[4HiMarks]

Help, My GF keeps blaming this on me! I don't know if it is ABC or my 622 that is really to blame.

I have Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice set to record back to back on ABC on Thursday nights, and the end of Grey's always gets cut off and appears at the beginning of the PP recording. I have padding on Grey's set to 3 minutes over, but it doesn't seem to matter.

My 622 is set to Single Mode with Record Plus on. Shouldn't it use the 2nd tuner and give a slight overlap?

 

[FastNOC]

extend it to 5 minutes or even 10. Since it's going 3 minutes over to begin with, anything over between 1 and 29 don't matter.

 

[dbrakob]

Set the padding to 5 minutes on Grey's. There are a few shows notorious for going 3-5 minutes over the hour. Greys is one of them (Desperate Housewives is another) and if you ever check out a TV Guide it actually lists the show as 9:00 - 10:03. On a side note some shows even need to be padded on the front end. My wife watches Days of our lives and the timer has to start at 1:58 to catch the first 2 minutes. Go figure.

 

[garys]

I go the full 60 minutes to get both shows on one recording. Or use the channel's physical location for Grey's and the mapped location for Practice (this forces dual tuner receivers to use the other tuner for the second show).

 

[CABill]

Different firmware versions have provided variations, but the default 1 minute early & 3 minutes late values will cause back to back shows to use the same tuner for both recordings (leaving the 2nd tuner available for something else). Increasing 3 minutes late to 5 minutes works because it forces the receiver to use separate tuners for the back to back shows (preventing another recording in the 2nd window).

Padding is used for when a channel slops the show outside its published times, but more to cover the inadequacies of the system DISH uses for the Guide. In the Guide, you will never find a show that doesn't start and end at a multiple of 5 minutes. 5 minutes is their minimum granularity for start and end times, and the published times from Tribune (Guide provider) are rounded off to the closest 5 minute multiple. 4HiMarks would have a different problem if the published start time for PP was 10:03 because DISH would consider that a 10:05 start time (and Grey's end time). That leaves the 1st two minutes of PP added to the end of Grey's recording. You'd get what is described when the published end/start is 10:01 or 10:02 and DISH will round those down to 10:00, end Grey's too soon, and start PP too soon.

5 minutes late will get the receiver to consider them to be a conflict with each other needing to use two tuners to get both. But if someone wanted to record just PP, any episode that did start at 10:03 wouldn't start until 10:05 without adding 2 minutes early to the timer.

I'd put most of the blame on DISH's decision that no show will start or end at a time that isn't a 5 minute boundary. ABC isn't making anything better, but other DVR providers don't have as much trouble as DISH with a show that doesn't start/end at the top of the hour. How much a show goes over the hour makes a big difference. Especially true of the difference between 2 & 3 minutes over.

When you know you want to force two recordings, garys' split to different channels is best, but you will still need to start PP 2 minutes early for a 10:03 start and pad the end 2 minutes or more so that a 10:01 or 10:02 end of Grey's isn't dropped of the recording.

 

[FastNOC]

I'm not sure that's correct. how does a recording stay on one tuner when the previous recording ends 2 minutes AFTER the other begins?

I believe if you have a 3 minute late recording on the same channel as one coming up 1 minute early it's not possible to do it on the same tuner.

 

[4HiMarks]

I go the full 60 minutes to get both shows on one recording. Or use the channel's physical location for Grey's and the mapped location for Practice (this forces dual tuner receivers to use the other tuner for the second show).

I wouldn't want to do that, as we don't always watch them both at the same time. Sometimes PP episodes pile up for several weeks. I'd hate to have a bunch of 60 minute HD recordings that were half-watched, taking up valuable space.

Unless you know of an undocumented method to split recordings like I could do on my old Phillips DVR/DVD-burner.

I think I'll just increase the padding.

 

[CABill]

It stays on one tuner by totally ignoring the ending pad of the 1st show and the leading pad of the 2nd when they are values the firmware is set to discard intentionally.

Pick some future two hour block where you don't have anything to record, and do a Once on channel 99, Priority - to Top. You've only got one tuner left, so pick two 30 minute channel 101 segments in the Sony window setting 1 minute early, 3 minute late. No problem with a conflict because the receiver ignores the overlap. Both 101 recordings are set to occur. Change the end late on the 1st 101 program from 3 minutes to 5 minutes. The 2nd show is now X'd out ("Skipped by priority").

I'm in Dual mode, but if I now select the Sony item and Skip it, the 2nd 101 show isn't X'd out, but shows TV1 where the 1st 30 minutes shows TV2. Now go change the End late of the 1st show to be 3 minutes of pad instead of 5, both 101 shows record, but indicate different TV1/2. Delete the 2nd show and create it again (either 0,0 or 1,3) and the 2nd show will again indicate it follows the TV2 of the 1st show.

Give it a try - certain overlap values just get discarded, but if you fiddle with them, they become important. 5 is an important number to DISH for some reason.

EDIT footnote: You can even go back and find that the 1st show's (1,3) padding gets changed to (1,0) doing various things to force and clear the 2nd show from being a conflict. It doesn't clear ending pad of 5, but will clear ending pad of 3.

 

[FastNOC]

It stays on one tuner by totally ignoring the ending pad of the 1st show and the leading pad of the 2nd when they are values the firmware is set to discard intentionally.

Pick some future two hour block where you don't have anything to record, and do a Once on channel 99, Priority - to Top. You've only got one tuner left, so pick two 30 minute channel 101 segments in the Sony window setting 1 minute early, 3 minute late. No problem with a conflict because the receiver ignores the overlap. Both 101 recordings are set to occur. Change the end late on the 1st 101 program from 3 minutes to 5 minutes. The 2nd show is now X'd out ("Skipped by priority").

I'm in Dual mode, but if I now select the Sony item and Skip it, the 2nd 101 show isn't X'd out, but shows TV1 where the 1st 30 minutes shows TV2. Now go change the End late of the 1st show to be 3 minutes of pad instead of 5, both 101 shows record, but indicate different TV1/2. Delete the 2nd show and create it again (either 0,0 or 1,3) and the 2nd show will again indicate it follows the TV2 of the 1st show.

Give it a try - certain overlap values just get discarded, but if you fiddle with them, they become important. 5 is an important number to DISH for some reason.

EDIT footnote: You can even go back and find that the 1st show's (1,3) padding gets changed to (1,0) doing various things to force and clear the 2nd show from being a conflict. It doesn't clear ending pad of 5, but will clear ending pad of 3.

that's really interesting. I'm glad I asked. I'd never have thought that possible. Thanks for the explanation. No need to try it, I'll take your word.