# Discussion Thread for Urgent Pad Recording Alerts (ALL ZONES)



## PopcornGuy

After receiving some feedback, I have started this thread to allow for the normal forum discussions for the "Urgent Pad Recording Alerts" thread.

POST URGENT ALERTS *ONLY* TO THE FOLLOWING THREAD:

EAST: http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=422910
(other time zone threads and links will be added here if this works as planned)

To get the intended results, the alert thread should be subscribed to with the setting of "Instant Email Notification". Only post to the alert thread when you are letting other users know of schedule changes for later that day caused by live sports or other television events. Your will receive an instant email notification when anyone posts to the thread. You will also need to visit the TCF website to receive another instant email notification again later.

Please post for entire network changes, not just a single show. For example, when the earlier game/event ends and the lineup for the remainder of the day is determined, a post could state: "CBS prime time lineup pushed back 54 minutes for Sunday 3/29." Details for individual program times could be included.

PLEASE DO NOT POST FOR LATE RUNNING SPORTING EVENTS. You should automatically pad your sports recordings anyways. Most of us that plan on time-shifting a sporting event don't want to know anything about it (overtime/extra innings) before we watch it.

This should come in handy if the thread is used properly. PLEASE SUGGEST AND COMMENT IN THIS THREAD ONLY - posting general discussion or replying to other users directly in the alert thread will defeat its useful capabilities.


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## azitnay

Great idea... I can't count the number of times I've missed a schedule change because the post about it was on the same day, and I didn't see it until the next morning, when it was too late.

Drew


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## MountainMan41

Jog my memory.
What, other than sports, shifts network times and is only known on the day it happens.
Thanks.


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## MirclMax

My only issue with this is that replying to an existing thread does not affect how it is listed in the RSS feed. 

My suggestion is that if someone has something that should go into this thread to trigger e-mail alerts, that they also post a new thread about it as well.


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## ctstan

MountainMan41 said:


> Jog my memory.
> What, other than sports, shifts network times and is only known on the day it happens.
> Thanks.


From what I've seen, many networks (ABC is particularly bad) change their shows by 1 or 2 minutes on the day of broadcasting. WHY they do it? Probably for advertising purposes. Regardless, it happens and sometimes you miss the ending/beginning because of it. Also, some live shows, such as Dancing With The Stars or American Idol, run overtime. Sometimes they don't affect the ending time of the following show and sometimes they do.

I hope this helped.


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## Worf

There are also times some shows run long without prior notification - I've seen some shows overrun their time slots by 15 minutes! And this is a regularly scheduled program with a well-defined time slot, and none of this "an episode so big, it won't fit in an hour!" ads.


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## tbb1226

azitnay said:


> Great idea... I can't count the number of times I've missed a schedule change because the post about it was on the same day, and I didn't see it until the next morning, when it was too late.
> 
> Drew


I don't understand how having this new thread makes it possible for you to see the post any earlier. If you don't log in until the next morning, you will still miss the post.


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## azitnay

Instant email notification vs. daily email notification... I don't want to get an email every time someone posts a new topic about some random show I may or may not care about in here, so I use daily email notification for this board. However, if someone doesn't post about something until the day it's going to occur, the daily email notification won't catch it until the next morning, when it'll be too late. However, if they post it in this new thread, which I have instant email notification setup for, I'll get an immediate email.

Of course, in order for it to work, people will have to use it correctly, and that's probably a tall order... Posts referencing same-day events should be made in this new thread, while posts referencing events on future dates should be kept out.

Drew


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## PopcornGuy

MountainMan41 said:


> Jog my memory.
> What, other than sports, shifts network times and is only known on the day it happens.
> Thanks.


I'm not sure what exactly you meant by your post and I probably wasn't clear enough when I stated not to post for late running sports or other events so I'll cover both:

1. What I meant was don't make an alert post FOR THE SPORTING EVENT ITSELF - for people to add time to a sporting event because of a delay, overtime, etc. In my opinion, I would not want to know ANYTHING about the game running over the scheduled time and always add extra time to the recording automatically whenever possible just in case. Post alerts only for the resulting effect of the long running sporting event.

2. I would say 95%+ of the time the alert scenario is caused by a sporting event. The "other television event" could be anything else like an early evening "breaking news" story (probably would need to be on the national level to effect prime time), Obama speech, etc. If I had said sporting event only, someone else would inevitably come up with one of the "others".


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## PopcornGuy

MirclMax said:


> My only issue with this is that replying to an existing thread does not affect how it is listed in the RSS feed.
> 
> My suggestion is that if someone has something that should go into this thread to trigger e-mail alerts, that they also post a new thread about it as well.


I agree. Maybe the thing to do is create a new thread as we always have (this covers the RSS people) and drop a link to that thread in the alert thread along with at minimum the network name and date - I think the date should still be there so it stands out better and helps avoid double posts).

The first post will be updated on the alert page later this week. I don't want to update the alert thread too frequently since it may send an email for a revised post. (don't know???)


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## azitnay

I don't believe simply editing a post causes an email alert... But there's only one way to find out for sure .

Drew


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## PopcornGuy

I've been testing out the instant email notification using THIS thread and found this out from my own experience.

I generally use my computer for posting to TCF and check email on my phone. When I clicked on the alert email link I went to the forum and read the new post. That was the last alert I received. I found out today that I need to be logged in to TCF on my phone as well to meet the website visit requirement to reset the email alert. Even though the email is personalized to my username, the website did not recognize me through the email link. Logging in on my phone browser with "remember me" checked now sends the alerts as it should.


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## PopcornGuy

There should be a good opportunity to test the system this coming weekend. Final round coverage of The Masters on CBS is scheduled to end at 7 PM followed by 60 Minutes and The Amazing Race. Any televised golf past 7 PM WILL effect the evening schedule.


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## EvilMidniteBombr

PopcornGuy said:


> 1. What I meant was don't make an alert post FOR THE SPORTING EVENT ITSELF - for people to add time to a sporting event because of a delay, overtime, etc. In my opinion, I would not want to know ANYTHING about the game running over the scheduled time and always add extra time to the recording automatically whenever possible just in case. Post alerts only for the resulting effect of the long running sporting event.


So you wouldn't want to know that game you were interested in went into several overtimes? Tournament game times can be affected quite a bit by the games preceding them. (Syracuse played 8 OTs in the NCAA Tournament this year but luckily it was the last game of the night)

Sometimes there may be several injuries during a game that cause a total delay of over 1/2 hour. I've seen it happen in football more than once. Granted some padding will catch things like that. But what if the game wound up going into overtime.

You wouldn't want to know that a tornado narrowly missed the arena in which a tournament was being held. Thus delaying the game that was in progress by 40 minutes. Which caused the following game to be pushed to another night? (SEC Men's basketball tournament 2008)

I sure would like to know. As long as no spoilers are posted, I see no problem with it. Not allowing updates about sporting events just because you don't like it doesn't mean it won't be appreciated by many more people.


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## tbb1226

azitnay said:


> Instant email notification vs. daily email notification... I don't want to get an email every time someone posts a new topic about some random show I may or may not care about in here, so I use daily email notification for this board.


Well, except for the recent flurry of activity in this particular discussion thread, the number of posts to the "Season Pass Alerts" forum is usually no more than a handful per day. It's your choice that gives you only the daily summary email, and if you were willing to accept a couple of "unimportant" alerts per day to receive the one "vital" alert you want, there would be no need for this extra-special, rule-riddled sticky thread for schedule changes.

Does anyone else smell irony?


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## PopcornGuy

It sounds like we need a poll for this. Just knowing a game was going into double OT would be a big spoiler. You should pad as much as you can spare just in case.


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## EvilMidniteBombr

No one said you had to know the game was going into OT. Just posting something that says "Add extra hour to Turkeys vs Forks game" should not spoil anything.


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## PopcornGuy

EvilMidniteBombr said:


> No one said you had to know the game was going into OT. Just posting something that says "Add extra hour to Turkeys vs Forks game" should not spoil anything.


I can see your point too. I put more emphasis on the sense of it still being a live game - even if its on a 3-hour delay for me. If there's 30 seconds left in the 4th quarter with 10 minutes to go in the regular alloted time but I already know I needed to add an hour, it changes the experience. You value the fact that you've got the ending recorded without a doubt - no risk of missing anything at all.

I think sports will need its own alert thread if THIS idea test even works. PST can be added later too - but I would think there are less of these schedule issues there. Its just a test using the EST schedule changes that effect later programs that day. It can only work if everyone's on the same page with this. Even then it might not.


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## AccidenT

tbb1226 said:


> Well, except for the recent flurry of activity in this particular discussion thread, the number of posts to the "Season Pass Alerts" forum is usually no more than a handful per day. It's your choice that gives you only the daily summary email, and if you were willing to accept a couple of "unimportant" alerts per day to receive the one "vital" alert you want, there would be no need for this extra-special, rule-riddled sticky thread for schedule changes.
> 
> Does anyone else smell irony?


Wow, the length and passion of your rant fooled me into believing that you knew what you were talking about! I was sorely disappointed to find that there is still no instant notification option for _forum_ subscriptions. That's the whole reason a "special" thread is needed.


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## tbb1226

AccidenT said:


> Wow, the length and passion of your rant fooled me into believing that you knew what you were talking about! I was sorely disappointed to find that there is still no instant notification option for _forum_ subscriptions. That's the whole reason a "special" thread is needed.


Thanks for the positive feedback. I actually believed I knew what I was talking about, too 

I get instant email updates from some other forums that I subscribe to, so I assumed that option was available here. Sorry for the detour.


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## sieglinde

I wonder if an RSS feed could be set up for just this sort of thing. A warning to subscribers could be "possible spoilers" for games going into overtime. (That would be pretty humerous if the thing going overtime was a Presidential speech or something of that like.)


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## mattack

I can't believe I'm suggesting this, because its existence is one of the signs of the apocalypse...

but a twitter (account? feed? whatever you call it) thing for this would be good... Since I now have a work provided phone, I have signed up for a VERY few twitter (things).. e.g. hdtvpodcast and Penn Jillette's..

Having a twitter message tell me that American Idol ran 10 mins long would have helped me rather than have to keep checking on it last night (so I would get the full Fringe)..


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## Worf

Dang it, this would've been useful between American Idol and Fringe... it appears that everyone had American Idol run 10 minutes over and thus having Fringe chopped off...

Edit: Whoops, major typo!


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## AccidenT

Worf said:


> Dang it, this would've been useful between American Idol and Fringe... it appears that everyone had American Idol run 10 minutes over and thus having Fringe chopped off...
> 
> Edit: Whoops, major typo!


I think you spelled it right the first time.


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## Space

Is anyone else not getting email notifications for the "Urgent Pad Recording Alerts (EAST)" thread? I have been subscribed for a while now (with email notification) but I do not received any emails when there is a new reply in the thread.

I have just unsubscribed and resubscribed to see if that fixes it...


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## azitnay

Just a friendly reminder, general discussion (as has been going on today) doesn't belong in the "Urgent Pad Recording Alerts (EAST)" thread.


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