I've had the Humax Freesat+ for a year or so and I thought I'd got the hang of it but last night it seemed to cut off 30 minutes from the end of a programme for no good reason.

I had 3 programmes set to record:[LIST][*]BBC HD Cranford 9-10.30 (Series)[*]ITV1 Fattest Man 9-11 (one-off)[*]BBC2 MOTD2 10.30-11.30 (Series)[/LIST]
I don't use Accurate Recording (gave up on it after missing too many endings). I have set padding 2 minutes before and 5 minutes after.

It recorded Cranford and MOTD2 fine, both with full padding, but Fattest Man ended at 10.28 with the above error.

I would have expected Fattest Man to have recorded fully and the padding dropped from the end of Cranford and start of MOTD2.

Anyone know why it behaved as it did and how I can avoid it in the future? Does it prioritise Series recordings above one-offs (even padding being higher priority)? What if they'd all been Series?

I realise AR would have worked better here, but I've had so many lost endings with it that I won't be turning it back on in the near future.

Thanks for any help.

Can you post the times from the "Actual Date and Time", found by pressing "i" against each recording in the Media List?

Rgds.


Les.

Setting padding on a hdr does not turn off AR as it does on the Freeview pvrs. If you want to turn off AR you have to set manually adjusted timers and drop the mid programme overlaps.

Ahem........

Setting padding does turn off AR, it doesn't turn off SR.

Rgds.

Les.

Hi Les did you get a definitive answer to this posting ?

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/s...22&postcount=4

Not from that poster, no, but I spoke to another well known poster who doesn't believe it tracks the EPG in the way AR does.

Even if it did, it would not use EITp/f RSF (AR) to track any movement in the EPG, it would only use CRID if this was updated in time well before the T-15, and the EPG was refreshed.

Rgds.


Les.

The 'actual' times were:[LIST][*]Cranford 20.58-22.35[*]MOTD2 22.28-23.35[*]Fattest Man 20.58-22.28[/LIST]

The HDR only drops autopadding inbetween back to back programmes on the same channel.

In your case, they are all on different channels, so it will try to implement the full padding.

So, it's trying to do this :-

CH108 Cranford - 20:58 to 22:35
CH103 Fattest Man - 20:58 to 23:05
CH102 MOTD2 - 22:28 to 23:35

TBH, this is why I don't use AP. It had no chance of recording those 3 fully, with the padding you had set. You would have had 3 recording at once in the overlap period of 22:28 to 22:35, which it can't do.

So, this is why it cut Fattest Man off, when MOTD2 started. Did you not see a Conflict message, giving you the choice of what to cancel?

There has been much debate over how it allocates it's priorities, but it is unclear. I've even seen it put forward that priority is in Channel Number order, which could explain why 102 took priority over 103, but I'm sure the algorithm is much more complicated than that. I tried to work it out by forcing many clashes, but couldn't fathom it. I don't believe Series or One-Off is part of the priority, though.

I'm a firm believer in AR because from 1900 - 2300, I would have so many clashes like this using AP, it would be impossible. Incidentally, AR recovers conflict clashes 9/10, starting the conflicting timer when the other finishes. You may lose a part of the start, but that's probably only Ident/Preview/Ads/Sponsors messages

I guess the moral of the story for you, is don't set overlapping timers on different channels using AutoPadding.

Rgds.


Les.

I think series linked programs take priority.

Early 2009 I had a similar case (all recordings on different channels):-

10:30 => 11:00 (series)
10:00 => 11:05 (one-off)
11:00 => 12:?? (series)

It did not warn of a clash at any point but recorded as follows:-

10:28 => 11:05
9:58 => 10:58
10:58 => 12:?? (+5)

Looks as though this odd feature is still presesnt in the latest firmware (i.e. it should attempt to record all three programs dropping padding as necessary as it gave no clash warning). HDR still requires too much babysitting.

I've had the same problem using AR.
When recording 2 programmes and with a 3rd set to start at the exact time one of the 2 original recordings was due to finish. I guess that if one prog is running late or the other starts slightly early then this will cause the conflict message.
I suppose the only way to guarantee everything works is to wait for one to end then manually start the next so preventing the 3 recordings clash.

Les Why did the hdr not identify the clash at the time the conflicting reservation was made ?

Graham

Now that, Graham, is a VERY good question.

As you know I don't use AP, so maybe it doesn't take account of the padding, i.e. it treats it like AR, only checking the scheduled EPG times (which were OK, no overlap) for conflicts.

Maybe an AP'er can test/check this for us? i.e. schedule back to back recordings on different channels (the first ends exactly at the start time of the next), and then another recording at exactly the same times as either the first or second, on a third channel. So, in the EPG, these would look OK to schedule, but the pre- and post-padding would cause an obvious clash.

Thanks.


Les.

I had my first ever crash with the Humax on Sunday night.

I was recording (but also watching live, without any delay) Top Gear on BBC HD. I had a recording set for Cranford, that followed Top Gear on BBC HD. At the end of TG, the box shut down, then rebooted twice. By the time it recovered Cranford had already started, but it failed to record. I had to perform a manual 'crash record' and that cut off before the programme ended, but fortunately just after the end credits started.

Not impressive !

There's been a few similar reports since the new firmware. Oddly it always seems to be weekend recordings and from memory involve BBC HD in some way. I recorded both Top Gear and Cranford in HD using series record without incident though.

Yes, and I've noticed that when people have reported it (I've had one), it seems to be when the BBC HD is late running and so the actual programme AR start is a minute or more late.

Rgds.


Les.

Well, thanks for the explanation, Les, I didn't know that it only dropped padding if the programmes were on the same channel. It would be nice if it could drop padding and change channel - maybe one day.

I'll have to keep a close eye on my schedule for now I suppose.

Thanks again.

Well I just checked and the hdr does not identify a clash produced by auto padding.

Set Auto padding to +-5 mins

Set recording reservations for Only Fools and Horses BBC 1 3:45-15:00, ITV 1 Dickinsons Real Deal 14:00-15:00 and S4C for 15:00-16:00. hdr accepted all three recordings despite the fact it would have been recording 3 from 15:00-15:05 assuming of course it would not have dropped the padding clash.

Hi Graham,

So, on scheduling, it did what I thought, i.e. only check the Scheduled times for Conflict.

Now, the second part, can you leave them to execute, or do you need to revert to AR for other recordings you have scheduled? But, I would expect it not to drop the padding, and one of them to fail or cut short. It would be interesting to see if the S4C failed (and did not recover after the overlap), or which of the BBC1 or ITV1 cut off short?

Rgds.


Les.

Got other recordings on the go Les but some time I will have a go and see what happens. Chose S4C because it was the first programme I could find starting at 15:00, I would not have understood a word - well may be Yacky Da

Graham

bump my reply

Heheh, me too !!

I struggle to find a good window to test recordings these days, too, with my programmes, the OH's, and joint ones

Rgds.


Les.

I've done a few tests on how these "padding clashes" are handled when using AP (Auto-Padding) rather than AR (Accurate Recording).

I can confirm what richard-g-uk posted - Series recordings are given higher priority than One-off recordings.

And can also confirm what savvy posted - padding will only be dropped where two recordings are consecutive on the same channel.

If there are already two programmes recording When a new recording is due to start (i.e. x padding minutes before its start time) a recording with a lower priority will be aborted and the new one started.

If the new recording is not higher priority than either of the two running then its start will be delayed until one of them finishes (y padding minutes after the end time).

What this all means is that if you do have two consecutive recordings (say A and B) on different channels with a 3rd recording (C) in parallel then, at best, you will lose the first few minutes of programme B (while it records A's end padding). At worst, programme C might be aborted half way through so that it can record all the padding for A and B.

So, if you do use AP, and you're still with me, then you might want to check if you have any One-off recordings in parallel with two consecutive Series recordings on different channels. It might be worth turning on AR for a bit.


(PS. I checked what Sky+ does. It just dumps the padding and changes channel. I'll say no more.)

Just to muddy the water a bit, I wanted to record three programmes a couple of days ago, but to avoid a clash, I moved one of them to More4 +1. All three recorded perfectly, but the +1 recording was marked as failed due to a clash. I can only assume that the CRID on the +1 channel was in conflict with the EPG time, which confused the recorder.

I do not have any padding set, as the broadcasters do now seem to have got the message that correct CRIDs are important. It certainly took them long enough.

That's quite common with what you did, it is not related to CRID & EPG times confusing the box.

Either, one of the two existing recordings was running over, or the M4+1 programme started early, causing a conflict. Luckily, AR on the HDR copes with this very well, carrying on trying to start the M4+1 prog until it can (when one of the others finishes). So your M4+1 will be marked with the failed icon etc., because it has partly failed. But the majority of the programme will be there, just some missing from the beginning - often no actual programme conent is lost, as the overlap just clashes with idents/previews/ads/sponsors messages/intro music.

But .... this has nothing to do with padding

Rgds, and Merry Xmas everyone


Les.

Hi,

As a newcomer I haven't worked out if I should use AR or AP yet. It is a little disappointing in how "dumb" AP is (Tivo user!).

I think that if I were to use AP I would only AP the end time and leave the start time as is without padding. This would seem to reduce conflicts but while recording the most important part at the end. Comments?

Kind regards,
Mark