My now lengthy email discussion with SkyTV about my MySky problems hit a new snag today: I have been using my gmail account for this correspondence, and my last message failed to be delivered:

This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification

Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently:

skyweb@skytv.co.nz

Technical details of permanent failure:
PERM_FAILURE: SMTP Error (state 9): 550 Rule imposed as tony.meyer@gmail.com is blacklisted on SpamCop or SpamHaus

Searching, I see a couple of articles ([1], [2]) that indicate this isn’t anything new. I’m not sure why all the previous messages made it through – perhaps SpamCop just made an update, or some sort of load-sharing at gmail switched me to a different SMTP server.

What a PITA. Back to regular mail for now, I guess. Please, anyone who can decide, don’t use SpamCop. Blacklisting is such a stupid system, especially blacklisting one of the world’s most popular webmail systems.

technorati tags: MySky, SkyTV, Email, Spam, gmail, SpamCop

While I’m pointing out MySky flaws – it continually bounces back to the preview channel. Why?

It also comes up with the ‘conflict’ screen fairly regularly, with a program that is recording or set to recording and a “searching…” ‘recording’.  Cancelling the “searching…” ‘recording’ seems to fix the problem.  I think this is the series link system trying to find new episodes, but that shouldn’t cause a conflict.

technorati tags: MySky, SkyTV

Another program failed tonight. MySky was set to record Shortland Street from 7pm to 7:30pm. My wife watched last night’s episode while tonight’s was on; the red light was on the whole time, and nothing else was being recorded.

After finishing last night’s episode, she started to watch tonight’s. The planner showed that all 30 minutes had recorded. She managed to watch two and a half ads, and then the recording stopped. She went back to the planner, and it now says that 0 minutes were taped. In other words, the program is lost.

I sent yet another email to Sky. This is really unacceptable, and clearly a faulty product.

technorati tags: MySky, SkyTV

A few days ago (I don’t get the paper copy, so only just saw it), the New Zealand Herald ran basically an ad for MySky disguised as an article.

The author, Richard Thorne, praises the unit without mentioning any of the flaws (see any of my previous entries), or that this technology was all available in the US in 1999 (six years ago!) and we’re getting a buggy out-of-date system.

He also says:

Deletion, you’ll be pleased to know, is just as easy with clear screen prompts, but not so simple as to be done accidentally.

This is something I’ve been meaning to mention. Deletion is far too simple, and easy to be done accidentally. All you need to do is push the button between the “Series Link” and “Keep” buttons and the program is gone for good. No “this is not undoable, are you sure” dialog or anything sensible like that.

If it has to be a single button push, why put it there right next to buttons that are frequently used, so it’s so easy to mispush? Whoever’s working on UI design for Sky really needs to learn a few of the basic lessons.

technorati tags: MySky, SkyTV

Things have not been going well with MySky recently. Badly enough, in fact, for me to contact Sky about the problems.

I’ve posted before about the recording failing to add the ‘buffer’, so that the ends of programs are missed. I’ve mistakenly said 3 minutes in the past when it’s meant to be 2 minutes (either side), but that doesn’t change the problem. This just isn’t happening, regardless of what channel, date, time, whether something else is before/after the program, or anything else. It’s clear that it’s not happening, because the planner tells you how long the recorded program is. If the recording is 28 minutes for a 30 minute program, there’s no way that there’s a two minute buffer on either side. It should be at least 33 minutes, if not 34.

The response from Sky was that I should look at the manual (I’ve already done that, thanks), and that the problem is that it’s set to ‘automatic’. But the manual says that automatic means 2 minutes. If that isn’t the case, then they either have a documentation bug or a software bug.

There is much worse to come, however. Continue reading “Serious MySky problems” →

MySky suffers from the same problem as iTunes podcasts: they are marked as viewed (played) as soon as they start playing, instead of when they finish.

This is more of a problem with MySky – the automatic space management will delete any programs that are viewed before it deletes ones that are not.

While marking as viewed only when the program was viewed to the very end would not be ideal (with the (at least theoretical) extra three minutes at the end of a program, as well as the habit people have of skipping the credits, the end would often never be reached), something smarter than the existing system could be designed.  Something like when 95% of the program (57 minutes of a hour-long show, 28.5 minutes of a half-hour-long show) is reached, it is marked as viewed.

Not viewing from the start complicates this slightly, but I think the rule should still apply – if the program hasn’t already been watched, then probably the main reason for starting part-way through is because the rest was watched live or elsewhere.

technorati tags: MySky, SkyTV

My initial impressions were that the “series link” feature of MySky (the most important feature, in some ways) didn’t work right. I set Gilmore Girls to be recorded on Tuesday, then it was next recorded Monday the next week (not Tuesday as I originally posted), missing Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. This also happened with Shortland Street, the only other program I have set to record that is on more than once a week. Continue reading “MySky Series Link Redux” →

One of the features I initially liked about MySky was that it automatically started recording three minutes early, and finished three minutes late, to cover for programs starting or ending early/late (TV 2 and TV 3 are notorious for doing this).

At first this seemed to work fine. However, recently I’ve noticed that it doesn’t always seem to occur – especially at the end of the program. Only once, with Alias, has the recording finished before the end. However, I wasn’t watching it anywhere near live, so I don’t know if the program actually finished more than three minutes after it was meant to. The recording wasn’t 66 minutes, though, which is what I would expect.

I know that when two sequential programs (same channel) are scheduled to be recorded, the first will miss a bit of the end so the next can start, but that isn’t the case here (for some programs it might be, but certainly not for Alias, which wasn’t near anything else being recorded). Since two programs can be recorded at the same time, this should only be a problem when three programs are involved, anyway.

(Actually, clever programming could avoid this sequential problem. It would be simple, and not break the ‘only two at once’ rule, to have a period of time added to two recordings (the end of the first, and the start of the second). This would be much more convenient, especially when not watching them in order).

I’ll post more about this if I figure anything more out.

Update: something is definitely wrong here. Shortland Street was recorded yesterday, there was nothing scheduled after it, and the recording finished before it the show did. The recording length is only 34 minutes, when it should be 36, and it definitely did start 3 minutes early. Even more strangely, if I try to view that recorded program now, I can’t. It says it’s using 0% of space (it’s not deleted, and watching it yesterday worked fine), and nothing happens when I try to play it (nor does the back button work). If this happens again, there’ll certainly be a phone call to Sky.
technorati tags: MySky, SkyTV