9200T chopping recordings

Some friends of mine bought a Humax 9200T on my recommendation (I'd had
years of good service from mine).

They complain that it keeps cutting the end off recorded programs.
They've tried setting the start and stop times to "on time" (which is
incredibly misleading, because it actually means "as controlled by the
broadcaster"), and also adding a fixed five minutes to the end of each
recording.

They say it still does it either way.

I should warn you that they are arty types who really struggle with
technology, so there is every chance of misoperation or mis-reporting.

However, I seem to recall some of you explaining that the 9200 uses
only one of two possible "start" and "stop" signals, and thus may be
more prone to problems. Is that right? I'm not a broadcast engineer
so this may be just me misunderstanding what you said.

One more thing: when I got them to demonstrate the problem, they did so
by pressing the Record button whilst they were watching the programme.
In other words, *not* by using the EPG.

I asked how often they did this, compared to setting it in the EPG, and
they didn't really know. They also insisted it should make no
difference.

But it might: for manual recordings, how does the Humax determine the
end of the programme? Does it use those signals sent by the
broadcaster? Or does it just use the EPG time? And if the latter,
does it observe the "extra five minutes" setting?

My suspicion is "the latter", and "no". I don't know, but I suspect it
might just use the EPG stop time with no adjustments. But does anyone
know if I'm right?

For now I've shown them how to add some extra time to the end of a
manual recording by pressing the Record button a second time and then
using the left/right arrows to adjust the stop time.

I can confirm that they are running 1.00.23, which I believe is the
latest software release. All other settings seem to be correct.

Any thoughts, comments or advice would be very much appreciated.

Thanks,

SteveT

On Sat, 26 Mar 2011 11:43:54 GMT, Steve Thackery
wrote:

Some friends of mine bought a Humax 9200T on my recommendation (I'd had
years of good service from mine).

They complain that it keeps cutting the end off recorded programs.
They've tried setting the start and stop times to "on time" (which is
incredibly misleading, because it actually means "as controlled by the
broadcaster"), and also adding a fixed five minutes to the end of each
recording.

They say it still does it either way.

I should warn you that they are arty types who really struggle with
technology, so there is every chance of misoperation or mis-reporting.

However, I seem to recall some of you explaining that the 9200 uses
only one of two possible "start" and "stop" signals, and thus may be
more prone to problems. Is that right? I'm not a broadcast engineer
so this may be just me misunderstanding what you said.

One more thing: when I got them to demonstrate the problem, they did so
by pressing the Record button whilst they were watching the programme.
In other words, *not* by using the EPG.

I asked how often they did this, compared to setting it in the EPG, and
they didn't really know. They also insisted it should make no
difference.

But it might: for manual recordings, how does the Humax determine the
end of the programme? Does it use those signals sent by the
broadcaster? Or does it just use the EPG time? And if the latter,
does it observe the "extra five minutes" setting?

My suspicion is "the latter", and "no". I don't know, but I suspect it
might just use the EPG stop time with no adjustments. But does anyone
know if I'm right?

For now I've shown them how to add some extra time to the end of a
manual recording by pressing the Record button a second time and then
using the left/right arrows to adjust the stop time.

I can confirm that they are running 1.00.23, which I believe is the
latest software release. All other settings seem to be correct.

Any thoughts, comments or advice would be very much appreciated.

I've just experimented.

Manual recording uses the scheduled finish time from the EPG. The "extra
five minutes" is not used even if that is set in the menu.

The broadcast "start" and "stop" signals are not used in manual
recording or in any recording if "early" and "later" extra times have
been set in the menu. If you select an early or later padding period in
the menu a warning message will be displayed saying that you will not
get "auto tracking" (use of the broadcast start/stop signals) or "split
and series reservation".

The problem is that programmes do not always run strictly to the
schedule advertised in the EPG.

--
Peter Duncanson
(in uk.tech.digital-tv)

Peter Duncanson wrote:

I've just experimented.

That's incredibly helpful. Thank you for going to all that trouble,
Peter. I've summarised your findings for them. I believe it will sort
everything out.

Thanks again,

SteveT

On 26/03/2011 13:33, Peter Duncanson wrote:

The problem is that programmes do not always run strictly to the
schedule advertised in the EPG.

Just to add to that. As far as the BBC is concerned (I have no direct
knowledge of other broadcasters, and things may have changed)
transmission usually runs to SID, the Schedules computer. SID is
usually updated on the fly and the start and stop times of programmes
put out in the Now & Next (EITpf) and other tables is directly
connected. So the BBC's EPG times should always be correct, within the
bounds of normal programme timing. It will even take account of
anything overrunning, providing schedules unit are informed!

I believe the EETSI and other digital tv standards require broadcasters
to transmit accurate timing information.

Richard

Dickie Mint wrote:


Just to add to that. As far as the BBC is concerned (I have no direct
knowledge of other broadcasters, and things may have changed)
transmission usually runs to SID, the Schedules computer. SID is
usually updated on the fly and the start and stop times of programmes
put out in the Now & Next (EITpf) and other tables is directly
connected. So the BBC's EPG times should always be correct, within
the
bounds of normal programme timing. It will even take account of
anything overrunning, providing schedules unit are informed!

A few months ago a live snooker programme was overrunning by half an
hour to catch the end of a match. The players were chasing the last ball
around the table, and it was clear that the programme could end at any
second. The EIT was being continually updated to show the next programme
starting in a few minutes; unfortunately they were a little slow with
one update, so the following programme (which I was recording) was shown
as starting, then 10 seconds later the start time was moved back a
couple of minutes. All I had recorded was 10 seconds of snooker.
--
Dave

On 26/03/2011 11:43, Steve Thackery wrote:
Some friends of mine bought a Humax 9200T on my recommendation (I'd had
years of good service from mine).

They complain that it keeps cutting the end off recorded programs.
They've tried setting the start and stop times to "on time" (which is
incredibly misleading, because it actually means "as controlled by the
broadcaster"), and also adding a fixed five minutes to the end of each
recording.

They say it still does it either way.

I should warn you that they are arty types who really struggle with
technology, so there is every chance of misoperation or mis-reporting.

However, I seem to recall some of you explaining that the 9200 uses only
one of two possible "start" and "stop" signals, and thus may be more
prone to problems. Is that right? I'm not a broadcast engineer so this
may be just me misunderstanding what you said.

One more thing: when I got them to demonstrate the problem, they did so
by pressing the Record button whilst they were watching the programme.
In other words, *not* by using the EPG.

I asked how often they did this, compared to setting it in the EPG, and
they didn't really know. They also insisted it should make no difference.

But it might: for manual recordings, how does the Humax determine the
end of the programme? Does it use those signals sent by the broadcaster?
Or does it just use the EPG time? And if the latter, does it observe the
"extra five minutes" setting?

My suspicion is "the latter", and "no". I don't know, but I suspect it
might just use the EPG stop time with no adjustments. But does anyone
know if I'm right?

For now I've shown them how to add some extra time to the end of a
manual recording by pressing the Record button a second time and then
using the left/right arrows to adjust the stop time.

I can confirm that they are running 1.00.23, which I believe is the
latest software release. All other settings seem to be correct.

Any thoughts, comments or advice would be very much appreciated.

Thanks,

SteveT


I started out relying on the "Freeview Plus" automatic recording (zero
minutes before and after the recording) but it kept missing the end off
BBC recordings. Commercial channels have the advantage of advertising
padding the end before the start of the next programme. So now I use the
deliberate padding feature with 3 mins before and 5 mins after, though I
sometimes manually add a couple more mins after as it tends to stop dead
on the time signal (e.g. 10pm) rather than add the 5 mins.

The problem is primarily with BBC programmes - esp BBC2 and BBC4.

killjoy wrote:

So now I use the
deliberate padding feature with 3 mins before and 5 mins after, though I
sometimes manually add a couple more mins after as it tends to stop dead
on the time signal (e.g. 10pm) rather than add the 5 mins.

Yes, interesting. The problem is, choosing manual padding disables the
series-link and split-programme recording features, I think. Is that
right?

SteveT

On Sun, 27 Mar 2011 18:14:29 +0100, Steve Thackery
wrote:

killjoy wrote:

So now I use the
deliberate padding feature with 3 mins before and 5 mins after, though I
sometimes manually add a couple more mins after as it tends to stop dead
on the time signal (e.g. 10pm) rather than add the 5 mins.

Yes, interesting. The problem is, choosing manual padding disables the
series-link and split-programme recording features, I think. Is that
right?

And I also stops it from picking up a rescheduling. One time they
changed Question Time from 10.40 to 9 pm and it coped with that.

Steve Thackery wrote:

Some friends of mine bought a Humax 9200T on my recommendation (I'd had
years of good service from mine).

They complain that it keeps cutting the end off recorded programs.
They've tried setting the start and stop times to "on time" (which is
incredibly misleading, because it actually means "as controlled by the
broadcaster"), and also adding a fixed five minutes to the end of each
recording.

Another thing to note is that if programmes are extended by
padding and then overlap with other intended recordings, then the
padding might be ignored, and recording may finish early.

Chris
--
Chris J Dixon Nottingham UK


Have dancing shoes, will ceilidh.