FAQ - Recordings and timer padding

prl · Post by **prl** » Sun Jan 31, 2010 17:15

prl wrote:Posted by prl - I thought this warranted a post of its own, It can be linked to from the FAQ, as it may need updating as FW changes.

Recordings and timer padding.

Tuners, services and recordings.

All Beyonwiz PVRs, except the DP-H1, have two tuners. That means they can receive all the services from each of two channels at once. Australian digital TV has all of each broadcaster's services on one channel. For example, ABC1, ABC2, ABC HD, DiG Radio and DiG Jazz are all carried on one one channel; Nine, Nine HD and GO! will be carried on another. If you are using a service on a particular channel, to watch live or to record, all of the services on that channel are available as digital streams.

That means, for example, that if you are recording both GO! and ABC2 on a twin-tuner Beyonwiz, then you can watch (or listen to) any of Nine, Nine HD, GO!, ABC1, ABC2, ABC HD, DiG Radio or DiG Jazz, but no other services. If you record two services from the same channel, for example, ABC1 and ABC2, you can watch any service from any channel.

If you are making any recording on a DP-H1, you can only watch services on the same channel as the service you're recording. If you're recording Seven Digital, then you can only watch Seven Digital, Seven HD or 7TWO. However, the DP-H1 can make two simultaneous recordings, provided they're on the same channel, for example, SBS ONE and SBS TWO.

I use "service" and "channel" here as described in peteru's note in the Reception FAQ

Setting timer padding

TV programs in Australia frequently don't commence at their scheduled time in the published programs. Most often they start late, but some multicast HD programms start earlier than scheduled.

To help with this, the Beyonwiz lets you set "padding" around a timer, so that the recording starts before its scheduled start time, and stops after the scheduled stop time. This padding is called Soft Padding the the Beyonwiz user interface and documentation.

The Beyonwiz manual describes Soft Padding setup in chapter 9. Advanced Setup, section 1-4 PVR. 2) Soft Padding

Soft Padding can help with the problem of programs running beyond their schedule, though some "reality TV" shows are notorious for running a long time past their scheduled end time.

To set padding: go to SETUP>Misc.>PVR, navigate to Soft Padding, and select Enable. Then navigate to Pre-Padding, and select the amount of padding you want before the scheduled start time of timers, and then navigate to Post-Padding and select the amount of padding you want after the scheduled end time of timers.

Padding is applied to all timers except the "instant" timers that are created by pressing the RECORD button on the remote while you are watching Live or Timeshifted TV. All other timers, whether manually created from POPUP>Timer List>New Timer, from the EPG, or by IceTV Interactive, have padding added to them.

Once a timer has started, it is extended to its full padded length, and the "soft" padding is "frozen" and it can only be changed through the normal mechanism for changing the length of a running timer.

What padding should I use?

There's no one answer to the "right" settings for these padding values. It's a trade-off between the extra space you use on your HDD against how likely you are to miss part of the program. Common settings are 2-5 minutes for pre-padding and 10-30 minutes for post-padding. There are some posts of examples of people's padding setups in Padding Priority - Which do you use?

What are the limitations of padding?

Pre- and Post-padding set the desired extra time before and after the scheduled time for a program. So, for example, if Pre-padding is set to 5 min and Post-padding is set to 15 min, a timer set to record a program from 20:00 to 21:00 will normally run from 19:55 to 21:15.

However, padding on Beyonwiz PVRs is limited by two recording rules:

they cannot make more than two recordings at once; and
it's only possible to make one recording of any service (you can't have two simultaneous recordings both recording, say, Seven HD).

The latter may not sound much of a restriction, but it plays an important role in how padding works.

Timers themselves can't be set up to conflict with either of the rules above, but the padding on the timers may conflict with them. When this happens, another padding setting is used to set the way the conflict is resolved.

Soft Padding Priority in SETUP>Misc.>PVR>Soft Padding allows you to change the behaviour of the padding when padding conflict happens, but I don't consider that any of the options actually "do the right thing".

None: Post-padding continues for the first timer until it either completes, or the scheduled start time for the second timer begins. In this mode the scheduled time for each timer will always be recorded in full.
Pre-padding priority: The second timer will start at the beginning of its pre-padding time, stopping the first timer, even if the first timer is still within its scheduled time.
Post-Padding priority: The first timer will continue to run to the end of its post-padding, and stop the second timer from starting until then, even if that causes the second timer to start after the end of its scheduled start time.

The poll mentioned above had about 2/3 of the respondents using None and 1/4 using Post-padding.

Some examples of padding conflicts and resolution.

This first example shows a padding conflict caused by the rule that only one recording of a service may be made at a time.

Code: Select all

= Timer setting
+ Padding
* Timers with conflicting padding
^ Time span of padding conflict

Desired padded recordings
Service  Set Timer   Desired timer

ABC1     20:00-21:00 19:55-21:15 * +============+++
ABC1     21:00-22:00 20:55-22:15 *             +============+++
Padding conflict                               ^^^^

Actual padded recordings
Service  Recording time                                         Padding priority

ABC1     19:55-21:00               =============                None
ABC1     21:00-22:15                            ===============

ABC1     19:55-20:55               ============                 Pre-padding
ABC1     20:55-22:15                           ================

ABC1     19:55-21:15               ================             Post-Padding
ABC1     21:15-22:15                               ============

The second example shows a padding conflict caused by the rule that only two recordings may be made at one time.

Code: Select all

Desired padded recordings
Service  Set Timer   Desired timer

ABC1     20:00-21:00 19:55-21:15 * +============+++
Seven SD 21:00-22:00 20:55-22:15 *             +============+++
Nine SD  20:00-22:00 19:55-22:15   +========================+++
Padding conflict                               ^^^^

Actual padded recordings
Service  Recording time                                         Padding priority

ABC1     19:55-21:00               =============                None
Seven SD 21:00-22:15                            ===============
Nine SD  19:55-22:15               ============================

ABC1     19:55-20:55               ============                 Pre-padding
Seven SD 20:55-22:15                           ================
Nine SD  19:55-22:15               ============================

ABC1     19:55-21:15               ================             Post-padding
Seven SD 21:15-22:15                               ============
Nine SD  19:55-22:15               ============================

The next two examples have the same timers, but there isn't an unambiguous way of resolving the conflict. If the ABC1 timer is created first or second, then the assignment of the other two timers to tuners is clear; if one of the other two timers are set first, then ABC1, then the conflict could be resolved in two possible ways.

Code: Select all

Desired padded recordings
Service  Set Timer   Desired timer

ABC1     20:00-21:00 19:55-21:15 * +============+++
Seven SD 21:00-21:55 20:55-22:15 *             +============+++
Nine SD  21:00-22:00 20:55-22:15               +============+++
Padding conflict                               ^^^^

Actual padded recordings
Service  Recording time                                         Padding priority

ABC1     19:55-21:00 *             =============                None
Seven SD 21:00-22:15 *                          ===============
Nine SD  19:55-22:15                           ================

ABC1     19:55-20:55 *             ============                 Pre-padding
Seven SD 20:55-22:15 *                         ================
Nine SD  19:55-22:15                           ================

ABC1     19:55-21:15 *             ================             Post-padding
Seven SD 21:15-22:15 *                             ============
Nine SD  19:55-22:15                           ================

Code: Select all

Desired padded recordings
Service  Set Timer   Desired timer

ABC1     20:00-21:00 19:55-21:15 * +============+++
Seven SD 21:00-21:55 20:55-22:15               +============+++
Nine SD  21:00-22:00 20:55-22:15 *             +============+++
Padding conflict                               ^^^^

Actual padded recordings
Service  Recording time                                         Padding priority

ABC1     19:55-21:00             * =============                None
Seven SD 20:55-22:15                           ================
Nine SD  21:00-22:15             *              ===============

ABC1     19:55-20:55             * ============                 Pre-padding
Seven SD 20:55-22:15                           ================
Nine SD  20:55-22:15             *             ================

ABC1     19:55-21:15             * ================             Post-padding
Seven SD 20:55-22:15                           ================
Nine SD  21:15-22:15             *                 ============

Problems with padding conflicts and resolution.

When the overlap is because of consecutive timers on one service, the problem with all of these choices is that no matter which you chose, you're likely to get the end of the first program recorded in the first part of the second recording, or the start of the second program recorded in the end of the first recording. There's no way to guarantee that it won't happen, and the fact that now many commercial broadcasters run straight from the end credits of one program into the start of the next program, with the first ads in the second program coming a few minutes later, means there's little margin for error.

There are three workarounds if the clash is because of consecutive timers on the same service:

Adjust the timers manually (taking the padding rules into account) to make the switch between recordings at your best guess at the actual start time for the second recording - this has the same problem as the automatic padding, but at least you can make your guess based on how late the second program usually starts. You can only do this with recordings set up on the Beyonwiz. You can't do this with IceTV Interactive.
Combine the two timers into a single timer. The simplest way to do this is to use the EPG to set the timer, then manually adjust it to cover both programs - unfortunately, it's not possible to do this with IceTV Remote, and if you're a watch-and-delete household, the second program might get deleted accidentally.
Record one program on the SD service and one on the HD service, if at least one of the programs is simulcast on SD and HD.
Play the recordings sequentially This works around the problem by accepting that the first show will run into the second recording. In the FilePlayer, use POPUP>Sorting Order>Oldest -> Newest, if you don't normally use that sort order in the FilePlayer. If you have SETUP>Misc>FilePlayer>Auto Play Next enabled, the second recording has finished, and the the two recordings follow each other in the FilePlayer list, just press OK to play. Otherwise, use the BLUE Select button to select the two recordings that had the timer conflict, then OK to play. This will play the first recording, followed by the second recording, with a short interruption (less than a second) between them. That way it doesn't matter so much that the program is split over two recordings. If you watch the shows at different times, this may also cause problems if you like to watch-and-delete.

If Padding Priority changes the desired times of two recordings on different services, there's really not much you can do. It's for this case that some people prefer Post-padding priority to priorty None. If the second program is running late, then with Post-padding, you'll get find out whether it was the butler who "did it" in the first recording, but you'll be likely to miss the start of the second recording, unless it's running more than (in the examples) 15 minutes over time. With other settings, you'll never know whether it was the butler or not.

If the first program being recorded of a pair of recordings (where Padding Priority needs to change the desired timers) is running further late than the second recording, there are no timer possible timer settings either using automatic padding, or using completely manual timers settings, that will record all of both programs. Time to get another recorder

The following is an example of the kind of delay where it is impossible to record all of the ABC1 20:00-21:00 program and all of the Seven SD 21:00-22:00 program on a single dual-tuner Beyonwiz PVR (or any dual-tuner PVR), no matter what the pre- and post-padding times are, or what the padding priority setting is. It's impossible to record these programs correctly even if you know ahead of time exactly how late the programs will be running.

Code: Select all

= Timer setting
+ Padding
* Timers with conflicting padding
^ Time span of padding conflict
1 Actual run time of ABC1 program scheduled 20:00-21:00
1 Actual run time of Seven SD program scheduled 21:00-22:00
X Other program content
! Program content that couldn't be recorded

Desired padded recordings
Service  Set Timer   Desired timer

ABC1     20:00-21:00 19:55-21:15 * +============+++
         20:10-21:10               XXX111111111111X             Actual program time (10 min late)
Seven SD 21:00-22:00 20:55-22:15 *             +============+++
         20:05-21:05                           XX222222222222XX Actual program time (5 min late)
Nine SD  20:00-22:00 19:55-22:15   +========================+++
Padding conflict                               ^^^^

Actual padded recordings
Service  Recording time            Recording contents           Padding priority

ABC1     19:55-21:00               XXX1111111111!               None
Seven SD 21:00-22:15                            X222222222222XX
Nine SD  19:55-22:15               ============================

ABC1     19:55-20:55               XXX111111111!!               Pre-padding
Seven SD 20:55-22:15                           XX222222222222XX
Nine SD  19:55-22:15               ============================

ABC1     19:55-21:15               XXX111111111111X             Post-padding
Seven SD 21:15-22:15                           !!!!2222222222XX
Nine SD  19:55-22:15               ============================

Because of this, and other problems with the unpredictability of the actual broadcast times for programs, the padding priority setting may be of less use than it might first seem.

Thanks to tonymy01 & grampus for useful suggestions.

Updated: 8 Mar 2010

tonymy01 · Post by **tonymy01** » Sun Jan 31, 2010 17:34

Holy toledo! Well done Peter, exceptional explanations.
I saw someone in another thread the other day show overlapping in ascii art (for a Window Media Centre) and it looked quite neat:
This is the thread: http://www.icetv.com.au/iceforum/index.php?topic=2348.0
And here is the technique (for those who don't want to sign up to ICE):

Code: Select all

[--- blah ---][--- blah3 ---] 
  [--- blah2 ---]

edited to put code tags, it appears the ICE forums are a bit different with font/spacing than the phpBB forums, where they seem to remove all extra spaces typed... I mean I already knew this, but thought the [--blah--] captured the slot boundaries quite effectively in his thread.
Do you think this would look better in your presentation? I am not sure how to use it with the demonstration of soft padding included though (where you have chosen to use a different symbol I see).
Maybe:
[-pre-][-- core show timeslot --][--post --]
?

prl · Post by **prl** » Sun Jan 31, 2010 18:02

tonymy01 wrote:Holy toledo! Well done Peter, exceptional explanations.
I saw someone in another thread the other day show overlapping in ascii art (for a Window Media Centre) and it looked quite neat:
This is the thread: http://www.icetv.com.au/iceforum/index.php?topic=2348.0
And here is the technique (for those who don't want to sign up to ICE):
Code: Select all
[--- blah ---][--- blah3 ---] 
  [--- blah2 ---]
edited to put code tags, it appears the ICE forums are a bit different with font/spacing than the phpBB forums, where they seem to remove all extra spaces typed... I mean I already knew this, but thought the [--blah--] captured the slot boundaries quite effectively in his thread.
Do you think this would look better in your presentation? I am not sure how to use it with the demonstration of soft padding included though (where you have chosen to use a different symbol I see).
Maybe:
[-pre-][-- core show timeslot --][--post --]
?

Thanks, Tony.

That form of ASCII art does look better, but it creates ambiguity about what the brackets belong to when comparing two time blocks, especially in my more complicated last example. In my ACSII art, each character represents 5 minutes (perhaps I should say that somewhere), and some of the intervals are only 5 minutes. The actual positions in the IceTV forum example aren't as interesting or important as in the padding examples.

I would have really liked to have a fixed-width font option where spaces weren't compressed, and I could use colours. Maybe I could try using raw HTML tags

Edit: Hmmm.. turning on Always allow HTML in my profile doesn't allow me to use the <tt> or <font> tags

tonymy01 · Post by **tonymy01** » Sat Mar 06, 2010 11:23

prl wrote:[*]Use the Beyonwiz play-selected-recordings feature. This works around the problem by accepting that the first show will run into the second program. In the FilePlayer, use POPUP>Sorting Order>Oldest -> Newest, and then use the BLUE Select button to select the two programs that had the timer conflict, then press OK to play. This will play the first recording, followed by the second recording, with a short interruption (less than a second) between them.

Peter, one thing I do which makes this procedure far less complex, is simply leave the Beyonwiz at the default (which is to play the next file in your media list) and have the sort order oldest->newest. Then you don't need to use any select options or anything, just start playing the 1st file, and when it finishes it moves onto the next. Much less fiddling.

prl · Post by **prl** » Sun Mar 07, 2010 16:06

tonymy01 wrote:
prl wrote:[*]Use the Beyonwiz play-selected-recordings feature. This works around the problem by accepting that the first show will run into the second program. In the FilePlayer, use POPUP>Sorting Order>Oldest -> Newest, and then use the BLUE Select button to select the two programs that had the timer conflict, then press OK to play. This will play the first recording, followed by the second recording, with a short interruption (less than a second) between them.
Peter, one thing I do which makes this procedure far less complex, is simply leave the Beyonwiz at the default (which is to play the next file in your media list) and have the sort order oldest->newest. Then you don't need to use any select options or anything, just start playing the 1st file, and when it finishes it moves onto the next. Much less fiddling.

Done. Thanks for the suggestion. I don't use Auto Play Next, so I didn't think of that way of doing it.

grampus · Post by **grampus** » Sun Mar 07, 2010 19:11

prl wrote:
tonymy01 wrote:
prl wrote:[*]Use the Beyonwiz play-selected-recordings feature. This works around the problem by accepting that the first show will run into the second program. In the FilePlayer, use POPUP>Sorting Order>Oldest -> Newest, and then use the BLUE Select button to select the two programs that had the timer conflict, then press OK to play. This will play the first recording, followed by the second recording, with a short interruption (less than a second) between them.
Peter, one thing I do which makes this procedure far less complex, is simply leave the Beyonwiz at the default (which is to play the next file in your media list) and have the sort order oldest->newest. Then you don't need to use any select options or anything, just start playing the 1st file, and when it finishes it moves onto the next. Much less fiddling.
Done. Thanks for the suggestion. I don't use Auto Play Next, so I didn't think of that way of doing it.

One minor wrinkle that might getcha.
If the second file is still being recorded it wont move on to it.

Of course you can still toggle down and start chase playing it.

prl · Post by **prl** » Sun Mar 07, 2010 21:43

grampus wrote:...
One minor wrinkle that might getcha.
If the second file is still being recorded it wont move on to it.
...

Will add the correction.