[mythtv-users] Inconsistent treatment of starttime/endtime vs runtime

[f-myth-users at media.mit.edu]

    > Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2009 01:58:04 -0400
    > From: "Michael T. Dean" <mtdean at thirdcontact.com>

    > In other words, "If the user actually wants to pad the recording."  So, 
    > if a user feels he/she is getting burned all the time, why not just put 
    > a large padding on the recording rules for those movies if he/she 
    > decides he/she has sufficient tuners?

Sometimes you don't have enough tuners.  Sometimes the padding can get
very large (leading to tuner exhaustion).  I already pad---we've been
around this loop, and I believe I've already adequately explained why
that solution isn't feasible and is especially unsatisfactory when,
in my case, I see that information that would -fix- it is already
available.

    > Better, though, if you have specific examples of bad listings data, you 
    > may want to report them to SD.  They can get in touch with TMS who can 
    > get in touch with whatever network is failing to follow the schedule 

This would be an ideal solution, assuming that SD actually has enough
influence with TMS to get TMS to expend the resources to get any given
individual network to actually fix the problem---which is probably
only one reorg from getting broken again if people who care depart.
If SD->TMS->network is actually influential enough, great!  I don't
personally have any data either way.  I'll try it next time & see.

I -have- been reporting many scheduling issues directly to the various
networks for at least a decade---I was a TiVo Series 1 early adopter,
and scheduling issues there were even worse because you can't really
pad everything with only one tuner available in the box.  And before
that, in the era of VCRs, many of the (especially) movie-channel web
versions of schedule listings were often also wildly inaccurate (often
just listing totally the wrong movie or getting movies with similar
titles confused).

Typically, front-line phone people (-absolutely- way back in the first
few years of TiVo and even sometimes now) had no idea how their
scheduling data got to a DVR and didn't think that accurate data was
important.  Sometimes I was able to escalate to someone who appeared
to care, but either they then dropped it on the floor or their
influence was limited in actually getting to the people who actually
produced the data.

Likewise, email reports were mostly black-holed (as I assume they
black-hole the vast majority of -everything- they get), but one was
occasionally acknowledged and occasionally even escalated to the right
people.  It tooks months, for example, to get IFC to care about even
getting their website info correct (much less TMS), but after a year
or two they abruptly improved---I'm guessing someone new took over and
made it a priority.  I doubt my personal reports mattered in that.

[My most-recent report was another TCM runtime-vs-duration screwup
from a couple months ago---not the one that finally prompted me to
start this thread.  Result?  Black hole.]

I don't know if most cable systems that have their own cableco DVRs
use TMS data or some independent feed; if the former, that might also
apply some pressure.  OTOH, to go back to my original examples, TCM,
IFC, Sundance, and others often list incorrect data on their own
websites, and it's that data that's apparently getting propagated into
TMS, so ...