[vdr] Re: Recording programes followin one another from the same channel

[Marcus Kuba <marcus@kuba4u.de>]

Am 21.10.2001 20:58:00, schrieb Usenet-372112@zocki.toppoint.de (Rainer Zocholl):

>andreas@eudoxus.xcapenet.de(Andreas Gebel)  17.10.01 10:02
>
>Once upon a time Andreas Gebel shaped the electrons to say...

>>when trying to record programmes following one another there is a
>>problem that vdr stops the recording at the end of the first timer and
>>re-enters the recording mode just after that. This will always cause a
>>few seconds lost between the two recordings.

>Currently VDR seems to look only for the minutes.
>"While timer time is equal "now" do record."
>So the overlap/missing maybe upto 59sec.

>timer 15:00 .. 15:30
>will record from 15:00:00 to 15:30:59 (AFAIK)

You haven't looked in your logs recently?

Oct 17 03:45:04 vdr vdr[22742]: timer 4 stop
Oct 17 17:15:01 vdr vdr[25978]: timer 1 stop
Oct 17 19:51:18 vdr vdr[25978]: timer 4 stop   <- this one was stopped by hand!
Oct 18 01:50:00 vdr vdr[27591]: timer 4 stop
Oct 18 17:15:00 vdr vdr[27591]: timer 1 stop

VDR records from xx:xx:00 to yy:yy:00, at least it tries to :-)

>(
>Why not start at 14:59:59 or 15:00:00?
>  Because the first seconds are often/sometimes a little "garbeled"...
>  and if the device is not blocked: Why annoy the user?
>Why is starting at 15:00:00 not sufficient?
>  Because the PC-clock may not be so precise so the first, sometimes
>  important seconds are not recorded.
>  The next "step" would be a 60sec margin...giving a large
>  unexceptable gap/overlap.

Why is all this complete nonsense? Because except for the "Tagesschau" NO 
programme starts exactly at the time given from the EPG. If you don't want to miss a part, 
you MUST use the MarginStart/Stop-Function and record several minutes before/after. 
Everything else and talking about seconds here is splitting hairs.

>Why not recording in one file?
>  Because this do not help if it should record from 
>  different channels.

In this case, channel-switching alone will cause a loss.

>  Because "auto naming" would not work.
>  Because it is very unconvienent.
>  Because both records may not have the same priority and hold time.

Those are drawbacks which should be solved otherwise. Names, priority and hold time 
should be editable for existing recordings... this should be not too hard to realize since it's 
just renaming of some directories.
Especially on Pro 7 this will be the ONLY way (except using multiple cards with 
overlapping timers) to get useful recordings. This channel is often so far from the EPG-
times that you can't do separate recordings without cutting at least one of the 
programmes.
Unfortunately vdrs current cutting-functions also don't allow splitting in two recordings. 
One has to manually rename the first part before cutting the second.. otherwise, the first 
cutted version will be overwritten (at least this was the case the last time i tried).

>(Problem: Some TV channels do not transmit exact time.
>Had someone tested which time MTV (for example) uses to
>start transmssions? If DCF or so, then it would be nice
>to be able to block systimer setting for specific channels
>(easier: allow it for only a few known "have to be by law" 
>precise like ZDF) in channels.conf or similar.)

This is completely out of interest. Even if they transmit the correct time in their data-
stream, they don't start their programmes at the exact times.
Of course it would be useful if the SetSystemTime-function could be 'locked' to one 
specific channel.. but the best way to set the time is via internet (ntp) anyway :-)

Greetings,   Marcus