# Nasty Grey



## GoAWest (Oct 28, 2003)

So I happened to be looking at my not-recorded ToDo list and noticed that Thurs. 11/1 & 11/8 ERs weren't set to record. Poking around I found that it was because Grey's Anatomy was running long (1:08) both weeks. In the last few weeks, I had noticed that ER was being clipped as GA was often running 1:01 or 1:02, but this is the first time I've seen GA run this long, perhaps with an overt effort to block following shows for DVRs?

If the TiVo clip function were more programmable (e.g. not just 5min, but 0-59min?) this wouldn't be as much of an issue since I'd just miss part of one show. In my case, with two S2 single-tuners, I just set up an ER SP on the other TiVo and will use MRV to transfer shows later.

I'm actually getting tired of both GA and ER (follow a few of the plotlines, but read summaries and/or fast-fwd thru the episodes) but this level of scheduling warfare is getting annoying. It's one thing to have to decide between two shows at the same time, but setting up this random overlap (to mess up DVR recording?) is downright nasty. I may end up saying a pox on both their houses if I have to jump thru too many hoops.


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## sieglinde (Aug 11, 2002)

$1.99 solves that problem.  I just download the show that I could not record.


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## GoAWest (Oct 28, 2003)

Neither of these shows is worth $2. I still have four GAs and over a dozen ERs (into last season) that I haven't gotten around to watching. I've got a large upgraded TiVo drive so space isn't a problem, and I leave shows like this hanging around for the next time I have a cold and spend the day laying on the couch reading or watching TV...


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

GoAWest said:


> It's one thing to have to decide between two shows at the same time, but setting up this random overlap (to mess up DVR recording?) is downright nasty.


I think you're giving them too much credit. (BTW, this was a CSI & 'er' problem looooong before Grey's Anatomy came around.)

I won't say that this is absolutely none of the reason, but a bigger reason is so that they can charge higher ad rates for the grey's anatomy episode, so they make "the show" 1:02, to cram in some more ads. 'er' was doing it for years (though they finally started giving correct guide data).. Unfortunately 'er' has shrunk to :59 minutes this year.. I guess shrinking ratings means shrinking show.


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## GoAWest (Oct 28, 2003)

I've seen the 1:01/02/03s on a number of shows (for the extra commercial block), and I had noticed that ER was down to :59 in many cases. But this is the first time that I can recall a show running at an even stranger and longer 1:08 on multiple weeks. They can coordinate this with the next show on their own network, so it either seems like an effort to keep someone from flipping the channel (so missing the end of GA or the start of another show) *or* an effort to keep a DVR from recording a show on a rival network. The TiVo can handle a 5min overlap and still jump (you'll just miss the first few minutes) but 8min-1min = 7min is *just* beyond TiVo's allowed overlap (as I said, if TiVo made that value a user config it would be useful).


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## ctstan (Oct 29, 2004)

If it's only about the advertising money, consider what CBS does with Two And A Half Men. It is scheduled for 31 minutes, yet the next show (this year it's Rules Of Engagement; last year it was "New Christine"), starts "on time", that is at :30 past the hour, during the last scheduled minute of 2 1/2 Men. By doing this, they "lock up" the next 1/2 hour and then get you to see the beginning of the next show (where that extra advertising block should be). If you only schedule the second show, you lose the first minute. (Yes, I could start to record a minute early, IF I knew this was happening, but should I HAVE to?) 

I DO give the network programmers the credit to know that messing with starting/ending times will impact recording. I do NOT think it is a coincidence that GA pushed its ending from 10:01 to 10:02 in reaction to ER's starting at 10:01. 

I think it's time that the networks realize that they are using public airwaves and that, in this age of timeshifting and DVRs, they are not serving the public interest with these scheduling games. I suggest (and I did just this) that people write to the FCC and express their unhappiness. It may not help, but it couldn't hurt. And I intend to further begin to boycott shows that are programmed in this manner (Desperate Housewives has already been chopped). That may hurt more. Watching TV should simply not be this hard.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

ctstan said:


> If it's only about the advertising money, consider what CBS does with Two And A Half Men. It is scheduled for 31 minutes, yet the next show (this year it's Rules Of Engagement; last year it was "New Christine"), starts "on time", that is at :30 past the hour, during the last scheduled minute of 2 1/2 Men.


I'll have to time it again, but it sure seemed to me that Rules of Engagement doesn't go for a full minute (in the 2.5 men timeslot). It seemed like much less than that to me, maybe 10-20 seconds.


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## drr5000 (Oct 18, 2004)

I only have 1 DVR, so my solution was to make a manual recording for ER. Since the manual scheduling doesn't let you pick to the minute, I think I set it up to start at 10:10 and then set it to Start 2 min early... thus getting to 10:08. I don't know what I missed on ER but I didn't even notice to be honest (the biggest dramatic moments aren't usually right at the opening and I don't mind missing the recap).

But I also agree that they're using public airwaves and messing with times like this is not in the public's interest.


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## smofarrell (Nov 9, 2007)

Nasty Grey's overlap caused me to miss the "Run" episode of Without a Trace. The one where Samantha announces her pregnancy. It's not on iTunes, cbs, youtube. anything! Help! Does anyone know where I can get a copy of this episode?


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## Rocketslc (Jan 5, 2004)

ctstan said:


> I suggest (and I did just this) that people write to the FCC and express their unhappiness. It may not help, but it couldn't hurt. And I intend to further begin to boycott shows that are programmed in this manner (Desperate Housewives has already been chopped). That may hurt more. Watching TV should simply not be this hard.


I would add contact / boycott the companies that advertise during that "extra" time period.


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## Havana Brown (Feb 3, 2005)

I think 1:02 is okay, but any longer and you can't clip the next show on a different channel. I had GA set to record but it wouldn't record the show (Cold Case or Without a Trace, one or the other) on CBS because it went extra long!


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## jerryez (May 16, 2001)

I always pad my Sunday CBS shows by an hour, because of football.


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## Syzygy (Aug 17, 2000)

ctstan said:


> If it's only about the advertising money, consider what CBS does with Two And A Half Men. It is scheduled for 31 minutes, yet the next show (this year it's Rules Of Engagement; last year it was "New Christine"), starts "on time", that is at :30 past the hour, during the last scheduled minute of 2 1/2 Men. By doing this, they "lock up" the next 1/2 hour and then get you to see the beginning of the next show (where that extra advertising block should be). If you only schedule the second show, you lose the first minute. (Yes, I could start to record a minute early, IF I knew this was happening, but should I HAVE to?)
> 
> I DO give the network programmers the credit to know that messing with starting/ending times will impact recording. I do NOT think it is a coincidence that GA pushed its ending from 10:01 to 10:02 in reaction to ER's starting at 10:01.
> 
> I think it's time that the networks realize that they are using public airwaves and that, in this age of timeshifting and DVRs, they are not serving the public interest with these scheduling games. I suggest (and I did just this) that people write to the FCC and express their unhappiness. It may not help, but it couldn't hurt. And I intend to further begin to boycott shows that are programmed in this manner (Desperate Housewives has already been chopped). That may hurt more. Watching TV should simply not be this hard.


Same kind of shenanigans with _Heroes _and _Journeyman_: The most recent ep of Heroes was scheduled for 8:00 - 9:05pm CDT, with Journeyman (supposedly) reduced to just 55 minutes; but I recorded them both (in a manual block 2 hrs long) and saw that Heroes ended only 1 or 2 minutes past 9pm. Anyone recording only Journeyman got royally screwed!


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## GoAWest (Oct 28, 2003)

Syzygy said:


> Same kind of shenanigans with _Heroes _and _Journeyman_: The most recent ep of Heroes was scheduled for 8:00 - 9:05pm CDT, with Journeyman (supposedly) reduced to just 55 minutes;


Heroes and Journeyman are both on the same network, so there's no incentive for that network to screw its own viewers or cause DVRs to miss the next show on their own network (e.g. with faulty guide data). Is there any chance that you have a manual pad (start early, end late) on Heroes (or Journeyman)? My most recent Heroes only shows 1:02 (and that's with a "1 min longer" end later pad) followed by a 58-min Journeyman (which might have lost a minute due to the pad).


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## dansee (Oct 23, 2003)

It's getting irritating overall. Three nights a week, Wed, Thurs, and Fri, all cause conflicts because of the 1-2 minute bloat. Last night was even worse: Guide data said that "Bionic Woman" would run until 9:01, but it didn't, and "Life" started on time.

Of course, my recording of "Life" was missing that minute.  

I have multiple DVRs, but only one HD version, and theoretically it should be adequate to handle all I record in HD. Because of this nonsense, it's not. Kind of frustrating.


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## Syzygy (Aug 17, 2000)

GoAWest said:


> Heroes and Journeyman are both on the same network, so there's no incentive for that network to screw its own viewers or cause DVRs to miss the next show on their own network (e.g. with faulty guide data). Is there any chance that you have a manual pad (start early, end late) on Heroes (or Journeyman)? My most recent Heroes only shows 1:02 (and that's with a "1 min longer" end later pad) followed by a 58-min Journeyman (which might have lost a minute due to the pad).


You missed my point totally -- so badly that I must assume you're a prisoner of your own agenda. I said:

_"Anyone recording *only *Journeyman got royally screwed!"_

I didn't miss anything, because I didn't believe the lying (*not *"faulty") guide data, having had plenty of experience with the networks manipulating the guide data to get one up on each other. I recorded the entire two hours as a block so that I wouldn't miss the 5 or 10 seconds it takes to stop a recording and start another.

The 5-minute lie was unique, I think. Previous encroachments have been 1 or 2 minutes as a rule. As I noted, this particular encroachment was also 1 or 2 minutes; the lie may have been an attempt to defeat recorders that can do a little negative padding, but not 5 minutes' worth. Is your DVR one of those? My HR10, of course, can't do any negative padding at all -- AFAIK.


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## GoAWest (Oct 28, 2003)

I don't think I have "an agenda" about anything--just discussing the odd show times--and am thinking this thread is running long for this forum and this title.

My view (in the context of TiVo) is that the programmers are using the odd show times as a weapon against other shows to prevent DVRs from recording the other shows. This is mostly an issue on DVRs without overlap (won't record *any* of show if there's an overlap) but can become an issue as the "1 or 2 min" become "5 or 8 or 10...", exceeding the allowed overlap time.

In the specific case of Heros=>Journeyman, it *seems* like an "only JM" recording would have recorded a couple extra minutes of Heros followed by all of JM *or* missed the first few minutes of JM if the guide data was off. I would say that missing a couple of minutes is only "a little screwed" compared with losing an entire show (aka "royally screwed") for an overlap violation.

Faulty or "lying" data (saying your show runs longer when it doesn't; claiming the show starts later than it does) is a whole other category, maybe more an act of sloppy programming than a malicious attempt to make a user miss the beginning or ending of a show. As I said for this example, there's no incentive for the network to lie on the H/JM guide data to *prevent* someone from watching either sequential show or miss part of shows on their *own* network.


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## Syzygy (Aug 17, 2000)

You're right about this thread going on too long, and it is a bit off topic now.

But "...there's no incentive for the network to lie..."? The obvious incentive, as you've just noted, is to "prevent DVRs from recording the other shows."

I really would like to know if _your_ DVR can't handle a 5-minute overlap -- even though it may be able to handle a 2-minute one. Or is it the user's responsibility to outguess the network as to how much overlap is expected?


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## GoAWest (Oct 28, 2003)

Syzygy said:


> You're right about this thread going on too long, and it is a bit off topic now.
> 
> But "...there's no incentive for the network to lie..."? The obvious incentive, as you've just noted, is to "prevent DVRs from recording the other shows."


I agree--there's another thread that's picked this up as more on-topic. This will be my last post here.

But regarding "...there's no incentive for the network to lie..." I was *specifically* referring to something like the Heroes/Journeyman example where *both* sequential shows are on the *same* network. What incentive does *that* network have to mess up the guide data for their *own* two shows such that a DVR records one and not the other, esp. with the first show being the more popular of the two and running long? Even if they want to play the N-min shift, they'd want the guide data for their *own* shows to be right so that a DVR records both.

This is very different than the Grey's Anatomy/ER case that started this thread, where they overlapped by 8-min (GA long). In this case, this was on different networks *and* was beyond the 5-min threshold of the TiVo S2/3's "Overlap Protection" so the lower SP-priority show would not have been recorded (vs. clipped). In that case, there *would* have been an incentive for a network to fiddle with the times (just run long, which is different than lying) to block DVR recording of the second show.


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## Syzygy (Aug 17, 2000)

Duh! *GoAWest *refuses to see that making Heroes run 62 minutes (until 9:02 CDT) was an attempt to prevent the recording of a 9:00 show on another channel. I really don't know why the network also pretended that the show ran until 9:05, unless it was to foil some unknown DVR that can't handle 5-minute overlaps.


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