On Thu, Apr 2, 2009 at 2:15 PM, David Lynch <[email protected]> wrote: > > On Mon, Mar 30, 2009 at 04:10, JW <[email protected]> wrote: >> >>> I have a strong feeling NBC took a step to not alienate their TiVo >>> viewers. They never mentioned TiVo or DVR, but they did announce >>> early, and then repeat often, that the tournament had been delayed a >>> couple of hours, and that they would be staying on their air until the >>> end of daylight in Florida. I had already padded the ending by an >>> hour, but after the second repetition I took what Dan Hicks was saying >>> essentially as the following warning: "if you are recording this, you >>> better make sure you extend it till at least 8:00 Eastern TIme or you >>> will miss the end". By then I was lagging real time by about 90 >>> minutes. I went back and extended till 5:00 pm Pacific Time. And boy >>> was I glad that I did... >> >> That worked out well for you, but what if you'd just set the TiVo so >> you could go out, and thus missed Hicks' warnings? And, of course, >> there's the much-too-standard problem where 60 Minutes was delayed in >> the east by the NCAAs, which no recording system is designed to >> handle. > > Or any other Sunday afternoon sports event and CBS Sunday evening > television program. When CBS has a late game in NFL season, I'd record > the hour after "The Amazing Race"'s scheduled time just to be sure I > got everything. I was out of town for the last three Sundays, and two > of the recordings started in the middle of 60 Minutes. > > You'd think that, with digital TV being what it is, there could be an > occasional block of data that says currently "26 minutes and 12 > seconds behind schedule" or something like that. However, I don't > figure that enhancing the ability of viewers to record programs was > very high on the priority list when they were designing the ATSC > specs.
It's strange that this sort of thing hasn't been implemented. In Europe for years there's been something called PDC (Programme Delivery Control) which allowed broadcasters to send accurate start/end times if programmes started late (or early) due to sports over-runs, extended news bulletins and the like. This existed in VCR days, although not every channel implemented it. These days, bespoke systems have their own services, but Freeview+ (effectively Tivo without the subscription) employs something called Accurate Recording. This goes even further and will look for additional showings of a programme, if a recording ends up clashing. So the late night repeat gets recorded, should there be one, if the original can no longer be recorded completely. I'd have thought that it was in broadcaster's interests to put this kind of functionality in technology. If I can't easily record a show, I'm more likely to stop watching it - that's particularly the case with serialised programmes. These things do require the broadcasters to keep start and end times up to date when programming overruns. But I'd have thought that Tivo should be able to cope quite easily if it wanted to. Adam --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ TV or Not TV .... Smart (TV) People on Ice! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
