Sky+ needs a re-think

[Purple]

On Sunday I rolled out of bed at 1230 following a bumper night of game playing, went to Tesco to buy some munchies with a plan to return and watch the conveniently Sky+'d F1 European GP.

After arguably the most exciting race of the season, my flat mate and I were on the edge of our seats cheering on Alonso to hit the back of Massa as he tried to overtake him with 8 laps to go (I'm hoping for a debut season World Championship for Hamilton).

Then we both shouted NOOOO! As the Sky box calmly presented 'End of Recorded Program'.

The problem here being because of the extended race due to the problems of the weather the program was then extended and the Sky box could not deal with this eventuality, annoying to say the least.

Did anybody else have this problem?

The thing is, this is a real problem as there are many programs that may get extended and the Sky+ box is incapable of dealing with this, for example the FA cup, Champions League, Wimbledon, Snooker, Darts, I cant think of anything other than sport but still that is quite an important thing.

Just a gripe.

[Craig321]

Yup, the rest of the Grand Prix went onto the Superbike Championship, so Sky+ thought it had finished.

[GoNz0]

o that sucks, at least the good old VCR when using videoplus could cope with run ons..

[Purple]

Ah so it's ITV's fault. There's a shock.

[GoNz0]

more like half the drivers deciding to go sailing on the water and stopping the race causing massive over run

[Dorza]

It is not the sky box at fault, but the broadcaster. If the broadcaster* changes the duration of a program and by doing so putting the start of another program back the sky+ box will pick up the change in the TV guide and keep on recording the extended bits.

In the past a program I am recording has over run but the Sky+ box has kept recording because it picked the change up in the TV guide. While there have been other times when the TV guide hasn't been updated and the recording gets cut off.



*Not sure if it is Sky or the channel broadcaster that submits changes, I'll assume it is the channel broadcaster because they should be in control of their channels and not sky (even though sky would like to control everything).

[GoNz0]

so it is as clever as video plus then

[g8ina]

Same happened to us

In the Sky+ system menu, make the "add time to end of recording" 30 minutes or longer (cant remember offhand if that's the max) - that will give you some leeway, esp for live sports events. I will change mine for all GP and MotoGP from now on

[MadduckUK]

thats rubbish, i would have thaught sky would send a signal to the box to stop recording rather than it going by the estimated length of the program.. certainly worth a tenner a month that!!

[Purple]

Yup, the rest of the Grand Prix went onto the Superbike Championship, so Sky+ thought it had finished.

I think Craig321 hit the nailon the head, it was not a problem with the Sky+ recording rather that ITV decided to link thier two programs together by finishing the Grand Prix INSIDE the Superbike program - so effectivly the GP program did finish, just ITV skrewed it up by finishing the GP in another named program.

[Agent]

Does the Sky+ box use OTA signals for the guide, or connect over the net? (guessing its OTR as not everyone has the net - or does the Sky+ box *have* to be connected to a phoneline?)

[Purple]

Ota

[GeorgeTuk]

Ahhh so really its not Sky + that needs a rethink but a small aspect of the actual format of recording. Still better put something exciting in the thread title to make seem exciting...

[Purple]

It was exciting until Craig321 went and spoiled it with his imperious use of fact.

I thought it was Sky+ being thick, when in fact it was ITV not thinking of advert skippers and lazy gets and extending one Live motorsport program into another the same. It was a strange circumstance, not likly to be repeated.

[kopite]

Ive only just got sky + installed so I dont know much about it.

Just to check though say I`m recording the football and it goes to extra time as long as the channel has updated their tv schedule then I wont miss any of it?

Do most channels update the info?

[bigblue]

Definitely ITV's fault. Even though it was part of the same show it doesn't make any real difference to the box, it just goes off when the broadcaster tells it to.

When the golf overran due to the play-off it still taped perfectly on sky+. Good ole' Beeb.