UGH! A lot of shows are coming on 1 minute earlier than normal on NBC. This is REALLY wreaking havoc with my TIVO!!!!!!!! Now I have to do manual recording to make sure that I get all of my shows! Is this annoying anyone else (or am I just a whiner)? :-)

Sam

NBC is the leader of a conspiracy against those w/ PVR's.

HAHHA I am beginning to believe that! I checked the schedule to see why I wasn't getting any new 24 episodes and it is because Law & Order:SVU comes on at 9:59 overlapping 24 by one minute. I thought maybe the scheduler that Tivo uses screwed up until I went to the NBC site and it has it coming on at 9:59. Grrrr....

Sam

Not sure if you're serious or not, because I know that certain TV executives are anti-PVR. But they've been the only station that's given me trouble with the funky times, as far as I can remember.

Somewhat serious/somewhat sarcastic. I'm sure a lot of execs are against them, or the advertisers who pay them millions of dollars are. They pay millions of dollars for their product to be played during network tv and people w/ pvr's are fast-forwarding right through their commercials.

Have any of you considered the possibility that the DirecTV click (not unlike the DVDTalk clock) needs to be reset on occasion?

I’ve seen my non-Tivo receiver change channels almost 30 seconds after the top of the hour.

I’m not discounting the possibility that where’s weirdness elsewhere, but I’ve seen firsthand that DTV is not spot on at least a coupla times a month.

NBC has been doing stuff like this for years. That is the reason behind the short intro to Frasier. At first there weren't any commercials between X show and Frasier so that before you realized it you were already watching Frasier and don't want to switch over.

No, the shows definitely start at 9:59, that's even how my cable guide lists it. NBC started this about 2 years ago by ending Friends at 8:31 and starting er at 9:59. They don't do this because they're anti-PVR or anything like that, they do this because 1 minute of commercial time during Friends is worth a lot more than 1 minute of commercial time during their 8:30 show, and 1 minute of commercial time is worth a lot more during er than their 9:30 show. I've noticed they're doing the same thing with Ed this Friday night starting it at 8:59, its a show that while not extremely high rated, historically has high income viewers, so they get good money for commercials during it, so 1 more minute of commercials during it will sell for a lot more than the minute of commercials if it were sold during Dateline.

NBC has been doing this for at least one if not two years. it used to just be with ER and now it has spread

Ghads! I never noticed that before, but, DAMN you’re right. I stand corrected.

Friggin’ COMMIES!!

Uhhh... right, I do the samething w/ shows I recorded w/ a real VCR w/ real VHS tapes. You don't see execs having a protest over VCR and VHS tapes...

Why TiVo when you know the show will end up on DVD, which you'll buy anyway. Oh, that's right, it's your money.

I did say I was being somewhat sarcastic.

But they could probably see PVRs as a bigger threat than VCRs if they really start to catch on (I think they are only in 1% of households right now). PVRs can run all the time - they are always searching for shows that you might want to watch. VCRs can't do that. If you talk to most people who have a PVR - they hardly ever watch live TV anymore, unless its the news. PVRs are going to catch on like DVD players and DVDs - they may seem expensive now, but just wait a couple of years - they are going to be dirt cheap and affordable to everyone, plus their service is just going to get better w/ time (most likely).

It all goes back to the mighty advertising dollar.

I think it's done to hurt competing shows. If you have a Season Pass to 24 and SVU, the Tivo will be forced to skip 24 . It may only happen once, but the extra rating blip can be worth big bucks. This wouldn't be a problem if networks just aired stuff multiple times like cable companies.

D

Is there a way to set your Tivo to buffer the shows you have on season pass? For example, when I tape a show I know I'm going to miss on my VCR, I always give 5 minutes extra before and after so I don't miss anything.

I'm getting a DirecTivo on Friday, so I'm curious.

Yes you can, number-boy. You can set it for 1 minute before and after a show (for certain) and possibly 2 minutes (not 100% positive). I'm not certain that you can do five minutes or not - I'm not as big an authority as some of our fellow TVtalkers.

Cool beans. Sounds like that is the solution to the NBC xx:59 problem (providing of course you aren't recording shows on other networks right before it).

I noticed on my TiVo schedule last week that NBC was going to start doing this almost every night of the week. Of course they've been doing it on Thursday for several years. So now I'm going to have to set manual recordings for a whole bunch of shows and tape one minute segments at the beginning to watch before going to TiVo for the rest. I know they have their reasons and they even make some sort of sense but do they realize how much they're pissing off so many people?

Yup, that's the problem: 24 on Tuesday, The O.C. on Wednesday etc.

After reading movielib's intellectual musiings on numerous topics, including politics, religion, and fine cinema...I am shocked, SHOCKED to learn that he watches The O.C..

My stand alone TiVo can pad up to 10 minutes before and 3 hours after.

I quit watching ER when I learned that my satellite receiver wouldn't switch from CSI to ER because of the overlap.

No big loss though.

Pick Anna, Seth!!

Can you also trim shows that you have on season pass?

For example, can I tell it to:

1. Start recording 24 at 8pm (normal start time)
2. Stop recording 24 at 8:59pm (normal end time -1 minute)
3. Start recording L&O SVU at 8:59 (normal start time -1 minute)

All I'd miss in this situation are the tell-all trailers for next week's 24.

I think you can do that only by using the manual record feature.

With my 2 Replays, I try to keep them consistent when I can. For example, on Thursdays, I record the entire CBS block on one Replay.

The NBC practice of padding shows was the last straw for me with Friends. The drop in quality started it and NBC completely turned me off to Friends by doing this.

Next Monday is all screwy too. Fear Factor runs from 8-9:10, Las Vegas from 9:10-10:10 and Average Joe from 10:10-11.