Combining Sequential Recordings on the Same Channel

[raymondjpg]

I am new to the DP-P2. This may have been answered elsewhere, but I cannot find reference to it.

As I understand it the DP-P2 cannot record overlapping (sequential) scheduled recordings on the same channel. The scheduled recording for the second show takes precedence over the first.

One fix recommended by some is to *combine* the sequential recordings into one scheduled recording on the PVR. That seems to work fine, until the critical hour when the first recording starts it reverts to the duration of the first of the two scheduled recordings.

It doesn't seem to matter whether I delete the second schedule on the PVR before extending the time of the first, or if I delete the second from the overlapping timer warning in the PVR, or manually delete the second scheduled recording from My Upcoming Shows on the Ice server.

Does locking the recording do the job? I haven't tried this as it appears to have some implications for unlocking the recorded file. (On a related matter, does locking the recording and file have any implications for accessing that file with WizFX?)

My DP-P2 is pretty recent with Firmware/software version: 1.07.040. This is unknown to the Ice TV people. Could the issue that I have be firmware related?

TIA

[prl]

I am new to the DP-P2. This may have been answered elsewhere, but I cannot find reference to it.

As I understand it the DP-P2 cannot record overlapping (sequential) scheduled recordings on the same channel. The scheduled recording for the second show takes precedence over the first.

That's correct. The exact effect depends on your settings for padding priority.

One fix recommended by some is to *combine* the sequential recordings into one scheduled recording on the PVR. That seems to work fine, until the critical hour when the first recording starts it reverts to the duration of the first of the two scheduled recordings.

It doesn't seem to matter whether I delete the second schedule on the PVR before extending the time of the first, or if I delete the second from the overlapping timer warning in the PVR, or manually delete the second scheduled recording from My Upcoming Shows on the Ice server.

It's not clear from what you've written how you're trying to manage this. If you want to combine several programs into one timer, don't program them from IceTV. Remove the IceTV recordings, and check that the timers are removed from the Beyonwiz. When that's happened, program the recordings as recurring (e.g. weekly) combined timers on the Beyonwiz covering the programs you want to record.

Alternatively, set the recordings from IceTV and let the Beyonwiz make separate recordings, then tell the it to play them sequentially. There are a couple of ways of doing this, depending on your settings, but this will always work:

• Press the FilePlayer remote button and go into the folder that contains the recordings you want to play sequentially.
• In POPUP>Preferences>Sorting Order, set the order to Oldest->Newest
• Navigate to the recordings you want to play, and use the BLUE button to mark them (a tick will appear in the checkbox).
• Then press OK to play. The recordings will play one after the other, with a short (< 1sec) break when one finishes and the next starts.

Neither option is perfect. I prefer the second one, because it allows me to continue using IceTV to manage the recordings. De gustibus non est disputandum.

Does locking the recording do the job? I haven't tried this as it appears to have some implications for unlocking the recorded file. (On a related matter, does locking the recording and file have any implications for accessing that file with WizFX?).

Locking the recording will do the job it's intended to do, which probably isn't what you hoped it would do. Setting Lock on the timer will create a locked recording. That's all. You have to enter the PIN to do anything with locked recordings (including removing the lock, of course). I think that WizFX can access locked recordings.

My DP-P2 is pretty recent with Firmware/software version: 1.07.040. This is unknown to the Ice TV people. Could the issue that I have be firmware related?

01.07.040 was an internal Beyonwiz build that wasn't made available to beta testers. It's not all that surprising that IceTV doesn't know anything about it. The issue you have is firmware related, but probably not in the sense you mean. The firmware (and IceTV) simply don't deal with consecutive recordings on the same service very well.

[raymondjpg]

Thanks for the comprehensive response. The answer is here:

It's not clear from what you've written how you're trying to manage this. If you want to combine several programs into one timer, don't program them from IceTV. Remove the IceTV recordings, and check that the timers are removed from the Beyonwiz. When that's happened, program the recordings as recurring (e.g. weekly) combined timers on the Beyonwiz covering the programs you want to record.

I will try first deleting the relevant timers in Ice Interactive for the particular programs on the day of the combined recording. If it proves necessary to cancel series recordings for those particular programs, then I will rely on favourites to reset timers if and when combined recordings are no longer necessary.

Regards

[Gary]

The only way I have found to apply your strategy is once the first recording has started. Then you can delete and extend in whatever order and you will have a single recording.

The only other option for overlapping recordings is where channels have multiple LCNs with the same content which is a bit rarer now. So one recording on 7 and the next on 7HD, etc will work if there are no other timers when the overlaps are going.

[prl]

...
The only other option for overlapping recordings is where channels have multiple LCNs with the same content which is a bit rarer now. So one recording on 7 and the next on 7HD, etc will work if there are no other timers when the overlaps are going.

This will work for Seven, Nine and SBS most of the time. It won't work for ABC or Ten which now have completely different programming on their main SD service and their HD service.

[glubbish]

I think this is a terrible omission.
The solution here is to not use icetv?
I am not sure why I have a subscription

We have to post pad due to the channels annoying habits of starting late
surely ice can look at this as an important enhancement?

[raymondjpg]

I think this is a terrible omission.
The solution here is to not use icetv?
I am not sure why I have a subscription

We have to post pad due to the channels annoying habits of starting late
surely ice can look at this as an important enhancement?

I think this is a terrible omission by Beyonwiz. The Topfield TF7100HDPVRt uses the second tuner for overlapping programs on the same channel, and the Leadtek DTV2000 H seems to be able to record any number of parallel or overlapping programs on the same broadcasting frequency using just one tuner (albeit on a PC Windows OS).

While we wait on a PVR that is capable of doing all this (could be tuner chip capabilities or firmware modification, I really don't know), I think it is long overdue for Ice to implement capability to *combine* adjacent programs in Interactive. I know it has been canvassed many times before, but I have yet to see a persuasive argument from Ice for not doing it.

I can understand Ice's argument against implementing pre- and post-program padding (not wanting to compensate for deficiencies in PVRs), but combining sequential programs would be device-independent and benefit all who rely on pre- and post-program padding by eliminating the need for at least one pre and one post padding, taking up disk space.

As I understand it Ice interactive sends timers that rely on the EPG in the PVR picking up the program titles. It doesn't seem to me to be beyond the wit of a smart programmer to send instructions from Ice that both combine the sequential recordings, and tell the PVR to pick up all titles from the combined recordings, with some separator such as a semi-colon or dash between the titles.

As an aside, the "annoying" habit of channels starting late looks to be here to stay. Around here it seems to have settled at about 10 minutes on commercial channels, just about enough time for the live viewer to have turned on 5 minutes late, settled into the armchair, and still be treated to 5 minutes of advertisements before the program proper starts.

[grampus]

I think this is a terrible omission by Beyonwiz. The Topfield TF7100HDPVRt uses the second tuner for overlapping programs on the same channel, and the Leadtek DTV2000 H seems to be able to record any number of parallel or overlapping programs on the same broadcasting frequency using just one tuner (albeit on a PC Windows OS).

While we wait on a PVR that is capable of doing all this (could be tuner chip capabilities or firmware modification, I really don't know), I think it is long overdue for Ice to implement capability to *combine* adjacent programs in Interactive. I know it has been canvassed many times before, but I have yet to see a persuasive argument from Ice for not doing it.

I can understand Ice's argument against implementing pre- and post-program padding (not wanting to compensate for deficiencies in PVRs), but combining sequential programs would be device-independent and benefit all who rely on pre- and post-program padding by eliminating the need for at least one pre and one post padding, taking up disk space.

Not sure I understand that.
I have 2 mins pre, and 20 minutes post padding on my BW's.
Last night for example, City Homicide had 2 shows back to back.
The first recording was 62 minutes, the second show was 80 minutes.
So what I understand is that the extra pre/post has been taken care of.
I had an overlapping show, United States of Tara.
I believe it's worked like that using either Ice or manually set recordings
Of course there is the usual problem of late starting shows, and the first city Homicide wasn't complete in the first recording.  But then end and the complete scond show was in the second recording.

[raymondjpg]

I think this is a terrible omission by Beyonwiz. The Topfield TF7100HDPVRt uses the second tuner for overlapping programs on the same channel, and the Leadtek DTV2000 H seems to be able to record any number of parallel or overlapping programs on the same broadcasting frequency using just one tuner (albeit on a PC Windows OS).

While we wait on a PVR that is capable of doing all this (could be tuner chip capabilities or firmware modification, I really don't know), I think it is long overdue for Ice to implement capability to *combine* adjacent programs in Interactive. I know it has been canvassed many times before, but I have yet to see a persuasive argument from Ice for not doing it.

I can understand Ice's argument against implementing pre- and post-program padding (not wanting to compensate for deficiencies in PVRs), but combining sequential programs would be device-independent and benefit all who rely on pre- and post-program padding by eliminating the need for at least one pre and one post padding, taking up disk space.

Not sure I understand that.
I have 2 mins pre, and 20 minutes post padding on my BW's.
Last night for example, City Homicide had 2 shows back to back.
The first recording was 62 minutes, the second show was 80 minutes.
So what I understand is that the extra pre/post has been taken care of.
I had an overlapping show, United States of Tara.
I believe it's worked like that using either Ice or manually set recordings
Of course there is the usual problem of late starting shows, and the first city Homicide wasn't complete in the first recording.  But then end and the complete scond show was in the second recording.

Yes, the Wiz will eliminate the pre- and post-program padding between two sequential shows, but there is a discontinuity between the recordings of the first show and the second. OK probably if you are watching the recordings from the Wiz, but a pain if you want to archive the two shows separately particularly if the discontinuity (or break) between the two recordings doesn't sit somewhere in a period of advertising.

Your overlapping show, United States of Tara, was on another channel. So by the time your first recording of City Homicide was finished and the second (repeat) showing of City Homicide was under way (using the same tuner as for the first recording of City Homicide), the second tuner would have been deployed.

The problem I have with the Wiz is that it insists on using only the one (same) tuner for sequential shows on the same channel.

[grampus]

Yes, the Wiz will eliminate the pre- and post-program padding between two sequential shows, but there is a discontinuity between the recordings of the first show and the second. OK probably if you are watching the recordings from the Wiz, but a pain if you want to archive the two shows separately particularly if the discontinuity (or break) between the two recordings doesn't sit somewhere in a period of advertising.

The problem I have with the Wiz is that it insists on using only the one (same) tuner for sequential shows on the same channel.

Ahh, I misunderstood where you were heading.

[prl]

...
The problem I have with the Wiz is that it insists on using only the one (same) tuner for sequential shows on the same channel.

The way that that is handled may be the source of the problem ion the Beyonwiz, but it's not a logical consequence of it. For example, the same stream could be written to two different recordings during the overlap time.

[raymondjpg]

...
The problem I have with the Wiz is that it insists on using only the one (same) tuner for sequential shows on the same channel.

The way that that is handled may be the source of the problem ion the Beyonwiz, but it's not a logical consequence of it. For example, the same stream could be written to two different recordings during the overlap time.

Yes, but until we see some modifications or improvements to the PVR OS or firmware we are limited to how the Wiz behaves now.

Even if the same stream could be written to two different recordings at the same time, we still have that issue of unnecessary post padding of the first show, and pre padding of the second, to deal with. The ability to combine the two shows with Interactive would eliminate that.

As you have pointed out in this thread, combining two sequential shows on the Wiz is possible from the EPG, but requires quite some manual intervention at the Wiz end, and canceling of the scheduled recordings in Ice Interactive which must also be registered on the Wiz through a fetch before the combined recording will stick. Then the repeat recordings of the combined shows may also have to be cleaned up on the Wiz after the recordings have done.

Nearly two years ago I complained on the Topfield forums that the TF7100HDPVRt required both tuners to be deployed when recording overlapping shows on the same channel. I was told that I was asking too much of a modestly priced piece of consumer electronics, and that it was unreasonable to compare the Topfield with the capacity of the Leadtek DTV2000 H under a Windows OS. The single tuner DTV2000 H, as programmed by Bluebit with DVB Webscheduler Pro (now TV Scheduler Pro, Open Source), apparently has the capacity to stream any number of concurrent or overlapping recordings from the transport stream on any one broadcasting frequency. So while recording two overlapping shows on ABC1 for example, the Conexant chip can also stream and Webscheduler direct a recording of another show (broadcast concurrently) on ABC2.

Maybe the tuner chips in the Topfield and Beyonwiz don't have that capability, I really don't know. Neither do I know if the OS in the PVRs is up to the task. What I do know is that we are now another two years down the track, pretty much one-tenth of the way into the 21st Century, and we are still in a similar position, looking for workarounds to OS limitations or purchasing two PVRs to give us more tuners to work with.

I am not bucketing the PVRs, they both have their good points. Ice could help overcome some of their current limitations.