dahef wrote: ↑Mon Jun 24, 2019 1:47 am
There is another explanation. For me it is 2 things. It is not the money.
1 - I would lose all the movies I have flagged for future recording when they become available.(thousands)
2 - I have read the 123 install guide and many of the 123 problem threads and most of the procedures is beyond my knowledge. Thus 123 is an option but only a last option if guide data runs out.
It would be nice if every time we have a delay in guide data we would not have to endure the insults from the 123 side,.
Not to get involved in any hostility trying to make a convincing case for going to EPG123, but I would be glad to be of any assistance you might request (either privately via email or PM, or even "remoting in" to your PC using TeamViewer, etc.) help with the transition and install.
But I understand if you've got lots of existing future recordings set that this really does seem like a deal-breaker. But I comment that let's say your current PC crashed and you actually did have to reinstall Win7 to a brand new machine. You'd also lose all of these future-set recordings, in addition to also losing access to any current copy-protected recording backlog you might have (I don't know if you are using Ceton tuners) that you haven't yet viewed. That happened to me a few months back and I took some time to document all of the backlog series and individual recordings I was about to lose, researching them to see if they were instead also available "on demand" through the basic/premium network's web site where I could then view them using a web browser. Or, might they be available through Hulu or Netflix or Amazon, etc., all of which I subscribe to.
Anyway, turns out virtually everything I hadn't yet watched (which was lots) was in fact still available through alternative means. So my "list of lost recordings" will serve me going into the future, should I ever actually have the time and actual motivation to "view down" this list using streaming/on-demand. The alternative, of course, is just to forget about it. If i haven't watched the last two seasons of "The Americans" by now, will I ever really find the time??
In the end I had no choice. I HAD to replace my now-dead machine with a new one. It did take me a few days to get everything installed properly, and set up WMC as before (I had my own complete set of screenshots documenting setup for WMC, EPG123, series recordings, etc., for use in just such a situation). And then I did have to re-set all my series recordings, at least the ones appearing in the current Guide (as opposed to those whose seasons weren't yet available, and for which I simply had to wait to re-set them when they next appeared). Again, thanks to the documentation I had made I at least had a checklist I could work from. I consider this a one-time task no matter how much effort it requires. Same as if I rented a real DVR from my cable company and decided to upgrade/replace it... and also would have to go through the pain of a complete re-set of all future recordings. It's just "the cost of doing business", and you hope it doesn't happen very often.
But I honestly do appreciate that your own "thousands of future-set recordings" and the work involved in recreating them if you had to, it's on its own scale that I can't imagine. Sure, it would take lots and lots of time to rebuild. But wouldn't you also have to do that if your machine died and you had to rebuild a new HTPC, or simply were forced to reinstall Win7 and WMC?
So, back to EPG123. You cannot believe how actually wonderful it is to have been on this Rovi-alternative for the past few years. Incidentally I've been using WMC since 2010, with both Ceton cablecard (first 4-tuner and now 6-tuner) and Hauppauge OTA (first 2-tuner and now 4-tuner) tuner cards for all that time. Schedules Direct actually has a "ticket system", for reporting problems with the Guide data including both (a) channel lineup issues, as well as (b) mistakes in program scheduling. You get to report the problem with a "ticket" entered through your account site and they respond seemingly within hours (from an actual person) that they're looking into it. Inevitably the issue (of either kind) is resolved within 1-2 days.
In the old days (first of Zap2it, and then Rovi) I recall going through the prolonged semi-annual Guide outages for DST->STD and vice versa, and cursing that "how hard could it be to know that this time change was going to happen" and "how could they not be prepared" and wondering "who can I call, or how can I report this", and not being able to at least have that satisfaction. With Schedules Direct it just doesn't happen that way. They're there for you, as you are their customer, and there IS a way to report issues. And by the way, there is no semi-annual Guide outage for the time change.
Even more important, the usefulness of additional information included in the downloaded Guide data, along with its accuracy and up-to-date nature cannot be praised enough. For example the program descriptions of a 7-game sports series actually get updated each night so that each day you have up-to-date comments regarding who'd winning or playing, etc. Season/episode numbers, original air dates, etc., all with perfect accuracy.
Nevertheless, to each his own. I simply mention that there really is no reason to put up with Rovi and its inferior Guide data (outage or not), when the far superior Schedules Direct data and EPG123 to download it is available. All it really takes over and above the usual start-from-scratch WMC TV tuner setup, and the willingness to re-enter your pre-set recordings. Again, I personally offer to be of any assistance you might ask for in getting you there, if you'd like to avail yourself. One-time pain and suffering, but in the end it really really really is worth it. The benefits are enormous.
Feel free to ignore the above. No need to respond if you don't want to.