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TiVo conspiracy

A

Agentbolt

Diamond Member
I was reading an article a few days ago about how the major networks are annoyed with TiVos/DVRs because there's currently no way to stop people from fast forwarding through the commercials.

Lately I've been noticing more and more shows end early and start late. Shows start at 8:03, or 7:58, but they never seem to start right at 8. More importantly, shows seem to ALWAYS somehow end at least 2 or 3 minutes past when they are supposed to. I've missed the ending of it seems like dozens of episodes of Lost, or 24. I don't think I've ever seen the first 3 minutes of a My Name is Earl episode.

Of course, it's entirely possible shows have always done this and I simply never noticed, but it's getting pretty blatant. You'd think it'd be a relatively easy fix to make sure shows start when they're supposed to. Anyone else think this is simply a deterrent to watching recorded shows, and encouraging people to watch live instead?

THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE
 
I think this is pretty widely known that the networks are doing this and not really a conspiracy 🙂
 
Originally posted by: Agentbolt
I was reading an article a few days ago about how the major networks are annoyed with TiVos/DVRs because there's currently no way to stop people from fast forwarding through the commercials.

Lately I've been noticing more and more shows end early and start late. Shows start at 8:03, or 7:58, but they never seem to start right at 8. More importantly, shows seem to ALWAYS somehow end at least 2 or 3 minutes past when they are supposed to. I've missed the ending of it seems like dozens of episodes of Lost, or 24. I don't think I've ever seen the first 3 minutes of a My Name is Earl episode.

Of course, it's entirely possible shows have always done this and I simply never noticed, but it's getting pretty blatant. You'd think it'd be a relatively easy fix to make sure shows start when they're supposed to. Anyone else think this is simply a deterrent to watching recorded shows, and encouraging people to watch live instead?

THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE
Click to expand...
I can't believe they're doing this. You should have said *BREAKING NEWS* in your summary. I almost didn't click on this thread.

 
Replaytv lets you adjust the recording time, having the recording start a couple minutes before and end a few minutes after the show.
Thats what I do.
 
With TiVo, and I imagine other DVRs, you can set your recordings to start a couple minutes early and end a couple minutes late if they are really that important.

R
 
I have a hard time believing this is a network conspiracy especially since most networks offer full episodes for veiwing over web. The networks can integrate national advertizing into shows to subsidize profit loss from commercials getting skipped over. Hopefully this will happen seamlessly so our 30 minute show is really 30 minutes one day. Hell I don't mind if Earl grabs a coke and a snickers then rents a ford mustang from enterprise on his way to help the one legged man win an ass kicking contest.

I occasionally miss the very beginning or very end of a show but it is rare, perhaps your local affiliates, or the cable company is jacking with your feed with bad timing of local commercials.
 
...this is why I start recording -5 minutes from start time and end recording +5 minutes. Who starts exactly on the minute anyway...that's BEGGING to miss the first few minutes of a show...
 
Originally posted by: chambersc
...this is why I start recording -5 minutes from start time and end recording +5 minutes. Who starts exactly on the minute anyway...that's BEGGING to miss the first few minutes of a show...
Click to expand...

back when I used a tivo, there wasn't much choice if you wanted to record a show on one channel and then immediately following that, record a different show on a different channel. 🙁

but now I have a dvr with 4 tuners. it's ftw.
 
this is why I start recording -5 minutes from start time and end recording +5 minutes
Click to expand...

I actually do do this for Lost, but when you have the season pass thing turned on for stuff (I use a Cox DVR, not TiVo precisely) there's no way to automatically have it adjust that few minutes. Which basically means every week you need to go through your shows and manually adjust the time +/- a few minutes for each one. It's hardly grueling manual labor, but I'm a powerfully lazy man and rarely do it. I prefer to complain instead.

Regardless of what shows are put on the Internet to watch, local networks ARE pissed off about commercial skipping, to the extent that they attempted to introduce legislation several times to make it illegal to do so. They wouldn't make such a PR-unsavvy move unless they were really annoyed about it in the first place.
 
Originally posted by: Agentbolt
this is why I start recording -5 minutes from start time and end recording +5 minutes
Click to expand...

I actually do do this for Lost, but when you have the season pass thing turned on for stuff (I use a Cox DVR, not TiVo precisely) there's no way to automatically have it adjust that few minutes. Which basically means every week you need to go through your shows and manually adjust the time +/- a few minutes for each one. It's hardly grueling manual labor, but I'm a powerfully lazy man and rarely do it. I prefer to complain instead.

Regardless of what shows are put on the Internet to watch, local networks ARE pissed off about commercial skipping, to the extent that they attempted to introduce legislation several times to make it illegal to do so. They wouldn't make such a PR-unsavvy move unless they were really annoyed about it in the first place.
Click to expand...
Not to be rude, but seriously. Are you new to the DVR and Tivo thing? This has been going on for a few years.

Regular users (even the uneducated DVR ones) have known this for a long long LONG time. And BTW, local networks are getting theirs so they don't really care.
 
Actually Wiseass, I am new to the Tivo/DVR thing. Obviously this isn't huge news, but I wasn't aware of it till now myself. It's not like the networks have ever publically said "We're gonna mess around with start times for shows to screw over the TiVoers out there" I don't recally having any particularly in-depth conversations with TiVo people before I got mine.
 
Originally posted by: Agentbolt
Actually Wiseass, I am new to the Tivo/DVR thing. Obviously this isn't huge news, but I wasn't aware of it till now myself. It's not like the networks have ever publically said "We're gonna mess around with start times for shows to screw over the TiVoers out there" I don't recally having any particularly in-depth conversations with TiVo people before I got mine.
Click to expand...
Seriously, you've never watched TV and noticed the shows starting a couple of minutes before the top of the hour or finishing a minute or so after the hour??? I'm talking about pre-Tivo for you.
 
I genuinely had not noticed that. Then again, I usually tuned in a few minutes beforehand anyways. I am quite certain it's worse now than it was even a year ago, however.
 
Originally posted by: Agentbolt
I genuinely had not noticed that. Then again, I usually tuned in a few minutes beforehand anyways. I am quite certain it's worse now than it was even a year ago, however.
Click to expand...
Are you adverse to quoting? NM. I'm really being a smartass now.

But yeah, networks have been doing this alternate timing for years. Telling everybody that the "TRUTH IS OUT THERE" is really real because it's been there for you the whole time if you had used Google.
 
This is why rolling your own PVR rig can be nice. I'm using beyondTV with multiple tuners and have it set to start and end with an extra 2 minutes of padding. The people who make the schedule it uses also do a good job of imputting the early early start times, etc. so usually the padding isn't needed.
 
Originally posted by: ChefJoe
This is why rolling your own PVR rig can be nice. I'm using beyondTV with multiple tuners and have it set to start and end with an extra 2 minutes of padding. The people who make the schedule it uses also do a good job of imputting the early early start times, etc. so usually the padding isn't needed.
Click to expand...

did you update to 4.6? if so hows the stability?
 
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