Inconsistent record times from settings (1 Viewer)

[rileydogmi]

In my TV Server Configuration:Recording section, I have pre and post recording times set to 1 minute.

I have now recorded probably 20 shows since installing my MP (I have 1.9, running on Windows), and all the record times are all over the board.

For example, take my Modern Family episodes:
6m 53 s
46m 41s
7m 58s
38m 3s
47m 3s

All episodes should be 32m I guess if the pre/post settings are respected. Or, do I have other problems too? The video's play fine -- but why are the not the full episodes (those 6 and 7 minute ones) and the others are way long? I have other series recorded too - same results for all my recordings. When they play, I am in the middle of episodes and they don't seem to align with my TV Guide data (schedules direct feed).

I have a dedicated PC using a Hauppauge HDPVR-2 -- right now, that PC is unattended (not being used by anyone). This is a new install I did last weekend and left it alone to record a bunch of shows while I was travelling.

Enclosed are the logs - thanks again for all the community help!

 

[mm1352000]

Hello

In my TV Server Configuration:Recording section, I have pre and post recording times set to 1 minute.

Hmmm, sorry but I don't think I can take your word for that.
Those may be the settings now but according to the log files the settings were different only a few days ago.
For example:
[2014-10-05 18:23:10,475] [Log ] [scheduler thread] [INFO ] - Scheduler: Time to record 17 WXMIDT 6:23 PM-7:00 PM Modern Family
...
[2014-10-05 20:53:02,872] [Log ] [scheduler thread] [INFO ] - Scheduler: Time to record 389 KTTV 8:53 PM-9:30 PM Modern Family

That shows your pre-record was set to 7 minutes.

Earlier in your log files I can see you have a lot of recording failures. From the fact that TV Server keeps trying to record until 10 minutes after the scheduled end time I know that post record was set to 10 minutes (which is the default). For example:
[2014-10-05 19:09:55,870] [Log ] [scheduler thread] [INFO ] - Scheduler: Time to record 17 WXMIDT 7:09 PM-7:00 PM Modern Family
...
[2014-10-05 21:39:52,087] [Log ] [scheduler thread] [INFO ] - Scheduler: Time to record 89 KTTVDT 9:39 PM-9:30 PM Modern Family

That explains how you got the two ~47 minute recordings:
[2014-10-06 19:23:19,357] [Log ] [scheduler thread] [INFO ] - Scheduler: Time to record 17 WXMIDT 7:23 PM-8:00 PM Modern Family
[2014-10-06 20:10:03,983] [Log ] [scheduler thread] [INFO ] - Scheduler: stop record 17 WXMIDT 10/6/2014 7:23:30 PM-10/6/2014 8:00:00 PM Modern Family

[2014-10-07 19:23:17,928] [Log ] [scheduler thread] [INFO ] - Scheduler: Time to record 17 WXMIDT 7:23 PM-8:00 PM Modern Family
[2014-10-07 20:10:07,815] [Log ] [scheduler thread] [INFO ] - Scheduler: stop record 17 WXMIDT 10/7/2014 7:23:28 PM-10/7/2014 8:00:00 PM Modern Family


Your 7 minute recording is here:
[2014-10-07 00:03:05,521] [Log ] [scheduler thread] [INFO ] - Scheduler: Time to record 17 WXMIDT 12:03 AM-12:00 AM Modern Family
[2014-10-07 00:10:01,929] [Log ] [scheduler thread] [INFO ] - Scheduler: stop record 17 WXMIDT 10/7/2014 12:03:10 AM-10/7/2014 12:00:00 AM Modern Family

TV Server wanted to record from 23:23 (ie. a full 47 minute recording), but you had a recording conflict with:
[2014-10-06 23:30:09,408] [Log ] [scheduler thread] [INFO ] - Scheduler: Time to record 246 TRUTVHD 11:30 PM-12:02 AM Jokers Wild

The conflict prevented TV Server from recording Modern Family until Jokers Wild finished. Since you've only got one HD-PVR you can only record one channel. In that case, Jokers Wild "won". TV Server recorded what it could.

Same deal in other cases.
Here's your 8 minute recording:
[2014-10-07 23:02:02,502] [Log ] [scheduler thread] [INFO ] - Scheduler: Time to record 242 USAHD 11:02 PM-11:00 PM Modern Family
[2014-10-07 23:10:05,935] [Log ] [scheduler thread] [INFO ] - Scheduler: stop record 242 USAHD 10/7/2014 11:02:07 PM-10/7/2014 11:00:00 PM Modern Family

...and here's your 38 minute recording:
[2014-10-07 23:02:07,080] [Log ] [scheduler thread] [INFO ] - Scheduler: Time to record 242 USAHD 11:02 PM-11:30 PM Modern Family
[2014-10-07 23:40:11,512] [Log ] [scheduler thread] [INFO ] - Scheduler: stop record 242 USAHD 10/7/2014 11:02:08 PM-10/7/2014 11:30:00 PM Modern Family

Both cut off because of another schedule:
[2014-10-07 22:29:05,350] [Log ] [scheduler thread] [INFO ] - Scheduler: Time to record 246 TRUTVHD 10:29 PM-11:01 PM The Carbonaro Effect
[2014-10-07 23:02:00,408] [Log ] [scheduler thread] [INFO ] - Scheduler: stop record 246 TRUTVHD 10/7/2014 10:29:09 PM-10/7/2014 11:01:00 PM The Carbonaro Effect


Another piece of advice: disable power control in the the DirecTV SHEF plugin. It will almost certainly cause problems for you sooner rather than later. I know it would be nice to have it enabled, but it simply doesn't work 100% reliably. Particularly in the case of back to back recordings on the same channel. The first recording will be fine; however, the second recording will fail at the point the first recording ends, because the STB power is turned off when the first recording ends.

 

[rileydogmi]

Thanks so much for the detailed post - yes, I had the settings for pre and post record set to 1 minute each in the TS server settings - but after I posted this request, I looked in the recordings window and sure enough, some episodes had 7 minutes pre and I think 10 post - I have no idea how those got that way, but regardless I changed them all to be 0 pre and 0 post.

Thanks so much for the tip on the DirecTV SHEF -- I am going to do that now and give it another day to record a bunch of programs.

I appreciate the help! I feel like I am very close to having this working well for my needs. I will report back tomorrow with the results.[DOUBLEPOST=1412815562][/DOUBLEPOST]Sorry to bother but I do have two additional questions

1) Why is MP scheduling recordings on TV Stations that I do not have mapped to the guide? See the enclosed screen shots - Modern family is on channel 386 and 396 but I do not have those stations available to the guide. I looked at the guide and they don't show (expected), but why are recordings occurring against unmapped channels?

2) How do I deal with recording conflicts? When I used SageTV, there was a conflict scene that allowed me to choose what won. Is there anything comparable to this in MP?

Thanks again,

 

[rileydogmi]

So disabling the power control seemed to have fixed my recording errors - thanks for that! Been one day, recorded 8 shows and all were accurate.

Can anyone chime in on the 2 other questions in my previous post?

Thanks!

 

[mm1352000]

I can help with the first.

1) Why is MP scheduling recordings on TV Stations that I do not have mapped to the guide? See the enclosed screen shots - Modern family is on channel 386 and 396 but I do not have those stations available to the guide. I looked at the guide and they don't show (expected), but why are recordings occurring against unmapped channels?

"Unmapped" in that context simply means there are no tuners that TV Server can use to tune the channel.
If you set up a "record every time on every channel" schedule then the schedule applies to all channels, regardless of whether or not they are visible in the guide. If you don't intend/want to use certain channels then you'd be better to delete them or use "record every time on this channel" schedules.

 

[rileydogmi]

OK - thanks - that makes sense. I really appreciate the help!