L1.11 Start Early / End Late Bug

[hojni]

I just tried setting a timer on the 721 with a 2 minute start early and 2 minute late end setting (rather than the default 1 minute start early - 3 minute end late setting) and found a bunch of real interesting bugs. Here they are:

1.) The Timer Management screen actually displays a start time that is two minutes earlier than the actual start time for the show. I would expect the actual start time for the show to always remain when using the "early" and "late" settings. (The "1-3" setting always shows the actual start time of the show).

2.) The timer description at the top of the Timer Management screen displays "2 min. late Recording" only. I would expect to see "2 min. early and 2 min. late." (The "1-3" setting displays 1 min. early and 3 min. late".)

3.) If you edit the timer, the "early" setting displays "0" and the "late" setting displays "2." I would expect to see an "early" setting of "2" and a "late" setting of "2." (The "1-3" setting always shows "1" and "3" in the respective fields.)

4.) Most interesting of all. If you "correct" the "early start" setting on the edit timer screen by putting a "2" back in the "early start" field and then saving, the timer shows up on the "Timer Management" screen with another 2 minutes subtracted from the start time of the show. For instance, I set 2 minutes early and 2 minutes late on a show starting at 3am. At first, it displays a start time of 2:58am. Then, if I correct the edit screen by putting a "2" in the start early field, the "Timer Managment' screen displays a show starti time of 2:56am.

I hope this makes sense to everyone. If not, let me know and I'll try to clarify.

Jim

[dbronstein]

Yes, this was a problem before the update and it wasn't fixed. The result is that the recording still shows the wrong show. For example, I recorded Friends tonight with a 3 minute lead. My PVR menu shows Entertainment Tonight, which is the previous show.

This was supposed to be fixed in this upgrade. I'm extremely disappointed they blew this one.

Dennis

[hojni]

Dennis,

I'm glad that I'm not the only one that thinks this is a problem. I always set my 508 to start 2 minutes early and end 2 minutes late with no problem. The correct show name even shows up. I just wish that the 721 would work at least as good.

[dbronstein]

Right, I don't understand why this is so hard to fix. It works fine 1 minute early, why not longer? And ending late works fine regardless of how long you set it. I'm really ticked they didn't fix this because it's the biggest bug it has, IMO.

Dennis

[Danbo]

Actually, after seeing that and having the "reboot while watching a PVR event and two others firing off at the same time" issue, I'm still wondering just what they did fix. Okay, the audio sync during skip ahead or back seems taken care of. But outside of that, why were we waiting so long for so little? And what about the rest of the bugs that have been reported here and to Dish? What about pixelation? What about seeing recordings go into slo-motion briefly while playing them (and when, watching the same event live, nothing was wrong)?

Sorry, but for a maintenance release, this seems disappointing. And if these bugs remain before they unleash the "added" features, that very well could be the last straw for me.

[dbronstein]

Yeah, I don't mind waiting for a release so they can get it right. But this release doesn't do anything it was supposed to.

[Randy_B]

Actually, after seeing that and having the "reboot while watching a PVR event and two others firing off at the same time" issue, I'm still wondering just what they did fix.

We had that one for the first time last night. The kids were watching a recording of Dora when Survivor and Friends timers went off. POOF! Grey screen with that stupid little X. I immediately ran downstairs and fired up the 501 to record Survivor.

Talking with my wife afterwards, this what happened a few weeks back when we lost everything. That time, when it did the HD test it said HD failed. Eventually downloaded a new disk image which wiped all the recordings. Fortunately taht was not the case this time. Once the 721 rebooted, it started to download the guide, but alos started recording again.

So while the bug itself may just be a nuisance, when coupled with other 721 action this bug has the potential to be BAD!

Since both timers have the 1/3 default, I wonder if changing one of the timers to 2/4 would avoid the issue until they get it fixed.

[Jerry Abbanat]

Also, an annoying bug is the inability to default to a start and end time different than 1 min start and 3 min end times. It is obvious by the comments on this thread that each of us prefers a custom default. I prefer, most of the time, 0 and 0. Others want 2 and 2, etc. It seems to me that a custom default is an important fix along with the other comments above.

[DarrellP]

The funny thing about the wrong show being displayed is this: While watching the show, wait till you are X minutes into the show so you are in the actual time period of the show that you recorded, then press Cancel. It will display the proper name of the program, but not in the PVR menu.

This is how it works with the 501, I can't imagine it would be any different from the other machines since the same mindset is probably programming all of their PVR's.

[TomCat]

The way they fixed that on the 501 was to see which part of an extended recording was the longest. For instance, if you start "Friends" 1 minute early, as long as the recording runs for at least 2 minutes, the 501 will deduce that "Friends" (being longer than the single minute of the program that was current when the 501 actually began the recording) is the primary program recorded, and will then name it such in the PVR listings. It sounds like they're using a similar algorithm for the 721, which would explain why the name "corrects" itself later.

But there is obviously still quite a division between the 501 camp and the 721 camp as far as programming goes. Each started out from its own separate humble beginnings, and there is little evidence to support that the lineage has converged, even though that would make sense from a vendor's point of view. The operational ergonomics of the 50X and 721 seem to have come from the two most dissimilar "mindsets" imaginable. Tivo and Replay are actually more similar to each other than the 721 and the 50X.

What IS similar is that they both fix only part of what they can, less of what they should, and none of what they can't.