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11. 

    NickRich
    

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    Well, I'm learning a lot this afternoon! Let me check if I've got this right:

    I need to do a manual retune to restrict channels to Crystal Palace only, but that won't stop gaps appearing in the Guide?

    What is autopadding? I have no idea if I'm using it or not. I just leave the box on standby and normally have a full 7 day Guide available (I think). But you are saying I need to set the power on/off timer to achieve this? So If I DON'T do this, setting a series to record for the next x weeks, for example, won't work?

    | Sun 15 Jul 2012 15:33:26 #11 |
12. 

    grahamlthompson
    

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    NickRich - 3 minutes ago  » 
    Well, I'm learning a lot this afternoon! Let me check if I've got this right:
    I need to do a manual retune to restrict channels to Crystal Palace only, but that won't stop gaps appearing in the Guide?
    What is autopadding? I have no idea if I'm using it or not. I just leave the box on standby and normally have a full 7 day Guide available (I think). But you are saying I need to set the power on/off timer to achieve this? So If I DON'T do this, setting a series to record for the next x weeks, for example, won't work?

    Confusing two different problems.

    If you have channels from more than 1 transmitter it causes the problems you describe. ie gaps in the epg and failed recordings.

    Other posters were describing the usual population of the epg which isn't instant. If your box is in sby for two days and records nothing then when you next boot the box the missing two days will be downloaded to the epg. It will take a few minutes.

    When you set a recording using series recording or a one off accurate recording then the box wakes up 15 mins before to wait for the signal to start recording. During this period the epg will update. If in the unlikely event of only having one series recording and the next event is more than 7 days away it will fail because the box never gets chance to get the extra days.

    With it so far

    In the menus the box has a setting to add padding to the scheduled epg times (early starts and late ends). This keeps series recording capability but turns off the accurate record capability. If you ask the box to start recording say 5 minutes before the scheduled time it can't possibly know how much later the real start will be flagged. As a result the box wakes up at the scheduled time adjusted by the padding offset and instantly starts recording. Because there is no pre 15 minute period for the epg to populate the epg eventually runs out of data so the box stops recording. The solution as I already posted is to make sure the box is fully booted for a short period every day using the power on/off timer function.

    | Sun 15 Jul 2012 15:50:01 #12 |
13. 

    NickRich
    

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    Well this is fascinating stuff. Thanks so much for explaining it all Graham. I THINK I've got it.

    I am indeed using padding, now I recognise what it is! I have it set to start 1 min before scheduled time and end 10 mins later, but I hadn't realised that this turns off the accurate recording. This might explain why a recent Wimbledon overrun caused chaos with a scheduled recording. So I am better off NOT using padding and relying on "accurate recording" to adjust re-scheduled programmes automatically? I assume this is what it does? Then I also have he benefit of the 15 minute epg update.

    Am I home and dry?!

    | Sun 15 Jul 2012 16:32:12 #13 |
14. 

    grahamlthompson
    

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    NickRich - 11 minutes ago  » 
    Well this is fascinating stuff. Thanks so much for explaining it all Graham. I THINK I've got it.
    I am indeed using padding, now I recognise what it is! I have it set to start 1 min before scheduled time and end 10 mins later, but I hadn't realised that this turns off the accurate recording. This might explain why a recent Wimbledon overrun caused chaos with a scheduled recording. So I am better off NOT using padding and relying on "accurate recording" to adjust re-scheduled programmes automatically? I assume this is what it does? Then I also have he benefit of the 15 minute epg update.
    Am I home and dry?!

    Can't tell if you are dry :-), but yes you have grasped the nettle

    I don't use autopadding at all but still have the auto on/off. It just means when you use the box for the first time in any one day that you have the full epg already present. Up to you if you follow the same practice. It rather depends on how you tend to use the box. If you specifically want to pad a programme (Channel 5 are crap at series recording). You can always set a manual repeating recording in the old fashioned way. For instance my better half likes to watch the lunchtime neighbours in the afternoon. I have a weekday repeating manual recording with pre and post adjusted times of 2 minutes. You do of course have to keep an eye on Bank Holidays etc.

    | Sun 15 Jul 2012 16:54:38 #14 |
15. 

    NickRich
    

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    OK, one more clarification please. If accurate recording will adjust for any re-scheduling of a programme (eg previous prog over-runs), I don't need padding at all do I? The only reason I set it up was because that was what I always did on my previous (Panasonic) box which had no such feature, so I added 10 mins at the end of every recording in case things were running late. Is "accurate recording" reliable in your experience? Why would you choose to do a 2 mins pre and post padding?

    | Sun 15 Jul 2012 17:29:46 #15 |
16. 

    Martin Liddle
    

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    NickRich - 5 minutes ago  » 
    If accurate recording will adjust for any re-scheduling of a programme (eg previous prog over-runs), I don't need padding at all do I?

    With the box mistuned as it is currently then padding will be more reliable than accurate recording. If you choose to sort out the tuning issues then you should find that accurate recordings works well; not completely infallible but significantly better than padding.

    | Sun 15 Jul 2012 17:37:17 #16 |
17. 

    Martyn Culling
    

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    'Accurate' recording was one of the reasons for my purchase as it uses an event controller based on the programme playout. It's also what a box needs to get the Freeview + tag.

    Some of the commercial channels implement this poorly, but I've had no BBC recording errors since I bought the box in February.

    | Sun 15 Jul 2012 17:51:42 #17 |
18. 

    NickRich
    

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    Martin / Martyn: Seems best to sort out the tuning and go with accurate recording then.

    But, for instance, recently the BBC chose to stay with a late running Wimbledon match, but then switched it to a different channel and delayed the programme I wanted to record by an hour. Could accurate recording cope with this? The Guide did not show any of these changes, so I abandoned my scheduled recording and recorded non-existent programmes per the Guide. It worked, sort of!

    Thanks to you both for the advice.

    | Sun 15 Jul 2012 20:56:37 #18 |
19. 

    gomezz
    

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    Accurate Recording is rarely resistant to the stupidity of the programme schedulers when they choose to do this. I was in a similar position last weekend except it was the F1 and MotoGP coverage I wanted to catch. My way of dealing with this was to set hammock timers for BBC1 HD, BBC HD, BBC2, Freeview 301 and the Freesat Red Button streams 3 and 4 (using all three of my PVRs).

    | Sun 15 Jul 2012 21:32:58 #19 |
20. 

    Martyn Culling
    

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    I have watched the EPG change with events at times I knew to be fraught, and your recording should have worked with 'accurate' recording as a Freeview+ recorder goes for the event - not the published times. This does however assume the broadcaster is using the system correctly - the BBC usually do, but Wimbledon is probably the toughest test.

    I don't know how often the Humax box refreshes the displayed guide - there is a possibility the guide is frozen when you are looking at it. So you wouldn't have seen a change, even if one was transmitted.

    | Sun 15 Jul 2012 21:38:08 #20 |

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