EPG Down?

[vasc8]

Also in Italy the problem of IP EPG continues....
I own a smart TV from last november and i have been able to use its features only for a couple of days.
This is really frustrating

[abaekgaard]

Chatted with Danish Phillips support (name P....) very sensible guy.
He informed me that there are problems with some servers related to the IPEPG. He said that it only affected some customers. But he didn't have more details than that.

I asked him to update the general server status so it would reflect this and save frustrations. He said he'd try.

I asked for a reference to the problem to ease future contacts to suppoprt. Unfortunately this was not possible because of other IT problems .... Sounds like they have their hands full of problems ....

So we ended up agreeing that I'd have to check in on them from time to time. Which I'll do. Rest assured.

/A.

[Crick]

Dear all,

since yesterday evening I realize a dramatic improvement in the performance of the IP-EPG in Germany.
If this is due to a technical adaptation I hope that Philips will draw the right conclusions from this lesson to prevent a similar disaster with regard to functionality of the IP-EPG in the future (especially in peak-times like around x-mas and the holiday season when potential customers set-up there new TV panels).

Crick

[abaekgaard]

Dear all,

since yesterday evening I realize a dramatic improvement in the performance of the IP-EPG in Germany.
If this is due to a technical adaptation I hope that Philips will draw the right conclusions from this lesson to prevent a similar disaster with regard to functionality of the IP-EPG in the future (especially in peak-times like around x-mas and the holiday season when potential customers set-up there new TV panels).

Crick

Agree with Crick!
IPEPG is back on track ..... at least for me here in Denmark.

Still I'd really appreciate a statement from Philips with a brief explanation + assurance that IPEPG stability has been future proofed.

In addition I'd really like to emphasize the need for separating IPEPG and access to recorded material. It makes very little sense that access to films on my USB hard disk is blocked because of IT server problems elsewhere .... We need this issue to go into the product roadmap.

/A.

[Philips - Mark]

We can confirm that IP-EPG (Program Guide over internet) is continuously up and running, already for several days.

We have experienced an enormous growth in data usages by the IP-EPG system.
This was, first of all, caused by many new TV’s using IP-EPG.
We are expanding the amount of channels supported by IP-EPG; (= more data).
The recommendation area on the Smart TV homepage and the Online TV Apps were also expanded; they make use of the same servers as IP-EPG.

We are prepared for exponential growth, so it was a surprise that the performance on IP-EPG was affected while the CPU-load of our servers did not even reach 20%.
We keep tweaking and tuning to find all the possible bottlenecks in our systems and we have them corrected. We want to gain in performance and speed.

Since our 2012 high-end range, USB recording is also possible on DVB-EPG (via Cable) beside IP-EPG (via Internet), our new TV’s are no longer depending on the IP connection for USB recording and playback.

IP-EPG remains to be offered free of charge.

[bluevoice]

Since our 2012 high-end range, USB recording is also possible on DVB-EPG (via Cable) beside IP-EPG (via Internet), our new TV’s are no longer depending on the IP connection for USB recording and playback.

IP-EPG remains to be offered free of charge.

@Philips - Mark: I kindly request *again* to separate the USB recording function from the IP-EPG for the 2011 TV's so we can watch recordings even when the IP-EPG server is down. If it works for the 2012 TV's it shouldn't be that hard to implement it for 2011 TV's, would it?

Also, you note that IP-EPG is offered free of charge at this moment. This implies that, should the IP-EPG change to a paid model in the future, owners of 2011 would be forced to pay for a subscription for the IP-EPG in order to be able to view recordings, which is very, very weird.

One way or another, the USB recording function should be separated from the IP-EPG for the 2011 TV's.

Why should buyers of 2011 TV's pay the price for the fact that Philips didn't get the USB recording to work properly first time and that it took 2 years to actually finalize it?

[Philips - Mark]

Hi bluevoice,

Sorry, it’s a hardware change. So we cannot fix this remotely.
We are presenting our new 2013 TV’s on CES today. We have already started to develop our 2014 TV range. Every year our TV’s are getting Smarter. You can’t claim the functionality of new TV’s in your current TV.
In 2012 we had an uptime performance of IP-EPG better than 99.9%
We try to do better this year.

[erho]

Hi bluevoice,

Sorry, it’s a hardware change. So we cannot fix this remotely.
We are presenting our new 2013 TV’s on CES today. We have already started to develop our 2014 TV range. Every year our TV’s are getting Smarter. You can’t claim the functionality of new TV’s in your current TV.
In 2012 we had an uptime performance of IP-EPG better than 99.9%
We try to do better this year.

What do you mean with an uptime performance of 99,9%? If you mean that it worked for that time: that is yust a lie. Please stop nonsense as epg-ip is offered for free. It's essential for this TV it works! What should you do, mr Philips, if you bought a car, where from, let us say, the heating failed? Should you accept the remark of your garage, that heating in most in the newer models finally works and that if the heating in your car works it is a free extra?
YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED!!!!

[miro9000]

We can confirm that IP-EPG (Program Guide over internet) is continuously up and running, already for several days.


We are expanding the amount of channels supported by IP-EPG; (= more data).

IP-EPG remains to be offered free of charge.

Dear Mark, Cold you give more info about the new channels in IP-EPG ? The spanish IP- EPG is still very poor.

Oh, and thanks for free services like this or the brightness control You are very kind with your costumers

[bluevoice]

Hi bluevoice,

Sorry, it’s a hardware change. So we cannot fix this remotely.

@Philips - Mark: Please enlighten us how starting playback of a USB recording without the IP-EPG should be a hardware thing.

At this moment this function works like this: you go to your recordings, the IP-IPG searches real time via Internet to find the broadcast information of the recordings and displays this information so that you can choose the right recording from the list of recordings.

Why not simply (software) change this function so that when you start a recording, the broadcast information from the IP-EPG for that specific recording is saved on the USB harddisk. Then when you want to watch the recordings later, there is no need to search real time to find the broadcast information any more as it is already there. In this case even when the IP-EPG is down the recordings are accessible.

I'm not asking for time recording without IP-EPG as this would require a different tuner (hardware), I'm asking for the ability to play a recording without the use of the IP-EPG (software).

We are presenting our new 2013 TV’s on CES today. We have already started to develop our 2014 TV range. Every year our TV’s are getting Smarter. You can’t claim the functionality of new TV’s in your current TV.

This is such a wrong signal to customers: "The first year we could not get it right, so if you want it to work as it should you should come back next year or the year after to exchange your dumb TV to a less dumber one. You could also wait 10 more years until we get it right".

The TV industry is not like the smartphone industry, people don't buy a TV every year only to get a "smarter" TV. If I spend my money on buying a new TV today I expect it to work properly within the current possibilities. But the lack of working properly within the current possibilities (because Philips can't get it right first time) is what upsets most customers. It is also misleading advertising, attracting customers with features that don't work properly or only for the half of what they are supposed to. You only dissappoint people by doing this and lose loyal customers to other manufacturers by doing so.

In 2012 we had an uptime performance of IP-EPG better than 99.9%
We try to do better this year.

This is not what we, customers, perceived. We perceived more like 50% performance, half of the time it doesn't work even when your system status shows green light and says there's nothing wrong with the servers. How many times I could not start a recording because the IP-EPG was not showing on my TV and checking the server status on the forum indicated by the green smiley that all servers should be ok even if that wasn't so. So you could start by installing better monitors!

[abaekgaard]

We can confirm that IP-EPG (Program Guide over internet) is continuously up and running, already for several days.

We have experienced an enormous growth in data usages by the IP-EPG system.
This was, first of all, caused by many new TV’s using IP-EPG.
We are expanding the amount of channels supported by IP-EPG; (= more data).
The recommendation area on the Smart TV homepage and the Online TV Apps were also expanded; they make use of the same servers as IP-EPG.

We are prepared for exponential growth, so it was a surprise that the performance on IP-EPG was affected while the CPU-load of our servers did not even reach 20%.
We keep tweaking and tuning to find all the possible bottlenecks in our systems and we have them corrected. We want to gain in performance and speed.

Since our 2012 high-end range, USB recording is also possible on DVB-EPG (via Cable) beside IP-EPG (via Internet), our new TV’s are no longer depending on the IP connection for USB recording and playback.

IP-EPG remains to be offered free of charge.

Philips/Mark!
There are several problems with your post as I see it.
You may do what you want with your product. But you should acknowledge that you have PAYING customers and treat them with a little respect.

In my opinion you need to observe the following:
1. communicate when there is a problem with a service. (in this case we only hear from you many days after the problem is experienced. Plus the local service staff in Denmark has no information about the service breakdown due to ......)
2. if the conclusion is that since it is a FREE service. Customers should not expect it to be available at all times. Then you need to get in sync with your marketing department. Since they have used this facility as a major selling point.
3. when measuring IPEPG availability you need to monitor the number of failures to connect. Every failure is most likely a dissatisfied customer.
4. Interesting about all the cute stuff you will implement in you new models ...... but who in this forum will seriously consider buying one. When we look at your track record so far ... ?

/A.

[bta]

Hi together,

my observation since JAN 7th: IP EPG is much more stable but near 8:15 pm (local german time) the performance almost breaks down. Hopefully Philips is aware of that.

Here is an idea: I request every user to call IP-EPG around 20:15 (CET) as often as possible in order to create a peak in the ip-epg load since this could help to make the bottle necks visible for Philips. Please ask every one of your friends with a connection to Philips ip epg to call it at this time.

regards
bta

[jgl]

@Philips - Mark: Please enlighten us how starting playback of a USB recording without the IP-EPG should be a hardware thing.

At this moment this function works like this: you go to your recordings, the IP-IPG searches real time via Internet to find the broadcast information of the recordings and displays this information so that you can choose the right recording from the list of recordings. As in a tale, all our comments and complaints are lost in the air.

Why not simply (software) change this function so that when you start a recording, the broadcast information from the IP-EPG for that specific recording is saved on the USB harddisk. Then when you want to watch the recordings later, there is no need to search real time to find the broadcast information any more as it is already there. In this case even when the IP-EPG is down the recordings are accessible.

I'm not asking for time recording without IP-EPG as this would require a different tuner (hardware), I'm asking for the ability to play a recording without the use of the IP-EPG (software).



This is such a wrong signal to customers: "The first year we could not get it right, so if you want it to work as it should you should come back next year or the year after to exchange your dumb TV to a less dumber one. You could also wait 10 more years until we get it right".

The TV industry is not like the smartphone industry, people don't buy a TV every year only to get a "smarter" TV. If I spend my money on buying a new TV today I expect it to work properly within the current possibilities. But the lack of working properly within the current possibilities (because Philips can't get it right first time) is what upsets most customers. It is also misleading advertising, attracting customers with features that don't work properly or only for the half of what they are supposed to. You only dissappoint people by doing this and lose loyal customers to other manufacturers by doing so.



This is not what we, customers, perceived. We perceived more like 50% performance, half of the time it doesn't work even when your system status shows green light and says there's nothing wrong with the servers. How many times I could not start a recording because the IP-EPG was not showing on my TV and checking the server status on the forum indicated by the green smiley that all servers should be ok even if that wasn't so. So you could start by installing better monitors!

Completely agree.

View recordings: this is a purely software affair, the sad thing is that they tell us this kind of tales thinking that they are true things. And just as in tales, all our comments and complaints are forgotten and lost when the new move to the previous page, at least it must be funny for someone.

Performance: they are really confused, uptime isn't performance, you can have an uptime of 100% and at the same time give a very poor service all of that time.

Smartphones and TVs: I think so especially now that the TV is not a hardware piece but the sum of his hardware+software performance and results and the software can be hard to maintain. But is a TPV / Philips decission to do that.

Finally, they won't attend our needs and troubles but at least ... they have us entertained ;-) !!!

[bta]

Hi together,

today I had a issue with IP EPG at 20:15. - Screen remains black.
Try serveal times to reload page, but nothing helps, while NetTV works nomal.
Interesting detail: I switch my TV off and on again and IP EPG works - yippi, but the manual mapped channels (some of them are not recognized automatically e.g. ORF 2) were gone. Since this mapping is stored at the IP EPG servers something goes wrong there - at least the TV sends that channel list has changed even if there has no change happen.

regards
bta

[bluevoice]

Hi bluevoice,
In 2012 we had an uptime performance of IP-EPG better than 99.9%
We try to do better this year.

@Philips - Mark: I can't use the recoding function. The IP-EPG shows no info for Ned1, Ned2 and Ned3.
Does this also count for the uptime performance for this year?