C4 True Blood Fans - Warning, C4 Have Messed Up Again!

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PoochJD

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Good Grief,

Why do Channel 4 keep on doing this? :mad: :confused:

The superb US vampire drama True Blood, has been showing on Channel 4 for the past couple of months. Episodes would air on Wednesday nights, and then get repeated late on Friday nights.

Due to clashes with other shows, I've been recording the Friday night airings. Everything's been going stellar, until tonight! Yes, in their infinite lack of wisdom, C4 are ditching the Season 1, Episode 7 repeat, and instead, showing "Friday The 13th Part 3D" in its place.

This wouldn't be a problem, except:

1) The film is being shown tomorrow night at 1020pm as well, on C4! :mad:

2) There was no warning that the Friday night repeat was being temporarily suspended for one week, either at the end of last week's repeat, or Wednesday night's original showing! :mad:

Next Wednesday, episode 8 airs, followed with the weekly repeat on Friday! For people like me, who've now not got episode 7 due to C4's incompetence, we're all left hung out to rot!

Thankfully, I've seen the show on FX, earlier in the year, but was enjoying recording the show without DOGS from C4 on Friday nights!

C4 - another screw-up, and another show ruined by your lack of forward-planning! Thanks! :rolleyes:


Pooch
 
They also mucked up a early Monday episode and had just a black screen for the last few minutes. I end up catching the repeat.

I wonder if the Friday the 13th won't be 3D tommorow.
 
HI,

Stupidly, tonight's showing of "Friday The 13th" is also in 3D! :suicide:

I recorded last night's showing, and just thought I should mention, the first few minutes of the movie are horrifically bad quality picture-wise. Really grainy. This is not the fault of C4, though. (It makes my blood curdle, having to say that. :D) It's just the way the film-maker's used material from the end of "Friday The 13th, Part 2" to introduce Part 3.


Pooch
 
So this beef is really about a spanner in the works whilst recording a show for posterity, DOG-free
- otherwise Ch4+1 would suffice if no recording clash on Wednesday nights

Ch4, the swines! How do they sleep at night?!
- they even have the audacity to put in ad breaks :mad:
 
Hi Krish,

So this beef is really about a spanner in the works whilst recording a show for posterity, DOG-free
- otherwise Ch4+1 would suffice if no recording clash on Wednesday nights

Ch4, the swines! How do they sleep at night?!
- they even have the audacity to put in ad breaks :mad:

Yes! But it's also to do with the fact that this is becoming a regular occurence with C4, to the point of something like this happening more than once a month! Is that acceptable to you, for a channel to mess-up your viewing habits like this?

In recent weeks alone, C4 have:

1) Messed-up "True Blood" as mentioned above.
2) Repeated "Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip", but ballsed it up, by missing out several episodes, and airing others in the wrong order.
3) Dropped "AfterWorld" with just 5 remaining 20-minute episodes to go.
4) Dropped "Hill Street Blues" after they got part-way into Season 3... for the umpteenth time they've run the show!
5) Re-aired Seasons 1 and 2 of "St Elsewhere", but not bothered to ever complete an entire run of the rest of the show, in the past few years!

Any channel that was making this amount of bad scheduling decisions, needs their head examining! :mad: This is simply not acceptable, especially when - unlike Sky - they don't repeat the episodes/shows that often!

I'm sorry that you find this a trivial issue, but maybe you can afford to buy every show on DVD or Blu-Ray that you want, or perhaps you are happy to download shows via the Net and watch them that way instead. However, I still watch and record a lot of off-air TV, and when any channel messes-up this volume of programming over such a short space of time, then I'm going to complain about it! :lesson:

If you just want to moan at me, on something that doesn't affect you, then be like that! :rolleyes:


Pooch
 
err... I'm not moaning

HBO is premium cable, all TB episodes originally aired ad-free ... so any commercial ad-supported broadcaster in the UK will automatically taint/cut it with adverts, DOG or not
- that's why this is a rather trivial matter, not worthy of any outrage or raising of blood pressure
 
i thought recording tv shows for anything other than time shifting purposes (ie. archiving and keeping a permanent or even semi permanent copy) was just as much a violation of copywrite as dowloading a show illegally online, or copying a dvd that's been bought, rented or borrowed?

so if you've already seen the show, why would you need to record it again for timeshift reasons (to be deleted once watched)?

and if a show is so great/enjoyable that something like a DOG reduces your enjoyment of it, surely it's worth buying the box set when it's reduced to a reasonable price?

it sounds like some kind of larry david reasoning in that it's not okay to break the law by downloading the show online, as that's consdiered piracy by your rules, but it's okay to record the show for timeshift purposes as that's legal, but you'll just keep it a little bit longer or a little bit more permanently as no-one will know, and you can overlook the legality of that

you're one of the first to complain if someone else mentions infringement of copywrite regarding tv shows, but you appear to be describing a similar infringement yourself, and i seem to recall you mentioning a similar thing before

with the old shows mentioned, aren't most of them available to watch on demand or legal download from itunes or similar? obviously this would mean you can't keep a clean DOG free copy of the show on dvd or vhs, but i can't understand why that would be so important for time shift reasons? i usually find if a show is any good i'll get involved in the viewing and ignore the on screen messages. the DOGS on freeview aren't usually that bad, especially not on the channel 4 related channels. i presume you are the only person that would watch them, and certainly the only person who would care if there is a channel logo on the screen or not when watching the recording

i would doubt most people would really care about the scheduling of old seasons of some of the shows as if they really wanted to see them they would just buy the box set. i'm sure stuff like st elsewhere and hill street blues are just shown to fill time instead of a test card. c4 usually do that with friends when big brother isn't on
 
Hi,

Krish - Maybe my whinging is trivial to you, but ultimately, the fact remains that a channel that is looking to get money via the TV Licence Fee (which we all pay for) treats its viewers with contempt, in the way it schedules US shows. To my eyes, that's just not acceptable. If Sky 1 were doing this with their shows, people would be furious. So why is it that I should give C4 any leeway?! :confused: They are meant to show TV shows, for us to watch, and then when viewers do watch them, they decide to mess with them by randomly screwing-up! Scheduling isn't brain surgery, but you'd think otherwise with the way C4 schedule their US programming!

Unique - Retaining any show recorded for time-shifiting purposes is legal. You can retain off-air recordings for a "reasonable time" according to the law, but there is no legal definition of what constitutes a "reasonable time". So, until such a law is released that states you may only keep off-air recordings for a set period of time, such as 1 month, or 6 months, then I'm not breaking the law, and will continue to archive recordings for my own viewing and research uses, until such time as I am required otherwise!

As for the whole "Larry David reasoning", the fact is, I'm not breaking the law, hence no one can say I am doing anything wrong. Downloading copyright material is breaking the law, whether that be just to view a programme once, or to retain it, or to put it onto a DVD. Duplicating a rented, borrowed or bought DVD that you don't own, is also breaking the law. That's not my interpretation, or opinion. That's simple fact!

Yes, I may appear a bit of hypocrit, and maybe at times I am, but if I or anyone else is not actually breaking the law, then no one can try to claim otherwise. There's breaking the law, and then there's bending the rules. I'm not breaking the law, and I'm not really bending the rules either! The fact that the rules, in this case English law, does not dictate how long I may retain off-air recordings, is something that I have no control over.

And, yes, whilst I agree that many channels often air programing late at night, purely to fill the time-slots, the fact remains that there are many people who watch or record TV overnight, because they enjoy the programmes.

What would you all say, if suddenly, FX decided to drop the only repeat showing that you had been patiently waiting for, of an episode of "NCIS" or "Dexter"? What if Sky 1 were to drop some of their late-night or daytime repeats of older shows, simply because they wanted too, and that particular show was something that wasn't out on DVD and couldn't be obtained legally (such as "Hill Street Blues" for example)?

I understand what everyone is saying: this issue about scheduling isn't a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but it is frustrating when one channel keeps altering programming on such a frequent basis.

Anyway, I've said what I needed to say, as has everyone else, and I'm happy to just agree to disagree on this issue. I think C4 are stupid for doing what they are doing, and others on here think it's not an issue for me to worry about. That's fine.

Seeing as this is going to be a deadlocked discussion, with none of us coming to a solution on this, can I ask that this thread be closed please, as otherwise it's going to end-up descending into a big argument, which I don't want to happen.


Pooch
 
I've been stung by the lack of support on the repeated showing before now and on other channels too. The most notorious one for me was when the BBC didn't repeat the Damages season 1 finale :eek:

Basically, don't count on the repeat schedule, I've known this for a while and your posts suggest you do too Pooch, viewer beware ;)
 
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