Who is to blame for program info?

[HDRoberts]

Just hit DVR 3 times and clean things up once a week.

Plus, one small trick is to selectively use other programming options. For instance, when The Daily Show goes into reruns, what episode it is is not listed, so the DVR would record the 4 or 5 reruns they had during the day. So I switched to a Monday-Friday timer that will only look for it in that 11PM timeslot on weekdays, since that is the only time new eps air. Saves a lot of skipping.

 

[Ghpr13]

Just hit DVR 3 times and clean things up once a week.

Plus, one small trick is to selectively use other programming options. For instance, when The Daily Show goes into reruns, what episode it is is not listed, so the DVR would record the 4 or 5 reruns they had during the day. So I switched to a Monday-Friday timer that will only look for it in that 11PM timeslot on weekdays, since that is the only time new eps air. Saves a lot of skipping.

That's a great tip! I record The Daily Show, but I record the 2:00 showing of it (Wife wants to see nightly news). When it goes into reruns I always have to delete a bunch of stuff.

Ghpr13

 

[kvnfl]

Hear you HDRoberts. I have a lot of manual timers set up for news programs. Some are set to only record parts of programs.

What gets my goat is when you set DVR recordings online via Sling and then check your timers and find out that the Sling Guide is not the same as the Dish guide. A couple of days ago, 3 out of four online programs did not match Dish info.

 

[grb]

One of the things that irk me about the guide is that program titles that are long are cut off...you have to try to guess what the end of the title is. Why?

Ghpr13

I don't know why, but it is frustrating! Better they should cut short their crappy description of the movie than the title. That is the one thing that should always be complete. My favorite title screwup is "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" which was shortened to "Midnight in the Garden of Goo..."

Sometimes even short titles are cut off, so it doesn't seem to be a title field allocation problem.

 

[kstile]

This issue is particularly bad for kids' TV shows that are on many many many times a day. My "New Episodes" for iCarly is going to record 50 episodes in the next week because every one of them has the generic description, no original air date, and no episode number. Setting a weekly timer for those is hard b/c they tend to move it around. Nickelodeon, Disney, and Cartoon Network are particularly bad with their guide information.

 

[Derwin0]

My favorite title screwup is "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" which was shortened to "Midnight in the Garden of Goo..."

Worse was, "Star Wars: Episod". Okay, so which one?

 

[Ghpr13]

Worse was, "Star Wars: Episod". Okay, so which one?

What I don't understand isn't there someone that ever previews what the guide will look like in actual use? Doesn't it ever get "consumer tested" for feedback on how well or how useful the guide is? If Tribune Media doesn't care I would think Dish, Direct, or who ever is paying for it would.

Ghpr13

 

[grb]

Worse was, "Star Wars: Episod". Okay, so which one?

I remember that one, too. It had 17 characters including blanks. The Midnight in the Garden of Goo movie title had 29 characters including blanks. So the shortening of the title appears to be arbitrarily done and not limited by the length of the field. This is obviously a crappy and incompetent job done by by Tribune.

In order to get crapped on, you have to assume the position. Dish, Direct and any other provider using Tribune have obviously done so...

 

[rbaines]

One thing that could free up some content space would be if they stopped liating the actors of a TV series every week.

Has there ever been discussion of color coding the listings of movies and sporting events? This is one thing I miss from Comcast. It made their guide a lot easier to navigate through. Obviously, one can create "favorite" guides for each category. However some channels provide sports, movies and regular programming. If all of the movie listings are, say green, and the sports red, they really pop out at you.

 

[bobsie]

So what do you do? Email Tribune and tell them their guide info at Dish is crap or just deal with it. It's frustrating because it seems like it would be such an easy and cheap fix.

My former cable company used an even worse service for their guide: TVGuide. It was horrible. On my non-DVR box, the DISH guide only goes for 1.5 to 2 days and is even worse in descriptions than my 625 DVR box. However, I do not like the guide on the 625 either.

So I now use TitanTV (TitanTV - Login Page) on my PC. While it is more difficult to use with DISH (it is separate), it can give you printable lists of programs that you might want to record and you can then schedule them. The descriptions of shows are very good and it has an excellent search function that goes out a few weeks. You just have to configure it for your DISH coverage area. If your local channels are not listed, you can add them to your grid.

I find it very useful.

 

[grb]

On the HD Net Movie website, they state that a sneak preview movie, "The Extra Man" is scheduled for 8:00 p.m. EDT on July 30 (today), yet it does not appear on the Dish (Tribune) program guide. That time slot shows "Race to Space" starting at 7:35 EDT (4:35 PDT).

Does anyone know what gives????

 

[SandFarmer]

I have been following and logging this for years, filed complaints and discussed this with DISH management where I was told it was only going to get worse. And it has.

One of many, many, many discussions and a good one is here:

To Whom Do I Complain?

 

[reddice]

At least they finally added TV ratings (still have to get rid of the movie ratings next to them though) but still they need to add format descriptions instead of most everything saying Series/Special.

 

[lsilvest]

When you're in the guide, go to the program you're interested in and press the info button - it'll give you most of the information you need including the original air date.

 

[grb]

On the HD Net Movie website, they state that a sneak preview movie, "The Extra Man" is scheduled for 8:00 p.m. EDT on July 30 (today), yet it does not appear on the Dish (Tribune) program guide. That time slot shows "Race to Space" starting at 7:35 EDT (4:35 PDT).

Does anyone know what gives????

Edit:
This wasn't the fault of Dish or Tribune. I just watched the Sneak Preview program on HDNET today and they were advising us to watch The Extra Man on July 28 (not July 30 as shown on their website).

I don't know why they were promoting a July 28 broadcast on July 31 or why their website states the broadcast is on July 30. Maybe Mark Cuban is too busy trying to buy the Texas Rangers to bother keeping the HDNET website correct and his promotional programs up to date...

 

[kvnfl]

My GUI guide recently started displaying a "TV Guide" logo.

 

[Yes616]

Besides not being able to see the entire name of a show and everything else discussed here, anyone notice episode numbers that are certainly wrong?

I have seen episodes of Andy Griffith and other old shows with the episode numbers in the hundreds with a year as 1962 and lower numbers around 1967. Obviously this is impossible.

 

[Tyralak]

Is it just me or do other people have crappy program info in their guide? They could tell you if a movie is a comedy or drama or horror, etc without having to watch it or figure it out for yourself. Also when my DVR is set to record NEW episodes of a show, why does it record shows from years past? Is it because the program info doesn't include NEW EPISODE?

Who does the program info and who do you complain to about it?

Thanks.

It's Bob's fault.