Recording Service Records Less Than Expected

[pfarrell]

I am having a problem with recorded shows not being the correct length. For example, I record a 30 minute show and have a buffer of 2 minutes at the start and 2 minutes at the end. I would expect the recording to be about 34 minutes in length. Instead, I often find that my recording is between 29 and 31 minutes. It is almost like the recording service is busy and not responding at the appropriate start time of the show. Has anyone else experienced this?

The problem seemed to show up after I upgraded to the latest version of the software around the new year.

Here is a little background about my setup. I am running Windows XP Home on a 2.4 GHz Celeron with 768 MB RAM. I have two Hauppauge MCE 500 tuner cards installed.

Patrick

[sub]

When it happens, zip and attach the logs and the name of the show and I'll take a look in the logs.

The show wasnt back-to-back with another recording?

[Gemini1706]

yeah, I only notice this when back-to-back sows are scheduled.

[pfarrell]

Would you please explain the whole back-to-back recording issue? I could see this being an issue if you had a single tuner. In that case, the recording service would have to stop the first recording in order to start the next recording.

In this case, I am running a system with four tuners. I should be able to record back-to-back shows and although the two shows might overlap due to the buffer applied, the second show should grab the next available tuner and begin recording at the specified time.

[sub]

It depends on your settings in config.xml as to how it tries to schedule your recordings. In some combinations it'll try to squeeze in as many recordings with least likelyhood of conflicts, which will cause back to back recordings to go to the same capture source.

The specific settings in question are <PreferAlternatingCaptureSources> and <TryToHonourPaddingIfPossible>.

The default settings for this have changed from time to time, so hard for me to guess what you might have, but on your setup <PreferAlternatingCaptureSources> set to true is probably the most appropriate.

The default settings are designed to work well with two or less tuners, since that covers the vast majority of users.

[gEd]

this thread should answer at least some of your questions.

http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php?t=23613

[edit]: ok, so Sub beat me to it....

[sub]

ok, so Sub beat me to it....

[pfarrell]

The settings in my config.xml are already set to:

<PreferAlternatingCaptureSources>false</PreferAlternatingCaptureSources>
<TryToHonourPaddingIfPossible>true</TryToHonourPaddingIfPossible>

Let me try to set a few recordings for this evening and see what happens.

[HtV]

<PreferAlternatingCaptureSources>false</PreferAlternatingCaptureSources>

I think you should set this one to true. Just read again the previous posts.

[pfarrell]

Aha ... thanks. Ok -- I changed the value to true now. So this should allow the recording service to grab the next available tuner when a back-to-back recording scenario arises and the buffers overlap?

BTW, I was browsing my log files and found that the RecordingService.exe-2.log file shows that the recording service was cutting one of my shows off early becauase the tuner was in use. Is this because the PreferAlternatingCaptureSources was set to false?

Please take a peek at the log file contained in my zip. Look for entries between 7:58 PM and 10:03 PM. The first show recorded was Ugly Betty. This show started on time and recorded until 9:00 PM when it was cut off by Grey's. There are a number of messages from 8:58 PM until 9:00 PM indicating that the system was looking for another capture source. I'm kinda confused why it didn't find one though. Can anyone answer that? Greys started at 9:00 PM and was stopped at 10:03 PM. Dunno why it stopped at 10:03 though ... I am pretty sure that I only had a 2 minute buffer at the time.

Thanks,

Patrick