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Poll Do you use AR ?

Do you use AR ?

  • Yes

    Votes: 22 81.5%

  • No

    Votes: 4 14.8%

  • Sometimes

    Votes: 1 3.7%
  • Total voters
    27
  • Poll closed .
peterworks

peterworks

Ye Olde Bowler
I use arbookmarks and the start/stop times are pretty hit and miss even on the 'main' channels.
I appreciate that many of the non-main channels can be iffy but I would like to know what percentage of people use it and what their experiences are.
 
The only time I've ever had to use padding was for the back to back Star Trek episodes on Sundays (Horror ch), when AR points could be up to 5-10 mins out. Evening/overnight films on the same channel are fine, although sometimes start recording during the credits of the previous programme.

Other than that, noticeable errors are so few and far between I couldn't even put a figure on it - may be one every 4-5 months? What do you consider a "miss" - seconds, minutes?
 
peterworks said:
I use arbookmarks and the start/stop times are pretty hit and miss even on the 'main' channels.
Click to expand...
The AR start/stop are not usually the actual programme ends but are in the breaks between the programmes.
I always use AR without padding and very rarely have problems and the number of problems is much lower than the number of times than it has saved me from problems with overunning programmes.
 
AR is my default but I use Multimode to set many 'minor' channels to padding (2min before, 5min after).
I got fed up with credits being truncated when the 'end' signal was sent before the programme finished.
 
emdubya77 said:
What do you consider a "miss" - seconds, minutes?
Click to expand...
eg, MoTD will show start at 10 mins and end at 22 mins - with padding on, the start is 2 to 3 mins and the end is 1 hour 37 (for a 1 1/2 hour program). Have lots of other examples,
eg, 1 hour program - start 46 mins and end 1 hour 2 mins. Sometimes no start but end in roughly the right place.
Will have a closer look at Multimode and, by the results so far (4 votes at 100 pct yes) will experiment.
Thank you all for your responses
 
I don't even use multimode these days - since the last year or two. AR was originally a bit flaky, or non existent on some channels, but for the ones we watch it seems to have been pretty solid recently.
Some series (usually on BBC I think) clip a tiny bit at the start, but lately the only one(s) that that's happened on it's just the first few seconds of 'previously on' so not an issue at all.
We get the odd failure, but that could be non-AR anyway such as the weak signal on a couple of muxes.
 
I've come to the conclusion over the years that there is something seriously wrong with the boxes ability
to maintain accurate padding over long periods - (perhaps why you created ar? )
I leave a 5minute pad at the start and end on the box. Every couple of months I get a handful of porgrams
recording late (sometines 5minutes sometimes as much as 45 minutes late) or ending a bit early.
This happens of various channels and times of day regardless of if i warm restart every day.
Changing the length of pad makes no difference and this has happened on many machines even
when relatively new. (One of the reasons I discovered the CF in the first place)
Its a problem that just seems to happen a few times then clears itself. (Or perhaps when I warm boot - I'm not sure)
I just live with it and keep 2 boxes recording the same program if its something I'm really interested in. The other
box working also tells me the issue is box related not signal issues.

Its a quirk I've got used to.
 
Thanks BH - yes that may be worth doing a bit more frequently.
Curiously I had 2 failures yesterday - the first for a while - Fantastic Voyage stopped recording after 41minutes
and later Machete Kill stopped after 71minutes.
I did notice that power levels seemed very high on a couple of channels but didn't think much of it.
Maybe I'll try an attenuator.
Obviously I've seen both films
before so its not a big issue and if it goes as normal I'll not see another issue for weeks anyay.
I sometimes cold start it - maybe I just havnt done that for a while
 
Turned AR on, removed arbookmarks and had a funny result the first time it was used. I set MoTD and then the NFL Show which runs immediately after.
I received an email this morning saying that the NFL Show had failed to record and, yes, there was an orphaned hmt file.
On checking the MoTD recording (which shows it being 3 hours long when it should be 1hr 20 mins) I found that the recording included the NFL Show and the following film, The Heist.
Not sure what this means, if anything, or whether it was just bad luck.
 
Black Hole said:
It might be a runaway recording, but these have not previously terminated after a specific time.
Click to expand...
Really? I thought 3 hours was the correct time scale for the standard Humax firmware to stop a recording that is over-running its expected duration or do you define a runaway recording differently?
 
MartinLiddle said:
Really? I thought 3 hours was the correct time scale for the standard Humax firmware to stop a recording that is over-running its expected duration or do you define a runaway recording differently?
Click to expand...
The runaways associated with RTS, Real Time Scheduling, have been never ending - limited only by disk space.
For normal AR recording the Humax does set a timer to monitor the end of recording with a time limit of 2 hour after scheduled recording end
peterworks said:
@Black Hole - assuming you mean remote scheduling then yes I do
Click to expand...
RTS is scheduling from Webif or RS without requiring a reboot
 
@MymsMan - I put the box into standby but did not do a power cycle. Multimode is not installed. I only have one transmitter tuned.
MoTD and NFL were already in the schedule - the WebIf showed that they had changed to AR.
For info, I could not find RTS in the glossary.
 
peterworks said:
I put the box into standby but did not do a power cycle. Multimode is not installed. I only have one transmitter tuned.
MoTD and NFL were already in the schedule - the WebIf showed that they had changed to AR.
Click to expand...
I am guessing that the problem is with switching from padding as the default mode to AR mode.
I know from past reports that Multimode works well if the default is AR and only specific channels are switched to padding but less reliably if the default is padding and you try to use AR for specific channels.
I know you are not using Multimode but I am guessing switching to AR is a similar effect.

It will be interesting to see if you have problems with other pre-existing scheduled recordings.
If you do you may need to try Backing up your recording schedule, delete schedule. rebooting, restore schedule, reboot to see if that changes them to proper AR recordings (not sure if it will)
 
Last edited:
Thanks @MymsMan - Will see what happens tonight when it is scheduled to record MoTD2. Fortunately this is my number 2 box so I can play around - also it has a 2Tb drive of which less than 2 pct is used at the moment.
 
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