CBS Action series link

prpr said:
They obviously went to the same school of competency as Humax. They can't even run to time either. The Original Series (a programme that runs to about 48 mins. max.) can't be fitted into an hour slot without starting over a minute early and finishing over 2 minutes later in the majority of cases.
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Par for the course these days. Three 5 minute breaks + 48 minute programme = 1hour 3 minutes. QED!
(Off topic) Unless you prefer the alternative - A 1 hour BBC programme (eg. New Tricks) shoehorned into a one hour slot (including breaks) on a commercial channel. 15 minutes of story goes AWOL.
 
EEPhil said:
Par for the course these days. Three 5 minute breaks + 48 minute programme = 1hour 3 minutes. QED!
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Yes, I know, but the point is, why can't they schedule it in a 65 minute slot and the following programme in a 55 minute slot? They can't go on overrunning every programme all day, so some must be shorter than advertised. Then people would at least get recorded what they should have.
(Off topic) Unless you prefer the alternative - A 1 hour BBC programme (eg. New Tricks) shoehorned into a one hour slot (including breaks) on a commercial channel. 15 minutes of story goes AWOL.
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No I do not prefer that. Editing previously produced things to fit to some new time is abhorrent.
 
OK, think I may have had a minor revelation. ST:TNG is on at 11am and ST:TOS is on at 12 noon. I have padding set to 2 minutes before, 5 minutes after. ST:TNG records 62 minutes. ST:TOS records 65 minutes. So it cuts off the recording of ST:TNG bang on time, and starts recording ST:TOS - but more often than not, ST:TOS has already started by then :(.

I've checked a number ST:TOS recordings which have the start missing and in every case I found the missing start of the ST:TOS programme at the end of the preceding ST:TNG. This is the opposite of what I have occasionally experienced in the past: that you sometimes have to watch the start of the following recording to get the end of the previous one. So it's still CBS' fault because they seem regularly to start the following programme early (perhaps to accommodate the overrun suggested by EEPhil).

It does, though, highlight the fact that the Humax doesn't seem to use its tuners intelligently when recording two consecutive programmes on the same channel. If the second tuner isn't being used, why can't it apply the full padding to both recordings ie start recording the second programme from the second tuner, if the recording for the first programme is still in progress?

CBS' timing issues just exacerbate the problem, because if you just want to watch the following programme from the beginning, you have to FFWD or skip through to nearly the end of the recording of the previous programme. Not too much of a pain if they're consecutive episodes of the same series, but in this case they're not, so it is particularly inconvenient. It's a bit disruptive to have to fire up the following recording to see the end of the previous programme, but at least it's not too time consuming. Having to start from the back, as it were, is tedious in the extreme.

I reckon that CBS are using common US broadcasting practice, where one programme starts immediately after another with no or minimal commercial break. This avoids reminding the punter on the sofa that the thing they were watching has actually finished, and thus reduces channel-hopping. You then get an extended ad break after the teaser - and usually before the opening credits - by which time the couch potato will hopefully be hooked enough to want to find out what happens next.

Overall conclusion: grrr!
 
MontysEvilTwin said:
If you have AR as default, using padding on particular channels (multi mode) or recordings (manual in Web-If) is fine. If you have padding as default and change to AR you will get a 'failed to track error'. I think there are a few reports of this but I've not located the old threads yet.
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Ah, OK. Maybe I'll experiment with having AR as default then. (But it will be a bit of a chore to have to reset all my other channels to use padding!)
 
ejstubbs said:
If the second tuner isn't being used, why can't it apply the full padding to both recordings ie start recording the second programme from the second tuner, if the recording for the first programme is still in progress?
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This is due to the fact that the Humax does not allow the same channel to be recorded twice (at the same time) under any circumstances
 
prpr said:
Yes, I know, but the point is, why can't they schedule it in a 65 minute slot and the following programme in a 55 minute slot? They can't go on overrunning every programme all day, so some must be shorter than advertised. Then people would at least get recorded what they should have.

No I do not prefer that. Editing previously produced things to fit to some new time is abhorrent.
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I did once read (sorry I can't remember the source) that the BBC considers the scheduled times as a "guide". 9pm could mean 8.57 or 9.02. It is somewhere around 9pm. (I think the accuracy is +/- 5 minutes) Very helpful! Clearly this shouldn't apply to EPGs, but obviously does. What a commercial channel thinks is accurate - who knows? About as accurate as my local bus service that considers 5 minutes early and 10 minutes late as "on-time". No wonder 98%+ of their service is on-time.
As for your second paragraph - totally agree. I hate re-editing anything that changes the original production - that goes for timing, "Political Correctness" censoring, and putting films on at the wrong time so that they have to be censored.
 
I know this would screw up the use of AR, but if you want to record two consecutive programmes isn't it easier to manually set the timer and provide as much padding as you think you need (from before the first programme to beyond the end of the second)? I don't have a Fox T2 so don't know if you can edit (split) the recording on the box and rename the second programme. (I can't do this on a 2000T, but could on a 9150T).
 
EEPhil said:
I did once read (sorry I can't remember the source) that the BBC considers the scheduled times as a "guide". 9pm could mean 8.57 or 9.02. It is somewhere around 9pm. (I think the accuracy is +/- 5 minutes) Very helpful! Clearly this shouldn't apply to EPGs, but obviously does.
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EPG = Electronic Program Guide
Clearly "guide" does apply to EPGs.
 
I think that EEPhil is referring to 'guide' as an approximation of transmission time as defined by the BBC, rather than an accurate schedule.
And as the EPG should be, but is not always accurate, then it's an approximate guide when it should be an accurate schedule.
 
EEPhil said:
I did once read (sorry I can't remember the source) that the BBC considers the scheduled times as a "guide". 9pm could mean 8.57 or 9.02. It is somewhere around 9pm. (I think the accuracy is +/- 5 minutes)
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It was -1/+3 minutes as the aim, but not as a gaurantee. It used to be fairly easy to locate the BBC's comment with the BBC programme issue/FAQ search but for some reason I can't even find that page today! When I last saw the notice I was already aware that the regular 7pm BBC1 show (The Late Show?) sometimes starts more than a minute earlier than the scheduled time.
 
Trev said:
I think that EEPhil is referring to 'guide' as an approximation of transmission time as defined by the BBC, rather than an accurate schedule.
And as the EPG should be, but is not always accurate, then it's an approximate guide when it should be an accurate schedule.
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I think we agree but to be clear: EEPhil was stating that inaccuracy such as that allowed in the BBC guide figures should not occur in EPGs. My point was that an EPG is by its name a guide. As you say, if they were accurate they'd be Electronic Program Schedules - EPSs or something else that implies greater accuracy than 'guide'.
 
EEPhil said:
I know this would screw up the use of AR, but if you want to record two consecutive programmes isn't it easier to manually set the timer and provide as much padding as you think you need (from before the first programme to beyond the end of the second)?
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It would also mean abandoning the use of series link. All that CBS would have to do would be to juggle their regular schedule just a little and the recordings would be messed up (again). I don't really want to have to check their EPG once a week just in case they do decide to do something unhelpful like that.
 
For all you Star Trek fans, the CRIDs have gone AWOL again from tomorrow...............
 
It's something to do with the change of the month then. The last time it did this was the first day of the new month.
Should we all be standing by for getting on the blower to Humax I wonder?
 
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prpr said:
It's something to do with the change of the month then. The last time it did this was the first day of the new month.
Should be all be standing by for getting on the blower to Humax I wonder?
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If a broadcaster screws up the crid's what do you expect Humax to do about it ? Ever heard the adage - Garbage In, Garbage Out.
 
"Whoosh" I think is the appropriate word. Perhaps you should read the whole thread.
 
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