# Tour de France 2007 on Versus



## mportuesi (Nov 11, 2002)

Here's a note for cycling fans who are getting ready for the Tour de France, which starts Saturday.

Here's a link to the schedule on Versus. Note that the times are for east coast. Versus is a rinky-dink network with no west coast feed, so you will need to adjust accordingly if you live elsewhere.

http://www.versus.com/tdf/article/view/758/?ss=tv&tf=Body.tpl

Versus carries the live action, repeats each day's coverage several times, and they finally have a "prime time" show which has the days' action with extra commentary.

Unfortunately, the Tivo guide data is generic, and so if you simply set a Season Pass or Wishlist you'll get everything repeated multiple times.

As I see it, you can follow one of two choices:

1) Put in indvidual one-shot recordings for each day's live coverage - the first broadcast of each day, in the morning. The length of the live coverage varies considerably from day to day, so a simple repeating manual recording won't work unless you pad it out considerably. (The repeat broadcasts often edit down the live coverage).

Also note that in prior years, the live coverage often went over the scheduled times by a significant amount, up to a half hour. Pad accordingly.

2) Put in a repeating manual recording for the prime time show. This starts at 8 pm east coast, 5 pm west coast. The advantage of this choice is that the times and length of each sow is consistent. The disadvantage is that if you live on east coast, as an evening viewer you won't have the full recording and can't fast-forward through unless you wait a day. And you'll have the extra commentary, which may or may not be a good thing.

I live on the west coast, so I did choice 2, 5pm-8pm every day. And I had to manually delete the daily recordings between now and the start of the race.

This is all way harder than it should be.


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## jasoncarr (May 3, 2002)

"Is it being sponsored by a pharmaceutical company this year", he asked innocently?


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## murgatroyd (Jan 6, 2002)

I use strategy 3 -- I go in and delete the timeslots I don't want from the To Do list. 

With the America's Cup, I had the live morning broadcast on one TiVo, and the early-evening repeat on the other, which worked nicely on days where the race was delayed -- if the racing didn't start in the live timeslot, I was able to pick it up on the edited repeat. 

I may put the morning show on one TiVo and the evening on the other, just to get the other commentary (and as a hedge in case the racing runs over the padding on the morning timeslot).

P.S. how hard would it be to make a printable schedule? 

Jan


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## mportuesi (Nov 11, 2002)

jasoncarr said:


> "Is it being sponsored by a pharmaceutical company this year", he asked innocently?


"You can't ride the Tour de France on mineral water" -- Jacques Anquetil

"Better Living Through Chemistry" -- DuPont


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## mportuesi (Nov 11, 2002)

murgatroyd said:


> I use strategy 3 -- I go in and delete the timeslots I don't want from the To Do list.


That's definitely an option, though that's way too much clicking to suit me. Plus you'll have to do it again in a week or so, since the full guide data for the entire Tour isn't there yet (at least it wasn't when I planned it out on mine).



murgatroyd said:


> P.S. how hard would it be to make a printable schedule?


The Versus website, in a word, sucks.


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## murgatroyd (Jan 6, 2002)

mportuesi said:


> That's definitely an option, though that's way too much clicking to suit me. Plus you'll have to do it again in a week or so, since the full guide data for the entire Tour isn't there yet (at least it wasn't when I planned it out on mine).


I check my To Do List every morning -- it's part of my daily routine. So it's not a hardship. YMMV. 

Have you checked your Guide Data lately? My S1s were fine today, picking up only the first timeslot of the day -- one S1 has an SP for Cycling, the other has an ARWL.

I hand-selected the evening show on on of the TiVos, left the morning timeslot on the other.

Jan


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## Rugged (Sep 6, 2003)

murgatroyd said:


> I check my To Do List every morning -- it's part of my daily routine. So it's not a hardship. YMMV.
> 
> Have you checked your Guide Data lately? My S1s were fine today, picking up only the first timeslot of the day -- one S1 has an SP for Cycling, the other has an ARWL.
> 
> ...


I didn't do anything fancy and have not missed a morning (live) show yet. On Saturday while the prolouge was on I set my initial recording/season pass. Told it to keep at least 5 episodes of new or repeats and it has only recorded the morning/live version. I believe my SP is called cycling.

I did the same thing on my HR20 and have had the same luck--although I'm more surprised.

couldn't be happier.


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## DVDerek (Sep 30, 2002)

I'm digging the TiVo prompted - "This is a live event, would you like to add padding" prompts when I go to record! Will be useful when the tour takes to the mountains. I use a keyword wish list and just manually pick the recordings for the tour every Sunday.

Will this be the thread for general tour talk? Do we have rules about spoilers? I remember it being pretty tricky last year. Spoilerize until 24 hours later? Avoid the thread if you haven't seen today's stage? What to do!


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## deli99 (Nov 12, 2003)

DVDerek said:


> I'm digging the TiVo prompted - "This is a live event, would you like to add padding" prompts when I go to record! Will be useful when the tour takes to the mountains. I use a keyword wish list and just manually pick the recordings for the tour every Sunday.
> 
> Will this be the thread for general tour talk? Do we have rules about spoilers? I remember it being pretty tricky last year. Spoilerize until 24 hours later? Avoid the thread if you haven't seen today's stage? What to do!


Actually needed padding for today's Stage 3. I didn't pad, so I missed the end. I will record the evening show to catch the finish.


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## DVDerek (Sep 30, 2002)

deli99 said:


> Actually needed padding for today's Stage 3. I didn't pad, so I missed the end. I will record the evening show to catch the finish.


Ditto. That surprised me.


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## deli99 (Nov 12, 2003)

DVDerek said:


> Ditto. That surprised me.


Like you mentioned, padding isn't usually needed until the mountains, but the peloton was really slow at the start of the stage.

Glad I caught the replay. What a finish! :up:


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## murgatroyd (Jan 6, 2002)

DVDerek said:


> Will this be the thread for general tour talk? Do we have rules about spoilers? I remember it being pretty tricky last year. Spoilerize until 24 hours later? Avoid the thread if you haven't seen today's stage? What to do!


We should probably start a thread in Happy Hour or TV Show Talk, rather than here. This thread should be used for recording mechanics talk.

Jan


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