Thanks. Looking at today’s EPG I see one airing on channel 13 E4 for 6th December not sequenced. Also 13th. I have referred this to our provider
We are very close now to the change in EPG provider and it is expected that these issues will go away
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We have lots of issues with Friends in the EPG. No point in escalating again when we are soon switching to a new provider
I completely agree and also have all those problems @captain_caveman2k . I have been on Plex for a year and PlexPass for 6 months with 3 tv tuner channels, primarily trying to record films from TV in the UK and i spend hours at a time making it work, using workarounds suggested by @sa2000 , but they are all workarounds, i.e. that 5min news slot that terminates films early, “just” add in time in the recording box/advanced under MINUTES AFTER END and that sorts the problem, but I have to re-check that for almost every film, and even then the films don’t record for an unknown reason. Maybe I need help to understand what looks like the 150 or so log files I have? it’s getting to the point where it’s not worth using Plex any more, especially for DVR. And don’t ask me how to help plex detect that red Film4 screen splash to help with deleting commercials… 
OK, I’ll add some more: Then having to check EVRY film for duration after it may have recorded (OK, go to films and sort by duration, but I have to check every film). 25% at least, of my recorded films are wrong and get deleted, and that’s even if they make it to being recorded at all. Rant over for now.
@andyev26 @chriseboy, looks like the film split you reported 18 MONTHS AGO(?), still has not been fixed? I have the same problem still, I set films to record (in the UK) from the MOVIES ON LATER FEATURE. When I have set them all as far as the guide will allow, then I trawl through the actual guide to spot any films split by a 5 mins news programme and fix that. Then I go back to the DVR schedule and check all recording durations and individually any problems there too. When/if it records, I check by selecting all recordings and sorting by duration. Any recent films under 90 mins I check and any older ones less than 75 mins I check too. Then I have to check EVERY film to see that it has actually recorded the correct channel. If it hasn’t I reset the DVR and re-pick the guide and Plex erroneously picks up the wrong channel, normally just one away , i.e. 28 (Yesterday) instead of 27(E4+1). And don’t ask about detecting commercials, it’s not like the big red Film4 screen splash is hard to spot. (Although to be fair I haven’t found a way to tell Plex how to spot that yet).
Yeah, I’ve gotten used to setting the movies to record and then looking at each recording and if the recording time looks too short I add 90 minutes onto the end and crop it later from my PC. It’s a pain but until this is fixed it’s the only thing I can think of doing. I don’t want to spend all my free time correcting what Plex should have done in the first place.
In addition to this I get incorrect start times, incorrect end times and sometimes it records an entirely different movie or just fails to record anything at all.
The Movies on Later section is also rubbish, half the movies do not have cover art even though they are very well known and loads of non-movie content appears in there.
I can’t comment on the commercial removing since I run Plex on my ageing NAS and it would probably catch fire if I asked it to do that 
We can only hope that now that Plex have acknowledged the issue and are switching to a better provider that these errors will be sorted out. It’s a logical thought since most of the issues I’ve had did not exist when Plex used their previous provider.
Yes, it’s really irritating. I was sort of pinning my hopes that this switch to Gracenote would fix all of this because as you described, it’s a really tedious work around. It will be really disappointing to find it not fixed and for me, it might be the straw that break’s the camels back which would see me give up on Plex. I’ve only really stayed as I thought it would be resolved.
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It is interesting that when we were originally with Gracenote these “split movies” were not present. It was when we switched to TiVo that they slotted in the 5 minute news break. So naturally our expectation upon returning to GN was that this issue would be resolved, only to find that Gracenote has apparently incorporated this implementation as well. While we follow up with GN to find out what options might exist, I’d be curious, how do the channels own listings display this? Are there any EPGs out there that omit the news break from the schedule?
I think it has been mentioned that the Sony Movie channel cracked it on the previous listing but I hear that may have regressed in the Gracenote listings. The issue I have is that Plex appears to record both halves but doesn’t. If there was a way to manually record the two separate halves rather than treating as one movie, that might be easier to work with.
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What is even more bizarre is that the following channels on Freeview don’t currently suffer this problem with the Tivo supplied data:
- Paramount (Channel 032) - For example Broken Arrow (1950) showing this Saturday at 16:15 is 2h 15m with Tivo, but 60m followed by the 5m intermission and the final 70m with Gracenote.
- Sony Movies (Channel 033).
- Sony Movies Action (Channel 041).
Tivo only has the intermission present for each of the ITV based channels (ITV, ITV 2, ITV 3, ITV Be, etc…) and some of the Channel 5 based channels (5 and 5 Star - but not Paramount - I can’t remember if 5 USA and 5 Select do).
In some respects, at least we now have consistency with all the channels, that have these breaks, using the Gracenote data 
Yes - I generally speaking don’t check the individual channel guides unless the Freeview TV Guide is missing data as they tend to be simplified - However, I have just checked the Channel 5 TV Guide to see what Broken Arrow (1950) is showing and there isn’t an intermission shown.
However the Freeview TV Guide is now listing them 
I think @JCHH is using an external source, at present, that doesn’t list the breaks so I believe there are guides out there that don’t have this problem.
I’m using Gracenote via Schedules Direct on my main server.
@captain_caveman2k can you give me an example to check?
Yep - here are a few for the channels that now have intermissions with the new Gracenote data but not with the current Tivo data:
- Paramount (Channel 032) - Broken Arrow (1950) - Saturday 5th at 16:15 to 18:30 - 2h 15m but 60m before the intermission with Gracenote.
- Sony Movies (Channel 033) - Tracker (2010) - Saturday 5th at 16:55 to 19:00 - 2h 5m but 55m before the intermission with Gracenote.
- Sony Movies Action (Channel 041) - End of a Gun (2016) - Saturday 5th at 21:00 to 22:50 - 1h 50m but 55m before the intermission with Gracenote.
…and an example of one that has an intermission in both sets of data:
- ITV 4 (Channel 025) - End of Days (1999) - Monday 7th at 23:40 to 02:05 - 2h 25m but 60m before the intermission.
Oh man @captain_caveman2k I just perused the Freeview TV Guide link you posted. It’s clear to me that they’re deliberately trying to disrupt your ability to simply record a complete movie by chopping up the guide data. And it’s EVERYWHERE, looking at Saturday alone they’ve done this to like every movie. I suspect that this was a very deliberate initiative on the part of the program providers and what started out as “being a TiVo thing” is now everywhere. Going to have to think about this.
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I know it’s pretty bad isn’t it - hence why a number of UK users (myself included) were so angry when we switched to Tivo considering that Gracenote previously didn’t do this.
Please note however:
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Channels such as the BBC channels (BBC 1, BBC2, BBC4, CBBC, CBeeBees) and Channel 4 based channels (Channel 4, Film 4, More 4 and 4 Music) don’t appear to have this intermission. The BBC don’t have adverts so this would certainly be unusual for them!
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I don’t believe the channels that do have the intermission have changed anything with their airings over the last 18 months - For example: I don’t think they have increased the number of these intermissions.
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Not every movie on these channels has the intermission. Push on Sony Movies on Saturday at 19:00 to 21:00 doesn’t have it, or if it does, Gracenote, Tivo and Freeview are not listing it.
What I don’t understand is:
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Why does Tivo have the intermission for some channels but not others? I could understand that it could be down to Channel provider if all the Channel 5 based channels had the intermission listed but Paramount doesn’t. Do Tivo perform some kind of filtering?
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Why have Gracenote started to include these breaks since you last used them? Did Gracenote previously perform some filtering or have their providers’ changed the raw data? If the later why is this inconsistent with Tivo?
It will be interesting to hear what @JCCH says Schedules Direct gives given that the underlying data also comes from Gracenote.
If Gracenote can’t provide any solutions can you:
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Look for another “movie” with the same name and production date that appears 5 minutes after the end of a movie and if one exists treat it as one movie.
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Have a list of these intermission shows and filter them out. For example: FYI Daily on the ITV channels, Access on the Channel 5 based channels, Sony Movie News and Sony Movie News Extra on Sony Movies, and Soccer Bites on Sony Movies Action.
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A combination of the two.
Sorry - I’m a developer so I’m naturally trying to think of solutions as well
To me the problem appears pervasive across a handful of channels, which I suspect (although I haven’t checked) are controlled by 1 or 2 media companies. I suspect that EPG providers are being told to NOT stitch these movies back together or ignore the break program. I mean, look at this…
@captain_caveman2k I know this is going to leave our conversation hanging, but since this thread was actually about TiVo being the “poor guide” I’m going to close this thread. Gracenote conversations can be moved to the latest announcement post.
