 support officially ended in 2020).

They haven't. You might try sending your questions to JonFincherMSFT as a private message. He posted here earlier this month and said that they were working on it but hasn't provided any updates in the last few weeks.

[cycletourist]

One step forward, two steps back. The NBC (CBS, ABC) Nightly News series recording has worked for a couple of weeks now - yay. But starting this week WMC wants to record the repeats of NBC Nightly news that are on at 2AM, too. My guess is that MS fumbles when Rovi passes the repeat information (if it even does).

I have nothing further to say that does not involve swearing.

[Ladislaus]

Another example of the data-is-not-quite-right-yet, "Fear the Walking Dead" is not properly flagged as a premiere.

[Space]

The second season premiere of "Our Little Family" on TLC on 8/25 is currently showing in the guide as a repeat episode from season one (s01e06) and is therefore not set to record. It is the same on msn.com/tvguide.com/roviguide.com, but they all have it marked as NEW. zap2it has had this correct (s02e01) for at least the last few days.

[lurch66]

The second season premiere of "Our Little Family" on TLC on 8/25 is currently showing in the guide as a repeat episode from season one (s01e06) and is therefore not set to record. It is the same on msn.com/tvguide.com/roviguide.com, but they all have it marked as NEW. zap2it has had this correct (s02e01) for at least the last few days.

msn.com/tvguide.com/roviguide.com is not a valid site. it redirects to http://www.msn.com/?refurl=%2ftvguide.c ... iguide.com but is has nothing to do with rovi guide. If you have a link to rovi guide please post it. Thanks for the info.

[Space]

Those are three different sites that all get their data from Rovi. http://www.msn.com/en-us/tv/tv-listings is the one that is supposed to be the closest match to what is in the data used by WMC (although it does not display the episode titles for some unknown reason).

[JaxChris]

I hope one of the evangelists that still browse here can get a sympathetic ear from Microsoft.

Please add OriginalReleaseTime into the Rovi guide data, like it was in Zap2It data. Without this tag in the metadata you cannot sort the Movie Guide by year. It also has another impact in my scenario, which I think others may still use.

MoveRecordedTVMovies utilizes the OriginalReleaseTime tag for naming the movie folders. It helps a lot to use this when I have a mid size SSD dedicated to recording TV (let it burn up without harming the lifespan of my larger storage or OS drives). Sliding the movies over to the storage drive and adding that folder to the movie library is great -- but if you move it out of the TV directory, the original art and some data is lost.

Right now I have to fix the year on each folder to get Yammm to do its' thing and is another additional bother on top of the movie guide not being sortable anymore.

Thanks to anyone that helps make this happen.

p.s. Fixing the original air date on daily shows (i.e. Jeopardy, News, etc) would be nice too. Currently all of those shows have no original air dates.

[Moderator note: topic merged]

[Space]

The second season premiere of "Our Little Family" on TLC on 8/25 is currently showing in the guide as a repeat episode from season one (s01e06) and is therefore not set to record. It is the same on msn.com/tvguide.com/roviguide.com, but they all have it marked as NEW. zap2it has had this correct (s02e01) for at least the last few days.

All three Rovi-based guides on the web have been updated with the correct episode information, tonight's WMC update did not correct it, hopefully it will be corrected within the next couple days (although I have often seen corrections in WMC before I have seen them in the web-based guides, so...)

[n4mwd]

The OTA guides are working fine here. I had nothing but trouble until I went in to programfiles/ehome and deleted anything and everything that looked like it had something to do with the EPG - then reinstalled Media Center. The channels are updating and for the time being, they have the correct information - not generic. There are still a few shows that still have generic descriptions, but they are in the minority. I'm just hoping that it stays working.

My theory is that rovi damaged the database some how with one of their bad updates. When I deleted the epg databases, media center was forced to recreate them new. The system is also far more responsive than it was with no more hard disk thrashing.

[redmed]

When looking at the movies on the Rovi guide the star ratings are missing. I miss the ratings to help decide what movie to watch. Is there any effort to bring back the stars?

[Moderator note: topic merged; search before posting]

[DavidinCT]

So far things are starting to get better. So now is my ABC world news on Weekends, the week day version now records. If I set the Weekend version to record, It will only record the one I start the series on, it will not schedule them for the following weekend...

Truth be told, it is STARTING to get better... Would love to have Zap2it back as things just worked and worked well.

I guess I just need to give it more time and keep reporting issues at they happen

[werds]

Good lord! See I thought I was just having some unknown issue since I just moved to a different region with a different provider this summer. Boy has the summer been annoying with things missing their recording - hundreds of shows recording that are reruns and many shows recording but having the identical generic description instead of the detailed show descriptions in the past. I remember missing some recordings and checking the series to see that it was there but not picking up any new episodes or reruns even! Only to manually restart a series and it works fine...
Ugh...

[Space]

With the fall TV Premiere season approaching, many of the Series we have set up may need to be recreated in order to continue recording.

Here is what I use to tell me when premiers are approaching:

http://thefutoncritic.com/listings/2015/08/premieres/

It's the best I have found for this type of thing, but it is not perfect.

[STC]

So, I spat my coffee out just now. This came up for Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer CNN

IMG_0792.JPG (32.06 KiB) Viewed 1500 times

Pretty much sums things up....

[Ed]

So, I spat my coffee out just now. This came up for Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer CNN

IMG_0792.JPG

Pretty much sums things up....

^ Looks like a good episode. Don't miss it

[STC]

Chevys kind of humor I'm sure....

[Venom51]

All I need them to fix is the record series for anything Auto Racing and Motorcycle racing related.

[STC]

Hmm pic is upside down through crappatalk strange