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Hi,
As a long time user of Humax PVR’s I’m keen to buy Humax again for my next upgrade and I’m looking at the FVP 4000T. One issue that is important to me is the ability of the PVR to automatically record the whole of a program that either (a) overruns beyond it’s scheduled finish time, or (b) is late starting due to a previous overrunning program. I’ve been unable to establish if the 4000T has this facility and hope you guys can answer the question for me.
Thanks
If set to auto-record the Humax box uses meta-tags transmitted by the broadcaster to determine start and finish times. So if the broadcaster gets it right then there is no problem. Not all do, CH5 seems to be reported as particularly poor.
You can set manual padding for start and finish but that introduces potential contention between contiguous recordings. With auto I’ve never had problems with recording, accepting that I rarely record CH5.
Pollensa1946 – 1 hour ago »
You can set manual padding for start and finish but that introduces potential contention between contiguous recordings.
Set the finish as the end time of the second programme and record both as one file.
Thanks for the replies. My present HDR-FOX T2 catches overruns perfectly … I didn’t miss a second of last weekends overrunning Formula One program on Channel 4. My worry is that Humax Customer Services tell me that the FVP 4000T doesn’t have this facility. Is the “Auto-Record” option in the settings? I don’t want to start messing with the padding settings … I’ve never needed to on the FOX.
Welcome to our Forum
I’m aghast at Humax Customer Services telling you that, it is completely incorrect.
I can assure you that the FVP 4000T has the auto option for start and end padding time.
F1 was recorded without issue last weekend.
Barry, you wouldn’t believe the email exchanges I’ve had with Customer Services. I found it so hard to believe that the 4000T couldn’t handle overrunning programs that I queried it. When they insisted it couldn’t do it I asked them to tell me which Humax PVR’s could catch overruns. They replied that none of them could. When I pointed out that the HDR-FOX T2 could, they said that it was the only one. It just didn’t make sense to me, which is why I came here to check it out.
This has been the only issue stopping me from buying a FVP 4000T … it sounds like an awesome machine with it’s 3 tuners and Freeview Play.
Thanks for your help.
Barry, forgive me for coming back on this but can I clarify with you that you recorded the whole of the extended F1 program without making any manual edits to start or end times. In other words, the FVP 4000T handled it entirely automatically from the schedule.
JWJ – 17 hours ago »
Barry, you wouldn’t believe the email exchanges I’ve had with Customer Services. I found it so hard to believe that the 4000T couldn’t handle overrunning programs that I queried it. When they insisted it couldn’t do it I asked them to tell me which Humax PVR’s could catch overruns. They replied that none of them could. When I pointed out that the HDR-FOX T2 could, they said that it was the only one. It just didn’t make sense to me, which is why I came here to check it out.
This has been the only issue stopping me from buying a FVP 4000T … it sounds like an awesome machine with it’s 3 tuners and Freeview Play.
Thanks for your help.
The capability is called accurate recording (AR), all UK Humax pvrs, both satellite and freeview starting with the 9200T have it. It is of course only as good as the broadcaster sending the correct control codes.
Pollensa1946 – 1 day ago Not all do, CH5 seems to be reported as particularly poor.
Actually, C5 (and 5* and 5USA) seem to have got much better recently. I complained to Channel 5 in February 2016 and we had the following exchange …
Quote:Me:I wish to make a complaint about the timing signals transmitted by channels 5 and 5 USA which Freeview and Freeview+ recorders use to record the programmes.
These signals should be transmitted when the program starts, and when the program credits end, so that the recorder can record the entire programme.
5 and 5 USA transmit these signals at the incorrect times.
I then cited several examples of incorrect timings
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Quote:Customer Services <customerservices@five.tv>:As is the case with most channels, Channel 5 does not currently provide ‘live’ or real time synchronisation of our Electronic Programme Guide (EPG). This can result in programmes being cut short if buffers or extensions of PVR recording times are not added to the recordings. If possible, we advise viewers to add five minutes to the start and the end of recordings in these instances.
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Quote:Me:Thank you for your reply
Unfortunately the reply is completely incorrect and it appears that Channel 5 cannot have understood my complaint … Could I therefore ask you to pass my complaint to someone who understands the details.
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Quote:Customer Services <customerservices@five.tv>:No reply yet…
As I understand it, a Programme Number should be transmitted in parallel with, and at the same time as, the programme content and recorders start and stop recording based on this Programme Number. 5 USA was particularly bad in getting these synchronised – they were sometime minutes out and often lost the beginning of a recording and especially the end of a recording.
As for JWJ’s question – the Humax of course uses these signals to record programmes and, as long as the broadcaster transmits them at the correct times when programs overrun, then you will get the complete programme. But you are at the mercy of the broadcaster – Humax does what it should do and, if the signal stops early, the Humax stops recording early …
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The codes are known as CRIDs. Content reference identifiers. Briefly the broadcaster provides at least two. A programme CRID unique to that episode and a series crid which is the same for all episodes the broadcaster considers are part of the same series. A HDR FOX T2 can be set to display the CRID’s. An additional one for programme recommendations may be present.
Part of the reason that channel 5 got their reputaion for providing inaccurate start and stop signals was that they didn’t roll out accurate recording (or an alternative) until March 2013.
It wasn’t that they were inaccurate it was just that they did supply it. Channel 5 roll out to the various transmitters of AR started in March 3013 and completed in April 2013.
5 * and 5 USA followed in July 2013.
There were repeated reports of 5 not supporting AR but they appeared to be all from people who had given up on 5 and was not looking at what it was currently.
And then came November 2015 and instead of being one of the best at AR it turned to being one of the worst. I sometimes record a lot of extra programmes to verify my impressions and this was one occasion due to the online comments that were appearing, especially for neighbours, but I guess that is one of their more popular progammes. 5 had become what appeared to be picking a large random selection of its progammes start times to leave defaulted to the billed time. (The broadcast only contains the start time for events, the end time adopts the next programme’s start time for its end time.) I was hoping it was a blip but it was still poor in to March.
JohnH77 – 2 hours ago »
Actually, C5 (and 5* and 5USA) seem to have got much better recently.
My few have been very accurate recently, just checked 30.
Luke
Thanks for the clarification. I previously had a Humax 9200T and it seemed to use the programme banners for “accurate recording” and C5 was spectacularly bad at timing them – the next programme banner would almost always appear before the previous programme had even finished, let alone the credits rolled. Each recording used to start with about 60 seconds of the end of the previous programme! 😥 {where is the smiley of hammer banging head when you need it??)
I can date the 5 USA improvement precisely to mid January 2016. I was not satisfied with the C5 response so I complained to digital uk as well saying:
Quote:the two Law and Order Special Victims Unit (5 USA, Tuesdays 9pm) programmes broadcast on 5 January and 12 January 2016; and the New: Law and Order (5 USA, Thursdays 11:05pm) broadcast on 7 January [were all incorrectly timed].Strangely (it’s almost as though 5 USA has already reacted to my complaint and fixed things!) Law and Order on 5 USA on Thursday 14 Jan at 11:00pm was perfectly timed – the recording started with the sponsor’s message, and included the credits at the end.
If C5 and 5 USA can keep this up, we will all be happy bunnies.
I haven’t had any problems since – the 5 USA timing now seems excellent.
JohnH77 – 26 minutes ago »
I haven’t had any problems since – the 5 USA timing now seems excellent.
My experience earlier in the year was not as good. It would have been Law & Order: Special Victims which I was watching on 5 USA.
JohnH77 – 26 minutes ago »
I previously had a Humax 9200T and it seemed to use the programme banners for “accurate recording” and C5 was spectacularly bad at timing them – the next programme banner would almost always appear before the previous programme had even finished, let alone the credits rolled. Each recording used to start with about 60 seconds of the end of the previous programme! 😥 {where is the smiley of hammer banging head when you need it??)
When broadcasters provide accurate recording they do so through the start time for the now/next programme banner. That way even for channels that don’t have accurate recording updates from the broadcaster the recorder can still work as it will naturally default to the schedule time instead.
The 9200T was initially a bit odd when it added accurate recording. The initial few accurate recording 9200T softwares would display the banner details from the 7 day programme guide and they would change on the billed time instead of the more accurate now/next time.
Humax also initially only added accurate recording to the 9200T for the start time but continued to use the scheduled end time for terminating the recording. I wonder if that was because the event only has the start time and they had not understood that the end time could be obtained from the next programme’s start time.
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