IceTV minimum update time

[prl]

I had a query about this from Daniel Hall at IceTV. The Beyonwiz IceTV setup wizard allows the update time to be as low as 2 min, but IceTV server EPG updates only happen every 15 min. He suggests that the minimum update time should be no less than 10 min.

Daniel says that an update must update both EPG and timers, so timer-only updates at lower update times can't be done.

Does anyone actually use an update time less than the 15-min default, and if so, what do you use, and what does it achieve for you?

[Grumpy_Geoff]

Not me, I always run with the 15-min default setting.

[Paul_oz53]

+1 - never saw a reason to change it.

[scotty]

When I’ve played around with more frequent update times in the past I thought it picked up last minute timers I set through the Ice app on the next update. Haven’t noticed that they still took 15 minutes to hit the Wiz.

Scotty

[prl]

When I’ve played around with more frequent update times in the past I thought it picked up last minute timers I set through the Ice app on the next update. Haven’t noticed that they still took 15 minutes to hit the Wiz.
....

Timers are available immediately. If you set a timer on the IceTV side and then do MENU>IceTV>Fetch EPG and update timers now, then the timer will be downloaded.

The EPG is updated at 15 minute intervals on the IceTV server, so updating more frequently will simply send no new data for the EPG on some (or many) of the updates.

However, an EPG update must be done at the same time as any timer update because the EPG may have changed from when the last EPG & timer update was done, and you need to have the EPG information consistent with what's in the timers.

So it's not possible to, say, update timers every 2 minutes, but only update the EPG every 15 minutes.

[scotty]

OK. So picking up newly added timers is a justification for having a shorter update time?

Scotty

[prl]

Yes, but on occasions where it really matters you could always do manual fetch.

[peteru]

I don't see a reason to restrict the users from updating as often as every 2-5 minutes. At worst, it's going to be a no-op on the EPG fetch (it's already designed to only fetch deltas) and will allow timers to be up to date. A perfect use case is when a user decides they want something recorded starting now. A 2 minute delay is bad enough, but 15 minutes?

If that causes scalability issues at IceTV, then they need to buy more grunt from AWS or look at the efficiency of their code. Telling users "You can't has it." shouldn't be the answer.