View only timers run short??

[JPP]

Hi All,

I posted the following on the Wiz forum, but have received little in the way of replies.

So, at the rsik of double posting, here is my problem.


For the past few days, I have been noticing that my View only timer is running short. It may have been doing this forever as I have never really monitored it.

I have one set for 5pm, to run for 90 min - thus from 5.00pm through to 6.30pm . I have noticed that it cuts out at around 5.30pm, i.e. it only runs for around 30 min. This hasn't presented a problem so far as this is long enough to get the EPG and timers from the ICETV site - the reason I have the view only timer for.

Now, I don't touch the Wiz during this time, nor is the Video (via HDMI) connected to an active component during this time. Maybe if I were to press a button on the remote, it would continue to run for either the whole 90 min or perhaps indefinitely.

So, the question is: Does the Wiz assume that if no remote key presses are sensed, that there is no viewer present and it may as well go back to sleep? I would really hope not, as having a longer view only time would allow late changes to be made via ICETV and that these would have time to be uploaded to the Wiz. For example, when on holidays, I plan to extend the View only timer to cover the whole of the evening viewing time, just in case I see a show that I want to record.

Has anyone else observed this behaviour with View only timers?


Reply from Gully:

I guess the obvious questions are

Are there are any other timers on when it ran short?

What is the padding priority?
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Cheers
Gully


My answer to that post:

Good questions and I meant to address them.

No, no other timers are/have been set - I usually don't start recording shows until around 7.30pm

Yes, padding - glad you mentioned it. Pre-padding is 5 min and post is 20 min. I have noticed that it starts before my start time of 5pm, so that suggests the View only timer takes into account the padding options. That should mean of course that it should not be shutting down until 20 min past my end time, i.e 6.50pm.

Soft padding is set to NONE. And when I say the View timer runs short, I mean that the Wiz shuts down - goes back into Standby. And, just so there is no confusion here with Recording Timers - these are OK and run their proper times, inc the preset pre and post padding times.

Edit: Some more info.

I have noticed that ICETV of late has been deleting my locally set DAILY View timer and replacing its own DAILY View Timer which it updates every day. It is a View timer as the letter V appears at the extreme right hand side of the title. And, it certainly hasn't made a recording of the View timer.

The duration and time is correct - Start 5pm ending 6.30pm. It shows a program title against the enrty, but this title does not seem to match that found in the EPG for that time slot and channel (ABC1). I.E. for tommorrow it is showing (without the quotation marks)

"*Noah and Saskiah 05.00pm to 06.30pm Mon 13/10/2008 DAILY V"

Note that it has an asterisk in front of the program title and the letter V at the end.

Now, oddly, not only does this program not appear on the ABC1 at this time, it doesn't appear or match any of the other channels' programs at this or any other time slot that I can see.

All a bit wierd I'd have to say, but, as far as I can see, the timer is set correctly apart from the program title.

Also, I have noticed in the past that even with my locally set View timer, it wiould run short, so I don't think that having then wrong program title is part of the problem.

Oh, and one last thing. View timers don't show up on your PC, either on the Wiki or Web Interactive, so there is no way to cross correlate the timers set on the Wiz.

However, very occassionally I see an orange dot against my View time slot.

Edit again. Like just now on Today's Web Guide, there is an Orange dot against the 6pm ABC 1 View time slot. However, there is none showing for tomorrow's View time slot.

However, all this ICETV stuff aside, it think that this View Timer issue is a Wiz problem. Can anyone who uses View Timers confirm this? Thanks.
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Phil.


Tony's post:

Mine is at 4am, so I am not normally awake to confirm your theory then 
I got rc.local to spit the time out during bootup some time ago:
Sat Oct 11 17:52:19 UTC 2008
(Strange, I only have 3mins pre-padding.. I should check my timer while I am at it... actually, that timestamp is almost 5am... huh... maybe ICE does muck about with the timer to try to match it to a show? I finally got some feedback from ICE in PM that now explains that if you delete a timer from your Wiz, it disables it from recording for that week from ICETV. So there is some "2 way" interaction for timers between the WIz and ICE so to speak).
Maybe I should do the same for shutdown? (But that would involve editing rc.sysinit maybe which means a reflash).

Regards
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Tony

So, my question to you ICTV gurus is: How exactly does ICTV Remote work and could this explain this strange behaviour of View Timers. As I mentioned above, it may just be a Wiz problem, but then again it may not. An understanding of how ICE Remote works will certainly help in tracking this one down. Daniel, Matt???