Now TV Schedule Issues, Sky Sports NFL especially

[MartinJSUK]

I'm on the Big Sports package, including all Now TV channels. Today's schedules for Sky Sports NFL are completely wrong, they appear to be completely unaware that there's an extra live game at 2.30PM, and still lists 9.15-3.30AM as a single programme, when it won't be. This is just the latest in a string of problems with the channel, that make recording programmes in advance completely fraught. I contacted BT, they told me to contat Discovery, Discovery told me to contact BT. I've worked in Customer Support and know full well that being bounced between departments incorrectly is the biggest cause of complaints.

I think it's due to the choices of live matches being made during the week, meaning that the programme name changes from 'Live NFL' to 'Live San Francisco Vs Philadelphia' (or whatever) and the box doesn't understand that they're the same programme. This almost certainly will prevent today's games from recording correctly. Is there anything that can be done about this? 

Also, I missed last year's Super Bowl because of the poor quality of BT YouView boxes (I've had about four replacements and they're all terrible). I now know that they need resetting every couple of months - it's only on about the fifth or sixth complaint about failed recordings that someone actually thought to alert me to this.

Unfortunately I live in a second floor flat so getting a Sky dish would cost a fortune, and I gather that Sky Glass and its replacement have similar issues.

[zulu17]

Observation -  Discovery Support gave you the correct response as Now Sky Sports channel EPG on a BT TV box is not a Discovery  or TNT Sports broadcast  channel and BT customer support should not have routed you to them .

[Midnight_Voice]

@MartinJSUK 

Further observation - YouView boxes have no idea what programmes are called, as far as finding them and recording them goes.  They drive off things called CRIDs - Content Reference IDentifiers - where a Series CRID will identify the Series a programme is in, and a programme CRID the actual individual programme.

Changing the title of the programme won’t make a blind bit of difference, as long as the CRIDs stay the same.

Conversely, changing the CRIDs will make all the difference, which is why setting a Series recording for the weekday Homes Under The Hammer doesn’t get you the weekend repeats of much earlier programmes 😛

[MartinJSUK]

So what would be causing this problem? Will replacing the YouView box (as the agent has booked for Wednesday) resolve the issue?

[zulu17]

The experiences you describe point to issues caused by incorrect EPG guide data and in part to late programming changes, it is obvious  that the initial EPG entries are not accurate at times and that on several occasions updated schedules available on virtually every other platform seem not to reach the EPG. Also it is possible that based upon  the wrong EPG guide at the time you may have set Series Records for the wrong content (as the series is identified by the Series CRID number which is not visible in normal viewing),
None of the issues you describe point to the BT TV box itself being faulty. 

[MartinJSUK]

I didn't think that sending an engineer would be very helpful, should I ask BT to cancel the visit and show them this post? Is there any workaround for this issue, or am I simply stuck with the problem every week?

[MartinJSUK]

I don't know if other people have the same issue, but no live games are showing for the next week, including tonight. I've rebooted my box and its made no difference. I don't know if they'll record correctly, which is hugely annoying.

[NigelB72]

@MartinJSUK the Sky Glass/Stream EPG is updated directly by Sky... 

[MartinJSUK]

I don't have Sky Glass or Sky Stream, I have Now TV via the Big Sports bundle

[NigelB72]

@MartinJSUK you made a reference in your original post to Sky Glass having a similar issue