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Recorded programmes - how to find out running time

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    MorganMiller

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    Hi, new to this forum even though owned Humax boxes for many years. Recently bought FVP-5000T. Can anyone tell me how I can find out the length of a recording, or even the date/time of recording? This doesn't appear when I press the Recordings button on remote, is there another way to get this information?

    | Sun 25 Oct 2020 17:46:17 #1 |
  2. grahamlthompson

    grahamlthompson

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    When you highlight say a series recording folder and select a recording you should get 3 options under a image of the first frame

    Play This Recording

    Delete This recording

    Cancel whole Series

    To the right Is the Channel start and end times and programme synopsis

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    | Sun 25 Oct 2020 18:14:46 #2 |
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    MorganMiller

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    Thank you Graham for responding so quickly. I understand your advice, although what I was hoping to do is simply scroll through a list of single recordings, i.e. not series recordings, so that I could choose what to watch based on how recent it was and how long it is.

    | Sun 25 Oct 2020 18:45:54 #3 |
  4. grahamlthompson

    grahamlthompson

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    MorganMiller - 52 mins ago  » 
    Thank you Graham for responding so quickly. I understand your advice, although what I was hoping to do is simply scroll through a list of single recordings, i.e. not series recordings, so that I could choose what to watch based on how recent it was and how long it is.

    Sadly Humax despite being asked never implemented a recording sort order based on

    Date newest/oldest first then time recorded. Pretty sure even the legendary, the very customisable Topfield PVR's ever sorted in duration length.

    Though a simple list sorted by file size would be close. But file size would not be perfect, because bitrates vary by broadcaster but in general HD recordings would largely find smaller HD recordings made on BBC-HD channels as the encoders used are more efficient than the other broadcasters.

    Then there is a massive complication. Freeview programmes are transmitted on A UHF carrier known as a Mux. To make sure each Mux is used efficiently. Each Mux has multiple channels,

    The total MUX (DVB-T2) used for the HD channels has the highest band width.

    Any channel in the MUX showing content with lots of movement needs more of the available bandwidth before Motion artefacts (non smooth movement).

    The current content on each channel is shared with the most challenging content getting the lions share.

    So the bitrate used by each shared according to the content (stat muxing). That means because the bitrate used by each channel is constantly varying (VBR).

    So until any recording is complete then the size is not known.

    Sorting by recording time would be very complex. It would need the box look at each recording. Recover the average bitrate and calculate the duration from that.

    No way this will ever happen.

    TBH not sure why you would want to do this.

    Most of us follow a series and delete a episode once watched.

    And do the same with one off recordings irrespective of length,

    If you part watch a recording because it's too long and stop playback.

    It's shown in the recording list as part viewed. When you come back it has a resume feature so you can carry on watching till you have seen the complete programme.

    On Demand playback has the same capability/

    | Sun 25 Oct 2020 19:48:41 #4 |
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    MorganMiller

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    Very informative, thanks.
    My PvR-9300 allows a sort on recorded date/time in newest or oldest order, as well as alphabetical. I wasn't expecting to be able to sort on file size or recording length, just to be able to see this on the list view for all the recordings. I guess the price of progress is to show something more modern than the 1990s style of the 9300, but a shame that some info had to be lost to achieve this.

    | Sun 25 Oct 2020 21:32:13 #5 |
  6. grahamlthompson

    grahamlthompson

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    MorganMiller - 1 hour ago  » 
    Very informative, thanks.
    My PvR-9300 allows a sort on recorded date/time in newest or oldest order, as well as alphabetical. I wasn't expecting to be able to sort on file size or recording length, just to be able to see this on the list view for all the recordings. I guess the price of progress is to show something more modern than the 1990s style of the 9300, but a shame that some info had to be lost to achieve this.

    This should still be possible and is. The big problem is more data some broadcasters transmit a series number and also a episode number.

    For some reason (completely stupid, your box sorts on episode number before series number.

    I have tried to get this fixed without success.

    Example Take a a long running series, Like Father Brown on BBC1-HD.

    The series recording codes allow a 13 week gap before a series recording fails to find a second event,

    After this the series recording code can be used for a a totally different series, and is deleted an van be re-used

    Here what happens simply because the precedance order is completely wrong

    Say we have a 6 episode series of Father brown , all off which have same series Crid and Different programme Crids.

    All 6 episodes record with no problems, and appear in the series folder in the order they were recorded,

    Next episode is coded by the broadcaster as Series 2 Episode 1 with 6 more episodes.

    Next recording appears sorted by episode number 1 in the recording list because the sort order is based on episode number not time and date of recording.

    As the series continues the recording list gets more and more into a totally order impossible to follow.

    Add broadcasters like ITV, Who may on long running soaps may have series numbers in the 100S, Resulting in a order near impossible to follow

    | Sun 25 Oct 2020 23:23:23 #6 |

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