Warning: ABC Lost now officially from 8:00pm to 9:01pm

[moyekj]

This has caused me to have to shuffle a bunch of stuff around with ABC officially ending Lost at 9:01pm instead of 9:00pm on Wednesdays. On the bright side, we won't miss the last minute of the show like happened this week.

ABC: Lost - House of the Rising Sun
08:00 pm - 09:01 pm PDT Wed Oct 27 2004

Just noticed they are pulling the same stunt on Desperate Housewives and maybe other shows too:

ABC: Desperate Housewives - Who's That Woman?
09:00 pm - 10:01 pm PDT Sun Oct 24 2004

ABC: Desperate Housewives - Come In, Stranger
09:00 pm - 10:01 pm PDT Sun Oct 31 2004

[GTDaveMac]

Yes, but all you really miss is about 2 seconds of the show, not an entire minute.

[moyekj]

Originally posted by GTDaveMac
Yes, but all you really miss is about 2 seconds of the show, not an entire minute. The problem is if you have stuff scheduled to record right after that show on the same RTV directly on the hour (perhaps on a different network). RTV conflict resolver will cause you to potentially miss a show. For example, Lost now conflicts with King of Queens on CBS at 9:00pm that I had on the same RTV which would have caused Lost not to record.

[Jeff D]

Well, it might be time to push back... time to talk to the ones in charge, the advertisers.

The trick is finding how to contact the marketing deptartmets to express an opinion. This sucks, good thing my dtivo's don't have any issue with this. =?

[GTDaveMac]

Hmm, i wasn't thinking that this would show up on the actual listings. But, yep, on Zap2it: "61 minutes."

That really sucks. Why would they do this? One could argue TBS's reasoning for 5 minutes, but this seems like it is just to piss people off.

What would we do, or what would DNNA do if all the networks started doing this? Anything?

We would be screwed.

[moyekj]

GTDaveMac, this is not a new problem as NBC has been doing this for at least a year now on several shows, causing lots of havoc the past year... I guess ABC doesn't like us PVRers now too. This is not really a big problem if you have multiple RTVs since it's usually possible to shuffle stuff around to workaround it, the problem is if they keep changing schedules as NBC frequently does. Of course if you only have 1 RTV it's a real pain in the arse since you would have to resort to manual records to work around the problem.

[GTDaveMac]

I hadn't heard about this problem as I just started to refrequent the forums after getting 2 5000s. That would really make me mad if I had 1 replay and was getting conflicts.

Did a net connect and even though on zap2it, still shows up on Replay as 8-9.

[moyekj]

Very often the RTV guide lags several days behind when Zap2it first posts an update. In this case, however, connecting through DVArchive Guide update Lost and Desperate Housewives are already showing up as 61 minutes. (DVArchive uses same listings source as the RTVs).

[l8er]

FWIW, FMC (Fox Movie Classics?) has been scheduling movies at :01 past the hour since I've had cable/satellite, which makes it hard to schedule something right after a recording on that channel.

Like the networks doing some of the odd scheduling, I really don't think it has anything to do with trying to mess up people using DVRs. I'd guess it's the Ted Turner school of thought from TBS. Everything was scheduled at :05 or :35 past the hour. If you started watching something on TBS and watched it until the end, shows on any other channels would have already started 5 minutes earlier, so the logic was: once on TBS, you'd stay on TBS. I believe the networks are now doing some of this type of scheduling with the idea of keeping you tuned in for the next show.

On the other hand, it could just be big plot to screw with people recording shows to skp commercials. :D

[lizard_boy]

It's all about money - NBC was first to do this. They could charge more for a commercial that ran DURING Friends or ER, so they would "borrow" a minute or two worth of commercial time from neighboring shows. This is why Friends would run to 8:32 and ER would start at 9:58ish.

With DVR's it a lose-lose, either the guide time is wrong and you miss the beginning/end of the show, or the guide time is right but it creates conflicts. If only Replay had (1) a to-do list, and (2) negative padding.

[sfhub]

Is this the reason they want to get rid of Eisner?

[MethodMachine]

I guess it is time to get one Replay for each of the major networks. At least The Dreamer is all set.:cool:

[Jeff D]

Originally posted by MethodMachine
I guess it is time to get one Replay for each of the major networks. At least The Dreamer is all set.:cool:


I too have this setup, and just recently thought about doing the "exclusive" use of each box. It's not a bad idea. =)

[barmar]

Originally posted by moyekj
GTDaveMac, this is not a new problem as NBC has been doing this for at least a year now on several shows, causing lots of havoc the past year...

NBC did it on a bunch of shows last year -- Ed, L&O, and Las Vegas I think (and they've been doing it with ER for years). But there were so many complaints that they stopped (again, except for ER).

You'd think that ABC would learn from NBC's lesson, but I guess not.

Actually, what ABC is doing is the opposite of NBC. NBC was mostly starting shows early, but ABC is ending them late. It's easier to understand ABC's practice -- if you drag a popular show into the next timeslot, viewers are more likely to stay with the next program on that network because they've missed the beginning of shows on other networks.

Luckily for me, I've been watching Boston Legal, so DH's change doesn't really cause problems. In the case of Lost, I've set up a manual recording for Jack & Bobby from 9:01 to 10. Most of the first minute is usually "Previously on...", so I don't think I'll miss much.

[GreenLantern]

Originally posted by barmar
...I've set up a manual recording for Jack & Bobby from 9:01 to 10 [on Sunday]. ...Jack & Bobby is great, isn't it? The WB thinks so too, but it's getting clobbered at 9pm Sunday, so they are moving it to 9pm Wednesday starting Oct 27. spread the word and keep this show alive! (The Mountain takes over the 9pm Sunday slot.)

[frankz00]

It's definitely a plus to have mutliple ReplayTVs. I split the record schedules on two but what I also do is create a regular show channel and them create a prioritzed theme channel (depending on how much i like the show) to catch the schedule deviation. This kind of emulates the behavior that I liked on the TiVo that just lets you prioritize all shows (still wish the Replay had it but I do like Replay better overall).

[BulkHedd]

I just realized today that ABC is doing this with Lost. I had it scheduled to record and Jack & Bobby scheduled (I only have one Replay). I decided to schedule a manual recording for J&B from 8:01PM - 9:00PM CST. What's weird is that it showed a conflict for next Wednesday's Lost even though it still shows Lost as airing from 7:00 - 8:01 PM. Does anyone know why this is? There isn't a conflict for tonight's Lost episode.

[eelpout]

Argh. i wish I had seen this thread earlier. My Replay skipped recording The West Wing because of this tonight. Network Programmers are now officially lower on the evolutionary ladder than lawyers.

what's odd is when I checked for The West Wing's taping tonight using a "Find All" it showed up with red dots as usual, not gray. not sure why. should of checked the channel guide I guess. But who would have expected a conflict!?! Time to use DVArchive to check for all these silly time conflicts I guess.

[plyons10]

I agree... even though I saw this coming I missed the first 15 mins. of West Wing.

Fortunately, the show totally blew, so that's fine.

[jarod3371]

and then the networks wonder why bittorent is so popular...I am happy with my replaytv for the most part but this sucks...

I lost the last part of wed. lost episode. I will now download it on bittorent and manually schedule it every week. this is evil. the world is moving to pvr on demand tv, the networks can fight this all they want, this is the way people want to watch tv, I would pay extra to have my shows without the commercials.

I wanted to get away from using bittorent because of the potential legal hassle's and that is why i got my replaytv. up until now, for the last two years i have used bittorent as a poor man's tivo. and the 350mb hdtv file i download off bittorent blows away the pq of the one i recorded from dishnetwork last night!

oh well, i will look at this more carefully in the future, but will continue to supplement my replaytv with bittorent.

[MethodMachine]

So far, 2 Replay units have allowed me to resolve most of these :01/:59 conflicts. If the situation ever gets bad enough, however, I'll just add more DVRs to my Replay farm. I'll fight this bullsh*t the only way I can--with more hardware.

Take THAT evil networks.

[joesc1]

Or just poopli it from other Replay owners. :)

[dnastrain]

I still wish that a manual recording would pickup the show name (and episode) from the tv-guide. No reason it shouldn't. Last time I tested was before the recent software upgrade that fixes the CC problem, and the replay-guide entry stayed as "manual recording".

For anyone with analog-cable, you could try to have MythTV work in cooperation with DVArchive, like this guy did (http://www.dvarchive.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1594&highlight=mythtv)...

Anyone know if a manual record will pickup show name from the tv-guide nowdays?

-dnastrain

[Ace987]

Originally posted by dnastrain
Anyone know if a manual record will pickup show name from the tv-guide nowdays? Nope, it still says manual recording. However, on the 4k and 5k models, you can rename the show and channel name. So, if you do repeating manual recordings, say 8-9pm on Wednesdays, the channel name will at least say whatever name you gave it.