What settings override what?

[PCKid]

Just getting into iceTV with Vista MC. Previously I used Webscheduler with oztivo guide for about 4 years but love iceTV with Vista MC. I'm really confused as to which is the overriding recording settings. For instance you have the icetv config file, Media Centers tasks/recording settings. Then there's the icetv settings under recorder in the tv part of the mc. So for example you want to record Masterchef series but make sure you don't lose the end (which happens if you just tell icetv to stop at the end. Misses last 5 minutes or so. So the main MC general tv recoding settings allows a max of 4 minutes add on. The icetv config not much better but when you go to recording and then show my shows you can set almost any amount you want. So can you pretty much ignore all these other areas where you can set start and end times and just use the one in the recoding section. Problem with that is it's 2 stages. First you have to go to the guide and say.. record this show or series for me. Then get out, go to the recorder part bring up the show and change it's default settings to what you want. Is there not a one step setting place to do this? Damn I've made this look confusing but that's the best I can do.  ;D