Media Center EPG: Rovi Guide Data Quality

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sublimejhn

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Media Center EPG: Rovi Guide Data Quality

#1

Post by sublimejhn » Sun Jul 26, 2015 12:36 am

So this is an odd one. Recently, my primary HTPC has begun displaying random thumbnails for tv shows when scrolling through the guide on about half of the channels. This issues does not exist on any other computer in the home, and is specific to our primary media center computer only (the one that matters of course). While this issue doesn't really effect functionality, it is pretty annoying and just looks odd. The thumnails it will list are completely random and have absolutely nothing to do with the show actually listed in the guide. I cannot even begin to think of where to start to fix this, so any help is appreciated!

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DOS4EVER

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#2

Post by DOS4EVER » Sun Jul 26, 2015 2:02 am

sublimejhn wrote:So this is an odd one. Recently, my primary HTPC has begun displaying random thumbnails for tv shows when scrolling through the guide on about half of the channels. This issues does not exist on any other computer in the home, and is specific to our primary media center computer only (the one that matters of course). While this issue doesn't really effect functionality, it is pretty annoying and just looks odd. The thumnails it will list are completely random and have absolutely nothing to do with the show actually listed in the guide. I cannot even begin to think of where to start to fix this, so any help is appreciated!
This is another issue with the Rovi switch. What worked for me was to manually update the guide data until it was finished and then reboot my computer. Afterwards I had the correct thumbnails. I'm sure Rovi is working on a fix. Just give it a little time.

SugarFree

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#3

Post by SugarFree » Wed Jul 29, 2015 3:49 pm

Have finally been contacted by a real person at Rovi, who asked for specific Guide Information problems. This is what I've sent her, and she's promised to get the right people to look into it.

> please send me some specific examples of programs that do not have the rating or have generic descriptions so we can investigate if this is a Rovi issue or an issue with the way WMC is parsing Rovi data. We need program name, channel, date/time of airing. <

Excellent suggestion! Here we go:

I'm looking at today's guide. At 1 pm on channel 508 (wsbehd) is Masterpiece Theater, which has many individual series. Instead of stating which this is (Poldark, Crimson Field, etc), and giving a synopsis of the episode, it just says "PBS's longest running series is an Anglophiles delight" - and goes on to mention series that ran 40 years ago!

TVLand, 741, 10:30 pm last night. Everybody Loves Raymond. No date first shown. No episode info at all. Generic description: "Ray Romano hit the sitcom stratosphere with this gem based on his stand-up routine." Etc. Same generic description tonight at 10 and 10:30.

Here's another: TCM, channel 230, 1:30 pm. The movie is In the Good Old Summertime.

When Zap2it controlled the guide, this (and every other movie on ALL channels would have the year of the movie, the rating, and a brief synopsis on the first page, and a click left would bring up a second page of a full, multi-paragraph review.

Here's what Rovi has (for this and ALL movies on ALL channels) :

No year made. No rating. No review. A two sentence synopsis that says nothing important. It does have a pretty (and large) movie poster, which is unnecessary and useless.

TCM again, 3:15 pm. The Long, Long Trailer. No rating. No year made. No long description. No second page review.

The guide description was perfect from zap2it, and is virtually unusable (in any meaningful sense) from Rovi. Clearly the info is available to you as well as it was to Zap2it -- why aren't you using it and when will it be restored?

One other major problem with the guide: Search.

One of the great features of WMC is the ability to search for an actor or director, and have the guide download *all* their movies or TV shows. Then you can click on anything, and an option pops up to "record at a later date". The movie/show is then put into your Series lineup and if it is ever broadcast in the future, it automatically records.

Worked perfectly on Zap2it, is broken on Rovi.

Now when you search for actor or director, the only things that come up are those few already on the broadcast schedule. Nothing is downloaded and future recording no longer works.

Please fix this.

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Mike88

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#4

Post by Mike88 » Wed Jul 29, 2015 9:38 pm

SugarFree wrote:Have finally been contacted by a real person at Rovi, who asked for specific Guide Information problems. This is what I've sent her, and she's promised to get the right people to look into it.

> please send me some specific examples of programs that do not have the rating or have generic descriptions so we can investigate if this is a Rovi issue or an issue with the way WMC is parsing Rovi data. We need program name, channel, date/time of airing. <
I also received a response from Rovi. I had contacted them via their website & gave them information on missing titles, missing original air dates, & generic descriptions. They are obviously aware of these issues.

Rovi replied:
"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.

Microsoft and Rovi are investigating the reports of no movie year and generic descriptions.

Please open a ticket with Microsoft in the Connect site (https://connect.microsoft.com/site1145/Feedback). Microsoft will work directly with Rovi on any further issues you might be having."

n4mwd

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#5

Post by n4mwd » Thu Jul 30, 2015 2:34 am

With the recent switch to Rovi I re-ran setup and the setup came to a point where it asked my city. I gave it the closest city. The only problem is that the only channels that show up in the EPG are in that city. Channels in the nearby city don't show up even though I can receive them on the TV.

The other city that was listed in the setup is about 50 miles away and those stations also come in. The problem is that the EPG setup doesn't let me pick both cities and I need both of them. Anybody know how to get around this?

In other words, there is city A and city B. I am between them and normally receive signals from both city areas. The EPG setup makes me choose between A or B. I need both.

prexactly

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#6

Post by prexactly » Thu Jul 30, 2015 3:14 am

I'm in the same situation. For OTA, associating channels with zipcodes only makes sense if you allow multiple zipcodes to be entered, as I would think most people straddle multiple towers/areas/zipcodes. You can get the channels in the guide by running the scan or by adding them manually, but for some reason the guide data will not populate for those manually added (or scanned) channels.

n4mwd

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#7

Post by n4mwd » Thu Jul 30, 2015 1:04 pm

I did like you said and rescanned for more channels. I thought the setup did this automatically, but I was wrong. The rescan brought in all 58 channels, but like you said, while the channels show up in the EPG, the channel data does not. So for the stations located in the other city, it just reads "No Data Available".

The irony is that most of these "No Data Available" stations broadcast EPG data right in the OTA stream, but for some reason, Media Center does not let us access that data.

Anyhow, I assume that they are working on the problem. But for now, it looks like the EPG will be constrained to a 25 mile radius of the entered zip code.

SugarFree

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#8

Post by SugarFree » Thu Jul 30, 2015 1:58 pm

Second email sent to the Rovi Senior Manager who contacted me:

I was able to find an exact example of how your Guide program information is not working compared to Zap2it. The Adventures of Robin Hood is playing on 8/2, 8 p.m. on TCM, channel 230.

First, the thumbnail is not from Robin Hood, but the movie Flying Down To Rio.

Second, your description is: No rating. No year made.

"Epic swashbuckler about the regal outlaw hero and loyal-to-King-Richard defender of the realm who, with the help of his merry men of Sherwood Forest, takes on usurping traitor and his mutinous minions. A Best Picture Nominee, the film won Oscars for editing, art direction and score."

Third, I recorded this film on TCM back in November, and still have the original Zap2it description:

First Page:

1938. Four Stars *** Running time 2 hours, 5 minutes. Correct thumbnail.

"In order to avoid the material copyrighted by Douglas Fairbanks Sr. for his 1922 Robin Hood, the scripters of this Flynn version relied on several legendary episodes that had never before been filmed, notably the battle between Robin and Little Johan (Alan Hale Sr., who played this part three times in his long career) and the "piggy-back" episode between Robin and Friar Tuck (Eugene Pallette). The film ties together the various ancient anecdotes with a storyline bounded by the capture in Austria of Richard the Lionheart (Ian Hunter) on one end, and Richard's triumphant return to England on the other. Robin Hood is already an outlaw at the outset of the film, while Maid Marian (Olivia de Havilland) is initially part of the enemy camp, as one of Prince John's (Claude Rains) entourage.

Marion warms up to Robin's fight against injustice (and to Robin himself), eventually becoming a trusted ally. James Cagney was originally announced for the role of Robin, just before Cagney left Warner Bros. in a salary dispute. Will Keighley was the original director, but he worked too slowly to suit the tight production schedule and was replaced by Michael Curtiz. A lengthy opening jousting sequence was shot but removed from the final print." Written by Hal Erickson, Rovi. [Yes, ROVI !!!!]

General, Movies, Action/Adventure, CC, English (United States)

Second Page Review:

"The Adventures of Robin Hood is one of the screen's greatest adventure films and an excellent example of how the studio system's production-by-committee method could synergistically create what, in that era, likely could not have been created by any single force. The hero behind the camera is co-director Michael Curtiz, who was installed by the corporate chiefs at Warner Bros. midway through production. Curtiz had little to do though, with the impeccably selected cast. Errol Flynn may not have been the studio's first choice, but he is the screen's greatest Robin Hood. Among the film's many pleasures, you can watch for the meticulous attention to detail that was a hallmark of Curtiz's work. Incidentally, if you're wondering how the special effects were done on the split arrow stunt - there were no special effects. The astonishing shot was performed by professional archer Howard Hill, who needed only one take." Written by Richard Gilliam, Rovi [Yes, ROVI !!!]

===========

As you can see, Rovi's current info, compared to Zap2it's guide info -- is useless if one wants to know anything at all about one is about to watch. And the irony is, that ROVI employees wrote all the great descriptions Zap2it used - which means that Rovi has all this information available to it. Why is it not being used? More importantly, when will this valuable information return?

dmagerl

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#9

Post by dmagerl » Thu Jul 30, 2015 2:01 pm

I'm in the same boat, only with 3 cities.

Go download Guide tool and it will let you assign guide data to those stations without any. It lets you assign data from any of the listings in your area. I picked the local cable system and assigned listings from it to those stations without any.

Edgar_in_Indy

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#10

Post by Edgar_in_Indy » Thu Jul 30, 2015 2:18 pm

SugarFree wrote:Second email sent to the Rovi Senior Manager who contacted me:

.....

Why is it not being used? More importantly, when will this valuable information return?
Thank you for your efforts, and for keeping us updated.

SugarFree

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#11

Post by SugarFree » Thu Jul 30, 2015 3:16 pm

Edgar_in_Indy wrote:Thank you for your efforts, and for keeping us updated.
You're welcome. Thanks for starting the new thread. Can my previous post on the older one also be moved here?

Post#1202 » Wed Jul 29, 2015 4:49 pm

SugarFree

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#12

Post by SugarFree » Thu Jul 30, 2015 3:17 pm

Just heard back from the Rovi Manager regarding my email above:

"Thanks. I'll pass this info along too. I did find out from MS yesterday that the rating will not work at this time. The data MS is taking from Rovi does not include that info. At some point MS might include that info but it will take some development work and we don't have an ETA on when/if that will happen.

The year programs were made should definitely come through so we'll look into that and the other items below."

n4mwd

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#13

Post by n4mwd » Thu Jul 30, 2015 4:02 pm

Thanks, Guide Tool fixed it.

Also, it picked up a few scrambled OTA stations. I didn't think that was legal for OTA broadcasts. Anyhow, I'm showing Starz, Showtime and Airbox listed, but no EPG.

Space

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#14

Post by Space » Thu Jul 30, 2015 9:02 pm

It's interesting that I have not found an incorrect picture for any show so far in my Rovi guide. Even looking at this Robin Hood movie, it has the correct picture.
Also noticed that some movies have an "Original air date" which often gives the month/day/year that the movie was released (Robin Hood indicates 5/14/1938, although it is one of very few that have this info on TCM). So it looks like the data is there, it was just loaded in to the wrong field in the database.

mdavej

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#15

Post by mdavej » Thu Jul 30, 2015 11:14 pm

Here's my list of guide issues:

- Thumbnails in guide are sometimes completely wrong
- A few existing recording's meta data gets overwritten with data from an entirely different program
- Movie Guide is mostly broken. Top Rated is completely empty. Genres are limited to just 3 arbitrary categories. About 15% of Movie Guide cover art is missing or wrong.

sam951

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#16

Post by sam951 » Fri Jul 31, 2015 12:00 am

Another guide issue:

Many talk shows (late night and daytime) do not list guests but only a generic statement about the show. The talk shows that do have guest lists seem to be reruns. (Original air date is in the past and REPEAT is given in the title.)

sam951

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#17

Post by sam951 » Fri Jul 31, 2015 12:40 am

Another guide issue:

Shows that have episode data are going back to generic statements in the future. Shows for 7/31 have data but they go back to generic next week. I have just updated the guide and the guide is good to 8/12. Some of the shows are old sitcoms but others are first run soaps.

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#18

Post by Whiznot » Fri Jul 31, 2015 1:28 am

I hate the way the guide behaves when I try to record individual episodes of ESPN's Sportscenter. The Zap2it guide considered every showing of Sportscenter as a new episode which it is. Rovi seems to consider all episodes as the same, consequently, clicking to record one showing is extremely slow while the guide places the i mark on every other episode.

Does this problem happen to everyone or is it unique to me? I sent Rovi an email about the problem. I previously had a missing channel and after I sent them an email they responded and later restored the channel.

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#19

Post by mldenison » Fri Jul 31, 2015 1:51 am

It's not unique to you. I have the same issue with Forensic Files.

hdtv00

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#20

Post by hdtv00 » Fri Jul 31, 2015 2:19 am

Yea look at any late night talk show. zapit used to say what guest was on that night. Rovi tells you nothing , its completely worthless.

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