Voom's PG has taken a Hit this Week. I need your input

[Sean Mota]

This week has been the worse that I can think of with the PG information. Cinema 10 premiere movies were not shown on correct day. Today Discovery HD Theater has two premiere programs and one of them is not in the PG. Yesterday there were more problems with the guide as well. ESPN-HD program guide was incorrect this week as well.

Somebody asked the question -- what good is a DVR if the PG is not correct? I know this happens with every provider but this week in VOOM seems to be happening with a lot more channels. I like to compile a list of problems with the guide and things that we would like them to improve on it and I will send it to the programmers. A PG should be easy to correct or add features. Here's my list. (btw, it does not look like it makes any difference sending complaints to zap2it. I have sent several and they never acknowledged my emails and the problems are still unresolved)

Current Problems:

1 - Incorrect listing of Movies on HD Cinema. Sometimes the PG is incorrect.
2 - TNT-HD shows every program designated as HD. We know that this is not correct.
3-Playboy Hot HD shows every program designated as HD as well and this is not correct.
4- Encore-HD shows every program designated as HD and this is not correct.
5- TMC-HD shows no HD designation at all when we know that there are HD movies in this channel.
6- Showtime-HD sometimes show HD designation while other times it does not.
7- MOOV-HD should have better program description. "Video Art" is not helping anyone. If we cannot see what is going to be shown, it is not worth having the channel.
8-Showtime-HD shows no designation for some programs that are in HD.
9-PG out of Synch: it was listing the correct movie, but the times were all messed up
10-Bad designation on OTA sub-channels
11-Animania Classics: Be more specific what's on.
12-Rave: Concerts on Rave PG does not tells you the artist.


Need improvements:

1- Need to put a "Premiere" designation on PG to show that the movie or show is being shown for the first time in this channel.
2- Need "Live" designation to show event is live. This specially true on WorldSport Soccer games. If they can do it for ESPN why not for WorldSport.
3-Repeat after program if it applies
4-OAR designation
​

I am sure that there is more but I can't think of another one at this time.

 

[slicer40]

I believe this is all due to new boxes being shipped with new s/w where pg &s/w versions are split, as has been posted here.we will see this until we get updated s/w for our [1st gen boxes].

 

[Scotty]

first I lost the call letters from the channel number section of the info bar at the bottom of the screen but still had program guide details. Now I've completely lost the program guide details. No more show info. It all just says (no info).

I hope this is a sign of the impending upgrade.

 

[Ilya]

Here are some other complaints about the PG, perhaps not specific to this week:

1. On several occasions I had a situation, when I wasn't able to catch the beginning of a movie on Cinema-10, because the PG was out of Sync. It was listing the correct movie, but the times were all messed up. It usually happened when the movie was longer than 2 hours, and didn't quite fit into the standard 2-hour block.

2. Certain program descriptions have important information enclosed in quotation marks (e.g. the name of the artist on Rave). This portion of the program description is never shown in the Surf Bar or on the Program Info screen. Not sure if this is a bug in the software, or an improperly organized PG info.

3. PG is not updated quickly enough. Remember live broadcasts on WorldSport? The PG was almost never correct about those live events! Very frustrating!

4. I don't know if this can be easily corrected, by I get HD designations on OTA SD sub-channels. (e.g. 3.1 and 3.2 have the same programming, but 3.2 is an SD sub-channel).

 

[DarrellP]

Same with Animania, I don't care about "Classics", tell me in the descripton what's on. Another beef I have, on Rave, they don't tell you who the artist is a lot of the time, it will say, '"See the band play thier top hits" but no mention of who it is.

 

[vurbano]

I think they should put "repeat" after the program if it applies.

 

[Ilya]

Another beef I have, on Rave, they don't tell you who the artist is a lot of the time, it will say, '"See the band play thier top hits" but no mention of who it is.

They actually do, but it is enclosed in quotation marks, and (probably due to a bug) you can only see the quoted text at the top of the PG screen, not in the Program Info screen and not in the Surf Bar. (See my comment above.)

 

[barth2k]

how about "produced and presented in hd" as a orogram description, on a voom exclusive channel no less. well duh, I hope so.

 

[Ilya]

How about OAR designation?

 

[squicken]

3. PBHOTHD--This one doesn't bug me too much. Given the fake breasts, I expect to be misled.

2.TNTHD-- Why haven't arrests been made yet? Or some sort of FTC lawsuit? Where's Ralph Nader? This is atrocious. You never have an idea when a show will be HD or not. And the 5.1 flag. Bullflop!!

PG on Voom originals. Wasted afternoon waiting for Hooisers. Only by luck did I catch it the next day. It's time to stop blaming Tribune. Ultimately, Voom is in charge of what comes out of their STB. Voom needs more accountability in every aspect of their organization, imo. Too many mistakes. You think Vince Lombardi would tolerate this crap? Or Jack Welch? Gordon Gecko? Not for 2 seconds.

Recommendations:

HBO-HD Bring some of HBO original films to HD. I would assume these were filmed, and hopefully with an eye toward the future so in widescreen. I'd like to see Gia, Barbarians at the Gate, Norma Jean and Marilyn, and Weapons of Mass Distraction show up in my PG. How's that for entirely off-topic on-topicness? I'd really like to see Gia HD transfer in the the PG, please.

 

[rtt2]

Cablevision's cable system is the same way. It screws up often.

They use Tribune for guide data

All other providers use Gemstar/TVGuide for guide data. CV has a dispute and a personal war going on with Gemstar, Similar to the one that they have with Mark Cuban.

 

[rudolpht]

How about OAR designation?

Yeeha. Concur.

I also think there should be a Theme appropriate designation, like a big circle with a slash through it for all the non epics on Epics

 

[kawdog]

They need better descriptions on Rave. Something like "the five artists perform a selection of bluegrass songs from their careers" does not tell me anything. Some have the artists names, some don't.

kaw

 

[Impatient]

Somebody needs to give Tribune/Zap2It better data. I have a directdata guide feed from Zap2It for my MythTV DVR. I went searching through the database. PlayboyHD has every program set as HDTV. TNTHD marks 227 shows as HD and 2 as SD (2 of 9 episodes of Angel. Why only 2, I don't know).

Every show in the Zap2It data has an original air date. The data providers are just not giving them useful data to put in. Spice Clips has the same description/original air date for every episode. The same for Spice Hotel. So, the people to yell at for that one is PlayboyHD/Spice because they are not providing per episode data. The default for the show is being used.

The networks do the same. If the description for M*A*S*H is "Army surgeons blow off steam between hours of combat surgery", they did not provide the episode data to Tribune/Zap2It.

Information from a that is available from a useful entry:

chanid: 7
starttime: 20040718150000
endtime: 20040718160000
title: Andromeda
subtitle: The Warmth of an Invisible Light
description: Transported to an alternate reality, Dylan finds that Harper's evil counterpart has overthrown the Commonwealth.
category: Science fiction
category_type: series
airdate: 2000
stars: 0
previouslyshown: 1
title_pronounce: ""
stereo: 1
subtitled: 0
hdtv: 0
closecaptioned: 1
partnumber: 0
parttotal: 0
seriesid: SH388863
originalairdate: 2004-02-09
showtype: Series
colorcode: ""
syndicatedepisodenumber: 413
programid: EP3888630079

Another example the lazy way:
| 101 | 20040722140000 | 20040722160000 | Tom Thumb | | A forest queen rewards a woodcutter and his wife with a son (Russ Tamblyn) just shy of six inches high. | Fantasy | movie | 1958 | (stars)0.875 | previously shown= 0 | "" | stereo = 0 | subtitled= 0 | hdtv= 1 | cc= 0 | 0 | 0 | | NULL | | | | MV0081590000 |

The previously shown = 0 there shows that Voom is not providing "correct" data on their exclusives. That was taken from the fourth repeat for the day. Original air date = NULL I would give them slack on, considering the age of the movie. Looking further, it looks like that is only set by Voom for tv shows and not movies. Other channels are setting the value.

I found some of the movies on MonstersHD have the colorcode set to "B & W". So, I would say Voom is providing "mostly" correct data for their exclusives.

Enough useful fields are there for a DVR to make good choices if the data fed to Tribune is correct and Voom reads all the data.

 

[Frazier]

One other beef. With E* when you scroll using the arrow buttons, you can directly access and preview the program information for a channel by typing the number.

With Voom when you scroll using the arrows and type a channel number the channel changes . When I'm scrolling/previewing I want to be able to see what's on another channel without changing so it is truly previewing. A much simpler way than the menu gyrations using the Voom button.

 

[Dvlos]

Small beef in addition to all that has been said, I personally want to know why a movie or show is rated the way it is... maybe list the reasons like HBO or Cinemax does before it starts (Violence/Nudity/Language for example) it may seem dumb but not to me.

 

[DarrellP]

Totally agree, Frazier, also when scrolling with the surf bar, we should only see what's in our Favorites list.

 

[Sean Mota]

Totally agree, Frazier, also when scrolling with the surf bar, we should only see what's in our Favorites list.

Agree with you Darrellp but you know that if you press the Yellow button (instead of scrolling), you will only see your favorites, right?

 

[DarrellP]

Yes, I know that Sean, but it's a PITA to do that, why not just have the Favorites or subbed shows display?

 

[Frazier]

I agree with DarrellP. The yellow button feature is a new nice one for me though , but you can only scroll one way. Maybe a feature that you can change to lock the channel options so only your favorites show would work.

The simpler the better, especially to keep V* growing.