Joining would be a great feature to have.
I would not have thought it's that hard to combine consecutive timers on the same channel.
Interactive would see two recordings, one after the other on the same channel, and automatically combine then, then send the new, single timer that spans both shows to the PVR.
In this situation it should not matter how many tuners the pvr has. It will treat the spanning timer exactly the same as it does normal timers and allocates a tuner as per usual. For all intents and purposes, the pvr thinks it is just a normal timer.
The pvr would still handle padding as it normally does.
Two consecutive timers on separate channels would not be possible unless all pvrs and icetv played nicely and they could all assign/cancel padding and it would be a big mess. This would not even be required, because dual tuner pvrs will record the first show, pad it and start the second show while padding the first.
And i think even if padding could be cancelled for the first show, a separate recording would still be created for the second show when a tuner changes channel (i'd guess that really depends on the brand of pvr).
The purpose for combining timers is not to free up tuners, the benefit would be to prevent the first show stopping abruptly a few minutes from the end, and having the last few minutes in another recording.
I would not have thought it's that hard to combine consecutive timers on the same channel.
Interactive would see two recordings, one after the other on the same channel, and automatically combine then, then send the new, single timer that spans both shows to the PVR.
In this situation it should not matter how many tuners the pvr has. It will treat the spanning timer exactly the same as it does normal timers and allocates a tuner as per usual. For all intents and purposes, the pvr thinks it is just a normal timer.
The pvr would still handle padding as it normally does.
Two consecutive timers on separate channels would not be possible unless all pvrs and icetv played nicely and they could all assign/cancel padding and it would be a big mess. This would not even be required, because dual tuner pvrs will record the first show, pad it and start the second show while padding the first.
And i think even if padding could be cancelled for the first show, a separate recording would still be created for the second show when a tuner changes channel (i'd guess that really depends on the brand of pvr).
The purpose for combining timers is not to free up tuners, the benefit would be to prevent the first show stopping abruptly a few minutes from the end, and having the last few minutes in another recording.