Unmodified Tivos can now connect to AltEPG via 60 new lines

[Pete77]

Any chance that you will be able to force close any call that lasts longer than 2 hours, like the Exa lines (when they arrive)?

I think the timeout should be limited at no more than one hour.

Even a Guided Setup data call for a joint Sky and Freeview setup never took more than 25 minutes to collect all the data.

[abarthman]

Finally used one of these 0845 lines this morning (about 10:30) to run a guided set-up.

I'm on BT Basic, so I get free 0845 and 0870 calls at the weekend and I wanted to put off the long call until it was free!

All went well. My biggest delay was finding the IR remote code for my set top box again!

The second call took about 20 minutes and my TiVo is currently organising the downloaded data.

I feel like a kid with a new toy again!

[jamie.easterman]

It all depends on the size of the guide slices and line speed, call quality etc. We have logged calls lasting nearly 90 mins downloading 13.7Mb (This was the first day of service). How quickly we all forget how challendged modem speeds are compared to today super highways. Most modems are connecting to us at 33600 bps but we have seen a couple at 28800.

Quite a bit slower than even the slowest broadband lines we are used to these days (nearly 200 times slower than a 6Mb DSL connection).

[Pete77]

I'm on BT Basic, so I get free 0845 and 0870 calls at the weekend and I wanted to put off the long call until it was free!

Unfortunately the call is still likely to be charged by BT as they exclude all calls to known dialup ISP numbers (whether 0845 or 01/02/03) on a 24/7 basis and this 0845 dialup number has been around so long that it is almost certain to be on BT's list of excluded known dialup internet providers.

When EXA Networks (tivomas's employer) get their new numbers going there is a better chance that those numbers and especially the ones starting 01 or 02 may be covered by inclusive call plans.

[jamie.easterman]

This number has been around for a while but I have had no confirmed reports todate it has been excluded from plans allowing 0845 numbers included as part of the package. I may be wrong but you'd have to check specifically with your provider of calls to be sure. At the moment until exa's new lines come on line Monday the 08450800300 has more than enough capacity to cope with guided setups for those needing immediate guide data satisfaction

[tivomas]

Any chance that you will be able to force close any call that lasts longer than 2 hours, like the Exa lines (when they arrive)?

I think the timeout should be limited at no more than one hour.

Even a Guided Setup data call for a joint Sky and Freeview setup never took more than 25 minutes to collect all the data.

Some connections on the 01274 number have taken more than 1 hour

Some have a typical throughput of only around 15000

[gcobb]

Thanks very much to both Jamie and tivomas for working to support dial-up users. It is important, for my personal motivation, that we support unmodified Tivos -- even though I might regret that when we find out how many users that means we are trying to support

[Pete77]

It is important, for my personal motivation, that we support unmodified Tivos -- even though I might regret that when we find out how many users that means we are trying to support

What extra issues are there in trying to support a very large rather than a smaller number of Tivo users on the AltEPG other than needing to have a lot more dial up lines? An issue that has now largely been resolved for us by Jamie subject to people's willingness to pay the extra phone call costs and/or to remember to only connect their Tivo to the phone line on one day a week.

Surely having a large rather than a small number of users just means you might receive requests to add a few more currently unsupported channels and/or receive quite a lot more reports of errors in the EPG data that needs to be corrected? And both of those issues only need to be addressed on an as and when you have time basis rather than on an ultra urgency basis.

Also given that as of next Saturday 2nd July the AltEPG will be the only game in town for S1 Tivos (as on that day even those of us who have run the script kindly provided by Spitfires to reverse Account Closed will run out of data on all the main UK channels) what chance if any is there of the AltEPG extending its data to 14 days instead of 7 days or at least 14 days that runs down to 7 days that is refreshed once a week? In an ideal world if the AltEPG was able to hack the standard telephone configuration so that those with dialup Tivos can can change a setting in their AltEPG account record on the AltEPG site to make their Tivo only dial in only once a week then I'm sure that would be much appreciated. However to then manage those calls in an orderly fashion so they aren't all trying to call in on the same day would also really need a 7 to 14 day EPG rather than a 7 day only EPG. Although I suppose the current 7 day AltEPG must be adding an extra day's worth of EPG data once every 24 hours rather another 7 days data only once a week?

[mrtickle]

Sadly the system isn't ready to provide more data yet. Maybe when we move to Beta testing. You may not believe this but we are all already quite well motivated enough, without the addition of "deadlines" set by tivo, tribune etc. It's not ideal that we're not fully ready before the tribune data stopped, but there we go. People are doing their best.

[Pete77]

It's not ideal that we're not fully ready before the tribune data stopped, but there we go. People are doing their best.

Its surely almost unheard of for an Alpha Test to include the entire potential user base rather than only a partial set of users who are motivated to test and tolerant of there being imperfections in the product in its current form.

I agree that this is mainly the fault of Tivo who should have given at least six months or even a years advance warning of their intention to terminate the official Tivo EPG service.

[mrtickle]

It's 100% entirely the fault of TiVo.

[gcobb]

Pete, my remark was mainly light-hearted! I am certainly hopeful that having more people on board won't make it noticeably harder (although it will increase loads on the server, which we will need to watch, and it will increase the traffic here -- I don't often get time to catch up with the General forum as it is now -- many thanks to people like Rachel who are answering many user questions as well as maintaining the FAQ).

My most serious concern is that we are still in Alpha test and that is because there is some significant development work we still need to do (for example I am working on: making updates happen regularly and automatically, while still monitoring for errors; adding TmsIds; proper handling of updates/corrections). All three of those (as well as some other things) are important but carry the risk that we mess up the database or create a bad slice and now we could affect a lot more people! So, we have to proceed slowly and carefully.

As you said, it is unusual for Alpha test to be carried out with the whole user base on board. I will be much happier once we get the major functionality under control and can move into a more stable Beta test period. We can then consider some things which are on hold like allowing people more control over how their Tivo dials in.

[IBP]

If the alpha service is providing a limited but reliable set of data, could that be seperated off and future testing restricted to a smaller set of user's?

[mikerr]

If you only send 1 day's worth of data during guided setup it would significantly shorten the 30+ minute call,
especially as the user can't do anything else whilst in guided setup

- they can use the tivo as normal later on during "normal" daily calls to fill in the rest of the data (in random off peak hours).

The dataset should be less with altepg's 7 day guide, yet guided setup is the same or longer under altepg,
though I may be misremebering dailup, as the 40 minute dialup call takes 30 seconds or less on my cachecard with 50Meg broadband

[Pete77]

If you only send 1 day's worth of data during guided setup it would significantly shorten the 30+ minute call,
especially as the user can't do anything else whilst in guided setup

Whilst you will know better than me Mike what control the server end has over such things surely the Tivo software is programmed all data that is available to it on the server during Guided Setup? Or are you saying that the Guided Setup data file is a single normally larger file maintained and updated separately from the daily Slices and that its contents can be the same as just one day's data Slice if those running the service want it to be that way?

Personally I have never had an issue with the length of time that the Guided Setup call takes. If anything the time taken by the Tivo to index the data and let you set recordings using it is usually the bigger issue. Although obviously that would presumably be greatly reduced too by a smaller Guided Setup data file?