Movie Collector OH
-
Posts
4,573 -
Joined
-
Days Won
3
Posts posted by Movie Collector OH
-
-
Thanks to the OP. I scheduled some stuff earlier today as a result of this thread. Over the four years or so with Directv, I've built up probably about 70-100 movies with these free windows, which helps.
-
28 minutes ago, TopBilled said:
Hard to believe these cards are selling for $19,000. That's the asking price. Who'd pay it?
Not Rick Harrison.
"How about $75, I'm running a business and I've got to make some money too."
-
from Avalon (1990) - "You cut the turkey without me!"
-
You'd fall off the face of the earth and then nobody would see your posts again.
Sounds like a fun time for someone. Consumer/market trends can be a good career. I do have some gray hair and am not as malleable as I once might have been if I were 'straight out of college', so I'm out.
-
My main concern here is the undocumented replacement, and also undocumented later airing of certain features. I have excellent info coming in on what they actually air, and I can confirm the accuracy of the web schedule for movie-length features has been getting sloppy since last month. The shorts are normally all over the place, but since last month the features have had some odd things going on too. Is this the new norm?
Thankfully the on-screen guides tend to get it right, as posters here have posted on-screen changes which come true.
That all seems a bit like the tail wagging the dog though. How is it that the website schedule sometimes isn't updated in the short term while the on-screen guides are? How is that even possible? Who is doing the actual scheduling here, TCM or the content providers involved?
Inquiring minds and all.
-
1
-
-
Here's the ongoing thread to bookmark, though I can't promise somebody else won't diverge and create a new thread next time:
http://forums.tcm.com/topic/186102-i-didnt-receive-now-playing-guide-email-can-someone-please-forward/?page=2-
1
-
-
Here's one of several lookup tables I put together and maintain. This one is the one you want. It is a large 5MB file so may take a while to open.
http://www.moviecollectoroh.com/reports/TCM_SCHEDULES_SUMMARY_alpha.htm
-
1
-
-
26 minutes ago, SteveQL said:
When I send messages re problems with TCM to CONTACT US they are never replied to. Is there a way to reach a human being at TCM?
Maybe pound on their Twitter and Facebook accounts. AT&T's too. I'm not a proponent of this, but someone will get back to you in the form of damage control.
-
1
-
-
20 minutes ago, Marysara1 said:
I decided to watch Tales of Manhattan on FXM today. They showed the W.C. Fields segment.
-
34 minutes ago, shutoo said:
I had the opposite problem..last week my directv guide showed several films that were incorrect..and now the tcm app live stream isn't working on anything..hope it's not getting all wonky again...
Did that have anything to do with the daylight savings time?
I have Directv too but don't usually use the Directv on-screen schedule. I use the 3rd party Schedules Direct guide, which is a consumer offshoot of the Gracenote/Tribune guide for commercial use. So I might have different experiences with that.
In any case I didn't miss anything.
Weird.
-
6 minutes ago, TopBilled said:
Well any sort of data analysis is a bunch of work.
Some more so than the rest.
-
I think this is a good idea for an ongoing thread. Recently it has happened where the programming changed, the on-screen programming was correct, and the TCM website was wrong.
So far this thread has been helpful for me.
P.S. Oops, that was a different thread, the one concerning Eight on the Lam (1967). But same idea.
It looks as if we are on our own here.
-
On 11/4/2018 at 7:52 PM, TopBilled said:
Well, there would have to be a category for foreign films, and maybe a category for independent producers (Disney, Goldwyn, Roach, Rank); but the major and minor studios (poverty row studios) should all be represented. The occasional TV movie could be 'other.' I would not include documentaries, specials or shorts because they are really a whole different entity. Just keep the tally by studio focused on feature-length fictional films, including both sound films and silent films.
Still sounds like a bunch of work, and a bloated result at the end.
-
Here's an online reference. I even see a reference to Photoplay on the right-hand side.
http://mediahistoryproject.org/-
1
-
1
-
-
4 hours ago, mr6666 said:
We’re Not Mad Enough About the End of FilmStruck
It's not just about one streaming service. It's about watching the history of an art form disappear to save a few bucks.
"........So I say, screw ‘em. Take it personally. I’m going to rip my discs and share my Plex libraries. Get behind a VPN and download rarities. Stream and capture. (I’m not saying I’ll use an HDMI splitter and Game Capture device to connect my Roku to my laptop and capture FilmStruck’s content before it vanishes forever, but I’m not not saying it.) Figure out my own ways to circumvent a system that killed the mom-and-pop video store, then killed the chain video store, then replaced it with streaming services that eventually dumped their catalogues for “original content” with a fraction of the cultural value. Get mad. Fight for the art that matters to me. Somebody has to.
One of the most indelible images of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 (and of Francois Truffaut’s film adaptation) is that of the Book People, who have attempted to preserve literature in a time of book-burning by each committing a book to memory, and reciting it. That’s a commitment, and perhaps that’s the kind of spirit those of us who care about film history have to adopt. The difference is that our cultural history isn’t being erased by the government. It’s being erased by capitalists."
http://flavorwire.com/615025/were-not-mad-enough-about-the-end-of-filmstruck
Like...duh. (to the first paragraph)
As per the second quoted paragraph - LOL yeah capitalism sure sucks, except for the capitalism that worked to create all these old movies.
Judging only by results, I'd say it's more broken now than it was back then. Fewer studios and less variety, but you do get your choice of behemoth action films with very little intelligent dialog made specifically for international distribution, if that is your thing. Which it isn't, because you are here. Or rather at Flavorwire.
-
1
-
-
I was going to post some of the details on what last month looked like, as I have some very detailed info coming in on what actually airs.
Since this place is already thoroughly nitpicked apart on a regular basis by people who otherwise seem to have nothing else to do, I will just say...yes, last month was brutal with the unpublished changes.
-
1
-
1
-
-
My project updates are posted for this month, including January premieres so far.
premieres:
http://www.moviecollectoroh.com/reports/Future_Premieres.htmmain project:
http://www.moviecollectoroh.com/reports.htm-
1
-
-
7 hours ago, cmovieviewer said:
I've also had some issues with switched digital on my cable provider. In the early days of this they would let you watch a lesser-used channel for 3 hours, and then they would put a message on screen asking for confirmation requiring you to press the 'OK' button on the remote. If there was no response, the cable company would switch your box to one of the 'main' channels currently being used. That would play havoc with some of my longer movie recordings (sometimes I would like to record movies back-to-back). I've also seen the box occasionally provide the wrong content as if they've mistakenly assigned the channel number to the wrong video stream. Two weeks ago I tried to record the TCM Noir Alley movie and got the DIY Network instead. Thankfully in that case I was able to catch the Sunday morning repeat.
Since Charter bought out Time Warner cable the 3-hour check seems to have gone away, so this is one good thing I can say about the new operators.
Ex-freakin'-actly. That issue.
Those would be the SDV channels (not necessarily the least watched, but mostly the upper channels).
That was enough to drive me away from TW cable TV and to Satellite. Fortunately, for the way I record things directly to a computer, it was a matter of a simple receiver/DVR switchout. No lost recordings like you usually read about on here.
I forget the initial reasons on why I went to Directv and not to Dish, but it may have been due to reported minor differences in picture quality back then. 4+ years later I still like it. Okay I think I remember - at that time Dish had a reputation for hard-nosing their providers on pricing, resulting in temporary loss of certain networks here and there.
Directv isn't perfect, it has its own issues, but it is clearly better than TW cable was in my area at that time. The point where I left, I was far beyond just noticing and was into banging my head on the wall, just like you see in that emoji.
Okay, well I am glad to hear that worked itself out for you. Very good... It seemed to be a localized problem though, so others may have had different outcomes. My take on it back then was that this might have been a deliberate attempt to alleviate network congestion problems. There were also plenty of instances of "pixelation" and audio synch issues at the time - this is a symptom of dropped network packets. This goes back to the picture I posted a few posts above, where a certain number of households must share a "node". The more activity from local subscribers on a node, the more congested it gets, and the more dropped packets you have. Since cable TV uses a private network variant of real-time streaming behind the scenes, it doesn't attempt to recover dropped packets as there is not enough time, so you must do without. The only solution is to add more equipment and/or split up the node into smaller nodes. Or just kick people off.
I hadn't heard of the channel mis-assignment issue, like you describe. A whole new can of worms. Hopefully that stays at a minimum.
-
1
-
-
On 11/2/2018 at 9:43 PM, EricJ said:
Back in the early HDTV days of '08-'09, new flatscreen sets were "QAM compatible", meaning you could plug your cable (the actual cable, not the box) into the sets, get the HD affiliates along with all the basic channels, and pretty much tune them as "regular" TV channels on your TV remote. One odd little tech-glitch I discovered was that a twenty-channel "blank" space was actually reserved for all the VOD movies that customers ordered, and with no box to block them, whatever anyone in town was ordering would show up on one of those channels whenever I surfed. I might sit down on a Saturday night, turn on Ch. 20.7, notice "Oh, lookit that, someone decided to watch Spiderman 3...", and watch a few random minutes out of curiosity to see whether I wanted to check it out on disk.
Naturally, Comcast had to put a stop to that, and they soon sent installers to customers' houses to install "descrambling" cable boxes--that you could only view on Ch. 3, with their own cable-box remote--which also included only the 4:3 SD-upgraded network affiliates on the Basic service, and blocked all the local HDTV channels to the $99/mo.+ Premium Digital tiers. And tack on the $5 extra box-rental fee, of course.
☠️☠️☠️ ?
That's pretty funny. It sounds as if the Switched Digital Video node (group of households), or maybe even "non-switched", was behaving a bit like a "party line" before they apparently started further regulating it at device level.
In this pic, older analog cable TV, satellite TV, broadcast TV, and non-switched cable have everything available all at once, as is in the top image.
Then in the bottom image there are various smaller groups of channels which are bound together, as is in the modern CATV SDV system. The cable receiver itself actually sends a request to the cable plant when the viewer crosses over from one group of channels to the next. Then the plant sends the receiver a different group of channels (sometimes these can be individual channels as well). This is transparent to the viewer, who only sees a little bit more delay when changing between certain channels.
The downside to that (and the reason I went from cable to satellite) was that a channel left unattended would eventually go blank. That is, outside of power savings features, the cable plant would decide nobody was watching after a certain amount of time passed and no activity from the viewer. Then it would disconnect the connection to my box and recycle it for someone else. Totally unacceptable. [Your cable system may vary]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switched_video
-
1
-
-
1 hour ago, TopBilled said:
There's a higher percentage of films from the 30s because Glenda Farrell is Star of the Month and the bulk of her output was in that particular decade.
These lists would be helpful if they were also done by studio.
That's someone else's count, not mine. I haven't set up a normal report to count each month like that.
I did find it could differ quite a bit, depending on when it is taken. If it is taken about a month beforehand or sooner, then it will mostly just be counting actual movies. If it is taken just before or during said month, then it will also be counting trivial shorts, which will throw it off.
I previously tried counting a few months worth on my end the way he is doing, just to see how it compared. My numbers were different, a bit smaller. It varied in different ways for each month.
P.S. "By studio" would make the task significantly larger, as there would be an additional column or two for each major studio you want to track, and not to mention that minor studios which wouldn't even get counted (unless you group them together as stragglers)
-
I like it.
For your viewing pleasure, here is the last part of it in an animated gif.
-
1
-
-
Haha Gene Rayburn.
I remember him for that mic he carried around. Sort of looked like a cross between a police baton and a lapel mic capsule.
Speaking of oddball mics. Today's mic du jour it seems is the Shure sm7b, with that frail little wire that connects the mic to the plug. Definitely just for studio use or to sit in one place indefinitely. i.e. not for live stage performances. Original version had a huge foam windscreen that covered the whole thing, it was for radio announcers, but now everyone and their uncle who has a podcast has at least 1-3 of these.
-
10 hours ago, Sepiatone said:
Sure, OK.
I remember reading about "pay TV" back in Jr, high(in a magazine article while waiting my turn at the dentist), and couldn't understand it at first. The city I lived in(and still do) when CABLE first came 'round these parts( a Detroit suburb) didn't have a cable service until AFTER several surrounding suburbs got it. (that was 'bout '82).
And right away it seemed, many people came up with ways to "bootleg" the premium channels( HBO, Showtime, TMC, etc.). One way, since the "changer" wasn't a remote, but a small box with three rows of numbers( the channels) and a selector switch on the side of the rows, and a long wire connecting to the TV. One method called for a person to choose the premium channel( by #) and place a pencil top eraser on it and wrap a rubber band over THAT, pressing the button only half-way down. Later on, a neighbor fixed me up with attaching about three-four inches of speaker wire to a couple of junctures inside that box, and the other end to a $1.95 rheostat from RADIO SHACK, then hit the number of the channel you wanted and turn the dial on the rheostat until it came in. At the time, the now defunct UNITED CABLE was charging $9.00 a month for "premium" channels. On TOP of the usual monthly fee.
Sepiatone
It sounds as if the protection for pay channels on a variety of cable system boxes at that time may have been based on a simple resistive-capacitive modification of one of its circuit boards. Possibly the keypad. Anyhow easy enough for a tinkerer to figure out or imitate. It would have been something that was easy to change out at the shop (a quick swap of a circuit board for instance). As I recall to add a pay channel, you either had to take in your box or someone had to come to your house. I do remember certain gray-market boxes being available through mail order in the back of certain magazines. They presumably had these changes made beforehand (there weren't a lot of pay channels back then, so not much going on).
Today's digital serialization makes something like that nearly impossible for the average person. My Directv receivers each have a "smart card" for authentication. It looks just like a regular credit card with a chip, it slides into the receiver and just stays there. [Cable TV receivers have this too]
Directv sends out a digital beacon to all their customers, every half hour or so. Each receiver gets the entire thing, but only reacts to directives that match its account number (on the inserted card).
Up until recently I had one whole house Directv Genie HR44 receiver/DVR and a couple Genie clients (these go into other rooms with other TV sets and they stream everything from that one receiver/dvr). I dropped one of the whole-house clients and added an "owned" H25 receiver which I purchased from eBay, just a simple single-TV receiver, for reasons I won't get into here for the sake of brevity. The day my receiver came in from eBay I did the changeout. Within half an hour after my phone call to activate the newly arrived receiver and deactivate the one client, the HR44 gave me an error that said it is not authorized to have two clients paired to it - which one would should it deactivate? I thought that was sort of interesting.
-
2 hours ago, sewhite2000 said:
I had Geek Squad expunge a virus from my computer one time. It was over $200.
Yeah, those kids know how to do everything. Not sure if everything they know how to do is legal. I remember subbing for a high school tech class one time. The latest Spider-Man came out on a Friday, and these kids were watching it in the classroom on their computers the following Monday. I was actually less concerned about their goofing off in class than the feds breaking down the door. We're warned to report Internet piracy in every form of home entertainment we watch. And Spider-Man is not one of those arthouse films that they put in the theater for one weekend and then make it available on streaming. And this was before streaming, anyway. "There's no way that's legal," I told the kids. They just blinked at me. "Yes, it is," one of them said. Touche!
As for "grabbing a teenager", well, at my age, it would probably bring in the vice squad! ?
$200 for a virus? For that kind of money, or maybe a little more if you include a small SSD hard drive, you could get an okay secondhand computer and load Linux Mint for free. No more viruses.
To answer the OP question: No. I DON'T expect that the TCM TV channel might be changed or discontinued.
-
2
-
TCM Schedule Changes/Cancellations
in General Discussions
Posted
Schedules Direct (a third party schedule provider I additionally subscribe to) mirrors the Tribune/Gracenote on-screen schedules most get through their cable or satellite provider. They had the schedule change for "That Hamilton Woman" on Mon morning (Nov 26th) posted by Wed Nov 21st.
This same change first appeared Nov 1 on the TCM monthly online website schedule.
That order of events at least seems to follow the simple (though never antiquated) premise of cause and effect, compared to that described in my previous entry in this thread..