No, Torchwood was scheduled with SR for the first broadcast and it recorded it OK. Then it recorded the repeat a day later, also on BBC2 (didn't ask it to!)

My post was a response to the claim that ALL the Torchwood episodes had been ID-ed the same. IF that was the case then you/people would have had 4 TW episodes (with 3 of them of the 1st episode) by now...

I don't know what problem caused the repeat to be recorded but I am sure TW episodes are ID-ed correctly...

Ah! I think we're on to something!

Watched the N & N on Sky - DTT should be the same - and although the One Show on BBC1 started at its now customary early start of 1857:30, the N & N did indeed rollover then. Then the two events shown were both the One Show (at 1900). At 1900 precisely the second one show entry became "Blackpool Medics" at 1930.

You learn something new every day!

Well at least this does explain why weve been missing beginings or ends of the wifes Corrie and the start of Harry Hill and Primeval.

This must have been a regional thing as I had no repeat of Torchwood like some others.

It might be a National thing, can't be a Regional thing.

BBC2 in the English Regions goes straight through, no decoding and recoding as with ER BBC1.

Are we seeing a difference between National versions?
England, Scotland, Wales & Northern Ireland?

son_t is in Fife, Scotland
JAK99 doesn't say where he is, at a guess England?

It is BBC 2 Scotland up here, yes... talking of SR (not quite right)...

My Harry Hill's TV Burp has not updated (the SR shows 26/01) even though in the EPG I can find it on 02/02 18:40-19:10 STV but when I schedule it - it is not a SR!

Anyone's the same? (Has ITV forgot to SR ID its programme from Sat 09:25 onwards?)

This has been happening for the past few weeks.
You will probably find that Harry Hill will be given SR data on wednesday, thursday or friday.
The same has been for Primeval too.
Why this seems to be only happening on saturdays programmes is a bit strange.

I see. Thanks for the info...

Yorkshire, on the East Coast.

No, No, No. Accurate Recording should be what it says it is. i.e. the trigger to start recording should be when the actual content of the programme starts, not at the start of the commercial break which is part of the previous programme. When programmes are running to schedule these advert breaks appear in the billed period for the previous programme. With the ITV proposals ITV recordings will start on average about 4 minutes before the billed start time and end 4 minutes before the billed end time. This will mean that ITV recordings will be out of synch with BBC and Non-Accurate Recording enabled channel recordings by about 4 minutes. This will greatly increase the number of missed ends and/or starts due to overlapping increasing the unavailability of tuners. If this happens I for one will be looking for a old PVR without Accurate Recording (or one that enables it to be selected on a channel by channel basis). I would then record all programmes on a timed basis and risk the occasional missed start or end, using manual padding only for very important recordings.

I'm furious

Colin

But surely the idea behind Accurate Recording is to avoid the need for padding. Having experienced Accurate Recording on BBC channels for the last 4 months I find it greatly enhances the playback experience. It's so much better than timed recording with the need to FF to find the real start of the programme especially as there is no way of knowing beforehand where that is.

ITV's Accurate Recording proposals give enforced autopadding at the beginning of the programme but minus 4 minutes padding at the end relative to billed time. At least without Accurate Recording where recordings are made on a time basis you have the 4 minute Ad break at the end of the billed time as a margin to cover small amounts of late running.

Colin

Duplicate post deleted

Yes. I have noticed that, at least on the Hannington transmitter. But it has not been consistently so. It has been "proper" Accurate Recording i.e. at the start of the programme and not at the start of the previous Ad break as now proposed by ITV.

Not particularly complicated IMO but the Commercial channels would not agree to that.
Thats's no problem as you don't have to watch them, you simply stop playback at that point.
30s seems a rather long time to detect the change and start recording. My Vestal PVR appears to start recording immediately the Now/Next info changes. On BBC Programmes the programme announcements are usuaully accurately recorded and the sponsorship messages (now becoming so long that they are effectively adverts) on commercial channels likewise.
It is being done adequately by the BBC IMO and I really like having it. If other channels fail to do it then I will be less inclined to watch their programmes. With the ability to record programmes 24/7 I could probably find enough programmes on the channels who do support it to meet my viewing needs. I am already choosing programmes from the BBC secondary channels in preference to commercial channels who do not support AR.
As you will have gathered by now I don't agree with that.

Colin

That's a coding choice by the Humax programmers.
It polls the EIT p/f data every thirty seconds, meaning the recording can start upto thirty seconds after the data changes.
It isn't really good enough IMO it should poll more frequently, at least once the "programme change iminent" data is present.

Well, I tried out accurate recording for the first time today, having finally got my Hummy working propery again after the .21 update (it took a reformat of the hard disk to achieve this!).

Our transmitter is Emley Moor and I used the serial link feature to record both episodes of Coronation Street.

The first one started at 19:34 instead of the scheduled 19:30 - and it missed the beginning. The second one started at 20:30 - and it missed the beginning.

With C St. I am not overly bothered about missing a couple of minutes here and there. But I am really struggling to understand what is so difficult about:-

i) the broadcaster sending a signal to announce the beginning of the next program

ii) the machine recognising this signal and starting to record

But I am only a graduate engineer. Perhaps if I got one of these new 'A' levels or degrees from McDonalds, it would all become clear to me.

Of course my Vestel may have similar polling interval. I was comparing the recording starts with the change of the Now/Next display which would of course be similarly influenced by any polling delay. However, the consistent close match with the programme material suggests it's much less than 30s.

Colin

Interesting. So, going forward, we are likely to see more failed recordings on ITV channels due to consecutive programmes. Since the Humax seems to drop recordings if it misses the start (was busy recording the end of something else). Alternatively we may see more clipped endings for the same reason (the Humax stops the other recording early to start recording the ads on ITV).

I'm not saying this is ITVs fault, the Humax logic isn't good enough. I would prefer it to use both tuners wherever possible to catch both beginning and end. If that isn't possible then it should catch the end of one and start the other late, it should never just drop the recording. Given this logic it is better to have the programmes flagged the ITV way so you don't delay the start of a recording just to catch the ads at the end of another.

I remain sure this isn't the case. Given the nature of the task it would be a really stupid choice I would also expect a lot more delayed starts, too many things start within 2-3 seconds of the start and only a few are up to 30 seconds late. I am convinced this is being caused by something other than a 30s poll time.

Could it be that Humax are using the time in the N&N fields (i.e. the sheduled start time as opposed to the EPG published start time) rather than triggering when the data changes (the actual start time)? That could explain a lot.

The N&N data is the dynamic data (used for early starts and late ends) - the EPG data is (mainly) static. N&N data is in the FP specs is defined for this use (AR/AT)... No FP box should use the EPG data for Accurate recording and programme tracking - they all should look at the N&N data!

From Schedule 4 of the Retail_Licence pdf on Freeview Playback :

-----------------------------------------------------
2.9 Accuracy of recording (Group 1)
As a minimum, the recorder shall incorporate a default
mechanism for controlling the starting and stopping of
a recording based on the broadcast EITp/f. Additional
mechanisms may be incorporated as an option.
The mechanism used shall allow complete events, as
defined by the broadcaster in the EITp/f, to be recorded
(less up to 10s for channel changing and service
acquisition) and shall track changes to the start time
and end time of the event. The start of an event is
indicated by its transition to the present event for the
specified service. The end of an event is indicated by
the event being replaced by a different event as the
present event for that service
It is permissible for a recording to start before the start
of an event and to finish after the event, but this may
create unnecessary conflicts with the requirement for a
back-to-back recording capability.
NOTE: the information about the now/next events and
the transitions between them is the only broadcast
information sufficiently accurately related to the
broadcast events to give accurate control of event
recording.
---------------------------------------------------

One way to read this is that only 10 secs are allowed between EITpf checks!

and the DVB spec fpr transmitting the EITpf is 2secs.

here here. it's only TV at the end of the day. had mine since november of last year. it now has series link and accurate recording and for the vast majority of the time it works like a dream. personally I think it's brilliant

How is the Humax intended (i.e. what did the programmers set out to achieve) to deal with overlapping recordings caused by Accurate Recording when there is no spare tuner available to deal with the overlap? Should the early start of an ITV programme always be ignored until a tuner becomes free? I realise that the Humax can fail completely to record a following programme in this scenario, but presumably this is not the programmers intention?

Colin

Harry Hill and Primeval are now flagged up with series link, but it seems that they are using a different series ID.
If you select them and set as whole series you will have the new one set as well as last weeks.
If you cancel this weeks which cancels the whole series, last weeks still remains in the schedule list.
I think I may send ITV and email to see if they can explain why they are not giving these two programmes series data until a thursday and why the series link seems to differ from last weeks so its not linking up.

Edit:
Just send email to ITV. I wonder if I get a reply.

I sort of got a reply from ITV which I must of got by accident as it was my email forwarded to an ITV engineer, which I got a copy of too.
It must of worked though as ive just had a look and Harry Hills TV Burp and Primeval have now linked up with last weeks series schedule.
lets just see what happens with next weeks now.