So I was watching the oscars last night. I had to leave for a while but I thougt I'd be back for the end, so I told Tivo to record the remaining show. I wasn't actually back to the TV untill the next day. I then find out that my Tivo stopped recording at the scheduled time of 10:30!! When was the last time the Academy Awards lasted less than 2 hours? Heck, everyone in the show who commented on its length even said at least three! What is up with that?

Yes, sometimes football games only last 3 hours, so it makes sense to schedule that the way they do. But for an event that, as far as I can remember, has never ended before 11:30, it doesn't make sense to schedule it as ending an hour early!

Argh. Oh well, just venting Beautiful Mind was good

Yeah, I told the TiVo to record the opening ceremonies of the Olympics. It recorded it exactly as it was scheduled.

I ended up with the ceremonies getting cut off right as the USA hockey team was reaching to light the flame.

Just keep in mind that if you are ever recording anything that isn't a normal TV show (Oscars, Grammys, Sports games), learn to use the padding option.

Don't blame TiVo -- blame ABC. They're the ones who gave out the scheduled length of the program as being three hours. All TiVo can do take them at their word.

Just be glad you're not in Alaska. Since we're on our own time zone, most of our prime-time network television program is on a tape delay -- they record the east coast feed, and play it back four hours later. Since the local TV stations are not restrained by the necessities of satellite schedules when playing back the programs, they put extra commercials in the breaks to generate more revenue. It is not uncommon for a show that was supposed to start at 10:00 pm to actually start at 10:08. The big problem with that is that the show then ends at 11:09 or 11:10 -- so I miss the last 10 minutes of the show. I can't tell it to stop recording 15 minutes later, because that will conflict with the beginning of another program on a different channel.

I have gotten to where now when I watch any show on TiVo, I automatically skip to the end to see if the end of the show is there -- and just delete the program unwatched if it isn't.

I have informed the station manager of the local ABC affiliate (the worst offender) that I have told my TiVo that I no longer receive their station, because there are no programs they air that I can ever see the end of. Even though I was sure they would mend their ways after I told them this, they just ignored my input and continued as usual.

tanstaafl.

Oh wow, that definitely sucks. and I thought my local statins were bad. I'm sorry to hear that

And ABC actually scheduled for 2 hours, not 3. That's what's unbelieveable. But you're right, I should be mad at them, not Tivo. But it's not like I'm going to get any reaction from ABC on my little complaint. Oh well.

Yeah, ABC must be really stupid to put out that schedule.

Or maybe they figure that everyone who is going to watch it live, or have to set a VCR manually etc knows that it is always 3 hours+ long, and the only things really getting fooled by the incorrect schedule are those pesky devices that allow people to easily skip those revenue-generating commercial breaks.

Or maybe it really is a 2 hour show. Once you take the commercials out.

As a Brit I was always pissed off about the TV licence thing. But having now lived in the US a couple of years, I would gladly pay that fee for those 5 channels.

I would gladly pay that fee for those 5 channels.

If you're talking about 5 BBC channles, DirecTV has BBC America included in their most basic Total Choice plan.

No, he was thinking about the five UK terrestrial channels, BBC1, BBC2, ITV, Channel4 and Channel5.

Yeah, all five. BBC America has some good stuff on it (my in-laws have it), but isn't available on AT&T unless you pay for one of the premimum packages.

You know that the commercialism has gotten too much when the channels need to advertise the current show *between* commercials.

Actually, in the UK (maybe europe at large) we have PDC (programme delivery control), which allows videos set to do timer recordings either start early or finish late if the programme moves. This means that any video bought in the last 5(?) years will generally not miss the start or end of anything - very useful.

Pity the UK Tivo doesn't support PDC

Hugo

you can accully set the tivo to start an hour before the time or an hour after, so if its one of those events that u know will be longer, such as sporting events.

you can accully set the tivo to start an hour before the time or an hour after, so if its one of those events that u know will be longer, such as sporting events.

Yeah, but at that point, it's just a glorified VCR. I thought the whole point of a Tivo was so that you didn't have to tell it when to stop and start.

Well, I use my Tivos primarily as a glorified VCR but that's not how most use it. Most people love the Tivo's ability to suggest things you would enjoy, and then automatically record them. I find this feature extremely annoying and have disabled it on both my Tivos.

My whole issue is that I thought I would be back before it ended anyway. if I had seen that it was scheduled to end an hour early, I would have buffered it. But as Tony said, the Tivo is kinda pointless if you have to tell it what to do.

Plus, as I said for sporting events, most of the time you can predict how those will turn out. Plus, the networks usually schedule a reasonable amount of time for them. Fox schedules at least 3 hours for football games because they know it'll be that long at least. The Oscars have never been less than 3 hours

I thought the whole point of a Tivo was so that you didn't have to tell it when to stop and start.

Actually, you don't.

For example, I have my TiVo set up to sniff out any auto racing it can find. At the same time, I have told it to automatically extend the end time of any automobile race by 30 minutes. I could do the same thing for football or baseball games if I hadn't told my TiVo to never, ever, under any circumstances record any sporting event played with a ball and/or stick.

If the Oscars program had even the slightest interest for me, I could do the same with that show -- and once a year TiVo would record it with the extended end time with no intervention required.

As a general rule, however, I do not specify extended end times, because often as not they will then prevent the recording of some other program. It is interesting that TiVo has the option to start recording early and end recording late, but not vice versa.

I have "fooled" my VCR into dealing with our local TV stations by deliberately setting its clock to be three minutes slow.

tanstaafl.