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Dummy’s Guide to the EPG

ACMA has published a bit of a Dummy's Guide to make sure you record the last few minutes of your favourite show.

I suspect most readers here are more than used to adjusting their PVRs to make sure they grab the last few minutes of late-running shows, but media watchdog ACMA has published a bit of a Dummy’s Guide to the EPG.

“Excited about the start of the 2013 TV ratings season? Recording your favourite shows means you can watch them when it suits you, but no one likes to sit through a show only to find that the last 10 minutes are missing,” it asks.

“Knowing how to use your electronic program guide (EPG) will help you to avoid these annoying situations. To help you get the best out of your EPG, the ACMA has some helpful tips that are as easy as 1,2,3!.”

Frankly the bigger question should be why are networks allowed to start shows so late in the first place?

To be clear, ACMA’s jurisdiction here is limited. It can’t compel networks to schedule shows on the half hour. It can only require them to keep an up to date EPG so that if a show is scheduled to start at 7:37 it does so.

But while it indicates networks are updating EPGs daily, inaccuracy still emerges and confusion reigns with promos contradicting promos.

We’ll all forgive running late when the show is Live. ABC has also shown us that nobody really minds if a show starts at 9:35pm so long as the EPG reflects this. But networks have previously admitted they run late to stop us changing channels.

We really need ACMA to step up its monitoring of EPG accuracy rather than the audience having to adjust for network tricks.

And the 6pm News starts bang on 6pm night after night after night…

28 Responses

  1. If anybody remembers the show “Rain Shadow” on ABC back in 2007, I think it failed in the ratings as it was on at 8:30pm Sunday, up against “Australian Idol”. Sure, “Idol” was supposed to end at 8:30 but it nearly always ran until 8:45, thus depriving most people of the option to watch a drama that had started at 8:30. Incidentally, I think “Rain Shadow” was a great series, albeit a short one.

  2. What an absolute insult to our inteligence, and to add insult to injury I object to the inference of Dummies, especially when it come from the Boarding school for Dummies ACMA.

    Their advice sounds fine, till you want to record the next programme but on a different channel, what their next gem of advice, Multiple PVR’s ie, one for each network Because Of Deliberate Overuns

    All this proves to me is that ACMA, have long held the exact same attitude towards viewers as the FTA networks hold, and its a toss up just who copied who, where all of them now consider viewers as “Necessary Evils”
    With the Digital Switchover Mob leading way out in front, as they have just been reading all the same responses from the same handbook as Anologue-CDMA-NextG mobile phone con job,, whats the bet few lose their jobs, when their HD TV con job is finished, and will probably even get a con job bonus payment.

  3. Nikita was listed in TV guides as starting at 12am Wednesday on Go!. The EPG on Tuesday night was changed to 11:46pm. It started at 11:45pm. The interesting thing is that in the TV Guide update for Wednesday they updated the time to 11:45pm Tuesday.

    Not only does the time have to be accurate, it needs to be accurate a reasonable time before the show airs to be useful.

    It is entirely possible for the Government to set legislation or regulations that fine the networks for violation of start times (with an exemption for live programmes). They just don’t want to because they want to keep the media onside.

    So things will only get worse as the market gets more cutthroat. While half the audience is watching MKR, which always runs late, the other networks will lose viewers if they don’t follow suit.

  4. It wouldn’t be unreasonable for ACMA to request station logs to check against EPG accuracy. I think you’d find the stations are running exactly on schedule according to their internal documentation. What they publish is another matter.

  5. @Jason – in case you hadn’t noticed, we are in Australia – US laws do not apply here.

    This – en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_Australia#Fair_dealing_and_other_exceptions – might be a better place to start with altho’ why people seem unable to use Google / Wikipedia to find this stuff themselves is beyond me.

  6. As a long time PVR user i have always allowed more time at the end than at the start of programs and have never had a problem with SBS/ABC EPG times.It really is only limited to the commercial FTA’s that cause all the grief.
    In regards to Foxtel they provide the absolute best EPG.Never missed start/finish of any subscription show and Series Link truly is the jewel in the crown when it comes to recording.

  7. @David

    No I haven’t so is the YouTube that I watch here comes under Australian law or from where ever it comes from which I don’t even know its just there when I want it?

  8. maybe 7 and 9 are getting the message because they were the ones that started late and finished late. Maybe we don’t hardly need to use the late list

  9. David, this is one of the best articles on this issue I have read. I agree 100% with you, this video is basically ACMA admitting that they are worthless.

    1. Laurie that’s not true. Firstly, Copyright Law changes from country to country. Secondly, have you never seen the message “This video has been removed due to copyright infringement” or words to that effect?

  10. It is all very annoying, and example of this is this weeks Packed to the Rafters. I would have liked to put it in my PVRs weekly record feature, but as this weeks episode was something like 8.37-9.41pm and that is what the PVR shows, next week it may be different again and I’ll miss part(s) of the show because my link will always want to record that time, not that show name. The only way for me to always get it is to record from 8.30pm – 10.00pm, knowing it will never start on time, and will finish up to 30 mins late.

  11. Copyright? ” The Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the making of individual copies of complete television shows for purposes of time shifting does not constitute copyright infringement, but is fair use”.
    Try Google. Try en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Corp._of_America_v._Universal_City_Studios,_Inc.

  12. With the Foxtel EPG I don’t really have any problems with anything except for the two Ch7 shows I watch which are Suits and Amazing Race. For them I record an extra hour of shows scheduled to air afterwards just to make sure Seven can’t screw me over.

    Everything else I start watching with the timer automatically set for 1 minute in, and within about 30 seconds the show starts and ends with an extra 10 mins left in the recording.

  13. As pointed out, if the ACMA made sure the stations all had a minute accurate EPG available at least a couple of days in advance, this would be something of a non-issue.

    The ABC manages to be minute accurate a week in advance (allowing for the occasional late change) and as all media (programs and adverts) are distributed on digital media these days, it’s hard to imagine why the commercial stations can’t also do this. Any of us who have dealt with those in the industry know it’s done deliberately.

    Anyhow… Isn’t it interesting that the ACMA have disabled comments on their videos, obviously they’re aware of these things as well 😉

  14. The EIT EPG is fairly useless for automated recording though, because the title often changes, there’s no episode title/subtitle on some channels, etc.

    It’d be good if ACMA forced the stations to accurately put the title, subtitle and whether its a repeat in EIT.

  15. Here are my handy tips, gleaned from ~ 8 years of PVR use :

    1) Set your PVR to start recording 15 minutes early
    2) Set your PVR to stop recording 40 minutes late
    3) Accept the fact that, despite following tips 1 & 2, you’re still going to miss the beginning or end of shows sometimes.

  16. I think this has always been the case. Even back in the late 80’s/early 90’s when all the channels used to show good late night horror movies, I always programmed the VCR to start and especially end later than scheduled by giving a good 10-15 minute or more buffer. But even then, sometimes, on the odd occasion you would miss the end of the movie and be totally miffed!

    1. William, far too complicated to explain here. But in essence as I have said you are allowed to record shows for yourself. Once you get into areas like burning copies, selling them or downloading etc it’s a different ballgame. Check out some info via Google.

  17. Okay I thought the point of EPG and most PVRs were they could auto adjust as the EPG changed, so you didn’t get cut off programs?

    Also whats the point of programing your PVR hours in advance (sometimes days if on holidays) if things can change?

    I agree, I don’t care if something starts at 8:38, as long as the EPG don’t say 8:30 along with on screen promos right up to the start time. Often shows on Foxtel start at odd times, adjusted to the minute and in most cases they start with in a minute of that time and don’t run over.

    Found out the other day the MyStar box you can adjust the start/end times adding up to 20 minutes to both for FTA and Satellite automatically. You can also further adjust this manually at any time before the program starts recording.

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