Recording Delays

[awdorrin]

I have been using WMC for about 6 months now, and overall I am very happy with the setup (leaps and bounds above my previous Time Warner DVR)

There is one issue that has been bothering us and I'm wondering if there may be a work around. When I record two consecutive shows on the same channel, there is a loss of maybe 15 seconds of recording time between the two shows.

Generally this is not a problem, since its the commercial break between shows, but we are finding that on some networks, we wind up missing the last part of an episode and even when we watch the start of the next recording we miss something.

This seems to happen most often on Fox and NBC, for instance between 'Bones' and 'Sleepy Hollow', or 'Sean Saves the World' and 'The Michael J. Fox Show'; seems like we always miss part of the last scene of Bones or the last joke on Sean.

Since the Ceton has four tuners, I'm curious if there is a way to make the second show record on a different tuner so that the first shows can record for an extra few minutes?
Or, if there is a way to tune WMC or the PC to minimize the gap in the recordings?

Thanks
-Al

[adam1991]

Set the show to record 10 minutes after.

Not "at least" 10 minutes after; just 10 minutes after.

This will force another tuner to take over duties on the same channel for the next show.

[awdorrin]

I"ll give that a shot, thanks!

[barnabas1969]

Not "at least" 10 minutes after; just 10 minutes after.

He means, not "if possible" (it doesn't say "at least"). And, even though there is an option for "5 minutes after", this option doesn't force it to use a new tuner for the next show, due to a bug in Media Center. Only the "10 minutes after" option works.

[IownFIVEechos]

Not "at least" 10 minutes after; just 10 minutes after.

He means, not "if possible" (it doesn't say "at least"). And, even though there is an option for "5 minutes after", this option doesn't force it to use a new tuner for the next show, due to a bug in Media Center. Only the "10 minutes after" option works.

Now that makes a little more sense. I have 'when possible' so. What should we do.

When Possible Start = ?
When Possible Stop = ?

Thanks.

[barnabas1969]

OK, sorry... "when possible".

For the post-padding (at the end of the recording), choose "10 minutes after".

For the pre-padding (at the beginning of the recording), choose whatever you like. The post-padding of "10 minutes after" is what forces Media Center to use a different tuner to record back-to-back shows that are on the same channel.

[IownFIVEechos]

OK, sorry... "when possible".

For the post-padding (at the end of the recording), choose "10 minutes after".

For the pre-padding (at the beginning of the recording), choose whatever you like. The post-padding of "10 minutes after" is what forces Media Center to use a different tuner to record back-to-back shows that are on the same channel.

Great thanks. I am going off memory with the 'when' vs 'if' but we know what section it is. I hate watching Storage Wars only to miss the ending. That's the only reason to watch! Thanks a lot.

[barnabas1969]

It seems that I say this pretty often, but here goes again...

PC clocks drift quite a bit. By default, Windows syncs it's time with an Internet time server on a weekly frequency. Many PC clocks will drift 2-3 minutes per week. If you sync your clock at least once a day, you will have less need for pre- and post-padding on your recordings. I only have two or three of mine set to have post-padding because some shows never start/end at the correct time.

I have a task set to sync the clock every time the PC wakes from standby. Here's a link to show you how to do this:
http://www.thegreenbutton.tv/forums/vie ... 883#p10883

For those of you who never put their PC to sleep, you can follow the same instructions, but change the "Trigger" on the task so that it runs daily at a specified time of day (instead of triggering on an event).

[IownFIVEechos]

You read my mind. I was thinking to ask you about how you reset yours as I remember you mentioning it in the past. Mine drifts and I am not sure why the internet time update doesn't fix it regularly. Probably windows 8.1 fixed this? But I am a prisoner to 7 Thanks Ceton. I know I know all Gen1 media centers... Blah Blah.

[barnabas1969]

I don't know if it's different in Windows 8. I do know that Windows 7, by default, sync's the time weekly. In addition to setting up the scheduled task, I set my Internet time server to "time.nist.gov".

[awdorrin]

My HTPC's clock was drifting, so I reconfigured the service to resync every day at 7pm - to make sure the prime time shows are recorded more accurately.

The problem I'm having isn't due to time drift - its more due to certain networks making their shows 31 minutes or 61 minutes long, to provide a lead-in to the next show.

I did make a change for 'Sean Saves the World' and set it to '10 minutes after', without the 'when/if possible' - when I saw the 5 minute option, I figured there may be a bug so left it at 10.

I'm not sure why there is such a significant delay when stopping one recording and starting the next. You'd think, on the same channel/tuner that the file close/file open action would be on the order of microseconds, not 10-15 seconds, and result in a seamless transition from one show to the next, regardless of the stop/start time.

[Mike88]

I record 3 programs in a row on CBS in order to save tuners. I have a 2 second delay or dropout between recordings according to the History data. In this particular scenario I'm lucky there is a short station break between programs & worst case is that I miss the very tail end of the ad for the following week's episode. At other times I do add the 10 mins to the end of programs to force a different tuner.

I've also wondered why there is any delay if recording on the same channel. Could some tuners respond quicker than others during this instant between programs? Or is the delay caused by WMC? FWIW I use 2 dual tuner AverMedai Duet cards.

[barnabas1969]

My HTPC's clock was drifting, so I reconfigured the service to resync every day at 7pm - to make sure the prime time shows are recorded more accurately.

The problem I'm having isn't due to time drift - its more due to certain networks making their shows 31 minutes or 61 minutes long, to provide a lead-in to the next show.

I did make a change for 'Sean Saves the World' and set it to '10 minutes after', without the 'when/if possible' - when I saw the 5 minute option, I figured there may be a bug so left it at 10.

I'm not sure why there is such a significant delay when stopping one recording and starting the next. You'd think, on the same channel/tuner that the file close/file open action would be on the order of microseconds, not 10-15 seconds, and result in a seamless transition from one show to the next, regardless of the stop/start time.

Simply reconfiguring the time settings in Windows to sync daily isn't enough. You need to use the two commands I listed in the linked post, in a scheduled task.

Yes, some shows definitely don't follow a "normal" schedule, or they're always off by a little.

When a new recording starts, it has to allocate the disk space before the recording begins. Mine takes less than 5 seconds. Maybe you have slow disks or some other problem with your PC that affects the performance?

[awdorrin]

Mike, your post got me thinking so I went and checked the Event logs for Media Center - and according to the logs the delays between recordings are 2-4 seconds long.
However, when the recordings are viewed, the delay between end and start appears to be longer than that (on the order of 10-15 seconds of lost video.)

I'm wondering if this is due to buffering of the video streams and the recording isn't getting picked up at the right spot?

Thinking as a software engineer, its too bad that there isn't either an open source alternative available or open source for Media Center itself. I bet the community could clean up the nagging issues within Media Center pretty quickly.


Barnabas, I have something similar to keep the time sync'd, which appears to be working. Interesting that WMC has to allocate the full disk-space prior to starting the recording. You would think they would have it programmed to allocate the disk space a few seconds before the recording starts, so to not impact the start of the recording.

I'm using a Western Digital WD Green WD15EARX for the drive in my system. I know being a green drive it is designed for low power/cooler use, but I wouldn't have thought it would introduce a recording delay.

[Mike88]

My HTPC's clock was drifting, so I reconfigured the service to resync every day at 7pm - to make sure the prime time shows are recorded more accurately.

The problem I'm having isn't due to time drift - its more due to certain networks making their shows 31 minutes or 61 minutes long, to provide a lead-in to the next show.

I did make a change for 'Sean Saves the World' and set it to '10 minutes after', without the 'when/if possible' - when I saw the 5 minute option, I figured there may be a bug so left it at 10.

I'm not sure why there is such a significant delay when stopping one recording and starting the next. You'd think, on the same channel/tuner that the file close/file open action would be on the order of microseconds, not 10-15 seconds, and result in a seamless transition from one show to the next, regardless of the stop/start time.

Take a look at this thread. It explains where to look for the start & stop timers in WMC.
http://www.thegreenbutton.tv/forums/vie ... ime#p31429

[barnabas1969]

I think the tuner has something to do with it too. The HD HomeRun Prime definitely tunes faster than the InfiniTV.

[awdorrin]

Just wanted to post a follow up - using the 'record 10 minutes after' setting worked great as a work-around. No longer missing the ends of shows during the transition between recordings. (Now I just have to figure out why last week's episode of 'The Mentalist' didn't record!)