Whenever I watch programmes I've recorded (and that's always by using the EPG), more often than not the last couple of minutes are chopped off. I've not kept a record so far of whether they're more BBC than ITV programmes.

I'm aware that sometimes the programmes might start slightly later than advertised, so my question is, when I use the EPG, does the Humax (9150T in my case) begin recording at the scheduled time or when a trigger signal is sent at the start of the programme's transmission?

I suspect the former, in which case, what's the solution to prevent missing the last two minutes? Is there a way of telling the Humax to record slightly beyond the end of a highlighted box on the EPG table?

In the case you state and If using Accurate-Recording a recording will start a few seconds into the theme tune of the programme being recorded and end at the beginning of the theme tune of the next programme. This assumes the channel you're recording from actually supports Accurate-Recording. Just because you're selecting a programme from the EPG doesn't mean you are using Accurate-Recording, you may have disabled it in the Record menu. Check the setting of Recording's Start Time and Recording's End Time, they should be set to On Time for Accurate-Recording to be enabled. You can use these settings to globally pad every recording to start a few minutes early and end a few minutes late but this will disable Accurate-Recording. Alternatively you can pad individual reservations in the Schedual leaving Accurate-Recording to still be enabled for the rest of your reservations.

For channels that are doing AR properly the signal is sent shortly before the start of the program; you can see this very clearly on an HDR-FOX T2 which does accurate recording better than the 9200/9150/9300. On the 9150/9200/9300 there is a delay typically up to 10 seconds (but in some cases longer) before the recording starts but usually the box responds accurately to the signal at the end of the recording if there is nothing else scheduled to start at about the same time. Please provide some specific examples of things that are cut short.

The last time it occurred was with Broadchurch (ITV) on Monday night though Shetland (BBC) which we recorded at the same time came out OK. We had recorded nothing afterwards on either channel.

If I know it's ALWAYS going to happen, yes I can change the timing in the "schedule" but that lengthens the one-click recording process that we're used to!!!!

It's a blue moon if it ever happens on my 9200 or my friend's 9300. You must have something wrong, do you have channels numbered from 800? And what about the global padding settings?

No the channel range is almost continuous from 1 to 91, then it's 100, then it's onwards up to 307 with gaps. Where do I find the global padding settings?

Most likely place is "Menu", "Record" - options 4 & 5. Note that these will probably turn AR off if set to anything other than "On Time".

That information is in an earlier post quoted below.

Just checked with Menu>>Record. The last two options are already set to "on time" so I guess on Monday night ITV (in Surrey) was slightly out of step with the EPG. I'll keep a record from now on of whether it's always ITV where this happens.