Newbie question - my scheduled recording starts late and stops early...

[ChinaRider]

I have a Hauppauge PVR-150 card and SageTV 2.2.8 installed. My OS is Windows XP Pro. I set up a favorite to record first-run episodes of the Simpsons. In my location, these start at 8:00 and end at 8:30 on Sunday evenings.

The first episode I recorded stopped about a minute or two early. So, I set up the start and stop time padding for 5 minutes earlier (start) and 5 minutes later (stop). I also lowered the recording quality from DVD standard play to DVD long play, thinking maybe Windows had some restriction on how big a file could be (don't think this is the case but I wanted to eliminate it as a possibility).

My question - are the start and stop padding times correct if I want to start 5 minutes early and end 5 minutes late (in other words, record 40 minutes of TV starting at 7:55 and ending at 8:35)? My second episode, which used these padding times, ended up only being 30 minutes, even though I had the padding set.

Also, I'm wondering what quality I should use to record these shows. My home theater setup is great from an audio standpoint, but from a video standpoint, it's nothing special. I use an S-Video connection from a DVD player to an older 32" TV. Any recommendations on what quality I should use?

[Opus4]

Was anything else recorded on the same channel before & after that Favorite? If so, it probably removed the padding due to that scheduling. (P. 181 in the v2.2 PDF manual: see the property for removing padding on back to back favs.)

As for the 'proper' recording quality setting... that usually comes down to personal preference in terms of how low a recording rate you can use w/o noticing image degradation that bothers you. I like "Best" at approx 3GB/hour, but others may prefer something else.

- Andy

[pjwerdna]

This is probably the annoying feature of padded playback in SageTV.

The padding at the beginning is there but it doesnt get played. The padding at the end is also there and will get played.

Try pressing rewind when playback starts and you'll probably be able to rewind back before the 0 point.

I have the same problem on most of my recorded shows as start times seem to be approximate so I have to add start padding to everything.

[ChinaRider]

No, I'm not talking about the SageTV feature when playing padded recordings. I'm actually viewing the mpg file in another video player and it isn't 40 minutes long - only something like 25:38...

Why is the padding setup so confusing - it's not intuitive as to whether you use the right arrows or left arrows and it's different verbage for favorites compared to single-session recordings...

[pjwerdna]

Ahh!

Might be a couple of things that I've occaisionally fallen over...

1. Have you got the values right?

To start 1 minute early set
Start Padding 1 minute
To stop 2 minutes later than the end set
Stop padding : 2 minutes

i.e. they are positive values for what you normally want.

2. If thats not it then it was may have been recording something else on another channel. Then bits can be missed due to padding on some other program that are higher in the favourites list.