# Clock is off



## JerseyBoy (Sep 1, 2006)

With the D* receivers connected to the internet why can't they keep their time updated correctly? Both my HR20 and HR21 clocks are 45 seconds slow causing them to miss the very beginning of most programs. They should do what windows does and sync with the atomic clock once a day.


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## davring (Jan 13, 2007)

The time is sent from D* via the sat, I believe 101.


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## ajc68 (Jan 23, 2008)

Will a reset fix this?


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## JerseyBoy (Sep 1, 2006)

Coming from the sat should work just as well. I don't care where it is coming from I just want D* to get it right.


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## jdspencer (Nov 8, 2003)

I keep track of how far off my HR20 gets and when it hits 30s slow I do a restart from the menu. This brings it back in line. Because of this, I don't believe the units actually use the time from the sat.


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## JerseyBoy (Sep 1, 2006)

Restarting corrected the time. Thanks


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## MrMojoJojo (May 23, 2008)

I'd really hate for this to be my first post, but 45 seconds? Seriously? It just seems like a waste of time and energy to be upset about a fraction of time that small to be off on the guide.


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## JerseyBoy (Sep 1, 2006)

When I record a show I like to see the whole thing. 45 sec might not seem like much but it has been enough that several times this week I have missed enough of the start of a show that I have no idea what is going on the 1st few minutes of the show. And if the HR2x is not resync'ng itself with the time from the sat how far is it going to drift before it does reset?


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## bonscott87 (Jan 21, 2003)

I remember DirecTivo's (series 1's anyway) used to have problems keeping correct time. Especially if left on a channel that was on 119. Would get off by a couple minutes in just a day or so. Tuning to the 101 sat and restarting would fix the issue. That bug was around for a looooong time.

Could be a similar issue here. Having said that I've never seen it on either of my HR20/21 units.


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## texasbrit (Aug 9, 2006)

There have been many posts about this for the last two years. Whether the time displayed is correct or is incorrect, it does NOT make any difference to the start time for programs recording. (as jdspencer says)


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## Bitgod (Sep 23, 2006)

Yeah, 45 secs could be huge. I've been wondering about my time lately because of a recording or two seeming to miss a little at the beginning, but since it's only a few shows, it's probably more the channel than the time being off.


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## jdspencer (Nov 8, 2003)

texasbrit said:


> There have been many posts about this for the last two years. Whether the time displayed is correct or is incorrect, it does NOT make any difference to the start time for programs recording. (as jdspencer says)


Actually, I didn't say that. For example, I record the late night talk shows and the clock being slow cuts off the who's on list. This is important to me, because many times the guide is either wrong, incomplete, or missing altogether. For normal prime time shows it isn't that important except you may miss part of the "previously on".


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## homeskillet (Feb 3, 2004)

Not directly a DirecTV issue, but I have noticed on Mondays that CBS starts shows early... like at 7:29:30 instead of 7:30 PM. I have my DVR default to start 60 seconds early and end 2 minutes late, but when you have back-to-back recordings setup it doesn't work that way so I have to catch the first 30 seconds on the show recording before it. Kind of annoying but I've only noticed it on CBS programming, not on FOX where I have a similar setup.


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## kokishin (Sep 30, 2006)

Then offer to trade your DVR with the OP.


MrMojoJojo said:


> I'd really hate for this to be my first post, but 45 seconds? Seriously? It just seems like a waste of time and energy to be upset about a fraction of time that small to be off on the guide.


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## texasbrit (Aug 9, 2006)

jdspencer said:


> Actually, I didn't say that. For example, I record the late night talk shows and the clock being slow cuts off the who's on list. This is important to me, because many times the guide is either wrong, incomplete, or missing altogether. For normal prime time shows it isn't that important except you may miss part of the "previously on".


Sorry, I misunderstood. Let me give a slightly different reply. Over the past two years, extensive testing of the DVRs by multiple people on this forum indicates that the DVR does not use the displayed time to decide when a recording should start. With some older releases, the displayed time was up to a minute adrift of the "atomic clock" (sometimes early, sometimes late) and it did not affect the start time of the recording. The "late start" bug has been extensively rearched and seems to have been fixed (I have an HR20-100, and HR20-700 and an HR21-200 and have not seen the problem for a long time). What has NOT been fixed is the "late cue" bug. Sometimes it will look like the recording has started late but if you "rewind" to the beginning you will see the missing seconds.


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

Is anyone really insane enough to believe that there are two separate clocks (one for the guide clock and one for timers) in the receiver? Why is the timer clock _never_ fast?

I maintain that it is sloppy programming that causes a delay in the start of recordings and that delay builds as time since reboot increases. It seems like polling more often would be so simple to implement that they would have done it long ago.

My other question: why does this question come up almost every month in a brand new thread? Is the search feature not working for some forum users?

Is DIRECTV in denial?

Is the real problem, as many have suggested in dozens of threads, that the shows are starting early?

Is it, as I have suggested, that the recording doesn't start until the receiver has verified that the show ID matches the one in the guide?


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

harsh said:


> Is anyone really insane enough to believe that there are two separate clocks (one for the guide clock and one for timers) in the receiver? Why is the timer clock _never_ fast?
> 
> I maintain that it is sloppy programming that causes a delay in the start of recordings and that delay builds as time since reboot increases. It seems like polling more often would be so simple to implement that they would have done it long ago.
> 
> ...


There apparently is a lot of housekeeping that goes on before recordings start, including show ID checking. I've been obsessively tracking recording starts across my 3 HR20's and 2 HR21's since late January, and I can share with you the following things I've observed:
Since the January "clock round-up fix", *9 out of 10 my HR20-700 recordings have started on time. Performance has been every bit as good as I remember from my HR10 DirecTiVo's.* I define "on time" as a second or more before the actual show start.
The HR21's either haven't yet received the "clock round-up fix", or it doesn't work on them, because *both my HR21-200 and HR21-700 consistently start the same show recordings between 5 and 20 seconds later than my HR20's.*
*The INFO bar clock time appears to have no significant effect on recording starts.* IOW, the clock can be 10-15 seconds slower than "time.gov" and recordings will still start "on time", as defined in #1.
There is still an issue where *about 1/3 of the recordings on both the HR20 and HR21 are initially miscued*, so that you have to RW or REPLAY to find "true" 0:00.
/steve


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## raoul5788 (May 14, 2006)

The easy answer is to program your dvr to start recording 2 minutes early.


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## tcusta00 (Dec 31, 2007)

Steve said:


> [*]*The INFO bar clock time appears to have no significant effect on recording starts.* IOW, the clock can be 10-15 seconds slower than "time.gov" and recordings will still start "on time", as defined in #1.
> [*]There is still an issue where *about 1/3 of the recordings on both the HR20 and HR21 are initially miscued*, so that you have to RW or REPLAY to find "true" 0:00.[/LIST]/steve


You describe my experiences with both of my HR21s (-100 and -700) perfectly.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

raoul5788 said:


> The easy answer is to program your dvr to start recording 2 minutes early.


Not always possible, since you could also have 2 programs scheduled to record in the previous recording slot. If so, one of the 3 will need to be bumped from the TODO list, depending on priority.

We have at least 3 Wish List requests intended to to help address this situation:

*Automatically pad a recording's start and/or stop time by one minute, when it won't cause a conflict.*
*"Negative padding" OPTION. The ability to schedule a recording to start late or end early by "N" minutes.*
*When a scheduled recording's start or end time will slightly conflict with scheduled recordings in a different time slot, do not cancel any recordings. Record one as a "partial"*.
/steve


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## texasbrit (Aug 9, 2006)

Steve said:


> There apparently is a lot of housekeeping that goes on before recordings start, including show ID checking. I've been obsessively tracking recording starts across my 3 HR20's and 2 HR21's since late January, and I can share with you the following things I've observed:
> Since the January "clock round-up fix", *9 out of 10 my HR20-700 recordings have started on time. Performance has been every bit as good as I remember from my HR10 DirecTiVo's.* I define "on time" as a second or more before the actual show start.
> The HR21's either haven't yet received the "clock round-up fix", or it doesn't work on them, because *both my HR21-200 and HR21-700 consistently start the same show recordings between 5 and 20 seconds later than my HR20's.*
> *The INFO bar clock time appears to have no significant effect on recording starts.* IOW, the clock can be 10-15 seconds slower than "time.gov" and recordings will still start "on time", as defined in #1.
> ...


I can't disagree much with what you have posted. 
(1)I have mainly been comparing my HR20s with "TiVo time" and "atomic time". My two HR20s are, to use your words, "every bit as good as the TiVo". 
(2) BUT I haven't noticed any significant difference between my HR21 and my HR20s. You may be right in that there could still be the approx 6 second difference that I noticed during my last "formal" testing, I will check it this weekend..
(3) As you say, the info bar clock time seems to have no relation to start time. It seems to be just there for display purposes. Mine does not wander all that much but IMHO there is no point in worrying about it. 
(4) Yes, the "miscue" bug is still there. I would have estimated it only happens about 1 in 10 recordings though, not the 1/3 you are seeing.

As far as I can tell (and I will limit this to the HR20s for the moment), if the recording does not start "on time" (early OR late) it is a broadcast issue and nothing to do with the DVR.

As far as the wish list is concerned, I noticed when I was in Toronto that my Canadian friend's Expressvu DVR had the first feature, QUOTE: Automatically pad a recording's start and/or stop time by one minute, when it won't cause a conflict. UNQUOTE In fact I believe it was two minutes. The Expressvu DVR is the same as Dish network so I assume that the Dish DVR does the same. It works well EXCEPT the info for the recording comes up with the wrong program title, it shows the program title for the program that preceds the one you want (that it, it shows the program title for the show that was being broadcast when the recording started). Very confusing!!


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

texasbrit said:


> (2) BUT I haven't noticed any significant difference between my HR21 and my HR20s. You may be right in that there could still be the approx 6 second difference that I noticed during my last "formal" testing, I will check it this weekend.


Yup. Would be great if someone else could track this on a regular basis, so someone besided me can complain about it!  I've been reporting late HR21 recording starts for the past few weeks in the appropriate "issues" threads.

As I mentioned above, both my HR21-700 and HR21-200 consistently start recording between 5 and 20 seconds later than my HR20-700's. I'm not sure if DirecTV just hasn't applied the January "clock roundup" fixes to the HR21's? Or if these fixes need to be "tuned" differently for HR21's?


texasbrit said:


> (4) Yes, the "miscue" bug is still there. I would have estimated it only happens about 1 in 10 recordings though, not the 1/3 you are seeing.


I'm finding the miscued start frequency has significantly increased the past couple of CE's. Prior to that, it was more like your 1 in 10. I've also seen a return of that bug where if you hit REPLAY at the beginning of a recording, instead of staying in place, it acts like ADVANCE and jumps you about 30 seconds into the recording. It only happens on some recordings, but I've now seen it happen on MPEG-2 recordings. Previously, I only noticed it on MPEG-4 recordings.

/steve


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

texasbrit said:


> As far as the wish list is concerned, I noticed when I was in Toronto that my Canadian friend's Expressvu DVR had the first feature, QUOTE: Automatically pad a recording's start and/or stop time by one minute, when it won't cause a conflict. UNQUOTE In fact I believe it was two minutes. The Expressvu DVR is the same as Dish network so I assume that the Dish DVR does the same.


The Echostar DVRs all have built-in padding as you describe. The default prior padding is 1 minute and the default trailing padding is 3 minutes. You can globally change the padding in the machine setup. The false title may be misleading or it may be useful if you don't know what program preceded the one that you're watching.

The observation that the timing is "consistently" in some range suggests that the clock isn't really getting slower; rather the delay reaches some pre-destined limit. That the interval varies may have something to do with how large the event list is.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

harsh said:


> The Echostar DVRs all have built-in padding as you describe. The default prior padding is 1 minute and the default trailing padding is 3 minutes. You can globally change the padding in the machine setup.


If the padding is not "conditional", that is only when it won't cause a conflict, then it's really not helpful, except for those who never record more than one show at a time. And it's no different than the recording defaults you can already set up on the HR2x's.


> The false title may be misleading or it may be useful if you don't know what program preceded the one that you're watching.


I think "useful" in this context may be a stretch.  IMO, the DVR should be smart enough to know the title of the majority of the recording.

I think the thing we need to keep in mind is that DirecTV has shown on the HR20-700's, at least, that it is possible to start recordings on time, which greatly minimizes the need for padding, except in cases where LIVE shows may not end on time because they unintentionally run over, like this week's _American Idol _results show. /steve


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

Until DIRECTV finds something that works consistently, it seems pretty silly to dismiss what Echostar is doing as it seems to work for them.


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## bonscott87 (Jan 21, 2003)

harsh said:


> Until DIRECTV finds something that works consistently, it seems pretty silly to dismiss what Echostar is doing as it seems to work for them.


I think what Steve was saying is that the DirecTV DVRs can do the exact same thing. I've got my recording default set to 1 minute prior and 2 minutes after and it's available in the menus to change this default to whatever you want it to be. Perhaps the only difference is that "out of the box" it's set to nothing (0 both ways) so you have to set it the first time if you want this default padding to exist.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

bonscott87 said:


> I think what Steve was saying is that the DirecTV DVRs can do the exact same thing. I've got my recording default set to 1 minute prior and 2 minutes after and it's available in the menus to change this default to whatever you want it to be. Perhaps the only difference is that "out of the box" it's set to nothing (0 both ways) so you have to set it the first time if you want this default padding to exist.


Yup. 

That said, if your household needs require simultaneous, "back-to-back" prime-time recordings on different tuners, setting the padding defaults to anything but "0" is bound to cause missed recordings somewhere along the line.

*By that logic, if Echostar is padding by default, out of the box, then it must be "conditional" padding, or they'd have all sorts of CS issues.*

Hence our HR2x Wish List request: *Automatically pad a recording's start and/or stop time by one minute, when it won't cause a conflict.*

/steve


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## texasbrit (Aug 9, 2006)

Steve said:


> Yup.
> 
> That said, if your household needs require simultaneous, "back-to-back" prime-time recordings on different tuners, setting the padding defaults to anything but "0" is bound to cause missed recordings somewhere along the line.
> 
> ...


Yes the Expressvu (Echostar) padding is conditional, as you describe. Personally I found it pretty annoying. You have this extra material at the beginning of each recording and you have to FF through it, and the "wrong title" issue is very frustrating.


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## billsharpe (Jan 25, 2007)

I have been recording "CBS Sunday Morning" every week for over a year.
The program consistently starts on time or a few seconds early, i.e. showing the last couple seconds of the commercial preceding the program.

Recorded evening network shows seem to start on time, too, but I don't have the consistency check on these that I do with the Sunday program.

My remaining complaint about DirecTV is audio dropouts and these seem to be decreasing.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

texasbrit said:


> Yes the Expressvu (Echostar) padding is conditional, as you describe. Personally I found it pretty annoying. You have this extra material at the beginning of each recording and you have to FF through it, and the "wrong title" issue is very frustrating.


Yes, I agree it would be annoying if the HR20 did the same thing, especially reporting the wrong program title. The best solution is on-time starts.

*Speaking of which, I have some good news to report!* I downloaded the latest HR21 CE last night (0x0230) and spot-checked the recording starts on the 4 recordings made since 4AM on both my HR21's and vs. one of my HR20's (3 _L&O:CI's_ on USAHD and one _L&O:SVU_ on USAHD). 2 recording starts were identical. By identical, I mean almost down to the same video frame! 2 other recording starts were less than 2 seconds different, with the HR20 starting earlier in both cases.

I realize it's a bit early to get excited, but I'm hopeful this isn't an anomaly and that some work was actually done on HR21 recording starts last week. I'll keep checking throughout the week.

Bad news is that 2 of the four recordings I checked were miscued at start of playback. I had to RWx1 to find the true start. On one recording, hitting REPLAY at the start also acted like I hit ADVANCE, and jumped me forward, instead of staying "in place".

/steve


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## TomCat (Aug 31, 2002)

jdspencer said:


> I keep track of how far off my HR20 gets and when it hits 30s slow I do a restart from the menu. This brings it back in line. Because of this, I don't believe the units actually use the time from the sat.


Then where would they be getting it from?

Having worked extensively with Network Time Protocol, here is what I think is happening:

1) There is a NTP server at the uplink site locked to Naval Observatory time or some other dependable time source.

2) NTP info is regularly sent from the sat. Were it not, the box would have no reference to lock to during bootup. As we have seen, a reboot resyncs the time.

3) Every NTP client has its own local clock. This is based on a local crystal oscillator, which is rarely accurate. Without slewing or resync commands from the NTP server the local clock free-runs on its own, and can drift significantly off time.

4) Linux and other platforms run a NTPD or NTP daemon, which is a routine that regularly listens for the NTP time from the server, and either corrects the time locally immediately or slews the clock until it is in sync.

That is how it's generally _supposed _to work. I'd bet the farm.

One thing that can go wrong is that the NTPD process spontaneously aborts. The only visual evidence that this might be happening is a failure of the daemon to correct the time locally (IOW, drift). Unfortunately, some HR2x's seem to experience this regularly. Many don't.

One thing that can fix this is to restart the NTPD, and about the only way to do that on a DVR is to reboot the client. During bootup, the NTPD makes a local correction, and everything is fine until the process quits again.

If that is the problem, lets hope they find a way to minimize spontaneous aborts of the NTPD in a software up rev. Otherwise, or until then, some of us are doomed to preventatively reboot our DVRs.

Another theory is that only certain transponders carry the NTP signal, maybe a few popular channels and the one that sends EPG info. If you don't happen to tune to those "core" channels, you may only get an NTP update nightly at 2 AM (depending on your time zone). Combine that with a local oscillator that is severely fast or slow, and by prime time, things can be well off from normal (the NTPD could be just fine, yet unable to hear an update if not tuned to a core channel). Of course if you reboot, the DVR automatically goes to that transponder to get the NTP signal along with the other things it needs at bootup.

That means that there may be another way to sync your DVR, which would be to simply tune to whatever transponder holds the EPG info for a few minutes. Or maybe just watch "SportsCenter". ESPN is likely a core channel, and that could mean the NTPD could get an update there.


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## David MacLeod (Jan 29, 2008)

are the networked units listening for a time server according to lan dns settings?


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

David MacLeod said:


> are the networked units listening for a time server according to lan dns settings?


They probably could, but then they'd be off by the satellite to earth time delay. Better they get the time from the NTP SAT transponders, IMO, especially since I have 6 DVR's in the home, but only 3 networked.  /steve


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## David MacLeod (Jan 29, 2008)

I was wondering if 771 / signal issues were compounding time errors if they were using sat and not correcting as they should.
networked units could easily use same ntp as sat does, just different path to it.


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## texasbrit (Aug 9, 2006)

Back to the core of the issue. It does not really matter if the displayed time is wrong, other than for cosmetic reasons. See my post, and Steve's, and many others in the past. The DVR does NOT use the displayed time to trigger off any recordings, in fact it does not seem to use it for anything except for display.


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## TomCat (Aug 31, 2002)

Steve said:


> ...they'd be off by the satellite to earth time delay...


Which is a grand total of a quarter of a second, round trip. There's 10 times that much delay in terrestrial ATSC reception, so I'm not sure how that could really matter.


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## TomCat (Aug 31, 2002)

texasbrit said:


> Back to the core of the issue. It does not really matter if the displayed time is wrong, other than for cosmetic reasons. See my post, and Steve's, and many others in the past. The DVR does NOT use the displayed time to trigger off any recordings, in fact it does not seem to use it for anything except for display.


So you are really going to stand on that.

How much sense does it really make for a system that has a sophisticated NTP server/client relationship built in in order to fire recordings at the proper time, for the local clock to not also be jammed to it?

The setup for NTP takes some design overhead, while adding the local display clock as another client takes almost nothing.

Not only that, if you already have a NTP client, there isn't even a reason to have a yet another separate local clock for display. And if there is one, having it display a different time than the client would just make the tech support phone ring with problems they couldn't even fix.

So nothing about that theory makes one lick of sense.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

TomCat said:


> So nothing about that theory makes one lick of sense.


Whether it makes sense to you or not, it's a fact.  The attachment below is just one example of what we're talking about. This is a scheduled 12:35AM recording that started "on-time", actually about 12:34:58, based on my measurements. The first frame of the recording is shown paused in the PIP window. This HR has never been less than 5 seconds behind time.gov, and is usually closer to 10 seconds behind. /steve


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## texasbrit (Aug 9, 2006)

Steve said:


> Whether it makes sense to you or not, it's a fact.  The attachment below is just one example of what we're talking about. This is a scheduled 12:35AM recording that started "on-time", actually about 12:34:58, based on my measurements. The first frame of the recording is shown paused in the PIP window. This HR has never been less than 5 seconds behind time.gov, and is usually closer to 10 seconds behind. /steve


This also mirrors my experience. During one of my tests earlier this year the displayed clock on one of my HR20s was 25 seconds "slow" on atomic time and the other one was 10 seconds "fast" and they both started recording the same program at the same time. I don't know why this should be like that, it makes no sense to me either, but there's a whole group of us that have done testing in connection with the "start late" bug and we all found the same thing.
Speculation was that the DVR tunes an available tuner to the channel required for the next recording, and then starts to read the time streamed in the signal from that satellite channel, and uses that to start the recording.


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## JerseyBoy (Sep 1, 2006)

In my OP it was my displayed time that was off by 45 sec but the reason I checked it was because my recordings on both units were starting late. I was surprised that the displayed time was off by only 45 seconds because the recordings were off by about twice that. Since doing the restart both the display time and recording starts have been correct on both units.


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## texasbrit (Aug 9, 2006)

JerseyBoy said:


> In my OP it was my displayed time that was off by 45 sec but the reason I checked it was because my recordings on both units were starting late. I was surprised that the displayed time was off by only 45 seconds because the recordings were off by about twice that. Since doing the restart both the display time and recording starts have been correct on both units.


Were you able to check to see if the recordings were actually starting late or if you were seeing the "miscue bug" that Steve and I both posted about? When you play the recording, it looks like it has started late but if you rewind to the beginning and then play again you will find that the missing minute or so is there.


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## Tom Robertson (Nov 15, 2005)

There are several parts to this equation, some that are new to me, yet knowing the people here, I believe they are very possible.
Part 1) The networks, local channels, and cable channels are notorious for not syncing to any particular standard time.
Part 2) The DIRECTV HR2x family are real-time Linux systems. Their clocks can drift.
Part 3) Displayed time is in minutes not seconds and apparently is instantly updated as internal time.

*Part 1: Provider time*
Here in Salt Lake, it is very common for the local affiliates to record the Eastern Broadcasts, edit them for "local decency" and rebroadcast in Mountain Time. And boy, can they be off and start 2 or minutes early! (Measured against WWV clocks.) The worst is the local ABC affiliate, my two minute padded is usually sufficient, but recently not enough. OMGosh!

I have padded recordings even back in my VCR days. No matter how accurate and precise DIRECTV is with time, padding to overcome the networks is still a requirement. We must never forget this as a major part of this discussion.

*Part 2: Real-time Linux time*
Linux (and Unix) for servers and normal time-sharing environments have the clock set as the highest priority. The clock routines are very tightly written to keep that interruption as short as possible. The internal time is typically fairly accurate and easily adjusted to be even more so. Day to day, the same amount of skew works well.

Real-time implementations of Linux, that have constant and high rates of requests from the I/O devices, typically have have some very critical operations set with priorities as high or higher than the clock itself. Getting that next frame of video out there is more important than the next clock tick. (That usually only happens on a channel or programming change, not every frame to frame basis as the frame to frame is handled by the graphics modules, I presume.)

With a highly variable amount of interruptions, a set clock skew that can be applied just doesn't work very well.

NTP, at its heart, is meant to drive a better and better clock skew to minimize the polling cycles it does. In a real-time operating system, such a thing just isn't possible. So polling overhead increases if one wants to keep close time.

My experience has been that DIRECTV has done a great job of late keeping the system time much closer to standard time. While I had seen the clock off by 55 seconds 14-16 months ago, it seems much closer to standard time. In the order of 5-10 seconds of late.

*Part III: Internal vs. Displayed Time*
Since the display only reads in minutes, the only way to "guess" the display time is when it switches from one minute to the next. Such a thing very well might be a very low priority within the system and therefore could easily be off. Oh well. 

One can get the internal time from the DVR via an RS-232 connection. That makes a much better comparison. Perhaps one of these days I'll do just that on a more scheduled basis for the fun of it. 

Cheers,
Tom


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## texasbrit (Aug 9, 2006)

Steve said:


> Yes, I agree it would be annoying if the HR20 did the same thing, especially reporting the wrong program title. The best solution is on-time starts.
> 
> *Speaking of which, I have some good news to report!* I downloaded the latest HR21 CE last night (0x0230) and spot-checked the recording starts on the 4 recordings made since 4AM on both my HR21's and vs. one of my HR20's (3 _L&O:CI's_ on USAHD and one _L&O:SVU_ on USAHD). 2 recording starts were identical. By identical, I mean almost down to the same video frame! 2 other recording starts were less than 2 seconds different, with the HR20 starting earlier in both cases.
> 
> ...


steve - I tried this on my two HR20s and my HR21/AM21 yesterday/today (all with the latest CE releases). I recorded three programs (two MPEG-4 HD, one OTA HD) on each DVR, and they all started on time, at the same time to within one second of each other. The HR20s were the earliest to start. 
I also recorded two SD programs last night on both my HR20-100 and my HR21-200, and my SD TiVo. They all started "on time" within two seconds of each other. The SD TiVo and the HR20s started almost at the same time, the HR21 was about one second slower. 
I therefore had a total of 13 programs recorded on the HR20s and the HR21. 3 out of 13 showed the "miscue" bug. They were all MPEG-4 recordings from primetime network TV, if that is at all relevant.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

JerseyBoy said:


> In my OP it was my displayed time that was off by 45 sec but the reason I checked it was because my recordings on both units were starting late. I was surprised that the displayed time was off by only 45 seconds because the recordings were off by about twice that. Since doing the restart both the display time and recording starts have been correct on both units.


I have 3 HR20's, 2 HR21's and 1 R-22, and I've never seen a recording start off by 90 seconds or more, as you report. My HR20 starts are 90% 1-2 seconds early, and up until this weekend's latest CE, my HR21/R22 starts were generally 5-15 seconds late. Anyth9ing more than 15 seconds, in my experience, is a broadcast issue and not an HR2x issue.

I just checked yet another recording on my HR21-700, *which is currently 7 seconds behind time.gov*. It was this morning's 12:35 AM showing of _Without A Trace_, with the "Sleepy's" clock immediately preceding it (see attachment). Timed with a stop-watch, this recording started a full 13 seconds before the Sleepy's clock changed from 12:34 to 12:35, so I can state unequivocally that the INFO bar time had no bearing on the recording start time, in this case.

I did have to RWx1 to find the 13 seconds before the Sleepy's clock. When I first hit PLAY, it was cued at the clock. I find this very annoying and don't understand why recordings can't properly cue to the beginning of the buffer.

/steve


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## texasbrit (Aug 9, 2006)

Tom Robertson said:


> There are several parts to this equation, some that are new to me, yet knowing the people here, I believe they are very possible.
> Part 1) The networks, local channels, and cable channels are notorious for not syncing to any particular standard time.
> Part 2) The DIRECTV HR2x family are real-time Linux systems. Their clocks can drift.
> Part 3) Displayed time is in minutes not seconds and apparently is instantly updated as internal time.
> ...


Yes, I had forgotten to mention the "provider time "issue. In some parts of the country, what you are seeing is often a recording of the East Coast feed played back at the correct (or incorrect) "local" time.

And also yes, the only way to know the "time" is to wait for the displayed minutes to roll over. That may indeed be a very low priority task.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

texasbrit said:


> steve - I tried this on my two HR20s and my HR21/AM21 yesterday/today (all with the latest CE releases). I recorded three programs (two MPEG-4 HD, one OTA HD) on each DVR, and they all started on time, at the same time to within one second of each other. The HR20s were the earliest to start.
> I also recorded two SD programs last night on both my HR20-100 and my HR21-200, and my SD TiVo. They all started "on time" within two seconds of each other. The SD TiVo and the HR20s started almost at the same time, the HR21 was about one second slower.
> I therefore had a total of 13 programs recorded on the HR20s and the HR21. 3 out of 13 showed the "miscue" bug. They were all MPEG-4 recordings from primetime network TV, if that is at all relevant.


So it looks like DirecTV did work on the HR21 recording starts last week. Kudo's to them!

That's _Without A Trace_ recording I just noted above actually started later on my HR20 than on my HR21, which is a first. Both units started recording well before the "Sleepy's" clock, tho, so both were "on-time" starts. /steve


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

texasbrit said:


> And also yes, the only way to know the "time" is to wait for the displayed minutes to roll over. That may indeed be a very low priority task.


That's how I'm comparing INFO bar time to time.gov. It "rolls over" while the info bar is displayed, so it's relatively easy to calculate the delta from the time.gov web page time display at the top of each minute. /steve


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## TomCat (Aug 31, 2002)

Steve said:


> Whether it makes sense to you or not, it's a fact...


WCBS at 12:35 is a local program. Local programs, especially late at night, are notorious for not starting "straight up", especially since automation has become ubiquitous (manual Master Control depended on starting at the top of the minute to keep the manual math simple, while it really doesn't matter under automation since the computer handles the math). Networks are also not all that accurate. They arrogantly expect you to be already always watching live, not just recording timed portions of their broadcast day. FOX timing sheets (the "rundowns" sent daily to the stations) regularly show start times at odd minutes and seconds, such as "9:58:47". CBS and NBC regularly start at odd times, while ABC is actually pretty accurate, and even if their shows run long, the EPG usually reflects the late start of the next show.

For something to be considered a fact, there actually has to be some hard evidence to support it rather than a wild leap to a conclusion based on mere supposition. IOW, we need more than you simply telling us it's a fact and expecting us to blindly accept it. Not only is there no temporal reference that proves to us that even the program itself started on time (which these days is more coincidental than by design), your "thumbnail" and your anecdotal report are hardly evidence, however non-nonempirical, that there are "two" _independent_ clocks on board the DVR. What it tends to imply is that there is one, actually pretty accurate clock, which started the recording pretty much on time, and a second one for display (analogous to the "PC clock" on a computer) which may be anything but independent. NTP is primarily concerned with locking the chron jobs, only the important stuff (such as starting a recording on time), for mission critical tasks.

Of course there are two clocks, one internal and one for display. What makes no sense is that they would not both be clients to the same NTP server. But that they may be occasionally out of sync may not be all that incredible. Locking the local PC clock to the NTP server is actually an option of NTP, and hardly a requirement, but it still _makes no sense_ to _not_ do that, especially in this case, first to avoid confusion, and second, because it is extremely easy once the client is locked. But stuff happens. The process that jams the PC clock can also spontaneously quit, only to be restarted by a reboot. And displaying the time is, after all, a low-priority task. But I guess none of those common possibilities ever crossed your mind. You would apparently rather believe a wild theory based on sketchily-speculative information.



> ...Speculation was that the DVR tunes an available tuner to the channel required for the next recording, and then starts to read the time streamed in the signal from that satellite channel, and uses that to start the recording...


That's Occam's razor turned upside-down, on acid. When you hear hoofbeats, you should probably think horses, and not zebras.

I can't even imagine a more-convoluted way of doing things. First, it would require muxing the time into every channel, at a high technical cost and at a cost of cluttering the bandwidth uneccessarily. Second, it would fail every time both tuners were in use. Third, why would it need to get the time from the new program? Assuming the time exists in every new program, what's wrong with getting it from the current program already tuned to? Not only that, the HR2x overlaps recordings (begins one recording before it ends the next) even when both tuners are in use (a great feature Tivo never even thought of). If the local time (not the displayed time) is fairly accurate, one NTP reclock at 2 AM should be more than enough.

This thread has been the functional equivalent of having lots of unsupported and poorly-understood and even conflicting disinformation formenting superstitious beliefs. Like telling your mechanic your car is making a "funny sound" from under the hood, so maybe it's time for an oil change or time to rotate the tires.


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## TomCat (Aug 31, 2002)

Tom Robertson said:


> ...NTP, at its heart, is meant to drive a better and better clock skew to minimize the polling cycles it does. In a real-time operating system, such a thing just isn't possible...


I think Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 are probably real-time operating systems. While either can have PC time running wild, implementation of NTP can be implemented extremely tightly when needed. It has to be for Kerberos authorization to work, which is at the heart of most Windows internet security. So it not only is very possible, it's often imperative.

NTP is indeed designed to minimize reclocks based on delta history in most configurations. But even if it weren't, the CPU intensity to run that process is extremely minimal. It can be implemented very thoroughly when necessary, and it can be implemented very casually when a low priority. For instance, w32time polling requests will cease completely for 960 minutes at a time if the slew window becomes too large or the NTP server is unreachable.


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## David MacLeod (Jan 29, 2008)

sv2003 can also register itself as an ntp server for its clients using its cmos clock and sync to a know external ntp server. very useful in areas that have power/dsl outages. cpu/memory usage is almost nil. too many processes depend on it (not just kerobos) for it to not be setup right.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

TomCat said:


> For something to be considered a fact, there actually has to be some hard evidence to support it rather than a wild leap to a conclusion based on mere supposition. IOW, we need more than you simply telling us it's a fact and expecting us to blindly accept it. Not only is there no temporal reference that proves to us that even the program itself started on time (which these days is more coincidental than by design), your "thumbnail" and your anecdotal report are hardly evidence, however non-nonempirical, that there are "two" _independent_ clocks on board the DVR. What it tends to imply is that there is one, actually pretty accurate clock, which started the recording pretty much on time, and a second one for display (analogous to the "PC clock" on a computer) which may be anything but independent. NTP is primarily concerned with locking the chron jobs, only the important stuff (such as starting a recording on time), for mission critical tasks.


Please don't put words in my mouth. I never said there were two different clocks on board. I said that the accuracy of the INFO bar clock has no bearing on recording start time, and I verified the fact with evidence based on the my stop-watch timing of the start of the recording to the "Sleepy's" clock changing to 12:35. The INFO bar change of minute was compared to time.gov. My conclusion is hardly a "wild leap based on mere supposition". /steve


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

I got all excited Sunday because it looked like my HR21 start times had in fact been finally brought in line with my HR20 start times thanks to Friday night's CE update. I checked about 15 recordings total on both my HR21's and their performance was every bit as good as one of my HR20's, with everything starting "on-time".

Well something's changed since then, because I just checked four shows that recorded last night on my HR21-700 and all started "late". All four started "on time" on one of my HR20-700's, however. /steve


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## jdspencer (Nov 8, 2003)

Steve said:


> Please don't put words in my mouth. I never said there were two different clocks on board. I said that the accuracy of the INFO bar clock has no bearing on recording start time, and I verified the fact with evidence based on the my stop-watch timing of the start of the recording to the "Sleepy's" clock changing to 12:35. The INFO bar change of minute was compared to time.gov. My conclusion is hardly a "wild leap based on mere supposition". /steve


Then why does the start of The Late Show with Jay Leno start later and later as the clock on the info bar show it's getting slower and slower? A restart of the unit syncs it with my atomic clock and the start of the show is now on time. I can see NBC starting shows at different times, but this is consistent. Once my unit gets about 30s slow I do a restart and everything is back to normal.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

jdspencer said:


> Then why does the start of The Late Show with Jay Leno start later and later as the clock on the info bar show it's getting slower and slower? A restart of the unit syncs it with my atomic clock and the start of the show is now on time. I can see NBC starting shows at different times, but this is consistent. Once my unit gets about 30s slow I do a restart and everything is back to normal.


I'm not sure why you are having issues with Leno.

As you can see from my post #44, the actual recording start time _*as measured with a stop-watch against an independent time source that is embedded in the recording*_ (the "Sleepy's" clock) and the INFO bar clock time (_*as compared to time.gov*_) are a full 20 seconds different, with the INFO bar clock being 7 seconds "late". I measured the playback start until the Sleepy's clock changed from 12:34 to 12:35, at which point the show started.

This is why I can only conclude that recording start time is not tied to INFO bar time.

/steve


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

jdspencer said:


> Once my unit gets about 30s slow I do a restart and everything is back to normal.


BTW, I have never spot-checked any of my 5 HR's to time.gov and found them to be anywhere close to 30 seconds slow. What time source are you comparing yours to? I guess one factor to consider is that I routinely download the latest CE's, so each of my HR's is normally rebooted once a week. /steve


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## Tom Robertson (Nov 15, 2005)

TomCat said:


> I think Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 are probably real-time operating systems. While either can have PC time running wild, implementation of NTP can be implemented extremely tightly when needed. It has to be for Kerberos authorization to work, which is at the heart of most Windows internet security. So it not only is very possible, it's often imperative.
> 
> NTP is indeed designed to minimize reclocks based on delta history in most configurations. But even if it weren't, the CPU intensity to run that process is extremely minimal. It can be implemented very thoroughly when necessary, and it can be implemented very casually when a low priority. For instance, w32time polling requests will cease completely for 960 minutes at a time if the slew window becomes too large or the NTP server is unreachable.


Oh my. No, Windows XP and Server 2003 are definitely not real-time operating systems.  They are time-sharing, interrupt driven operating systems where any task can be interrupted by the OS rather than serving a real-time function that can not be interrupted for anything.

Microsoft has started to introduce more support for near real-time capabilities but it none of the major windows incarnations are "real-time" by any stretch.

As for NTP in an HR2x, I forgot to mention the number one reason it isn't very likely used: what percentage of HR2xs are actually connected to a nework? 100% that are being used for satellite reception are connected to satellite. 

They will use the satellite data stream.

Cheers,
Tom


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## David MacLeod (Jan 29, 2008)

I had asked about using tcp for ntp purposes as supplement, not primary.

sv2003 w32time service can be given (supported reg edit) real time non-interrupt priority. its required for some applications. 
many people mistakenly think this is the same as the server acting as an ntp server. ntp polls the w32time service.


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## texasbrit (Aug 9, 2006)

My 50c worth on this.
(1) I don't know how many clocks there are in the DVR software. But I have recorded well over a hundred programs under test conditions, and in none of them did the "displayed" clock (evaluated by the roll-over of the minutes) seem to have any correlation with the start time of the recordings. Last year on the HR20s the displayed clock was very unstable, one HR20 could be 30 seconds slow and another 30 seconds fast against the atomic clock, but they would both start recording at (almost) the same time. It may be that this is an issue with setting the priority of tasks in the scheduler, I don't know.
(2) I have not seen any definitive reporting that shows the displayed time is relevant to recording starts either. If the displayed clock is 25 seconds slow, and the recording start is linked to that, you would expect every recording to start 25 seconds late and I have not seen anyone post that this is true. Some people have posted that they see late starts on a particular program and that doing a reset seems to fix that but there are too many variables involved to say whether this really shows a cause and effect. You would expect that if the recording of "Leno" started late, all recordings of all programs would start late UNLESS there is a problem with the NBC datastream and the checks which appear to be made by the DVR before the program starts recording are initially failing for some reason. 
(3) My HR20 that had been running the national release (and therefore only got reset when there was a new national release) had a displayed clock that was sometimes as much as 6/7 seconds adrift of "atomic time" (in either direction) but never more than that. I have not seen any of my DVRs with a 30-second or greater "error" in displayed time since sometime last summer, when there were still many timing issues with the HR20.
(4) Both my HR20s consistently start recording "on time" regardless of the behavior of the "displayed clock". 
(5) My HR21-200 has suffered from the "late start" bug where some recordings would start 5-7 seconds late. With the latest CE release, as I posted, the problem seemed to have gone away. However in the light of Steve's comment that his inital testing showed the problem had been resolved, but his later testing showed otherwise, I will do some checking over the next few days and see if the problem on the HR21 is still there.


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

Steve said:


> Well something's changed since then, because I just checked four shows that recorded last night on my HR21-700 and all started "late". All four started "on time" on one of my HR20-700's, however. /steve


What has changed is that you've gotten further away from rebooting since the CE. It was, as they say, only a matter of time.

Sounds like your event list is pretty large. Does the amount late ever level out?


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

harsh said:


> What has changed is that you've gotten further away from rebooting since the CE. It was, as they say, only a matter of time.


If so, then why have 95% of my 3 HR20-700's recording starts been "spot-on" since for the past four months? They get rebooted no more or less often then than the HR21's. I haven't experenced any HR20 late-start issues since the "clock round-up" fix was applied at the end of January. /steve


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

texasbrit said:


> My 50c worth on this.
> (1) I don't know how many clocks there are in the DVR software. But I have recorded well over a hundred programs under test conditions, and in none of them did the "displayed" clock (evaluated by the roll-over of the minutes) seem to have any correlation with the start time of the recordings. Last year on the HR20s the displayed clock was very unstable, one HR20 could be 30 seconds slow and another 30 seconds fast against the atomic clock, but they would both start recording at (almost) the same time. It may be that this is an issue with setting the priority of tasks in the scheduler, I don't know.
> (2) I have not seen any definitive reporting that shows the displayed time is relevant to recording starts either. If the displayed clock is 25 seconds slow, and the recording start is linked to that, you would expect every recording to start 25 seconds late and I have not seen anyone post that this is true. Some people have posted that they see late starts on a particular program and that doing a reset seems to fix that but there are too many variables involved to say whether this really shows a cause and effect. You would expect that if the recording of "Leno" started late, all recordings of all programs would start late UNLESS there is a problem with the NBC datastream and the checks which appear to be made by the DVR before the program starts recording are initially failing for some reason.
> (3) My HR20 that had been running the national release (and therefore only got reset when there was a new national release) had a displayed clock that was sometimes as much as 6/7 seconds adrift of "atomic time" (in either direction) but never more than that. I have not seen any of my DVRs with a 30-second or greater "error" in displayed time since sometime last summer, when there were still many timing issues with the HR20.
> ...


My #1-#4 experience mirrors yours to a "t".

I look forward to hearing more of your #5 results. I'll try to report on tonight's recording starts in the AM. /steve


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

Steve said:


> If so, then why have 95% of my 3 HR20-700's recording starts been "spot-on" since for the past four months? They get rebooted no more or less often then than the HR21's. I haven't experenced any HR20 late-start issues since the "clock round-up" fix was applied at the end of January. /steve


Because they fixed the garbage collection on the HR20 and they haven't fixed it on the HR21. It seems a shame that the HR21 has fallen prey to most of the bugs that the HR20 had.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

harsh said:


> Because they fixed the garbage collection on the HR20 and they haven't fixed it on the HR21. It seems a shame that the HR21 has fallen prey to most of the bugs that the HR20 had.


You may be spot on with that reasoning. And yes, you'd think the HR21 would automatically benefit from HR20's fixes like memory optimization and "clock round-up", assuming that's not there yet either. /steve


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## jdspencer (Nov 8, 2003)

Another example is with The Late Late Show with Conan O'Brien. At the beginning they introduce who the guests will be. As the on screen clock gets slower, I miss the intro of guests. A reboot fixes this until it gets too slow again. BTW, I'm currently 40s slow. I'm only reporting what I'm seeing. 

Another note that needs to be said is that not all units will lose or gain time at the same rate.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

jdspencer said:


> I'm only reporting what I'm seeing.
> 
> Another note that needs to be said is that not all units will lose or gain time at the same rate.


I hear you.

So you're 40 seconds slow compared to time.gov (or some other atomic clock)? I've never seen anything like that since I've been spot-checking recording starts for about 6 months across 5 HR's. Typically my INFO bar clocks are 2-8 seconds behind. As I noted before, I've always kept them all on the latest CE, however, so they are each re-booted about once a week.

*I notice in your SIG you have an HR20-100, and I wonder if the manufacturer has any bearing on this?* I have four -700's and one -200, so different manufacturers than yours.

/steve


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

jdspencer said:


> Another note that needs to be said is that not all units will lose or gain time at the same rate.


Has been noted and discussed. My theory is that it may have something to do with the size of your recording schedule.


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## texasbrit (Aug 9, 2006)

One of my HR20s is a -100 running the national releases and I do not show this problem at all. The displayed clock is within about +/- 7 seconds of atomic time all the time and all my recordings are starting on time as far as I can tell - certainly in my receent tests the HR20-100 and my -700s start within a second of each other.
The problem jdspencer is describing should affect the recording of all programs, are ALL programs starting late?


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## texasbrit (Aug 9, 2006)

Steve said:


> My #1-#4 experience mirrors yours to a "t".
> 
> I look forward to hearing more of your #5 results. I'll try to report on tonight's recording starts in the AM. /steve


Over the last couple of days have recorded ten different programs on the HR21-200. Four of them had a late start by around 5 seconds. Interestingly they were all MPEG-4 national or local HD. My two MPEG-2 HD recordings started on time, as did the two SD recordings. Might be a coincidence, but worth mentioning.


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## phydock (May 29, 2008)

i read somewhere that if you change your time-zone you force the time to be up-dated. then change it back to the correct time-zone. hope this helps...phil


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

texasbrit said:


> Over the last couple of days have recorded ten different programs on the HR21-200. Four of them had a late start by around 5 seconds. Interestingly they were all MPEG-4 national or local HD. My two MPEG-2 HD recordings started on time, as did the two SD recordings. Might be a coincidence, but worth mentioning.


Ya. I just spot-checked last night's _Criminal Minds_ on WCBS MPEG-4. On my HR20-700, the recording started with a promo for another show before fading to black and starting _CM_. On my HR21-700, it started late, 7+ seconds behind the HR20 and about 2-3 seconds into the actual show. /steve


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

Last night's 11:35 _CSI Miami_ start was interrupted by a boxing(?) match that ran late, but there was a MIN:SS countdown clock on-screen that allowed me to see how two of my HR20's and two of my HR21's stacked-up against each other.

All four units started the recording within 3-4 seconds of each other, with one HR20-700 starting at 3:38, one HR21-200 starting at 3:37 and both one HR20-700 and HR21-700 starting latest at 3:35.

/steve


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

Steve said:


> Last night's 11:35 _CSI Miami_ start was interrupted by a boxing(?) match that ran late, but there was a MIN:SS countdown clock on-screen that allowed me to see how two of my HR20's and two of my HR21's stacked-up against each other.
> 
> All four units started the recording within 3-4 seconds of each other, with one HR20-700 starting at 3:38, one HR21-200 starting at 3:37 and both one HR20-700 and HR21-700 starting latest at 3:35.


*For the second week in a row*, successful HR21 recording starts were short-lived. 2 days after the CE download, my HR21-700 started all last night's recordings late, and some 5-7 seconds behind the same recordings on one of my HR20-700's.

*harsh *may be 100% with his comment a few posts back when I wondered why only the HR20 recording starts have been consistently spot-on for the past four months:

_"Because they fixed the garbage collection on the HR20 and they haven't fixed it on the HR21. It seems a shame that the HR21 has fallen prey to most of the bugs that the HR20 had._"

/steve


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## Milkman (Dec 6, 2006)

I would like to add my experiences in this thread. They may only confuse things a little more, but here it is nonetheless.

I CONSISTENTLY have Leno start late (<1minute in most cases). This is recorded on my local NBC affiliate.
I CONSISTENTLY have Everybody Loves Raymond start perfectly on time. Normally it comes right on when I hit play, or sometimes I have to do a 30 second skip one time, but if I do that, it usually advances too far into the show.

This could be the timing of the networks, based on the evidence in this thread of comparison to atomic clocks, but I thought I would throw that out there.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

Milkman said:


> I would like to add my experiences in this thread. They may only confuse things a little more, but here it is nonetheless.
> 
> I CONSISTENTLY have Leno start late (<1minute in most cases). This is recorded on my local NBC affiliate.
> I CONSISTENTLY have Everybody Loves Raymond start perfectly on time. Normally it comes right on when I hit play, or sometimes I have to do a 30 second skip one time, but if I do that, it usually advances too far into the show.
> ...


Since you have an HR20, I'm pretty sure you're not having any DirecTV-induced late recording starts. My guess is your consistent _Leno/Raymond _experiences are probably a result of when your local affiliates actually start the shows.

I say this because as i noted earlier, recording starts on my 3 HR20-700's have been pretty much spot-on for four months. I'm in the New York City suburbs, so my "affiliates" are also the source of the East Coast feeds for the major networks. As a result, when I see a late start, I point to the HR2x and NOT the networks, since the transmissions in my area need to be picked up by at least half the country and I assume they _must _start "on-time".

/steve


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## HarryG (Jul 9, 2007)

I currently subscribe to DirecTv and to digital cable. My TIVO HD DVR *consistently* starts recording programming at about 5-10 seconds prior to the scheduled recording time. However, my DirecTV HR20-100 DVR usually begins scheduled recordings 5-15 seconds late. The HR20-100 late start bug has been an issue ever since I "upgraded" from my HR10-250 a year ago.

This late start recording issue has nothing to do with the time the network begins the feed, because if I record the *same network show simultaneously *on my HR20-100 the beginning is normally clipped by a few seconds, while the TivoHD records properly without the opening of the show being clipped.

I understand that it is sometimes necessary to rewind the feed at the beginning of the recording. This helps infrequently, but usually, even rewinding at the beginning of the recorded show will not reliably get you to the beginning of the show's content. I also think the add one minute "fix" to the start time is not a realistic work around due to possible scheduling conflicts.

The late start bug did seem to correct itself for about two days with the newest software update. Unfortuantely, the vast majority of all of my new HR20-100recordings are again starting late. I rebooted my HR20-100 receiver again over the weekend, and still have the late start bug.

To sum it up, my HDTivo starts and stops recordings on time. Unfortunately, the HR20-100 is my primary receiver, and is extremely unreliable in consistently recording the actual beginning of a show. There has been, and still is, a late start problem with the HR20-100.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

HarryG said:


> I currently subscribe to DirecTv and to digital cable. My TIVO HD DVR *consistently* starts recording programming at about 5-10 seconds prior to the scheduled recording time. However, my DirecTV HR20-100 DVR usually begins scheduled recordings 5-15 seconds late. The HR20-100 late start bug has been an issue ever since I "upgraded" from my HR10-250 a year ago.
> 
> This late start recording issue has nothing to do with the time the network begins the feed, because if I record the *same network show simultaneously *on my HR20-100 the beginning is normally clipped by a few seconds, while the TivoHD records properly without the opening of the show being clipped.
> 
> ...


Sounds like your HR20-*100* may suffer from a similar problem to the one I'm having with my HR21-200 and HR21-700. Given that start time performance on my 3 HR20-*700*'s has been virtually flawless for about 4 months since the January "clock roundup" fix was applied, I'd be sure to report your findings in the appropriate HR20-100 "issues" thread for your s/w release.

/steve


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## bwclark (Nov 10, 2005)

Yes, my HR20-100 clock seems to be off periodically. So, whenever it is off I pull the plug and reboot to get it back on time.

I have a wrist watch with built in clock check with the atomic clocks in Denver each night. You'd think they could do something like that in the HR's.


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## CCarncross (Jul 19, 2005)

bwclark said:


> Yes, my HR20-100 clock seems to be off periodically. So, whenever it is off I pull the plug and reboot to get it back on time.
> 
> I have a wrist watch with built in clock check with the atomic clocks in Denver each night. You'd think they could do something like that in the HR's.


I highly recommend not using that method, its much safer to simply go into the setup menu and choose restart receiver. Never ever pull the plug unless the menu system or the red button reset method do not work.


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

bwclark said:


> I have a wrist watch with built in clock check with the atomic clocks in Denver each night. You'd think they could do something like that in the HR's.


Rest assured that like GPS satellites, there's a sufficiently accurate time base available via the DBS satellites. It has been there all along and will continue to serve the purpose. In case you hadn't noticed, they've been stripping out tuners, not adding them.

DIRECTV either needs to poll it more often or do some much better garbage collection so their process stack doesn't get so out fo hand.


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## bmerrow (Jul 26, 2007)

Start time out of synch was common up until 0x230 on my HR21-700 but has not been seen in last five days. Not saying it is "fixed" just that it is absent for longer than normal, longer than ever seen before, after a reboot.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

So here's a new "first" for me. Downloaded the latest CE's for both the HR20 and HR21 Friday night (0x0245 and 0x0233 respectively). Both units recorded _CSI: Miami_ at 11:35 last night and _Without A Trace_ at 12:35 this morning.

_CSI: Miami_ started one second early on the HR20 and one second late on the HR21.

_Without A Trace_ started "on time" on both machines, but a full 2 seconds earlier on the HR21 than the HR20!!!
*
So two machines scheduled for the same two consecutive recordings on the same channel. One machine starts recording #1 earlier and the other machine starts recording #2 earlier!*

Both playback starts were "rewound" to make sure I saw the full beginning of each recording. HISTORY on both machines shows no other recordins were going on at the time on either unit.

/steve


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## texasbrit (Aug 9, 2006)

Steve said:


> So here's a new "first" for me. Downloaded the latest CE's for both the HR20 and HR21 Friday night (0x0245 and 0x0233 respectively). Both units recorded _CSI: Miami_ at 11:35 last night and _Without A Trace_ at 12:35 this morning.
> 
> _CSI: Miami_ started one second early on the HR20 and one second late on the HR21.
> 
> ...


This might seem to indicate some sort of scheduling congestion. However there may be another explanation. First, the DVRs might be recording on different tuners, and maybe this affects the running of the program scheduler. Second, we don't know where the DVR gets its basic timing from. For example, if the timing comes from the satellite signal attached to tuner 1, the two DVRs may have been tuned to different channels. Maybe it comes from the guide data channel, and one DVR was getting this on tuner 1 from 101 and the other on tuner 1 from 119. Not that this should cause this sort of difference, just to point out that the two situations were not the same. You would have to make sure that each tuner on both DVRs was recording the same channel in order to eliminate some of these differences.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

texasbrit said:


> You would have to make sure that each tuner on both DVRs was recording the same channel in order to eliminate some of these differences.


Probably didn't explain it well enough.

Both shows were broadcast consecutively on WCBS-DT in NY, with no other simultaneous recordings on other channels. I'll add that there was no one watching live TV either. Both units were in "standby" mode.

The only possible variable could be that the HR20 decided to switch tuners for the second recording, and the HR21 stayed put, but I find that unlikely. These were consecutive recordings on the same channel with no other tuner activity taking place at the same time.

/steve


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## billsharpe (Jan 25, 2007)

I find no reason to complain if my recordings start two seconds early or late.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

billsharpe said:


> I find no reason to complain if my recordings start two seconds early or late.


Instinctively, I would tend to agree with you, but believe it or not, there are rare instances when a loss of 2 seconds obliterates a key part of a scene (or phrase of dialog).

My 3 HR20-700's starts 99% of my recordings "on-time" (defined as being a second or more before the actual show starts), so there shouldn't be anything stopping the HR21's from performing equally well. Just my .02.

I'm hopeful DirecTV finally nailed it in the latest "stability" CE for the HR21 (0x0233), but I probably won't know for sure until the end of the week. /steve


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## texasbrit (Aug 9, 2006)

Steve said:


> Probably didn't explain it well enough.
> 
> Both shows were broadcast consecutively on WCBS-DT in NY, with no other simultaneous recordings on other channels. I'll add that there was no one watching live TV either. Both units were in "standby" mode.
> 
> ...


Think maybe you did not fully appreciate what I was saying. First, to be a really good comparison, you need to make sure that the programs were being recorded on the same number tuner on both DVRs, because the behavior could be affected by the tuner (1 or 2). Second you need to be sure that the "other" tuner is tuned to the same channel on both DVRs. It is quite likely, for example, that the timing is taken from the datastream coming into tuner 1, even if you are recording something on tuner 2. 
It may even be (quite likely) that the timing is taken from the guide datastream, which only comes to tuner 1, and where there are two streams one from 101 and the other from 119 so you would need to make sure that both "tuner 1" were looking at the same satellite. By doing all of this you could be (just about) certain that both boxes were using the same source timing information
If you do all of this, and still get a start time difference, it's pretty certain it is some issue with the program recording scheduler in the DVR.


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## E-A-G-L-E-S (May 12, 2008)

texasbrit said:


> Sorry, I misunderstood. Let me give a slightly different reply. Over the past two years, extensive testing of the DVRs by multiple people on this forum indicates that the DVR does not use the displayed time to decide when a recording should start. With some older releases, the displayed time was up to a minute adrift of the "atomic clock" (sometimes early, sometimes late) and it did not affect the start time of the recording. The "late start" bug has been extensively rearched and seems to have been fixed (I have an HR20-100, and HR20-700 and an HR21-200 and have not seen the problem for a long time). What has NOT been fixed is the "late cue" bug. Sometimes it will look like the recording has started late but if you "rewind" to the beginning you will see the missing seconds.


Nope.
I just noticed this a few weeks ago.
I am constantly missing the first ~30/40 seconds of recorded shows.
Sorry if this has been delved further into, but I have so many issues with my HR21-700'(s) the last couple months that I don't have enough time to get fully through any of them.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

texasbrit said:


> Think maybe you did not fully appreciate what I was saying. First, to be a really good comparison, you need to make sure that the programs were being recorded on the same number tuner on both DVRs, because the behavior could be affected by the tuner (1 or 2). Second you need to be sure that the "other" tuner is tuned to the same channel on both DVRs. It is quite likely, for example, that the timing is taken from the datastream coming into tuner 1, even if you are recording something on tuner 2.
> It may even be (quite likely) that the timing is taken from the guide datastream, which only comes to tuner 1, and where there are two streams one from 101 and the other from 119 so you would need to make sure that both "tuner 1" were looking at the same satellite. By doing all of this you could be (just about) certain that both boxes were using the same source timing information
> If you do all of this, and still get a start time difference, it's pretty certain it is some issue with the program recording scheduler in the DVR.


Assuming you're correct and given that the channel didn't change on either DVR and there was no other activity going on that could influence the scheduler, why wouldn't one set of recordings be consistently late or consistently early? I'd expect that.

I would not expect what actually happened, i.e., recording #1 on unit DVR1 started earlier than the same recording on DVR2, but recording #2 on DVR1 started later than than the same recording on DVR2.

/steve


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## texasbrit (Aug 9, 2006)

Steve - agreed. Given that we really don't know how the DVR software works it's difficult to know what we should be looking at.


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## jdspencer (Nov 8, 2003)

Okay, it's my turn to jump in with additional info. Since my last restart of the HR20-100 with 22d software, it has slowed by 32s. This can be seen by viewing the time on the banner or in the info screen compared to my atomic clock. Just sayin'


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

jdspencer said:


> Okay, it's my turn to jump in with additional info. Since my last restart of the HR20-100 with 22d software, it has slowed by 32s. This can be seen by viewing the time on the banner or in the info screen compared to my atomic clock. Just sayin'


That's so odd. I just checked 4 of my 7 boxes against "time.gov" and while all are behind, none are more than 5 seconds off. "time.gov" claims to be accurate to .2 seconds. Once the INFO bar minute changes, I quickly look at "time.gov" to see how many seconds difference there is.

I wonder if it's a -100 thing? Or possibly the channel you're tuned to most often when the clock is updated? E.g., maybe that transponder's clock is incorrect?

You'll probably get the same results, but I wonder if you wouldn't mind comparing your clock to "time.gov", just to be sure comparing my results to yours is truly apples to apples? /steve


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## jdspencer (Nov 8, 2003)

I did a check against time.gov and my HR20-100 is slow by 20s. My atomic clock is fast by 20s due to the fact it hasn't sync'd recently. Thus the 30s difference in my previous post, which is now 40s slow against the atomic clock. I'll do some tests to see if I can narrow it down to a TP and or sat. And use time.gov as the constant. I ask others to do the same so we can see if it is an HR20 vs HR21 things or just that each unit has a slightly different tolerance in their respect clock crystals. 

I know there was a lot of talk a few years ago about DirecTV TiVos clocks being off depending on what TP they were tuned to. You could change to a different TP and watch the clock update.

Can anyone check the clocks on various sat/TPs to see if they are all the same? Or not?


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

jdspencer said:


> I did a check against time.gov and my HR20-100 is slow by 20s. My atomic clock is fast by 20s due to the fact it hasn't sync'd recently. Thus the 30s difference in my previous post, which is now 40s slow against the atomic clock. I'll do some tests to see if I can narrow it down to a TP and or sat. And use time.gov as the constant. I ask others to do the same so we can see if it is an HR20 vs HR21 things or just that each unit has a slightly different tolerance in their respect clock crystals.
> 
> I know there was a lot of talk a few years ago about DirecTV TiVos clocks being off depending on what TP they were tuned to. You could change to a different TP and watch the clock update.
> 
> Can anyone check the clocks on various sat/TPs to see if they are all the same? Or not?


Thanks for checking. At least now we know we're comparing apples to apples.

So are you thinkng INFO bar time and recording start times are related? My own testing belies this. And I know *texasbrit* has come to the same conclusion based on his observations. That said, I've never seen any of my HR's INFO bar clocks off as much as yours... maybe 8 seconds at the most.

I see you're up in Binghamton, so unfortunately we have different local affiliates. It's too bad, because both my week-end 12:35AM _Without A Trace_ reruns have a "Sleepy's" time of day clock that displays before the start of the show, and you can actually see when it flips from 12:34AM to 12:35. Also my week-night 7:30PM _Seinfeld's_ on FOX WNYW have a clock in the lower right hand corner that you can see flip from 7:29PM to 7:30PM, so you know exactly how early the recording started, regardless of the INFO bar clock.

/steve


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## jdspencer (Nov 8, 2003)

Were I see the difference is in the beginning of the late night talk shows. At eh beginning of the show the guests stars are announced. Once the time gets too slow, I miss the who the guests will be. Yes, the network start of the show could also be a factor, but not the amount of time I see. This is especially noticable with Craig Fergason's show. 

Also, note that I use the NYC affiliates for these shows. Right now the time is 22s slow based against time.gov.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

jdspencer said:


> Also, note that I use the NYC affiliates for these shows. Right now the time is 22s slow based against time.gov.


Awesome. Then perhaps you can set up SL's for _Seinfeld _and _Without A Trace_, as noted in my last post above? Seeing those "independent" clocks in-frame will allow you to absolutely determine if there is a correlation between INFO bar time of day and when recording's start.

Just a thought. /steve


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## jdspencer (Nov 8, 2003)

Steve said:


> Awesome. Then perhaps you can set up SL's for _Seinfeld _and _Without A Trace_, as noted in my last post above? Seeing those "independent" clocks in-frame will allow you to absolutely determine if there is a correlation between INFO bar time of day and when recording's start.
> 
> Just a thought. /steve


I set an SL for Seinfeld, but not WAT (conflicts with other late night shows). I'll check the clocks. Currently, my Hr20 is 25s slow. I'll do a restart tomorrow and check the show again.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

jdspencer said:


> I set an SL for Seinfeld, but not WAT (conflicts with other late night shows). I'll check the clocks. Currently, my Hr20 is 25s slow. I'll do a restart tomorrow and check the show again.


Thanks. Here's a screen shot of a test I ran back in February. As you can see, the NY FOX affiliate consistently starts the 7:30PM _Seinfeld _episode at about 7:29:55 on average. The TOD clock attached below was on-screen during the beginning of the show. /steve


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## jdspencer (Nov 8, 2003)

Has anyone tested the FOX onscreen clock accuracy against time.gov?


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

jdspencer said:


> Has anyone tested the FOX onscreen clock accuracy against time.gov?


I haven't, but I can tell you that on one of my HR20's that is currently 3 seconds _behind _time.gov, last night's 7:30PM episode ("The Pitch") displayed 7:29 on the FOX clock for about 1/4 of a second before flipping to 7:30.

That said, if you want to check the FOX clock accuracy while you're watching LIVE, it stays on-screen up until the first commercial break, so there are a couple of opportunities to compare it to time.gov available (at 7:31 and 7:32). /steve


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## jdspencer (Nov 8, 2003)

Okay, he's what I saw. When I started to play Seinfeld the on screen clock already displayed 7:30. I could tell that some of the opening scene was missing. So I started over and then timed when the on screen rolled over to 7:31. This happened 39 seconds after the start, so the DVR was 21 seconds slow. 

Next test is to watch something live at the beginning.


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## TomCat (Aug 31, 2002)

Steve said:


> ...So two machines scheduled for the same two consecutive recordings on the same channel. One machine starts recording #1 earlier and the other machine starts recording #2 earlier...


 Not that uncommon. I have often seen two side-by-side HR10 Tivos record the same exact show and start seconds apart, while the clocks seem to be in sync.

A DVR, in particular the HD DVR+ (since it records shows using the latest compression algorithm) is a consumer item, yet is probably the most technically-advanced and complex piece of gear ever in our consumer home theaters, by a couple orders of magnitude. There's one hell of a lot going on in there for just $169, and it's not a toaster. Sadly, keeping accurate time is a low priority, and ironically, an $8 watch with technology from the 80's can sometimes do a better job.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

jdspencer said:


> So I started over and then timed when the on screen rolled over to 7:31. This happened 39 seconds after the start, so the DVR was 21 seconds slow.


Assuming the FOX TOD clock is correct, I'd have to agree with you. I will say that 21 seconds seems inordinately "late", but again, I don't have a -100 unit to test.

One question, when you said you "started over", did you do that via the menu START OVER command? Or did you do a RWx1 until it spontaneously started playback?

I ask, because I still find close to half the recording starts are miscued by the HR2x's, which is another issue that really irks me. Seems to me there's no excuse for not being able to cue the first frame of an MPEG recording, which, by it's position, should always be a "key-" or "I-" frame, no?

/steve


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

Posted this in the HR21-700 0x0247 "issues" thread this morning:



> Just compared HR20/HR21 10AM recording starts for _In Plain Sight_ on USAHD.
> 
> HR20-700 recording started "on time" and a second before the actual show start.
> 
> ...


/steve


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## jdspencer (Nov 8, 2003)

By "starting over" I meant that I just restarted playback so I could watch the Fox clock, banner clock and time.gov.

Right now my HR20 is up to 28s slow against time.gov and my atomic clock. Time for a menu restart.

There is also no reason why the DVR shouldn't sync its clock more often.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

jdspencer said:


> By "starting over" I meant that I just restarted playback so I could watch the Fox clock, banner clock and time.gov.


If you just START OVER from the menu, often times there's more "show" available if you rewind from that point. That could affect the 21 second calculation you made as to when the FOX clock rolled-over to 7:31.

E.g., when I start that same episode (_"The Ticket"_) from START OVER, it begins with the on-screen clock showing 7:30PM. If I hit REPLAY a couple of times as soon as playback starts, I can actually see the FOX clock roll over from 7:29 to 7:30, as you can see from the attached screen shot. (Please forgive picture quality. It's taken from a 13" CRT in my office.)

This HR20-700 is currently 4 seconds behind time.gov, but was rebooted last night after the CE d/l, so I'm not sure what it was at the time of last night's recording.

/steve


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## TomCat (Aug 31, 2002)

Steve said:


> ...I still find close to half the recording starts are miscued by the HR2x's, which is another issue that really irks me. Seems to me there's no excuse for not being able to cue the first frame of an MPEG recording, which, by it's position, should always be a "key-" or "I-" frame, no?
> 
> /steve


A recording starts when it starts. It does not wait for an I-frame, because it has no way to know when that might be. Consumer recorders don't follow SMPTE 312M which identifies splice points within a transport stream for professional purposes.

But assuming it starts recording in the middle of a GOP (which is very likely) it probably mutes or discards all frames ahead of the first I-frame (once recorded it can be determined what kind of frame it is). Otherwise, it would send a partial GOP which could flummox decoding and cause a pixellation.

But then this does not really affect start times all that much, because in HD, GOPs are about 14 frames long, and I-frames are streamed some 13 frames apart (streaming order is slightly different than decoded order). That would mean that any delay due to this would be less than half a second.

The HR2x has an ability to "overlap" recordings on the same tuner, meaning it starts recording a second show slightly before it stops recording the first (assuming they are on the same channel). But it is supposed to cue to where the scheduled recording is supposed to begin. Often, you can rewind and see just a bit more, should the recording start late. Also, if shows are seamless back to back, you may have the same video at the end of one recording and at the beginning of the next, but the DVR will cue to the "newer" part of the video.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

TomCat said:


> But then this does not really affect start times all that much, because in HD, GOPs are about 14 frames long, and I-frames are streamed some 13 frames apart (streaming order is slightly different than decoded order). That would mean that any delay due to this would be less than half a second.


The bottom line is, for all practical purposes, any recording should be able to be cued to within a second of it's actual start on disk.



TomCat said:


> The HR2x has an ability to "overlap" recordings on the same tuner, meaning it starts recording a second show slightly before it stops recording the first (assuming they are on the same channel). But it is supposed to cue to where the scheduled recording is supposed to begin.


As you know, that same-tuner "overlap" only occurs when one's recording preferences are set to pad by default (or padding has been specifically applied to a particular recording). Since I never pad (to keep recording conflicts to a minimum), there's no reason for any of my recordings to start playback from some point other than the true beginning of the recording.

Speaking for myself, if I did pad, I would have no problem FF'ing through or watching some of the pre-show to insure I see the TRUE start of my show. By not showing everything that's there, a less sophisticated viewer (like my non-technical Mrs. or mom) might not realize there is more "show" before the default playback start, making the "auto-overlap" a wasted effort.

I don't think I'm alone in this thinking. *"Automatically pad a recording's start and/or stop time by one minute, when it won't cause a conflict"*, currently ranks 14 out of 78 total Wish List requests.

/steve


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

Posted this over in the issues thread this morning. I've also attached a short video of what I'm describing, taken from my HR21. /steve



Steve said:


> Just compared HR20/HR21 10AM recording starts for _In Plain Sight_ on USAHD.
> 
> HR20-700 recording started "on time" and a second before the actual show start.
> 
> ...


Update. Both machines recorded a 1:05 AM showing of _Without A Trace_ eith a "Sleepy's" clock on-screen that flipped from 1:04 to 1:05 right before the episode start. Both recordings started "on-time" and early, *but now almost 7 seconds apart.*

The HR20-700 recording started *15.6 *seconds before the clock rolled-over from 1:04 to 1:05. The HR21-700 recording started *8.7* seconds before the clock rolled-over.
Both machines' INFO bar clocks were 4 seconds behind "time.gov".
Both machines were in standby.
Neither machine had any other recordings taking place on the other tuner.
BOTH MACHINES MISCUED THE START OF PLAYBACK. I had to RWx1 to find the true recording start on both.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

*Monday AM.* Spot-checked an 11:35PM recording of _CSI:Miami_ on WCBS and a 4AM recording of _L&O:CI_ on USAHD. Both shows started "on-time" on both the HR20 and the HR21, with _CSI:Miami_ starting with over 2 minutes of network "padding" on both machines. *Contrary to the past 2 nights, recording starts were within 1 second on each machine, with the HR20 starting 1 second earlier.*


HR20-700 INFO bar time was 4 seconds behind time.gov. Note that this has not changes over 3 nights.
HR21-700 INFO bar is now 6 seconds behind time.gov. *This unit lost 1 second after 24 hours and an add'l 2 seconds last night, but recording start time improved none the less.*
Both units were in standby at the time the recordings started.
Neither unit had a simultaneous recording on the other tuner.



> *Sunday AM.* Both machines recorded a 1:05 AM showing of _Without A Trace_ eith a "Sleepy's" clock on-screen that flipped from 1:04 to 1:05 right before the episode start. Both recordings started "on-time" and early, *but now almost 7 seconds apart.*
> 
> The HR20-700 recording started *15.6 *seconds before the clock rolled-over from 1:04 to 1:05. The HR21-700 recording started *8.7* seconds before the clock rolled-over.
> Both machines' INFO bar clocks were 4 seconds behind "time.gov".
> ...





> *Saturday AM. *Just compared HR20/HR21 10AM recording starts for _In Plain Sight_ on USAHD.
> 
> HR20-700 recording started "on time" and a second before the actual show start.
> 
> ...


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## TomCat (Aug 31, 2002)

Steve said:


> The bottom line is, for all practical purposes, any recording should be able to be cued to within a second of it's actual start on disk...


If we dismiss all other factors and assume that HD GOPs are pretty short so they can't really be a factor, then absolutely. But there is a lot going on in a DVR. It's not a toaster, it is probably more-sophisticated than all of the other technology the both of us own put together.



Steve said:


> ...I don't think I'm alone in this thinking. *"Automatically pad a recording's start and/or stop time by one minute, when it won't cause a conflict"*, currently ranks 14 out of 78 total Wish List requests.
> 
> /steve


Sounds like a no-brainer to me.


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## edpowers (Aug 17, 2006)

Steve said:


> Thanks for checking. At least now we know we're comparing apples to apples.
> 
> So are you thinkng INFO bar time and recording start times are related? My own testing belies this. And I know *texasbrit* has come to the same conclusion based on his observations. That said, I've never seen any of my HR's INFO bar clocks off as much as yours... maybe 8 seconds at the most.
> 
> ...


My HR20-100 has a slow clock on the info bar and is represented in my recordings. It is currently 42 seconds slower than my atomic clock and my two HR20-700s. I scheduled to record 'How its Made' on Discovery HD at 10pm Central. My two HR20-700s began recording at almost the exact same time ... the HR20-100 started right around 42 seconds later. I pretty much need to reset my HR20-100 every few days to prevent missing beginnings of shows. I got lazy and its been about two weeks since its last reboot. I just reset the box and it displays the correct time and will no doubt will recordin on time tonight, and then slowly lose seconds until I need to reboot again.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

*Tuesday AM.* Checked a 4AM recording of _Law & Order: Criminal Intent_ on USAHD this morning. *It started about 1 second late on the HR21-700 and almost 6 seconds early on the HR20-700.* Two things to note here. The HR21 INFO bar clock continues to drift daily, but this drifting does not correlate to start-time performance, as we can see by Monday's results. The HR20-700 clock appears to be "rock-solid" at almost 4 seconds behind "time.gov" each day I've checked.

HR21-700 INFO bar time is now 8 seconds behind "time.gov"
HR20-700 INFO bar time is 4 seconds behind "time.gov".
Both units were in standby at the time the recordings started.
Neither unit had a simultaneous recording on the other tuner.



> *Monday AM.* Spot-checked an 11:35PM recording of _CSI:Miami_ on WCBS and a 4AM recording of _L&O:CI_ on USAHD. Both shows started "on-time" on both the HR20 and the HR21, with _CSI:Miami_ starting with over 2 minutes of network "padding" on both machines. *Contrary to the past 2 nights, recording starts were within 1 second on each machine, with the HR20 starting 1 second earlier.*
> 
> 
> HR20-700 INFO bar time was 4 seconds behind time.gov. Note that this has not changes over 3 nights.
> ...





> *Sunday AM.* Both machines recorded a 1:05 AM showing of _Without A Trace_ eith a "Sleepy's" clock on-screen that flipped from 1:04 to 1:05 right before the episode start. Both recordings started "on-time" and early, *but now almost 7 seconds apart.*
> 
> The HR20-700 recording started *15.6 *seconds before the clock rolled-over from 1:04 to 1:05. The HR21-700 recording started *8.7* seconds before the clock rolled-over.
> Both machines' INFO bar clocks were 4 seconds behind "time.gov".
> ...





> *Saturday AM. *Just compared HR20/HR21 10AM recording starts for _In Plain Sight_ on USAHD.
> 
> HR20-700 recording started "on time" and a second before the actual show start.
> 
> ...


----------



## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

edpowers said:


> My HR20-100 has a slow clock on the info bar and is represented in my recordings. [...]


Since your experience appears to mirror *jdspencer's*, it's possible this is a -100 defect that the -700's don't suffer from. E.g., if you look at my experience over 72 hours reported above, the HR21-700's clock is losing a second or more per day, but its recording starts seem to have a mind of their own, independent of what's happening with INFO bar time.

Those of us who own HR20-700's know the HR design is capable of on-time record start performance. If I were a -100 owner, I'd be sure to report this in the appropriate "issues" thread each week, just as I've been doing in the HR21-700 issues threads. I'm hopeful that if we raise the visibility of poor start times on the "non" HR20-700's in these threads, we'll get these fixes moved up on DirecTV's priority list.

Just my .02.

/steve


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## texasbrit (Aug 9, 2006)

Steve said:


> Since your experience appears to mirror *jdspencer's*, it's possible this is a -100 defect that the -700's don't suffer from. E.g., if you look at my experience over 72 hours reported above, the HR21-700's clock is losing a second or more per day, but its recording starts seem to have a mind of their own, independent of what's happening with INFO bar time.
> 
> Those of us who own HR20-700's know the HR design is capable of on-time record start performance. If I were a -100 owner, I'd be sure to report this in the appropriate "issues" thread each week, just as I've been doing in the HR21-700 issues threads. I'm hopeful that if we raise the visibility of poor start times on the "non" HR20-700's in these threads, we'll get these fixes moved up on DirecTV's priority list.
> 
> ...


I have an HR20-100 and don't see this problem at all; never have, over nearly a year of testing. I am wondering if we are seeing multiple symptoms with the same cause. We're pretty sure that the displayed clock is separate from the method used by DirecTV to start recordings. But if there is a common source for the basic timing (which makes sense) then a problem in the "internal clock" used for recording starts would also show itself as an error in the displayed clock. Assuming the DVR is taking its timing from one of the sat channels, I wonder if what we are seeing is an error in the timing information coming from a channel the DVR is using, just for a few people. Total speculation, but if the basic timing data comes from (say) the channel currently being received by tuner 1, and that is incorrect, that would impact BOTH the start of recordings AND the displayed clock. We saw a similar issue with TiVo where sometimes changing channels would result in a change to the displayed time. 
So a couple of questions for edpowers and jdspencer. When you see an error in the displayed clock, do ALL recordings start late or just some recordings?
And also, if you change the channel on both tuners, by setting up two simultaneous manual recordings probably on channels you don't usually record (probably not from the local HD channels, because if this problem exists they would be my biggest suspects) does either the displayed clock issue or the late recording start issue resolve itself?


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

texasbrit said:


> I have an HR20-100 and don't see this problem at all; never have, over nearly a year of testing. I am wondering if we are seeing multiple symptoms with the same cause. We're pretty sure that the displayed clock is separate from the method used by DirecTV to start recordings. But if there is a common source for the basic timing (which makes sense) then a problem in the "internal clock" used for recording starts would also show itself as an error in the displayed clock. Assuming the DVR is taking its timing from one of the sat channels, I wonder if what we are seeing is an error in the timing information coming from a channel the DVR is using, just for a few people. Total speculation, but if the basic timing data comes from (say) the channel currently being received by tuner 1, and that is incorrect, that would impact BOTH the start of recordings AND the displayed clock. We saw a similar issue with TiVo where sometimes changing channels would result in a change to the displayed time.
> So a couple of questions for edpowers and jdspencer. When you see an error in the displayed clock, do ALL recordings start late or just some recordings?
> And also, if you change the channel on both tuners, by setting up two simultaneous manual recordings probably on channels you don't usually record (probably not from the local HD channels, because if this problem exists they would be my biggest suspects) does either the displayed clock issue or the late recording start issue resolve itself?


Interesting way of looking at things. The only thing I'll say is that my HR20-700 and HR21-700 have very similar TODO lists, so they're usually tuned to similar channels (eiher NY-based CBS, NBC, ABC, or FOX, or USAHD or TNTHD). That said, my HR20 clock remains "rock-solid" and my HR21 clock drifts, so it's possible that hardware differences _may _be a factor. /steve


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## edpowers (Aug 17, 2006)

texasbrit said:


> I have an HR20-100 and don't see this problem at all; never have, over nearly a year of testing. I am wondering if we are seeing multiple symptoms with the same cause. We're pretty sure that the displayed clock is separate from the method used by DirecTV to start recordings. But if there is a common source for the basic timing (which makes sense) then a problem in the "internal clock" used for recording starts would also show itself as an error in the displayed clock. Assuming the DVR is taking its timing from one of the sat channels, I wonder if what we are seeing is an error in the timing information coming from a channel the DVR is using, just for a few people. Total speculation, but if the basic timing data comes from (say) the channel currently being received by tuner 1, and that is incorrect, that would impact BOTH the start of recordings AND the displayed clock. We saw a similar issue with TiVo where sometimes changing channels would result in a change to the displayed time.
> So a couple of questions for edpowers and jdspencer. When you see an error in the displayed clock, do ALL recordings start late or just some recordings?
> And also, if you change the channel on both tuners, by setting up two simultaneous manual recordings probably on channels you don't usually record (probably not from the local HD channels, because if this problem exists they would be my biggest suspects) does either the displayed clock issue or the late recording start issue resolve itself?


Let me just restate that i also have two HR20-700s and they keep perfect time and always begin recording at the correct time. So if my HR20-100 is having trouble receiving the time updates from the satellite, its probably an internal -100 problem, and not my sat configuration.

To your questions:
Q: When you see an error in the displayed clock, do ALL recordings start late or just some recordings?

A: ALL recordings start late. ALL recordings begin exactly when the Info bar clock hits the showtime. So if I record a show that starts at 7PM ... the very second that 7PM displays on the info bar, the show begins to record. I have never witnessed an instance where the info bar is at 6:59 PM and the box begins recording for a show that was scheduled in the guide for 7 PM.

Q: And also, if you change the channel on both tuners, by setting up two simultaneous manual recordings probably on channels you don't usually record (probably not from the local HD channels, because if this problem exists they would be my biggest suspects) does either the displayed clock issue or the late recording start issue resolve itself?

A: Interesting thought. I'll need to wait a few days to run this test, since I just rebooted my HR20-100 ... it'll take a few days to drift off. It had been around 2 weeks since my last reboot and the clock was 42 seconds slow. So rough math would dictate that it loses around 3 seconds daily. Once it drifts, I'll run this test and take it a step further by setting up the exact same manual recording on one of my HR20-700s to compare the results.


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## edpowers (Aug 17, 2006)

UPDATE 11 days later ...

After 11 days, my box is now 35 seconds slow again. I ran the test suggested, by setting up two simultaneous manual recordings on channels I normally don't record. I got the same bad results. The channels changed and began recording exactly 35 seconds late compared to my atomic clock. The clock on the info guide shows the same 35 seconds slow time. I rebooted my box ... reran the same test and the box changed channels and correctly began recording at exactly the same time as my atomic clock. Now it'll begin the 3 second daily drift all over again.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

edpowers said:


> UPDATE 11 days later ...
> 
> After 11 days, my box is now 35 seconds slow again. I ran the test suggested, by setting up two simultaneous manual recordings on channels I normally don't record. I got the same bad results. The channels changed and began recording exactly 35 seconds late compared to my atomic clock. The clock on the info guide shows the same 35 seconds slow time. I rebooted my box ... reran the same test and the box changed channels and correctly began recording at exactly the same time as my atomic clock. Now it'll begin the 3 second daily drift all over again.


Based on your testing, it seems like there's definitely an issue with the HR20-100, similar to the much less serious (but still annoying) start time issues I'm experiencing with my HR21-700 (and HR21-200).

[Begin rant]They've shown they can get start times right on the HR20-700's, so DirecTV, *please stop worrying about enhancements to bells & whistles like DOD, ACTIVE CHANNEL and WIDGETS, and take a moment to fix this "DVR 101" issue once and for all. Our recordings should start "on time", no matter which HR2x platform we're on!*[/rant]

And everyone, please be sure to report poor start times and clock issues in the appropriate issues threads for your receivers. The more vocal we are about this matter in the threads DirecTV monitors daily, the more likely we'll get this addressed! TIA.

/steve


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## kaszeta (Apr 8, 2008)

I've got a related clock issue that I've now seen on two different HR20-100s (my original one, and the one that just replaced it): Intermittently, the clock values will get corrupted and turn into negative values, like so:



In general, this is a cosmetic issue, but if something is recording when the clock gets corrupted, the stop time of the recording is incorrect, usually resulting in extremely long (14 hour+) recordings, plus other missed recordings since the tuner was busy.

I'm suspecting some sort of memory corruption, since sometimes the clock change is accompanied by an uncommanded switch to Spanish as the language, and sometimes a loss of MPEG4 output (yellow or black screen) as well.

Again, I've had this happen now on two different HR20-100s.

Thoughts? Unfortunately, it's going to be a few weeks before me, the HR20-100, and a D* tech will be able to be in the same place.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

kaszeta said:


> Thoughts? Unfortunately, it's going to be a few weeks before me, the HR20-100, and a D* tech will be able to be in the same place.


Short of reformatting your drive and starting from scratch, which is not a guaranteed fix and a royal PITA if you have a lot of SL's to restore, I'm not sure what else you can try to cure this.

It's a shame DirecTV won't just FedEx you a new unit and let you FedEx the old one back, since this doesn't sound like a situation an installer can add any value to. Just my .02. /steve


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## texasbrit (Aug 9, 2006)

Steve said:


> Based on your testing, it seems like there's definitely an issue with the HR20-100, similar to the much less serious (but still annoying) start time issues I'm experiencing with my HR21-700 (and HR21-200).
> 
> [Begin rant]They've shown they can get start times right on the HR20-700's, so DirecTV, *please stop worrying about enhancements to bells & whistles like DOD, ACTIVE CHANNEL and WIDGETS, and take a moment to fix this "DVR 101" issue once and for all. Our recordings should start "on time", no matter which HR2x platform we're on!*[/rant]
> 
> ...


And yet I don't have this problem with my HR20-100. It behaves just like my HR20-700, all my recordings start on time (and I do not get a clock drift either).


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## kaszeta (Apr 8, 2008)

Steve said:


> Short of reformatting your drive and starting from scratch, which is not a guaranteed fix and a royal PITA if you have a lot of SL's to restore, I'm not sure what else you can try to cure this.


Well, honestly, it's probably worth trying, since this is a fresh replacement unit, so I haven't rebuilt most of my SL's anyways.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

texasbrit said:


> And yet I don't have this problem with my HR20-100. It behaves just like my HR20-700, all my recordings start on time (and I do not get a clock drift either).


Not owning one, I can't speak for the HR20-100's... just basing my comments on *edpowers' *and *jdspencer's* reports, which seem similar. Perhaps it depends on which transponder their units are tuned to? /steve


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## texasbrit (Aug 9, 2006)

Steve said:


> Not owning one, I can't speak for the HR20-100's... just basing my comments on *edpowers' *and *jdspencer's* reports, which seem similar. Perhaps it depends on which transponder their units are tuned to? /steve


Yes, I have wondered for a while if some of these timing issues were transponder-dependent (that was a problem with TiVo at one time, I seem to remember).


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## edpowers (Aug 17, 2006)

texasbrit said:


> Yes, I have wondered for a while if some of these timing issues were transponder-dependent (that was a problem with TiVo at one time, I seem to remember).


Why would the same problem not be occuring on my two HR20-700's? Are you saying that there is a problem with the tuners in the unit? If so, this clock issue is the only issue I have ever had, with all of my transponders in the high 80's up to high 90's. Does anybody know how often the system is programmed to sync its clock and which transponder it uses? Obviously there is something wrong with the syncing process and I'm guessing its hardware related (hardware within my -100) since it doesn't happen to all HR20-100s.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

edpowers said:


> Why would the same problem not be occuring on my two HR20-700's? Are you saying that there is a problem with the tuners in the unit? If so, this clock issue is the only issue I have ever had, with all of my transponders in the high 80's up to high 90's. Does anybody know how often the system is programmed to sync its clock and which transponder it uses? Obviously there is something wrong with the syncing process and I'm guessing its hardware related (hardware within my -100) since it doesn't happen to all HR20-100s.


Don't want to speak for *Texasbrit*, but I guess it is theoretically possible that if the -100 has a different set of SL's in it's PRIORITIZER, e.g., it may be tuned to a different channel/sat/transponder than the -700's at the time the clock is updated (whatever that update frequency is). And if that transponder's time is off, the -100's clock would be off as a result.

All theory, of course. I have no basis for knowing if this truly is the case.

/steve


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## texasbrit (Aug 9, 2006)

Steve said:


> Don't want to speak for *Texasbrit*, but I guess it is theoretically possible that if the -100 has a different set of SL's in it's PRIORITIZER, e.g., it may be tuned to a different channel/sat/transponder than the -700's at the time the clock is updated (whatever that update frequency is). And if that transponder's time is off, the -100's clock would be off as a result.
> 
> All theory, of course. I have no basis for knowing if this truly is the case.
> 
> /steve


Agree with Steve. The problem is we really don't know how the timing setup works. But I think we have the suspicion that the different behavior of people's DVRs may be related in some way to the particular transponders they are tuned to, and therefore potentially being used as sources for timing data.


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## edpowers (Aug 17, 2006)

texasbrit said:


> Agree with Steve. The problem is we really don't know how the timing setup works. But I think we have the suspicion that the different behavior of people's DVRs may be related in some way to the particular transponders they are tuned to, and therefore potentially being used as sources for timing data.


If this is true, then the boot-up process pulls the time from a different source, since the clock is correct on boot-up. When you say 'source for timing data' ... are you theorizing that the source for the timing data doesn't necessarily 'reset' the clock to the transponder, but is some other sort of process? Since my box has a predictable 3-4 second slow down per day, I get the impression that its internal clock is just slow, and its not receiving any clock data after the boot up process.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

edpowers said:


> If this is true, then the boot-up process pulls the time from a different source, since the clock is correct on boot-up. When you say 'source for timing data' ... are you theorizing that the source for the timing data doesn't necessarily 'reset' the clock to the transponder, but is some other sort of process? Since my box has a predictable 3-4 second slow down per day, I get the impression that its internal clock is just slow, and its not receiving any clock data after the boot up process.


Good questions for which I too would love to get an authoritative answer. I'm at a loss to explain why my HR21-700 adds 2 seconds per day to it's INFO BAR clock time after a reboot, while my HR20-700 "control" unit holds rock steady each day running the same CE release. Both units have almost identical lists of SL's, so they are almost always tuned to the same transponders at the same time.

Where my experience with the HR21-700 differs from *ed's* and *jdspencer's* with their HR20-100's, however, is that the INFO BAR time error does not correlate to how late my recordings on those machines start, as I've stated in previous posts. This week my HR21 recordins each day have consistently started no more than 2-3 seconds later than my control HR20 recordings, even though the HR21 clock is now about 11 seconds behind time.gov. IOW, I'm seeing the same start-time delta at 11 seconds behind that I saw when I was only 3 seconds behind time.gov.

/steve


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## texasbrit (Aug 9, 2006)

edpowers said:


> If this is true, then the boot-up process pulls the time from a different source, since the clock is correct on boot-up. When you say 'source for timing data' ... are you theorizing that the source for the timing data doesn't necessarily 'reset' the clock to the transponder, but is some other sort of process? Since my box has a predictable 3-4 second slow down per day, I get the impression that its internal clock is just slow, and its not receiving any clock data after the boot up process.


We think the timing data comes from a transponder (which would make sense) , but we really don't know. Since it's very clear on my DVRs (looking back over the last year) that whatever is displayed on the Info Bar time does not affect the start time of recordings (see also Steve's many posts on this), my guess (and it's only a guess) is that sometimes there is an error in timing that affects both the recording start time AND the info bar time, and so it looks like the late info bar time is causing the late starts, but in fact it isn't, they are just two symptoms of a separate problem.


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## t_h (Mar 7, 2008)

Sort of resurrecting this thread, but since getting 254 a couple of days ago all my recordings seem to be starting about 15-30 seconds into the show and have 15-30 seconds of the following show recorded at the end.

Every show, not particular networks or shows. RBR didnt help the situation at all. Happening on two different HR20-100's. Didnt really have a problem with clock drift or late recording starts before the 254 install.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

t_h said:


> Sort of resurrecting this thread, but since getting 254 a couple of days ago all my recordings seem to be starting about 15-30 seconds into the show and have 15-30 seconds of the following show recorded at the end.
> 
> Every show, not particular networks or shows. RBR didnt help the situation at all. Happening on two different HR20-100's. Didnt really have a problem with clock drift or late recording starts before the 254 install.


I share your pain. I've been away for a couple of weeks. My HR21-700 was last rebooted on July 3 and is currently 26 seconds behind time.gov. The HR20-700 I compare it to was rebooted July 3 as well, and is only 3 seconds behind time.gov, which is "normal" for this unit. No matter when I check the HR20-700, it's consistently 3-4 seconds behind, and has been for months (not a bad thing, as you will see below). OTOH, the HR21-700 clock loses almost 2 seconds a day like clockwork, no pun intended. 

Both units have been in standby for the past two weeks, and both units have similar SL's set up, so they're tuned to the same transponders at the same time.

*The only difference between your HR20-100 experience and my HR21-700 experience is that while my HR21's INFO bar clock is 26 seconds off, the recordings are still only starting 3-4 seconds behind the same recordings on my HR20-700. In spite of its clock always being 3-4 seconds off, the HR20-700 recording starts are all "on time", and have been for several months, since the "clock roundup" fix at the beginning of this year.*

This is the same pattern of behavior between the two units I reported in the "issues" threads for several weeks before I went away.

/steve


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## t_h (Mar 7, 2008)

Its kind of a convenience. It eliminates the hassle of "previously on..." and the first few garbage moments of each show.

Plus theres a certain added mystery when the shows started a minute or two before the allotted time and you're 3 or more minutes into the show and dont know whats going on at all.


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## Sirshagg (Dec 30, 2006)

With the new season I was hoping that the DVR would start recording shows at the right time - no luck. So far nearly everything starts late, many times even more than 30 seconds late.


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## joshjr (Aug 2, 2008)

How do you tell if the time is off? What are you comparing to what? I have a HR20-100 and I think my time is a little off to but dont know how to or what to compare it to.


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## Sirshagg (Dec 30, 2006)

Im not necessarilly saying the time is off - just that the HR20 starts recording nearly all programs late. It has been doing this for a very long time and I was hoping that it was fixed. How do I know - when I play any show in my playlist it starts well into the show.


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

joshjr said:


> How do you tell if the time is off? What are you comparing to what? I have a HR20-100 and I think my time is a little off to but dont know how to or what to compare it to.


I've been comparing the times on my 20/21s to "radio clocks" which receive a signal from an "atomic" clock. The 20s are right on the button and the 21s are about 15 seconds off. But so is my cell phone, which I thought would be the same as the radio clocks. So, which one to believe? Beats me.

Rich


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## Mike Bertelson (Jan 24, 2007)

rich584 said:


> I've been comparing the times on my 20/21s to "radio clocks" which receive a signal from an "atomic" clock. The 20s are right on the button and the 21s are about 15 seconds off. But so is my cell phone, which I thought would be the same as the radio clocks. So, which one to believe? Beats me.
> 
> Rich


Fifteen seconds is pretty dang close.

Time is the fire in which we burn.
http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/simpletime.html

http://www.time.gov/

http://www.usno.navy.mil/

Mike


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## joshjr (Aug 2, 2008)

MicroBeta said:


> Fifteen seconds is pretty dang close.
> 
> Time is the fire in which we burn.
> http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/simpletime.html
> ...


Looks like I am about 10 seconds behind at this time on my HR20-100 but I rebooted it just a few days ago.


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

MicroBeta said:


> Fifteen seconds is pretty dang close.
> 
> Time is the fire in which we burn.
> http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/simpletime.html
> ...


I checked the 21-700 that I am watching now and it was 21 seconds behind the "atomic" time. I restarted it thru the menu (I don't pull the plug _everytime_) and now it is about 3 seconds off.

Now, I guess I'll have to restart all the 21s once a week. Perhaps the next NR will resolve this issue.

Rich


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

joshjr said:


> Looks like I am about 10 seconds behind at this time on my HR20-100 but I rebooted it just a few days ago.


Be thankful that thing works at all.

Rich


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## soloredd (Oct 21, 2007)

I've resorted to just setting all my SLs to start 1 minute early and end 1 minute late. Quite a dirty fix, however. I'm just fortunate the shows I record are either on at different times or have reruns I can schedule. This needs to be fixed.


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## joshjr (Aug 2, 2008)

rich584 said:


> Be thankful that thing works at all.
> 
> Rich


Might I ask what that is supposed to mean. I did not take offense to it but I think it works great. I requested it on install a little over a month ago for the built in OTA tuners. I should be getting an antenna in the next week or two to really test it out.


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

joshjr said:


> Might I ask what that is supposed to mean. I did not take offense to it but I think it works great. I requested it on install a little over a month ago for the built in OTA tuners. I should be getting an antenna in the next week or two to really test it out.


I've had at least fifteen 20-100s and one 21-100 and have never had one work. Admittedly, they were all replacements, but still.

Didn't mean any offense. Was but a statement of truth as I see it. Did you buy it new? Just reread your post and see that you got it off a truck. Do you remember the complete model number? Did it end in an R?

Rich


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## joshjr (Aug 2, 2008)

rich584 said:


> I've had at least fifteen 20-100s and one 21-100 and have never had one work. Admittedly, they were all replacements, but still.
> 
> Didn't mean any offense. Was but a statement of truth as I see it. Did you buy it new? Just reread your post and see that you got it off a truck. Do you remember the complete model number? Did it end in an R?
> 
> Rich


Yes its a refurb. It has worked perfect so far. There has been this issue with time but other then that no complaints what so ever. As a matter of fact I have been way more impressed with it then I had hoped for. I can not wait to get a antenna hooked up and use the ATSC tuners.


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## Tom Robertson (Nov 15, 2005)

One thing to remember is the difference between UI time (ie the time when the UI changes) and internal time. There are a few reports UI time can be a tad delay in some of the NRs.

Awhile ago, I played with the serial port command to get time, which returns the system time in seconds (if I recall correctly, that is.)  You might try that approach to verify.

Cheers,
Tom


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

Tom Robertson said:


> One thing to remember is the difference between UI time (ie the time when the UI changes) and internal time. There are a few reports UI time can be a tad delay in some of the NRs.


Agree. In a similar fashion, I believe the RECORD light lags the actual recording start as well. /steve


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## Tom Robertson (Nov 15, 2005)

Steve said:


> Agree. In a similar fashion, I believe the RECORD light lags the actual recording start as well. /steve


Steve, interesting.  I wasn't aware but am not surprised. 

Thanks,
Tom


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

joshjr said:


> Yes its a refurb. It has worked perfect so far. There has been this issue with time but other then that no complaints what so ever. As a matter of fact I have been way more impressed with it then I had hoped for. I can not wait to get a antenna hooked up and use the ATSC tuners.


That's amazing. I just got a 21-100 replacement the other day and went thru the worst experience I have ever had with a DVR, any DVR. And I expected it to happen. I can't put it into words yet, but I will.

Sixteen of the 100s I get and none work and you get one, just one, and it works. It's difficult to be a believer in logic and see things such as this. And it happens all the time in this wonderful world of HRs.

Rich


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## joshjr (Aug 2, 2008)

rich584 said:


> That's amazing. I just got a 21-100 replacement the other day and went thru the worst experience I have ever had with a DVR, any DVR. And I expected it to happen. I can't put it into words yet, but I will.
> 
> Sixteen of the 100s I get and none work and you get one, just one, and it works. It's difficult to be a believer in logic and see things such as this. And it happens all the time in this wonderful world of HRs.
> 
> Rich


Yeah when I called and requested a HR20 not only did everyone one here think I was nuts but also gave me a 1 in a million shot at getting what requested. Well I got lucky and got it. I have no complaints. I can handle the time thing. It is annoying but not that bad.


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## Mike Bertelson (Jan 24, 2007)

rich584 said:


> Be thankful that thing works at all.
> 
> Rich


That's a bit harsh. :nono2:

Ten seconds, if you take into account the accruacy of the time displays, is probably pretty accurate.

Mike


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## RobertE (Jun 10, 2006)

rich584 said:


> That's amazing. I just got a 21-100 replacement the other day and went thru the worst experience I have ever had with a DVR, any DVR. And I expected it to happen. I can't put it into words yet, but I will.
> 
> Sixteen of the 100s I get and none work and you get one, just one, and it works. It's difficult to be a believer in logic and see things such as this. And it happens all the time in this wonderful world of HRs.
> 
> Rich


How many are you going to "go through" before considering it might, just might be something other than the HRs?

(makes mental note to stand very, very, very far away from rich during a thunderstorm)


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## Sirshagg (Dec 30, 2006)

RobertE said:


> How many are you going to "go through" before considering it might, just might be something other than the HRs?
> 
> (makes mental note to stand very, very, very far away from rich during a thunderstorm)


*MY* HR10 never had an issue with starting recording late (other than instancs where the network was playing games and the guide data was not updated). All *MY* HR20's seem to have a consistent issue starting recordings on time.


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## ansky (Oct 11, 2005)

I restarted my HR20 this evening and sure enough, it fixed the clock issue. Recording now starts about 5-10 seconds before the program begins. Prior to the restart I was losing about the first 15-30 seconds of recorded programs. We'll see how long before another restart is necessary.


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

RobertE said:


> How many are you going to "go through" before considering it might, just might be something other than the HRs?


Please, Bob. Everything else has been replaced and the dish has been realigned three times. The first fifteen or so were because of an HDMI incompatibility with my Sony TVs. The three I purchased I still have. All the rest are refurbished (an urban myth) sets that didn't work when the three purchased ones did. What else could it be? When you get a 21-100 that can't get past the first setup page, what would you think the problem could be? When you get a 20-100 that the power cord keeps falling out of, what else could cause that? When you get a 20-100 that sounds as if an angry rattlesnake is inside it, what would you do? When you get three 20-100s that have front panels that are so loose you have to shim them up with paper to stop the rattling, what would you check other than the 100s? I could go on, but why?

And then there was the 100 that wouldn't work with a remote in IR or RF, and yes, I do know how to set up a remote properly.

Then there was the 21-200 with a fan that wouldn't work. Think my multi-switch caused that?

I really didn't expect that comment from you.

Rich


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

Sirshagg said:


> *MY* HR10 never had an issue with starting recording late (other than instancs where the network was playing games and the guide data was not updated). All *MY* HR20's seem to have a consistent issue starting recordings on time.


Everyone's mileage varies.  In my case, my three HR20-700's have been "spot on" since February of this year... flawless start times. My two HR21's (a -200 and a -700) have been consistently 5-6 seconds behind on the same recordings. Go figure.  /steve


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## Steady Teddy (Jan 23, 2007)

I'm trying to figure out if the clock is off on my HR20 or if it's the networks that are off with their start times. I record ESPN's College Football Live every day and the recording always starts and stops about 20 seconds early. The season premiere of House ended a tad early as well. I haven't noticed a problem yet with other shows.


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## Tom Robertson (Nov 15, 2005)

My experience has been that some networks (and locals) are notorious for being off, sometimes WAY off. I've padded for years, even on my VCRs.

Cheers,
Tom


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

Ya. For those who say their recordings are starting 15 seconds late, unless you have a reference DVR you're comparing it to, how do you know it wasn't due to the network starting early? E.g., my FOX 5 in NY starts the 7:30PM Seinfeld anywhere between 7:29:30 and 7:30, and it's different every night. I have the FOX on-screen clock in my recordings to prove it!

And if you're _not _comparing it to a reference machine, how can you say how late it started?  As Tom stated earlier, remember there's an internal clock and the INFO bar clock. They are two different beasts. Don't assume because your INFO bar time is wrong the HR2x is starting recordings correspondingly late. A week after a CE reboot, my HR21-700's INFO BAR clock drifts to 20-30 seconds off, but the recording start times made on day 6 are the same 5 seconds off as the recordings made on day 1, when the clock was only 2-3 seconds off.

Believe me. I've tested this. Ask my wife, who thinks I'm nuts for running up and down the stairs between two HR's with a stopwatch. :lol:

/steve


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## HarryG (Jul 9, 2007)

Steve said:


> Ya. For those who say their recordings are starting 15 seconds late, unless you have a reference machine you're comparing it to, how do you know it wasn't due to the network starting early? E.g., my FOX 5 in NY starts the 7:30PM Seinfeld anywhere between 7:29:30 and 7:30, and it's different every night. I have the FOX on-screen clock in my recordings to prove it!
> 
> And if you're not comparing it to a reference machine, how do you know how late it started?  As Tom stated earlier, remember that there's an internal clock and the INFO bar clock. They are two different beasts. Don't assume because your INFO bar time is wrong the HR2x is starting recordings correspondingly late.
> 
> /steve


My reference machine is my TivoHD. The TivoHD consistently begins recording about 10 seconds early. My HR20-100 recording the exact same network feed from satellite will always start recording the same show late (unless I have recently rebooted the receiver.) Why can Tivo get it right and DirecTv still have the time drift problem 15 months later?

The TivoHD box resinks the clock daily when downloading new program data. Why can't DirecTv have the HR20-100 perform a similar daily function to reset the clock?


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

HarryG said:


> My reference machine is my TivoHD. The TivoHD consistently begins recording about 10 seconds early. My HR20-100 recording the exact same network feed from satellite will always start recording the same show late (unless I have recently rebooted the receiver.) Why can Tivo get it right and DirecTv still have the time drift problem 15 months later?
> 
> The TivoHD box resinks the clock daily when downloading new program data. Why can't DirecTv have the HR20-100 perform a similar daily function to reset the clock?


The HR20-100 is the one box I can't personally speak for. I know the HR21-700's are flaky, compared to the HR20-700, so it wouldn't surprise me to learn the 20-100 has unique issues as well. That said, some, like *texasbrit*, report their Hr20-100's are comparable to the HR20-700's start times, so it's possible it goes deeper than just which model you have, and may be a motherboard revision issue as well.

/steve


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

Steve said:


> Ya. For those who say their recordings are starting 15 seconds late, unless you have a reference DVR you're comparing it to, how do you know it wasn't due to the network starting early? E.g., my FOX 5 in NY starts the 7:30PM Seinfeld anywhere between 7:29:30 and 7:30, and it's different every night. I have the FOX on-screen clock in my recordings to prove it!
> 
> And if you're _not _comparing it to a reference machine, how can you say how late it started?  As Tom stated earlier, remember there's an internal clock and the INFO bar clock. They are two different beasts. Don't assume because your INFO bar time is wrong the HR2x is starting recordings correspondingly late. A week after a CE reboot, my HR21-700's INFO BAR clock drifts to 20-30 seconds off, but the recording start times made on day 6 are the same 5 seconds off as the recordings made on day 1, when the clock was only 2-3 seconds off.
> 
> ...


Wouldn't you think the internal clock would be the reference for the Info clock? If it isn't, where is it getting it's info (pun intended) from?

There must be a way to check the internal clock, no?

Rich


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

rich584 said:


> Wouldn't you think the internal clock would be the reference for the Info clock? If it isn't, where is it getting it's info (pun intended) from?
> 
> There must be a way to check the internal clock, no?
> 
> Rich


Correct. The internal clock must be the reference, but apparently the routines that update the INFO BAR clock need some tuning, more so on different models. Same with the scheduler's start of recording routines. Based on my testing, I'd say the record start clock updating was optimized for the HR20-700. /steve


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

Steve said:


> Correct. The internal clock is the reference, but apparently the routines that update the INFO BAR clock need some tuning, more so on different models. Same with the scheduler's start of recording clock. Based on my testing, I'd say the scheduler clock updating was optimized for the HR20-700. /steve


But a 21 second difference? How can that be? And it is obviously cumulative. And since it is cumulative, wouldn't you think the unit would correct itself at some point in time? Wait, I have to use a smilie or risk getting accused of being sarcastic. Let's see, what looks inoffensive? How about this, since I'm puzzled. 

Rich


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## Tom Robertson (Nov 15, 2005)

Rich,

One can get the system time via the serial port commands. And if I recall correctly, it is to the second rather than the minute.

Cheers,
Tom


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

Tom Robertson said:


> Rich,
> 
> One can get the system time via the serial port commands. And if I recall correctly, it is to the second rather than the minute.
> 
> ...


But you have to be hooked up to a computer to do that, don't you? I really don't want to hook up multiple HRs to a computer. Is there no other way, besides rebooting? I do see shows starting a tad later than they should and when I check them against my most (one would hope) accurate clocks they are usually off by a little or a lot (just the 21s, the 20s are spot on).

Rich


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

rich584 said:


> But a 21 second difference? How can that be? And it is obviously cumulative. And since it is cumulative, wouldn't you think the unit would correct itself at some point in time? Wait, I have to use a smilie or risk getting accused of being sarcastic. Let's see, what looks inoffensive? How about this, since I'm puzzled.
> 
> Rich


:lol: Well, trying it come up with an explanation that fits the facts, I'd guess that it's possible the INFO bar clock is only sync'd with internal time after a reboot, and not re-sync'd until the next reboot. Perhaps way back when, the original system architects never thought INFO BAR clock drift would be an issue?

/steve


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

Steve said:


> :lol: Well, trying it come up with an explanation that fits the facts, I'd guess that it's possible the INFO bar clock is only sync'd with internal time after a reboot, and not re-sync'd until the next reboot. Perhaps way back when, the original system architects never thought INFO BAR clock drift would be an issue?
> 
> /steve


But wouldn't that drift and the fact that I was seeing the shows start later than they should, mean that they are in sync?

I don't remember precisely what the time difference was before I rebooted yesterday. I think it was about 20 seconds. Today, after rebooting yesterday, I have a difference of 7 seconds.

Rich


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

rich584 said:


> But wouldn't that drift and the fact that I was seeing the shows start later than they should, mean that they are in sync?


I can see where you would think that, but that's not how it works on my HR21-700. The INFO clock continues to drift later and later, losing 2-3 seconds per day, but its "recording start lag" vs. my HR20-700 reference box has been consistent. Recordings made when the INFO bar clock is off 21 seconds start the same 5-6 seconds behind they did when the INFO bar clock was only 3 seconds off.

At least that's been the experience with my units, dating back to the February "clock round-up" fix, when I began rigorously testing this. /steve


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

Steve said:


> I can see where you would think that, but that's not how it works on my HR21-700. The INFO clock continues to drift later and later, losing 2-3 seconds per day, but its "recording start lag" vs. my HR20-700 reference box has been consistent. Recordings made when the INFO bar clock is off 21 seconds start the same 5-6 seconds behind they did when the INFO bar clock was only 3 seconds off.
> 
> At least that's been the experience with my units, dating back to the February "clock round-up" fix, when I began rigorously testing this. /steve


Today I watched the Seinfelds I recorded yesterday. Three of them. For the first time, since I started recording them (about a week or so ago) the Seinfeld logo came up at the beginning of each episode. Yesterday, the shows had already started when I watched them on my 21-700 in my hidey hole. No logos.

Yesterday, I restarted and today the logos appear. OK, now, doesn't that mean that the internal clock and the clock on the Info dialog box are in sync? And were in sync yesterday?

Read this a couple of times. I had to spend some time on this making it as simple as possible. I think it tells us that there is a direct correlation between the internal clock and the Info clock and it changes directly. In other words, the longer the difference, the more show you miss at the beginning.

But what's really weird about the Seinfelds is that they seem to be _ending_ at the correct time, because there is a short skit at the end and I don't see them getting cut off.

Rich


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

rich584 said:


> Today I watched the Seinfelds I recorded yesterday. Three of them. For the first time, since I started recording them (about a week or so ago) the Seinfeld logo came up at the beginning of each episode. Yesterday, the shows had already started when I watched them on my 21-700 in my hidey hole. No logos.
> 
> Yesterday, I restarted and today the logos appear. OK, now, doesn't that mean that the internal clock and the clock on the Info dialog box are in sync? And were in sync yesterday?
> 
> ...


Rich, now that I know you're testing on a 21-700, if you're running the latest CE, see one of my posts in the CE's "issues" thread, since we're not supposed to discuss CE's in the general forums. I had a similar experience, but we'll have to take the discussion over there. 

What I've been reporting here about the consistent 5-6 second recording start lag vs. variable INFO bar clock drift is the current behavior using the NR. /steve


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## Shades94 (Jan 13, 2008)

I reset my HR20-700 about once a month to re-sync the clock. I decided to reset last night since I hadn't done it in a while and all my recordings have been starting late. I checked the HR clock (via the system menu) against an atomic clock before the reset and it was off by 50 seconds. After the reset the clock was off by about 5 seconds. Now all my recordings are starting on time again.


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

Steve said:


> Rich, now that I know you're testing on a 21-700, if you're running the latest CE, see one of my posts in the CE's "issues" thread, since we're not supposed to discuss CE's in the general forums. I had a similar experience, but we'll have to take the discussion over there.
> 
> What I've been reporting here about the consistent 5-6 second recording start lag vs. variable INFO bar clock drift is the current behavior using the NR. /steve


I've never considered beta testing unless the company that wants that beta testing supplies the equipment.

What I'm talking about is just an HR21-700 running the latest software. I think we can stay on this thread since I have no experiences with CEs. What I posted yesterday about the Seinfeld shows leads me to believe the internal clock and the Info dialog box clock are in sync. How else to explain my experience?

Rich


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

Shades94 said:


> I reset my HR20-700 about once a month to re-sync the clock. I decided to reset last night since I hadn't done it in a while and all my recordings have been starting late. I checked the HR clock (via the system menu) against an atomic clock before the reset and it was off by 50 seconds. After the reset the clock was off by about 5 seconds. Now all my recordings are starting on time again.


That's exactly what I experienced, but only on the 21s. My 20-700s are spot on with my "Atomic" clocks.

Rich


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## rawilson (Oct 9, 2007)

Good news, bad news for me....good news is that we haven't had to restart our HR20 in quite a while. Bad news is that we have noticed missing the start of shows for a while. I turned to CNN and noticed that our clock was FOUR MINUTES off.....rebooted and we're back up...guess we'll have to schedule a regular reboot at the first of each month.


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## nzOdy (Jul 21, 2008)

Steady Teddy said:


> I'm trying to figure out if the clock is off on my HR20 or if it's the networks that are off with their start times. I record ESPN's College Football Live every day and the recording always starts and stops about 20 seconds early. The season premiere of House ended a tad early as well. I haven't noticed a problem yet with other shows.


It's the Hardware, I noticed I was consistently missing the first few moments of recordings, and when I powered down the unit to put a UPS in line a few days ago, recordings are getting the start of the shows again.

In other words - reset the HR-2X and you should be good to go. Just another lame 'feature' of these things. Cannot wait to see the TiVo derived HD unit that should be coming out of the renewed relationship between the two companies.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

rich584 said:


> What I posted yesterday about the Seinfeld shows leads me to believe the internal clock and the Info dialog box clock are in sync. How else to explain my experience?


Just checked an HR20 I have five FOX NY _Seinfelds _on, The unit was rebooted Friday night after downloading the latest CE.

The Sunday, Monday and Tuesday 11PM performances all started a second before the actual first frame of the episode intro before the first commercial break.

The Monday and Tuesday 7:30PM performance all appeared to start "late", because playback started mid-intro. Checking the clock at the bottom right of the screen which FOX shows during the 7:30 airings, it shows 7:29 on both, so FOX started these before the scheduled time.

So it would appear that the HR20 recorded it on-time Sunday night, late Monday evening, on-time Monday night, late Tuesday evening, on-time Tuesday night. But the real culprit is WYNY in NY.

Not saying this is what happened to you, just reporting my findings. /steve


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

Steve said:


> Just checked an HR20 I have five FOX NY _Seinfelds _on, The unit was rebooted Friday night after downloading the latest CE.
> 
> The Sunday, Monday and Tuesday 11PM performances all started a second before the actual first frame of the episode intro before the first commercial break.
> 
> The Monday and Tuesday 7:30PM performance all appeared to start "late", because playback started mid-intro.


The Monday shows were the ones that I first saw the Seinfeld logos on. They seem to have started on time. Oh I see what we're doing wrong. I'm recording on TBS. I don't get it in Hi Def on channel five (Fox).

Rich


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

rich584 said:


> The Monday shows were the ones that I first saw the Seinfeld logos on. They seem to have started on time. Oh I see what we're doing wrong. I'm recording on TBS. I don't get it in Hi Def on channel five (Fox).
> 
> Rich


For testing purposes, why not set up another SL for the Fox re-runs as well? They're SD, so don't take up much disk space, and have the advantage of showing the clock in the bottom right on the 7:30 shows.

I'll also set one up for the TNT HDs on a different HR20. /steve


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

rich584 said:


> The Monday shows were the ones that I first saw the Seinfeld logos on. They seem to have started on time. Oh I see what we're doing wrong. I'm recording on TBS. I don't get it in Hi Def on channel five (Fox).
> 
> Rich


Done, twice. Back to you tomorrow.

Rich


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

rich584 said:


> Done, twice. Back to you tomorrow.


Turns out I already had the TNT _Seinfeld _scheduled on another HR20-700 (I'll call it #1) and didn't even know it! Yesterday's 12:30 PM TNT episode, "The Doll", started with the _Raymond _credits, on a screen that said "And Nora Dunn as Helen".

The 7:30 FOX (HR20-700 #2) recording, "The Butter Shave", appeared to start late, but by hitting EXIT right away to clear the PROGRESS BAR, I could see the corner on-screen clock flip from 7:29 to 7:30 within a couple of seconds, so it was FOX's fault. The 11PM recording, "The Library", started about 2 seconds before the intro.

/steve


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## texasbrit (Aug 9, 2006)

To support Steve's comment, I am seeing more and more programs start early. Last night I saw the first few seconds of my local Fox news at 10, switched over to ABC. They were still in the middle of the end credits for "Dirty Sexy Money". Then the ABC local news started, and according to ABCs own on-screen clock it was 9.59. About 8 seconds later the clock rolled over to 10pm. I estimate the Fox 10pm news had started at least 30 seconds early. It looks like they are sometimes cutting out all the ads to try to keep people watching. It makes the DVRs job very difficult.


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## billsharpe (Jan 25, 2007)

KCBS in LA typically starts the network news 1 1/2 minutes early, except when Katie is doing a West Coast update and the program then starts on time.

I sometimes record this program and need to set the recording to start two minutes early to get the full recording.

I've been recording CBS Sunday morning every week and it consistently starts on time, whether 6 am or 7 am. Back in the VCR days recording this show sometimes drove me nuts as I'd have to check to see what time the show started from week to week. Now, of course, that's automatic.


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## texasbrit (Aug 9, 2006)

The 6pm news on my local ABC channel started one minute 20 seconds early tonight, measured by both their on-screen clock and my atomic clock.


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## jdspencer (Nov 8, 2003)

Time to restart the unit.


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## texasbrit (Aug 9, 2006)

jdspencer said:


> Time to restart the unit.


???? why has the channel starting their programs early got anything to do with restarting my DVR? I am just pointing out that if my DVR starts its recordings on time (which they all do, although as with Steve my HR21 starts a few seconds later than my two HR20s) that is useless if the channels are starting their programs one minute or more early.


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## DonHac (Nov 22, 2007)

Just a note that this issue has been discussed (and measurements reported) over in the thread http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=136076 ("Inacurate Clock on HR20-100").

The consensus seemed to be that things worked great for some people, but that others had steady, measurable clock drift. Everyone who had clock drift reported that the clock was resynced by a reboot.

Don


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

texasbrit said:


> The 6pm news on my local ABC channel started one minute 20 seconds early tonight, measured by both their on-screen clock and my atomic clock.


So the HR was not at fault? Did I read this correctly? Just read your next post. I read it correctly.

Rich


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## RobertE (Jun 10, 2006)

rich584 said:


> So the HR was not at fault? Did I read this correctly? Just read your next post. I read it correctly.
> 
> Rich


Imagine that, not the HRs fault.


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

RobertE said:


> Imagine that, not the HRs fault.


Since you couldn't find any fault with my last argument, this is the best you can do?:lol: Find someplace where I've said it is always the HRs fault. Don't let yourself turn into one of the word twisters on this forum. :nono2:

Rich


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## RobertE (Jun 10, 2006)

rich584 said:


> Since you couldn't find any fault with my last argument, this is the best you can do?:lol: Find someplace where I've said it is always the HRs fault. Don't let yourself turn into one of the word twisters on this forum. :nono2:
> 
> Rich


Deep breaths, relax. Not trying to start a pissing match, but if you want to go down that road, my PM box is open.


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

RobertE said:


> Deep breaths, relax. Not trying to start a pissing match


OK, that would have deeply disappointed me.

Rich


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## seern (Jan 13, 2007)

A long time ago I set my default recording setting to begin 1 minute early just because of this issue with the internal clock.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

If anyone still has any doubt that there is no relationship between the INFO BAR time and when recordings start, this was recently posted by *incogneato *in another thread:

_"This is a "known issue" by DirecTV. We just got a "known issues" letter in our office about this. I will PARAPHRASE the wording in the update we got regarding this issue:

HR2x & R22, Clock Display: The clock is off by 1 hour but the program information is correct relative to real time. The receiver will record the proper show. Do not swap the box. DirecTV is aware of this issue."_

/steve


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## JimV (Feb 3, 2007)

My Blackberry has a 'Get Network Time' function on it. I use it when I have drift on it. Would be great if the DVR had this feature so we dont have to do a 10 minute reboot.

Mine is starting 1 minute late and ending 1 minute late, or in some cases, ending early losing the last few lines of the show.


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