# Battlestar Galactica - Heads Up



## Verne (Nov 21, 2000)

Not sure if it's just me but I set up a season pass to record the original series of Battlestar Galactica which started on Bravo this week. The first two episodes recorded ok but I just noticed on my dailymail that today's episode is not scheduled to record. On further inspection it looks like TiVo have changed the series ID. They originally used the same one as the new series showing on Sky One. They have now changed it and broken my season pass.


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## Milhouse (Sep 15, 2001)

That could well be my fault. The Tribune entries for Battlestar Galactica are for the 1978 series and were incorrectly showing details for the new series, my guess is Tribune have now sorted out the confusion and it is as it should be.

Sorry!


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## Verne (Nov 21, 2000)

That explains it then. At least it is now how it should be. I guess there is no mechanism for the TiVo to automatically transfer the SP across or for them to let us know they have corrected it.

Thank god for dailymail or I wouldn't have noticed until tonight when I sat down to watch it.


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## TCM2007 (Dec 25, 2006)

Only five more days to Season Three. It's been torture not downloading the torrents and waiting!


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## Milhouse (Sep 15, 2001)

TCM2007 said:


> Only five more days to Season Three. It's been torture not downloading the torrents and waiting!


Thanks for the heads up - my first-run only SP for BG on SkyOne isn't picking up the new series! I've had to change it to "Repeat & First Run" and it's now picked up "Occupation; Precipice" [9 Jan 21:00], Exodus (1/2) [16 Jan 21:00] and Exodus (2/2) [23 Jan 21:00]

The OAD for "Occupation; Precipice" is Fri 6th Oct 2006, which is clearly incorrect (it's actually the date this episode aired in the US). I'll report this in the schedule error thread for Ozsat's attention.


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## Tony Hoyle (Apr 1, 2002)

Odd.. it's right on mine - although I'm recording off Sky1HD (197).

Don't see why the data would be different across the two channels though, since they're mirrors of each other.


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## TCM2007 (Dec 25, 2006)

Jan 9th is the *global* OAD for the high definition version of BSG, though, so TiVo is in fact consistent. It's not shown in the US in HD until the end of Jan. Which is why I couldn't torrent it - the picture quality of BSG standard def torrents is unwatchable, as it's broadcast letterboxed in 4:3.


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## kmtv2 (Oct 14, 2006)

My Season Pass also failed to pick up the new series of Battlestar, due to start on Tuesday 9th at 21:00. It wasn't until I changed it to "Repeat & First Run", and then back to "First Run", that it worked!

Originally, my Tivo was reporting that someone had changed the originating SP - I hadn't and the missus wouldn't go any where near SP's. It least it is now back in the To Do list!


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## wonderboy (May 27, 2003)

My SP for Battlestar did not pickup the new episodes either, even removing and adding a new season pass on Sky1 failed to add the new episodes, same for Nip/Tuck on Sky1. I have to manually add them. 

Is this another sky+ conspiracy?


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## childe (Jan 22, 2001)

My season pass seems to be working OK - its picked up the second showing of each of the new episodes.


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## Tony Hoyle (Apr 1, 2002)

Well mine didn't work. I really should have checked the todo list to be sure.

It failed to record with 'Season Pass Modified'.. which means.. err.. what exactly?


Edit: Oh crap now it's buggered completely. I deleted it and when I try to add a new one Tivoweb says 'Error: This season pass has been deleted'.. which is kinda the reason I wanted to add it back!

I see a repeat of guided setup in my future...


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## TCM2007 (Dec 25, 2006)

Repeated Thursday Sky 2 or Sunday Sky 1.


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## Tony Hoyle (Apr 1, 2002)

I can see what happened. Someone changed to OAD to October 2006, so now the FRO - which was working perfectly 2 days ago - is now completely broken. Thanks a bunch Tivo.


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## TCM2007 (Dec 25, 2006)

Sky are not showing S1 or S2 at the moment so there is no need to have FRO set.


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## Tony Hoyle (Apr 1, 2002)

They will though.. Sky love repeating things endlessly - and adding and deleting SPs because they don't work properly is no fun - and one of the reasons I hated Sky+ so much, because it needed a lot of active management to keep going (the other one was it deleted series links randomly which Tivo has never done to me yet).

The point of course is it worked.. and someone pointed out earlier that this is the global first run of the HD version. Tivo clearly disagreed - and without warning broke a perfectly functional SP.


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## Milhouse (Sep 15, 2001)

Tony Hoyle said:


> I can see what happened. Someone changed to OAD to October 2006, so now the FRO - which was working perfectly 2 days ago - is now completely broken. Thanks a bunch Tivo.


They're probably broke SKY1HD in order to be consistent.


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## Tony Hoyle (Apr 1, 2002)

Milhouse said:


> They're probably broke SKY1HD in order to be consistent.


I wonder how consistent they are with their new global FRO policy.

Do the things we see first break the FRO in the US?

Does make me wonder if there's a way of finding this information out from another source and write a script to force it into the EPG data. Digiguide only has 'New Episode' for new series.. which would be an interesting usage of FRO (multiple 'first runs' of each episode) but not quite the way Tivo does it... and I'm not sure you could get the data anyway.


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## Milhouse (Sep 15, 2001)

That would be highly amusing, and only then would this problem would be fixed once and for all!

I really don't understand the global FRO policy to be honest, the explanations and evidence conflict so badly that I really doubt anyone knows what is going on at Tribune. The fact that SKY1HD was working but is now broken only goes to confirm this - there is no policy, it's just one almight cockup that we are funding.


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## Tony Hoyle (Apr 1, 2002)

Well the current run of SG-1 is a global first for the UK. Wait for the howls of protest in a few months from the US...


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## Milhouse (Sep 15, 2001)

Tony Hoyle said:


> Does make me wonder if there's a way of finding this information out from another source and write a script to force it into the EPG data.


An extension to Tracker could work - if Tracker keeps a history (which I think it already does) then Tracker can periodically/automatically look up episodes to see if they have been shown before (either on the current channel or across all channels) and update the OAD if it's incorrect. Obviously the limitation here is that you need to have accrued the history before Tracker will function correctly.

That said, the above is what Tribune should be bl**dy well doing anyway!


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## Tony Hoyle (Apr 1, 2002)

Tracker only works if it's been on the Tivo for a while. After few months I'm sure that it will do exactly what's required (although I guess it'll run out of disk space eventually) but that's still a lot of pain...

That gets me thinking though. Doesn't the Tivo have series/episode information? I'm sure it used to, but TivoWeb no longer displays it. If it's still there somewhere you could have an extension that says 'Don't record anything earlier than Series 10' and it'll knock out all the old episodes automatically (more thinks.. have it automatic, so it knows the maximum series number ever seen and drops episodes recorded before that. Worst case you get the 'latest' season repeated - which tracker will remove anyway - and you don't have to rely on FRO any more).


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

Tony Hoyle said:


> Doesn't the Tivo have series/episode information? I'm sure it used to, but TivoWeb no longer displays it.


Tivo knows about the series Top Gear or the series The Simpsons and it knows about TMID episode numbers. But it doesn't distinguish one Series of Top Gear from another precisely because this is what breaks a Season Pass!  

I suppose if they introduced another separate field for Series Number as well as for Series Name then what you are seeking might be possible.


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## Milhouse (Sep 15, 2001)

It may do, but that solution is - to me - different to solving the FRO problem which can only be fixed with accurate OADs. The only solutions to that (in my mind) are an external script which greps the OAD from a reliable external source or a method that determines the OAD is entirely bogus based on historical channel data. The latter solution could be implemented by the TiVo itself (based on Tracker data) or ideally by the service provider, Tribune.


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## Tony Hoyle (Apr 1, 2002)

Or we could do it ourselves. Tribune used to do it (OAD used to mostly work) but a recent thread on here stated that they no longer do so.. making the feature essentially useless unless someone comes up with a fix.

Not a trivial project, alas.


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## TCM2007 (Dec 25, 2006)

tracker could be used; you would manually load it with the data of old series, then set your SP to First Run & repeats. Tracker would delete the repeats.

To do that would however require knowing the TMSIDs of the old episodes.

All seems a lot more hassle than just cancelling upcoming old series, or even just letting them record and ignoring them!


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## incognito56 (Apr 10, 2004)

The same problem is occurring on both Battlestar Galactica and Nip/Tuck for me as well. Must run to my TV now and change to "repeats and first run"


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## sjp (Oct 22, 2001)

i think Nip/Tuck was subject to a missing update from Sky, or at least my box didn't get an update as I thought Sky were showing 2 episodes from 10pm as my TDL showed. Turns out that there was just 1 ep at 10... whether this confusion in my data caused my first crash/reboot for months or not is debatable, result was I got neither episode. Thankfully repeated on Saturday evening.


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## OrangeDrink (Feb 10, 2004)

Milhouse said:


> That could well be my fault. The Tribune entries for Battlestar Galactica are for the 1978 series and were incorrectly showing details for the new series, my guess is Tribune have now sorted out the confusion and it is as it should be.
> 
> Sorry!


Hey Milhouse don't apologise! I recorded it while at my folks over Christmas thinking it was the New Mini Series (the one that predated the New TV Series). Initially I was disappointed to see it was actually the 78 version but I sat and watched it. Great laugh, it's interesting contrasting the two series so thanks, I never would've watched it if it weren't for the Episode Guide foul up... started watching the episodes on Bravo then. Then I got into a nostalgic haze and spent half my holiday watching Due South and Robin of Sherwood as well


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## DeadKenny (Nov 9, 2002)

Damn! Forgot about BSG and just assumed it was all okay as I saw it was listed in the Todo list. Now it's failed to record it and the history claims someone in the house modified the season pass! 

Future recordings are listed as having another within 28 days, and yet it's not attempting to record any of them.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

DeadKenny said:


> Damn! Forgot about BSG and just assumed it was all okay as I saw it was listed in the Todo list. Now it's failed to record it and the history claims someone in the house modified the season pass!
> 
> Future recordings are listed as having another within 28 days, and yet it's not attempting to record any of them.


I think its actually Tribune who modified your Season pass though from the one originally set though by cancelling that series ID as it was for the wrong series of Battlestar Galactica. Naughty that they try to blame this on someone in your household although this is how it will probably appear to the Tivo.


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## JonO (Oct 9, 2002)

Also wanted to re-iterate this is an issue for Nip/Tuck as just got back from holiday and the new series 4 episode 1 was missed on Jan 8th and also missed the repeats (last night IIRC).

Took a couple of searches to find this thread, so thought I'd add Nip Tuck as key words in this posting.

Solution:
Changed SP from FRO to FRO + Rpt


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## DeadKenny (Nov 9, 2002)

Just to add that BSG (new series Sky One) is still not recording correctly 

I can clearly see it in the listings and it's even on the Upcoming Episodes but it just plain doesn't bother to record certain episodes.

I'm not sure but it also looks like it's marked them to record weeks ahead but then when it comes to the day or a few days before it just drops them or something. I might be wrong though. There's nothing in the ToDo history to even show it's attempting to record them.

I've missed a number of them now and have to resort to getting them by other means.

That's with First Run though. I've not tried with repeats.


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## TCM2007 (Dec 25, 2006)

Standard reply - do not use First Run Only unless you really really need to. It introduces a new point of failure (OAD is wrong) and it's not worth the risk.

BSG seasons 1 and 2 are not currently showing on Sky One so there is no need to have FRO set.


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## DeadKenny (Nov 9, 2002)

Thing is I just had it set from season 1 as FRO and it recorded only new shows. Come season 3 and it's all gone wrong. Surely someone should fix the OADs rather than people only discover it's wrong when it fails to record things?


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## AMc (Mar 22, 2002)

> Surely someone should fix the OADs rather than people only discover it's wrong when it fails to record things?


If you like you can call Tivo CS and report the problem which may eventually get through to Tribune to fix. You can also report it in the special thread which may get it fixed too. But to get around your current problem now you'll need to force it to record manually or change your recording options to first run and repeats.


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## TCM2007 (Dec 25, 2006)

DeadKenny said:


> Thing is I just had it set from season 1 as FRO and it recorded only new shows. Come season 3 and it's all gone wrong. Surely someone should fix the OADs rather than people only discover it's wrong when it fails to record things?


Setting an initial SP for the first showing of the first season of a show to be First Run Only is a really bad idea. FRO has always been a bit broken from the day it was introduced, and hardly anyone realises what it actually does, assuming it controls the recording of shows when the same episode is shown several times in a week. For a new show, it can only break things, it can't help as there are no old episodes to avoid!

During the beta period for 2.5.5 it was pointed out to TiVo that people a) didn't intuitively understand what it did and b) it just didn#t work too often for US import shows where it was too easy to have the wrong OAD in the system. and c) it didn#t work at all for shows first shown on pay channels when thay came to terrestrial (eg, Heroes will have it's OADs set to its SciFi air dates not it#s BBC 2 air dates).

Just Don't Use It!

The only FRO SP I have is for The Simpsons on Sky One. It still misses the odd one, but that's prerable to having to prune a NP full of hundreds of old episodes.


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## DeadKenny (Nov 9, 2002)

I don't usually use FR + Repeats because it normally just records far too much stuff for the things I record as there are so many repeats. In this case I can see how it would be okay if BSG isn't being repeated at present.

Intuitively I just assumed FRO would do what it says on the tin 

Anyway, it's set to FRO now and appears to be working (BSG is still set in my To Do list for 9pm tonight ).


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## Milhouse (Sep 15, 2001)

Another heads up - "Battlestar Galactica: Razor" (almost 2 hour film) is broadcast on Sky One Tue 18 Dec at 9pm with no repeats currently scheduled, and it won't be picked up by a BSG season pass.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

Milhouse said:


> Another heads up - "Battlestar Galactica: Razor" (almost 2 hour film) is broadcast on Sky One Tue 18 Dec at 9pm with no repeats currently scheduled, and it won't be picked up by a BSG season pass.


Surely a Battlestar Galactica film cannot be expected to have the same SP as the regular series. So this isn't actually an error.

I'm sure that a Title Wishlist for Battelestar Galactica restricted to the subtype Movies ought to be able to catch such showings though?


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## Milhouse (Sep 15, 2001)

Pete77 said:


> Surely a Battlestar Galactica film cannot be expected to have the same SP as the regular series. So this isn't actually an error.
> 
> I'm sure that a Title Wishlist for Battelestar Galactica restricted to the subtype Movies ought to be able to catch such showings though?


It's not a complaint, it's an observation. I just used this thread as it's mildly appropriate and relevant to anyone interested in BSG. I'm sure whatever else you said would probably be the case.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

Milhouse said:


> It's not a complaint, it's an observation. I just used this thread as it's mildly appropriate and relevant to anyone interested in BSG.


OK. That's fair enough then.


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