Part of the reason that channel 5 got their reputaion for providing inaccurate start and stop signals was that they didn't roll out accurate recording (or an alternative) until March 2013.
It wasn't that they were inaccurate it was just that they did supply it. Channel 5 roll out to the various transmitters of AR started in March 3013 and completed in April 2013.
5 * and 5 USA followed in July 2013.
There were repeated reports of 5 not supporting AR but they appeared to be all from people who had given up on 5 and was not looking at what it was currently.
And then came November 2015 and instead of being one of the best at AR it turned to being one of the worst. I sometimes record a lot of extra programmes to verify my impressions and this was one occasion due to the online comments that were appearing, especially for neighbours, but I guess that is one of their more popular progammes. 5 had become what appeared to be picking a large random selection of its progammes start times to leave defaulted to the billed time. (The broadcast only contains the start time for events, the end time adopts the next programme's start time for its end time.) I was hoping it was a blip but it was still poor in to March.
JohnH77 - 2 hours ago »
Actually, C5 (and 5* and 5USA) seem to have got much better recently.
My few have been very accurate recently, just checked 30.