Timer padding annoyance and problem

[Ned Dorsey]

When recording an show from the guide my 522 always defaults to padding an extra 1 minute at the begging of the show and 3 minutes at the end. I never use timer padding - is there any way to make these to default to "0" so I don't have to manually switch this on every show I record?

A problem I've discovered is that when I schedule "The Screen Savers" from the guide, and a repeating M-F recording to the DVR and manually change the padding to "0", 2 days later the recorded events list will show the recorded length as 1:04. Going back into the timer, the 522 has added the 3+1 padding back in all by itself.

Weird. Anyone else experienced this?

 

[n0qcu]

There currently is no way to change the default. However with the majority of shows on most channels not starting/ending at the exact scheduled time it is actually preferable to have padding at the begining and ending of timers.

 

[ShadowEKU]

Oh man... the screen savers needs the padding... my 522 has actually cut them off before.. I think g4TTv's clocks arnt the same as the ones on Dishnets.. I usually get 5 minutes of whatever was on before and Its cut off TSS more times than I count... I did finally chang my timer to 0 and to 5. you shouldnt alter the timers on a 1:1 basis... set your weekly time but when setting it do the 0 and whatever you wish... why? because if you just got ot say tuesday and change it it will only affect tuesday.

 

[chaddux]

The screensaver does not interfere with a DVR recording. If you turn off the TV2 tuner, you will see a screensaver but the recording will continue behind the scenes. The only time the screensaver creates a problem is when you are recording to a VCR.

 

[n0qcu]

chaddux,
screensavers is the name of the program they are recording.

 

[TuxCoder]

chaddux,
screensavers is the name of the program they are recording.

Hah.

Anyways, I've noticed over the years at least, most networks (the big 4, cable based, and others) seem to generally follow USNO (United States Navy Observatory) standard time, within a second or so. That's the same time you get with a radio "atomic" clock. When I had digital cable, my receiver was synched to that time. My 522 is very close to that time. NTP (Network Time Protocol) on the Internet follows that time. So in more cases these days, you should be able to count on shows starting at the "right" time based on that time source. Of course some networks don't follow it, and occasionally some will drift pretty badly for some reason.

 

[chaddux]

Is that still on? I figured it was gone after the merger.

(Another reason why you should use capitalization. It really isn't that hard. Just requires you to hold down the SHIFT key and have a bit of intelligence.)

 

[typerk]

I used to watch the screen savers live now with the new guy Alex that show has become almost unwatchable. No lie, I tape it daily and can get through it in under 10 minutes. That new guy is most annoying.

 

[Bizzach]

I haven't watched the show since they moved to the new headquarters and showed re-runs for a month. Is Patrick still on? Maybe it's just me, but I REALLY think they should've left Leo and Pat together...

 

[itsonthedish]

I haven't watched the show since they moved to the new headquarters and showed re-runs for a month. Is Patrick still on? Maybe it's just me, but I REALLY think they should've left Leo and Pat together...

Actually they got rid of patrick for some annoying whining little dweeb who can't even read a cue card correctly... He's getting old really fast....

The finally straw was when they forced him to wear a bunny suit during an interview... I am not kidding.

 

[chaddux]

Watched it tonight. WHAT DID THEY DO! Before we switched to DISH, I watched that program at other people's houses. This is the first time I've watched since the merger.

 

[Ned Dorsey]

I agree, "The Screen Savers" has gone down hill this season. Leo was my favorite co-host. Now the show is more talk and chit-chat than substance. Alex talks way too much, and 1/2 the time he doesn't know what he's talking about.

I used to enjoy the opening segment where they would talk about and debate the news of the day. Now Alex and Kevin talk about what Dan had for lunch. The ending segment used to have a few minutes of viewer e-mails. Now they've shortened that to maybe answering one viewer's e-mail, then rolling to the credits and previews for other G4TechTV shows. So... if I miss a few minutes at the beginning or end of the show - no big deal.

Back to the padding issue... I can't think of any show that I've needed to pad. Sometimes the padding will cause a recording conflict with a show recording before or after. And if I left every show with the 4-minute pad, that adds up to a lot of wasted recording time as my hard drive gets fuller.

Hopefully the next software download will include an option to set a default, user-selectable padding... And name-based recording.

 

[blockisle9]

what happens if you record show (a) at 8:00 pm channel (a) to tuner 1 and show (b) at 8:30 pm channel (b) to tuner 1. Keep the padding defaults alone (1 minuet before and 3 minuets after.)
How does the 522 handle this? If show (a) is over at 8:30 and and the next show starts 8:30, doesn't the timer think the show starts at 7:59 and ends at 8:33?

 

[TuxCoder]

I believe it ignores the 2 padding values between the shows but I might be wrong... never tried it.

 

[bimmerbenz]

Ned:

I don't know if this is the case for you but I had this exact problem with timers where I changed the padding on already existing, recurring timers. From my own observation, it seems that if you create a recurring timer and try to change the padding later on, after a reboot the padding will go back to the padding that the timer had when you first created it. I had two timers that did this on me and I just deleted them and created new ones with the new padding and it works fine now. I never had the problem with a timer that I created without padding and it changed to the default by itself.

Blockisle9:
The few times that I accidently created overlapping timers, what happened is that in your example, show (a) would record 7:59-8:29 and show (b) would record 8:29-8:33. What appears to happen is that the timer for (b) would fire correctly one minute early but the timer for (a) would end recording like it would if the timer for (b) did not exist at all. This is at least the case if (a) and (b) are on different channels. I don't know what would happen if (a) and (b) are on the same channel.

Bimmerbenz

 

[Ned Dorsey]

I changed the padding on a newly created timer which wasn't saved yet. It's possible that when the recoder checks for updates at 3AM, it changes them at that point. To get around this padding-change problem, I've created a manual timer from 4:00-5:00PM. But that's extra steps, and the padding shouldn't change all by itself after you've created a show timer with no padding to begin with. I'll have more time this weekend to get more specifics on this problem, and maybe report it to DISH.

 

[Bizzach]

It will record both shows with the padding. If they're on the same channel, it'll record those 4 minutes on both recordings (ie, the last 2 minutes of show A will be the first 2 minutes of show B).
If they're on different channels, it'll shorten the padding. You'll have show A being 31 minutes (the 1 minute before is added) and show B will be 33 minutes (adding the 3 at the end, instead of 34 minutes).

Hope that isn't too confusing! In a word, it works either way.

 

[bimmerbenz]

If they're on different channels, it'll shorten the padding. You'll have show A being 31 minutes (the 1 minute before is added) and show B will be 33 minutes (adding the 3 at the end, instead of 34 minutes).

If your 522 does this than it might be my receiver or just a bug that occurs only under certain circumstances. All I know is that Monday last week and again this week, I was watching an already recorded show and had 2 timers set, 30 minutes apart and on 2 different channels, both with one minute early and no late padding, and I ended up with 30 minutes of the first show and 1 minute of the next show.

Bimmerbenz

 

[SimpleSimon]

Bizzach (and others):

I would like a 'solid' confirmation of what Bizzach is saying about getting the padding on both recordings. The 921 does NOT do this if the 2nd timer is already in use.

It seems obvious that the boxes (522 & 921) SHOULD do what he's saying - after all the data is available. I have already confirmed that the 921 will NOT.

If someone could run this test, I would appreciate it. The test is to make sure one of the tuners is already in use with, say, a one hour recording - 08:00-09:00 - of Channel 'a'. Now create the timers for 08:00-08:30 and 08:30-09:00 - both for Channel 'b'. For completeness, it should be done both with TV1 having the 1-hour recording, then TV2 having it. Results SHOULD be the same.

Will the padding show in the timer list? Will the padding appear in the recordings?

I suspect that the padding will only execute if both tuners are available (like the 921 does).

Thanks in advance!

 

[Ned Dorsey]

I better print these instructions, this is getting confusing
Since I created a manual recording of "The Screen Savers" (vs. pressing "Select" or "Record" while viewing the program guide) - my padding has not "automatically" changed. Since most of my timers are during the weekdays, I'll have to wait a few days to report some other testing.