Ugh. Found today my EPG for all channels seems much less useful. They've truncated the programme description to 50 characters and filled the rest of it with a 134 character advert for Tip Up TV

I know this kind of in-EPG advertising was planned for the DHD400 but had hoped it would never happen. The EPG is all but useless and all fourteen days have this spam in the description for all channels.

Typical is this, from Bargain Hunt, 20th October:

"Two teams of amateur collectors have an hour at a. Upgrade your old freeview box and get a Free and very clever digital tv recorder. Call Top up now on 0844 212 5005 for full details".

That looks to have answered my question about whether the new boxes use the same EPG as the old boxes. Guess not. Guess the demise of the DHD4000 could be Top Up induced rather than hardware failure

I see the Fusion boxes also received this feature, the message there said on calling Top Up TV they were told it was intended for Thomson boxes!

Haven't seen this yet as I am at work but what a shame and typical to force people into spending money unnecessarily. Just wondering if this will affect my Sony CRT freeview widescreen too.

just saw the 250Gb new Thomson is 79.99 at Argos. May do as a replacement?

It will only be the 14 day EPG, not the 7 day freeview one, but I haven't seen anyone with the newer Thomsons which use the 4TV EPG saying they've also got it. Hopefully they'll just put it in for a few days then remove it as a taster. I would hate it if they are signalling the death-knell of the device

I imagine the "free" upgrade they're offering will be conditional upon subscription to topup or setanta but haven't contacted them to find out.

These are two screenshots I just took.

http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/e...nap-583623.png

http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/e...nap-583446.png

I'm hoping this was the result of some moron fiddling, rather than an intended EPG downgrade.

Still, it has strengthened my resolve never to have anything to do with TUTV, or indeed with any other Thomson box than the DHD4000.

The Fusion thread (linked to above) suggests otherwise. Suggests a targetted marketing campaign to get people with older Thomson boxes to upgrade. I chose a poor example of a programme to capture in that the text wasn't truncated mid-sentence which it is on most programmes. But if you particularly wanted to see "Diagnosis Murder" the description wouldn't tell you if you'd seen that particular episode before.

These two show the EPG vandalism a bit better

http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/e...nap-630700.png

http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/e...nap-630461.png

it effectively makes the guide useless without programme descriptions

Just wondered if anyone has contacted Top Up TV to ask why they have broken our programme guide, and when they're going to fix it?

I have absolutely no intention of replacing my trusty DHD4000 for one of their boxes.

This is really annoying. I guess it could be gone tommorrow if they get enough complaints.

Why the random capatalisation of the F in free? Fools.

Also, does this mean I get a free PVR if I give them my old thompson? I already have a clever recorder, thank you. Grrrrr

Ive sent an email off to thomson via there website, won't be holding my breath though

Darren

Another very dissatisfied user here, the choice of wording "clever digital tv recorder" seems particularly daft since (I believe) it is only the fusion and thomson pvr machines that use this epg. Therefore, the only people they are advertising to already have a "clever digital tv recorder" and one that has been working perfectly well (for 5 years now with no problems for me) until they loused it up by turning the epg into spam...

I'm guessing "free" means "free when you subscribe to top up..."

I almost called them already just to complain, maybe I should...

pK

i suppose if enough people phone up and harrass topuptv maybe they will think twice before doing anything so stupid again

Darren

Just noticed it and came straight here.

I rang them up, and politely complained.

Their advice is to completely unplug the box for 30 minutes. Sounds unlikely to me since the EPG updates overnight.

Just been into the online chat thing on the Top Up website and after much explaining (and turning down offers of them helping me to reset my EPG!!!) they responded with

"It will just be for a few days. It wont do that forever."

So hopefully that means it will revert to normal soon.

One has to wonder where marketing people get ideas like this. I can just imagine the meeting now "I know, we'll irritate 1000s of potential customers, they're bound to buy our product then!"

If enough of us ring them up and politely complain, maybe the penny will drop. "Calls are recorded ...".

4TV always had plans to use the EPG in these boxes for advertising (to fund the EPG provision itself) but it never got off the ground. It's not a bad thing for people to be informed, but I feel the DHD4000 is already the box they describe. If they wanted to advertise the new box, they should have just sent it a message. I'd see the yellow light, read the message, and be informed. The way they chose is very intrusive.

As the saying goes:

Never ascribe to malice, that which can be explained by incompetence.

It seems the TUTV chat thing is currently unavailable!

Maybe it's been overloaded with complaints..?

Managed to get through to them about 30 mins ago, they claim it is temporary, hope so....

Pk

I would call them to complain if it was a free number. It should be if they want you to call it to buy something from them. There's no way I'd buy anything from them now though.

Well, if it doesn;t reset, even more reason to go for the new Humax Freesat PVR...

Perhaps I'm missing something, but the DHD4000 isn't already "the ideal clever pvr", as suggested above, because it doesn't have anywhere to put a top-up TV card in? So there's every reason to try and get us to trade it in. But they can shove it.

Well it's not for me to tell you how to spend your money, but the cost of a call seems a good investment if it stops the EPG abuse. There's no such thing as a free lunch.

Why are you complaining to TUTV?....they have nothing to do with this PVR.....all they have done is paid Inview for advertising space.

The only Thomson DTR they can provide support for is the DTI6300-16

I am appalled by what I see as intrusion. I rather think this will be in breach of either Advertising Standards Agency guidelines, or OFCOM guidelines, or both. I fully intend to complain to both organisations, and I would encourage other Forum members to do the same.