Recordings not following correct start/end options

[popechild]

I've been setting all of my favorites to start and end a minute early since they all seem to start before Sage starts recording them. But I'm having a few problems I'm hoping for help with:

(Sidebar: Is there really no way to just "force" Sage's clock by a minute or two? If I could make Sage think it's 8:01 instead of 8:00 at all times, all of these problems would be averted...)

1. Why does Sage start playing at the "original start time" instead of the time the recording actually started when you play it back? For instance, if I set it to start 1 minute early and end 1 minute early, an 8:00-8:30 show should record from 7:59-8:29. But when I start playing it back, it starts playing at 8:00, not 7:59. I have to manually rewind to see that first minute.

2. My shows are not always accurately following the "start and end 1 minute early" rule. I'm having trouble figuring out why some work and others don't, but some start 1 minute early but then run to the normal end time. So a 7:59-8:29 show records from 7:59-8:30. This may not sound like a problem, but it is when it causes a conflict with a 8:30-9:00 show that *also* starts a minute early. (Remember, I have to start everything early because of the clock difference). So even though technically the shows should record from 7:59-8:29 and then 8:29-8:59, I still get a conflict error and one of them won't record.

3. On those shows that do record that extra last minute for whatever reason, that last minute is always extremely choppy. After looking into it, when I look at the recording directory, there's one big file for the first half hour (7:59-8:29) and then about a dozen tiny files a few seconds long each for that last minute (8:29-8:30).

As you can see, it's a world of trouble trying to manually shift your entire schedule by one minute, but if I don't I lose the first :30 to 1:00 of almost all of my shows. Any suggestions at all on what else to try?

[Opus4]

1) It starts playback at the show's scheduled start time because that is what it is designed to do... start padding is a 'just in case' bit of recording that you can choose to view. I don't remember whether there is a property to override this & start from the padded beginning. (Edit: No, there is no such property.)

2) You may have the option enabled to remove the padding on back-to-back favorites on the same channel.

3) You may need to check the debug log to see why this is happening.

- Andy

[popechild]

Originally Posted by Opus4

2) You may have the option enabled to remove the padding on back-to-back favorites on the same channel.

I do have that option selected. But I would have thought that that setting only kicked in when the padding from back to back shows overlapped, but not in a situation where they just bumped up against each other like normal, but maybe I'm wrong about that. And also, the two shows that definitely did this last night were not followed by another recording on the same channel, although there was one on a different channel. I assume it shouldn't have kicked in in this case anyway, right?

Back to the clock issue: I just noticed the "sync clock to Sage server" option. If I de-select that, and then de-select the option to have windows sync online, will Sage just use whatever time I set the computer on the server to? Maybe this would be an easier option for me? I can't imagine that a typical Windows XP machine is likely to "drift" that far from the accurate time except over a pretty long period of time...

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by popechild

I do have that option selected. But I would have thought that that setting only kicked in when the padding from back to back shows overlapped, but not in a situation where they just bumped up against each other like normal, but maybe I'm wrong about that.

I don't know all the internal code for it, but as long as they are on the same channel & one follows the other, the padding can be removed so they can be recorded on the same tuner w/o any padding between them.

And also, the two shows that definitely did this last night were not followed by another recording on the same channel, although there was one on a different channel. I assume it shouldn't have kicked in in this case anyway, right?

If they are on different channels, the setting has no effect. Double check that you don't have another Fav for the same show, perhaps specific to that channel, which doesn't have the padding. This has happned to people before.

Back to the clock issue: I just noticed the "sync clock to Sage server" option. If I de-select that, and then de-select the option to have windows sync online, will Sage just use whatever time I set the computer on the server to? Maybe this would be an easier option for me? I can't imagine that a typical Windows XP machine is likely to "drift" that far from the accurate time except over a pretty long period of time...

You could set thte time yourself & not have SageTV or Windows update it... but keep in mind that the long period of time for Windows' time to drift could be less than a day on some PCs. If you really want to always shift you PC time by a certain amount, you could see if any of the atomic clock utilities have an option for an offset like that. Different channels might be off by different amounts of time, though.

- Andy

[popechild]

Originally Posted by Opus4

I don't know all the internal code for it, but as long as they are on the same channel & one follows the other, the padding can be removed so they can be recorded on the same tuner w/o any padding between them.

If they are on different channels, the setting has no effect. Double check that you don't have another Fav for the same show, perhaps specific to that channel, which doesn't have the padding. This has happned to people before.

Definitely no favorite on the same channel after either one of the recordings. I don't think it's the "remove padding" option that's causing the issue - it seems to be something else that's for some reason deciding not to actually stop it a minute early even when it's set to. Possibly related to why that extra minute only gets recording in tiny pieces?

You could set thte time yourself & not have SageTV or Windows update it... but keep in mind that the long period of time for Windows' time to drift could be less than a day on some PCs. If you really want to always shift you PC time by a certain amount, you could see if any of the atomic clock utilities have an option for an offset like that. Different channels might be off by different amounts of time, though.

One day? Wow. Although I noticed that the windows auto-sync only happens once a week, so I can't imagine significant drift in as little a day is typical. Maybe I'll try it and just see what happens. Thanks for the suggestion on the other atomic clock utilities. Basically though, Sage will go by whatever the windows clock says if it's not set to sync with the sage server, right?

And the channels are slightly different, which is unfortunate in itself, but probably 75% of them start between 1-60 seconds *before* the time Sage will start recording if it's not setup with padding. I'd prefer to miss a minute at the end - when they're typically showing "next week on..." than the beginning of the show.

[ke6guj]

Originally Posted by popechild

One day? Wow. Although I noticed that the windows auto-sync only happens once a week, so I can't imagine significant drift in as little a day is typical. Maybe I'll try it and just see what happens. Thanks for the suggestion on the other atomic clock utilities. Basically though, Sage will go by whatever the windows clock says if it's not set to sync with the sage server, right?.

Yup, the built-in clock can drift excessively for some people, it may be related to the MB chipset or something in the windows install. Most people don't notice it since windows re-syncs weekely. But Sage users will notice it if it gets too bad. The Windows auto-sync can be adjusted in the registry to sync more often. I have mine set to sync hourly, but I don't need any time-offset. If you need time-offset, then you need to look at the the atomic clock utils.

[popechild]

Okay, found a util that's letting me sync daily (or hourly if I end up needing to) and offset by 1 minute. I've removed the buffers from my recordings and am going to see what happens tonight...

[vvulture]

I am having a similar problem.

I have my global padding times to start recording 5 minutes early, and stop 15 minutes after.

However, if i record 2 shows on the same channel, it doesn't always work.

For instance, the first show starts 5 minutes early but the second show will stop on time.

I have the back to back padding option enabled, but that should not matter.

The first show should start 5 minutes early and the second show should end 15 minutes late.

Correct ?

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by vvulture

I have my global padding times ...

SageTV does not have a global padding setting; you are using a customization, so I'm not sure how or whether that would affect this.

As far as I know, back-to-back padding on the same channel would only get removed for the portion between the 2 shows if there are no other recordings for the same channel befrore/after those shows. It worked for a couple shows I just tried it on.

You could see if you still have padding issues when using the default STV w/o customizations.

- Andy

[JREkiwi]

The problem I ran into was in this situation, yours may be the same

With Remove Back to Back padding enabled
Prog A Channel 1 with 5min end padding 19:00-19:30
Prog B Channel 1 with 5min end padding 19:30-20:00
Prog C Channel 1 with 5min end padding 20:00-20:30
Prog D Channel 2 with 5min end padding 20:30-21:00

Prog C has an additional airing at a later time
Prog D is higher priority than Prog C

Prog A records with no padding
Prog B records with no padding
Prog C records the later airing with padding
Prog D records with padding

Because Prog C could have recorded after Prog B, Prog B does not record with padding

I did a bug submission on it and got this response

The way the logic is done for the back to back padding it doesn't check to see if it's in the schedule, it only checks to see if it's a favorite or a manual recording. (otherwise you'd have a chicken and egg problem)

John

[vvulture]

Originally Posted by JREkiwi

The problem I ran into was in this situation, yours may be the same

I did a bug submission on it and got this response

"The way the logic is done for the back to back padding it doesn't check to see if it's in the schedule, it only checks to see if it's a favorite or a manual recording. (otherwise you'd have a chicken and egg problem)"


John

That makes sense John, because if you have a close look, the option in Sage says :

" Remove padding on back to back Favorites "

I only noticed that yesterday.
Basically, back to back padding is useless, unless you use favorites.
This also explaines why my test run yesterday included pre and post padding on 2 shows i recorded back to back on the same channel. They were recorded on separate tuners even though they were on the same channel.

cheers