Delay between channel change, recording start

[drbenjamin]

One thing that would really help out users of the HD-PVR would be to allow the channel changer to go first and have a configurable delay before recording starts. The HD-PVR doesn't deal well with inputs of varying resolution that occur when the STB was on a SD channel and then switches to an HD one. Comskip also has trouble.

ty!

[mvallevand]

A delay won't help. NPVR needs to build the graph, tune the channel, then delay enough to get to the correct channel, then kill the graph and start a new graph. The graph seems to always start off with the resolution of the previous run and it doesn't change with time.

Martin.

[smajor]

As an HD-PVR user, I agree. I didn't have so much an issue with the format switch as trying to convert it to something more permanent after.

Does your STB allow a permanent fixed resolution? With the last firmware update to my Time Warner boxes I have set them to only output 1080. This has made this issue all but vanish for me.

The only time I see a shift is if the box has gone idle and they put it in a SD format.

[drbenjamin]

My STB (a Motorola QIP-7200) has separate output options for SD and HD, I can set all HD channels to output at 720P but the SD channels can only be 480i or 480p. If the STB is on an SD channel I end up w/ a few frames of 480P until the channel changes.

[drbenjamin]

A delay won't help. NPVR needs to build the graph, tune the channel, then delay enough to get to the correct channel, then kill the graph and start a new graph. The graph seems to always start off with the resolution of the previous run and it doesn't change with time.

Martin.

I certainly don't want to disagree w/ you Martin, you know way more than I. I would like to point out that for my issue, If I manually set my STB to a HD channel everything goes w/o a hitch even if NPVR changes the channel. So I'm anticipating that if NPVR executed the channel change exe then waited a few secs, everything would also work. If I could program my damn kids to leave the STB on an HD channel that would work too

[sub]

I certainly don't want to disagree w/ you Martin, you know way more than I. I would like to point out that for my issue, If I manually set my STB to a HD channel everything goes w/o a hitch even if NPVR changes the channel. So I'm anticipating that if NPVR executed the channel change exe then waited a few secs, everything would also work. If I could program my damn kids to leave the STB on an HD channel that would work too

I'm pretty sure you can already get a delay like this. Just set your blaster executable to a batch file, and add a delay in your batch file after calling your blaster executable. NextPVR will wait until your blaster batch completes before it'll continue. I dont know if it'll really achieve what you're hoping though.

[mvallevand]

I certainly don't want to disagree w/ you Martin, you know way more than I. I would like to point out that for my issue, If I manually set my STB to a HD channel everything goes w/o a hitch even if NPVR changes the channel. So I'm anticipating that if NPVR executed the channel change exe then waited a few secs, everything would also work. If I could program my damn kids to leave the STB on an HD channel that would work too

You're luckier than me, because I've tried both th he simple batch method that sub just wrote about and manual tuning and I still get 480p/720p/1080i overlapping at the beginning, all the delay avoids on my STB is viewing a piece of the original file.

Martin

[drbenjamin]

Thanks sub! I'll give it a whirl and report back

[drbenjamin]

You're luckier than me, because I've tried both th he simple batch method that sub just wrote about and manual tuning and I still get 480p/720p/1080i overlapping at the beginning, all the delay avoids on my STB is viewing a piece of the original file.

Martin

I'm guessing you use your HD-PVR for both SD and HD recording? Maybe it's because of my setup? I have 2 older tuners that I use for recording SD channels (on analog Hauppauge cards). The HD-PVR is exclusively HD channels, I only load channels 500 and up into it's EPG. So as long as my STB is always set to HD when the HD-PVR turns on I should avoid the problem you describe from a graph from a previous run? NPVR never tunes my STB to a SD channel, but it does double duty, it's plugged into both my HD-PVR and my TV and we also use it to watch live TV in the morning.
tks

[mvallevand]

That would probably solve my problem, the trouble is I am spoiled with the HDPVR audio and video quality. Too many good stations here are not HD yet (SPACE, AMC, Bravo) because of the cable monopolies. However OTA ATSC is really taking the load of the HDPVR for the Network stuff and because I separate all my tuners, I have a really stable NPVR setup and I don't want to use any other tuners for recording.

Martin