# Cause of partial recording



## wbmccarty (Apr 28, 2006)

I've investigated and discovered the cause of my latest partial recording. The situation may be old hat to others and may even have been commented on frequently. But, it's new to me.

I had an SL set to record a program beginnng at 1 p.m. I also had a movie set to record at 1:20 p.m. The R15 recorded the first 20 minutes of the SL, then changed channels and recorded the movie.

In a sense, all that was lost is the disk space occupied by the 20-minute partial recording. But, it's more annoying than that, because the MyVOD screen invites me to view what is, actually, not a complete program.


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## TheTooleMan (Apr 9, 2006)

Either I'm confused or you're not working with all the facts. The R15 can record two programs at once. You should have two complete recordings - one program that started at 1 p.m. and another that started at 1:20 p.m. 

Do you have two cables connected to your R15? 

If you are recording two programs, you cannot change the channel and watch a third show. But you can watch something you've already recorded from MyVOD, or either of the two shows in progress, or start watching the recording of one of the two shows from the beginning.


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## wbmccarty (Apr 28, 2006)

Yes, thanks for the query. I neglected to mention that my R15 has only a single active tuner. However, I suspect that a similar problem could have affected a two-tuner R15 if one of the tuners were busy during during all, or perhaps part, of the 1 p.m. and 1:20 p.m. programs. Some of us believe that having only one active tuner makes the R15 more prone to problems. Others report contrary experience. This case study demonstrates one type of problem that seems more likely to occur in a one-tuner setup, due to the greater number of potential conflicts and overlaps.


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## walters (Nov 18, 2005)

I'm pretty sure I've seen this reported with two tuners. The issue is that someone thought it would be a good idea to get as much of a conflict/priority loser as possible, rather than wait until it's on again to catch it in its entirety.


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## ad301 (Mar 30, 2004)

Good analysis, walters, and yes, it does occur with two tuners. The reason it hasn't been as noticable, perhaps, is that with the r15 recording all episodes of series, it's not an issue. If/when they ever do fix the repeat recording bug, and if the r15 has some semblance of the tivo 28 day rule, then this behavior will be very problematic.


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## cabanaboy1977 (Nov 16, 2005)

wbmccarty said:


> Yes, thanks for the query. I neglected to mention that my R15 has only a single active tuner. However, I suspect that a similar problem could have affected a two-tuner R15 if one of the tuners were busy during during all, or perhaps part, of the 1 p.m. and 1:20 p.m. programs. Some of us believe that having only one active tuner makes the R15 more prone to problems. Others report contrary experience. This case study demonstrates one type of problem that seems more likely to occur in a one-tuner setup, due to the greater number of potential conflicts and overlaps.


How did the todo list look? Did it show both programs to record or did it show a conflict on the show at 1:00? If the movie was the higher priority the R15 logic worked correctly (it will record part of a conflict program if there is nothing conflicting that that part of it). If the movie was the lower then it messed up and putting it in standby may help in the future since the R15's logic seems to messup more with one tuner when it's not in standby.


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## walters (Nov 18, 2005)

I may be wrong (this may be my TiVo-bias), but don't priorities only apply to Series Links? The movie, I assume, was a one-off and, therefore, didn't have a priority (actually, it had an implicit priority above all Series Links--at least that's how TiVo would handle it).


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## wbmccarty (Apr 28, 2006)

cabanaboy1977 said:


> How did the todo list look? .... If the movie was the higher priority the R15 logic worked correctly (it will record part of a conflict program if there is nothing conflicting that that part of it).


Since I didn't discover the problem until later in the day, I don't know what the TDL would have shown.

I can't get my head around the idea of a partial recording as "correct" behavior. Does the manual or other official DTV source specify this behavior? Otherwise, I'm convinced it's incorrect for two reasons.

One reason is that, when I specify a one-off recording that conflicts with an SL, the R15 tells me that the SL program has been cancelled, not merely truncated. A second reason is that partial recordings wreak havoc on the Keep logic. Sometimes, I find that three of the five programs the R15 has kept are merely partial recordings of a few minutes duration. Even if DTV stated that this was correct behavior, I'd insist that it's undesirable.


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## Clint Lamor (Nov 15, 2005)

I think the logic of doing these partial recordings is bad, if you can get the whole show don't get any of it. Who wants to watch 1/2 a show? This type of stuff might also cause problems I mean you know what needs to be recorded do you need to look at the ToDo list constantly to see if you should be recording anything else?


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## cabanaboy1977 (Nov 16, 2005)

walters said:


> I may be wrong (this may be my TiVo-bias), but don't priorities only apply to Series Links? The movie, I assume, was a one-off and, therefore, didn't have a priority (actually, it had an implicit priority above all Series Links--at least that's how TiVo would handle it).


I don't know I have looked but that is a good question.



wbmccarty said:


> Since I didn't discover the problem until later in the day, I don't know what the TDL would have shown.
> 
> I can't get my head around the idea of a partial recording as "correct" behavior. Does the manual or other official DTV source specify this behavior? Otherwise, I'm convinced it's incorrect for two reasons.
> 
> One reason is that, when I specify a one-off recording that conflicts with an SL, the R15 tells me that the SL program has been cancelled, not merely truncated. A second reason is that partial recordings wreak havoc on the Keep logic. Sometimes, I find that three of the five programs the R15 has kept are merely partial recordings of a few minutes duration. Even if DTV stated that this was correct behavior, I'd insist that it's undesirable.


It's correct behavior in some situtations but not always. It's correct if where it's switching when another programs starts but not the ones where 5 mins into it switches the 3 lowest priority program. It's kind of nice if you want to watch the news but it conflicts with a program that is running over by a minthought trying to manage the SL's across different time slots when that happens and has confused me a couple of times that I didn't know a program was running over and conflicting with another one. It's also nice for programs like Lost that run over a min or two and conflict only for that minute. I'd rather miss a min of a program (the min of the new one not the end of Lost) then have to miss the whole thing because it conflicted for a minute.


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## Bobman (Jan 3, 2006)

The problem with the to do list is that it isnt accurate for a while after a reboot and is confusing. Things there now might not record as another one it adds later will surpass it and knock it off, things not there right now might still record when the R-15 logic actually gets to the show and adds it, etc... 

It can take a couple days before it looks like we expect it should. Now if someone hasnt rebooted in about a week, the to do list works fine usually.


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## wbmccarty (Apr 28, 2006)

cabanaboy1977 said:


> It's correct behavior in some situtations but not always.


Okay, I see where you're coming from. I'm sometimes a bit of a word Nazi. I'd use the word "desirable" or the word "reasonable" where you use the word "correct." I reserve the word "correct" to refer to behavior documented in a specification or user's manual. Once I get past our different choice of words, I see your point and don't disagree.

I think it might be helpful if a partial recording had a tag what indicated it as inferior. Then, given opportunity, the R15 could make a full recording and replace the partial. And, the Keep logic could be tweaked to avoid the annoying habit of deleting a full recording to make room for a partial one.


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## cabanaboy1977 (Nov 16, 2005)

wbmccarty said:


> Okay, I see where you're coming from. I'm sometimes a bit of a word Nazi. I'd use the word "desirable" or the word "reasonable" where you use the word "correct." I reserve the word "correct" to refer to behavior documented in a specification or user's manual. Once I get past our different choice of words, I see your point and don't disagree.


Sorry didn't mean to come off as attacking your wording, it's hard in this .txt world . I agree with you too, it should tell you something about that in that manual because I was pretty confuzed the first time It happened to me.



wbmccarty said:


> I think it might be helpful if a partial recording had a tag what indicated it as inferior. Then, given opportunity, the R15 could make a full recording and replace the partial. And, the Keep logic could be tweaked to avoid the annoying habit of deleting a full recording to make room for a partial one.


Now that would be great! I think next the the R)) there should be a big Red P or something that would let you know what was going on.

I know this would be alot of work but I really think the Prioritizor should have a day of the week or time slot priority too. That way you can tell Simpons to have the higher priority on Sunday's and Southpark to have a higher priority on Wed's.


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