Overriding of manually adjusted timers by IceTV

Started by raymondjpg, June 20, 2012, 10:33:36 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

raymondjpg

I have just noticed that timers scheduled on the IceTV web site, and passed to my PVRs, are now being updated in the PVRs if the scheduled start time of a program has changed from the time originally set. How long this has been going on I don't know.

Don't get me wrong, I think it is great that scheduled start times of programs can be changed by IceTV in the PVRs in this way to more accurately reflect a program's start time...

BUT

I manually adjust the timers in my Topfield TF7100HDPVRt to provide for some pre-padding. There is no provision with this PVR to automatically provide pre-padding. You have to manually set the start time of the scheduled recording in the PVR to allow for however many minutes you want for pre-padding, and assuming that you do not change the duration of the scheduled recording, this amount of time is taken away from whatever post-padding you have allowed for routinely in the PVR's setup.

The update of a program start time by IceTV negates this manually provided pre-padding.

There is probably no prospect that Topfield are ever going to provide a firmware update for the TF7100HDPVRt to allow for a routinely applied pre-padding. This raises once again the question of whether Ice could be prevailed upon to provide a pre- and post-padding option which is device specific. I think that Ice does this for Windows MCE.

This looks like a must for this PVR if IceTV is going to be overriding manually adjusted timers.
Beyonwiz T2, Beyonwiz U4, IceBox BYO with Hauppauge WinTV-dualHD (x2), Hauppauge WinTV-quadHD

glcouchman

Thanks for this post. For years I have been manually changing the end recording time by at least 60 minutes to allow for TV station poor scheduling and it has worked fine however in the past few weeks I have been missing the end of my shows. Thinking I was going mad I manually padded a show last Thursday night to record for an additional 3 hours only to find out today that it had only recorded for 1hr 0mins. Very frustrating as I now do not know who the killer was!

raymondjpg

#2
Quote from: glcouchman on July 15, 2012, 04:12:20 PM
Thanks for this post. For years I have been manually changing the end recording time by at least 60 minutes to allow for TV station poor scheduling and it has worked fine however in the past few weeks I have been missing the end of my shows. Thinking I was going mad I manually padded a show last Thursday night to record for an additional 3 hours only to find out today that it had only recorded for 1hr 0mins. Very frustrating as I now do not know who the killer was!
Hi glcouchman.

You shouldn't miss the end of your shows if you add padding in the PVR setup. This will add whatever time you set there regardless of what time the recording starts.

The problem with the Topfield TF7100HDPVRt is that the padding applied in the setup is only post-padding - there is no provision with this PVR to apply pre-padding in the setup.

If you manually reset the timers to start say 5 minutes before the show, that will take away 5 minutes from the post show overrun allowed for in the post-padding.

If the IceTV schedule changes, then the start time is re-adjusted, negating the manual re-adjustment you applied previously to allow for the 5 minute pre-padding. The show will then record with the full amount of post-padding after the show as applied in the PVR setup.

Fine if the show doesn't start early. This is much rarer than a show starting late, but it does happen now and then.

Ice has in the past insisted that pre- and post-padding should be left to the PVR, but I suspect that their software programming has now become rather more sophisticated and could be tweaked to accommodate device-specific pre- and post-padding. This is about the only option left for the Topfield TF7100HDPVRt because it is effectively obsolete and highly unlikely to be getting any more firmware updates.

Lest anyone think that an obsolete PVR such as the Topfield TF7100HDPVRt is not worth such an effort by IceTV, consider that a number of other PVRs are now, or soon will be, in the same boat!

Beyonwiz T2, Beyonwiz U4, IceBox BYO with Hauppauge WinTV-dualHD (x2), Hauppauge WinTV-quadHD

IanL-S

No chance of new firmware. And the little rotter does not all TAPs, so there is no way to overcome the issue.

Not sure what commitment Topfield in Korea have to IceTV, the last 3 models they released do not support IceTV Interactive (7170, 2470 and 2100) ... although the 2100 is not network enabled, so it would be like the old 7000 transferring data via USB.

Ian
IceTV: IceBox + BYOB IceBox + 2xTRF-2400 + 2xTF7100HDPVRtPlus + SKIPPA [RIP] + T2 + U4 + V2
No IceTV: a few Toppys and T2
Synology NAS
Check out the oztoppy wiki and oztoppy Forum for Toppy help