# The Start Late Bug - Comparing TiVo to HR20



## Drew2k (Aug 16, 2006)

After reading several posts in the Wish List Thread over the past couple of days, I put my DVRs though some tests to compare the start and end time of back-to-back recordings on two HR20-700s and two HR10-250s.

The posts below show pictures with my settings, the To Do Lists after the recordings were scheduled, the Playlists after the recordings were made, and the starting frames and ending frames for each recording on each DVR.


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## Drew2k (Aug 16, 2006)

*Follow-up 01 - Settings*
These pictures show the settings on my HR20-700 that I call HR20-24, the HR20-700 that I call HR20-57, the HR10-250 that I call Tivo-24, and the HR10-250 that I call TiVo-57.

All four DVRs are set up to only output 720p and 1080i HDTV resolutions.

Both HR20-700s are set up with NATIVE ON.

* 
*


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## Drew2k (Aug 16, 2006)

*Follow-up 02 - To Do Lists and Playlists*
Because the HR10-250s can't record MPEG4, all recordings were on MPEG2 channels. I set up the exact same four recordings on all four DVRs, as follows, with no padding used:

12:30 PM ET - 01:00 PM ET / SD Channel 311 - Full House
12:30 PM ET - 01:00 PM ET / SD Channel 309 - Family Feud

01:00 PM ET - 02:00 PM ET / HD Channel 75 - Without a Trace
01:00 PM ET - 02:00 PM ET / HD Channel 76 - American Chopper

These pictures show the To Do Lists and Playlists for the four DVRs, in this order: HR20-24, HR20-57, TiVo-24, TiVo-57.

While setting up the recordings last night around 10 PM ET, one thing that struck me was just how easy it was on the HR20 to go to the guide, tune to the desired channel, press GREEN to jump 12 hours ahead, find the program, press RECORD and set up all four recordings. On the TiVo, this was NOT that easy to do &#8230;

After looking at the Playlists today, I was also struck with the order that the programs are displayed. On three out of four DVRs, it's Family Feud, Full House, Without a Trace, and American Chopper. On these three DVRs, the foreground tuner in live TV was left on channel 76, where American Chopper was recorded.

However, on the fourth DVR (the HR20-700 that I call HR20-57), the order in the playlist is the order that I set up the recordings and added them to the To Do List: Full House, Family Feud, Without a Trace, and American Chopper. On this DVR, the foreground tuner in live TV was left on channel 75 the channel where Without a Trace was recorded.

I don't see any reason why the one HR20 recorded the programs in an apparently different order than the other three DVRs.


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## Drew2k (Aug 16, 2006)

*Follow-up 03 - Starting Frames: Family Feud*
These pictures show the opening frame for Family Feud as shown on each DVR in this order: HR20-24, HR20-57, TiVo-24, TiVo-57. The two HR20s started recording later than the TiVos. (Because this was an SD channel and NATIVE is set to ON but my only output resolutions are 720p and 1080i, the front panel LED indicated 720p when the program was played back.)

Notice that the two HR20s each started at a different point, with Family Feud already in progress, whereas the two TiVos each started on a "bumper" screen stating "Family Feud is up next".


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## Drew2k (Aug 16, 2006)

*Follow-up 04 - Starting Frames: Full House*
These pictures show the opening frame for Full House as shown on each DVR in this order: HR20-24, HR20-57, TiVo-24, TiVo-57. The two HR20s started recording later than the Tivos. (Because this was an SD channel and NATIVE is set to ON but my only output resolutions are 720p and 1080i, the front panel LED indicated 720p when the program was played back.)

Notice that the two HR20s each started at a different point, with Full House already in progress, whereas the two TiVos each started on a "bumper" screen stating "Full House is up next".


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## Drew2k (Aug 16, 2006)

*Follow-up 05 - Ending Frames: Family Feud*
These pictures show the final frame for Family Feud as shown on each DVR in this order: HR20-24, HR20-57, TiVo-24, TiVo-57.

This one had the most variation, with each recording ending on different frames.


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## Drew2k (Aug 16, 2006)

*Follow-up 06 - Ending Frames: Full House*
These pictures show the final frame for Full House as shown on each DVR in this order: HR20-24, HR20-57, TiVo-24, TiVo-57.

There were also variations in the ending frames of these recordings, but not as much as in the prior post.


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## Drew2k (Aug 16, 2006)

*Follow-up 07 - Starting Frames: Without a Trace*
These pictures show the opening frame for Without a Trace as shown on each DVR in this order: HR20-24, HR20-57, TiVo-24, TiVo-57. The two HR20s started recording later than the Tivos. (The front panel LED indicated 1080i when this HD program was played back.)

With these posts, the TiVos actually recorded the closing production bumper for the previous program, whereas the HR20s started at slightly different points from each other, with the opening scene of Without a Trace already in progress.


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## Drew2k (Aug 16, 2006)

*Follow-up 08 - Starting Frames: American Chopper*
These pictures show the opening frame for American Chopper as shown on each DVR in this order: HR20-24, HR20-57, TiVo-24, TiVo-57. The two HR20s started recording later than the Tivos. (The front panel LED indicated 1080i when this HD program was played back.)


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## Drew2k (Aug 16, 2006)

*Follow-up 09 - Ending Frames: Without a Trace *
These pictures show the final frame for Without a Trace as shown on each DVR in this order: HR20-24, HR20-57, TiVo-24, TiVo-57.


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## Drew2k (Aug 16, 2006)

*Follow-up 10 - Ending frames: American Chopper*
These pictures show the final frame for American Chopper as shown on each DVR in this order: HR20-24, HR20-57, TiVo-24, TiVo-57.


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## Drew2k (Aug 16, 2006)

*Final Impressions* 
Based on the frame comparisons, the TiVo DVRs seem to start recording earlier than the HR20s, while the HR20s start with the program already in progress, even if only by a dozen frames. The start of the next program is actually visible in the final frame of one of the photos on an HR20 recording, reflecting how late the HR20s actually start recording.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

Drew, great test and spectacular documentation. We all you a big vote of thanks for the time and effort you put into this.

One question. Were the HR20 start frames taken exactly from when hitting PLAY? Or did you also hit REPLAY to insure that the start point wasn't just miscued, as sometimes happens on the HR20s? Knowing how thorough you are, I suspect I already know the answer, but I feel I'd be remiss not asking the question, in case your intention was to document "real world" HR20 performance, where many folks wouldn't think there might be any more show available before the start of PLAY.

Thanks again for doing this.

/steve


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## Drew2k (Aug 16, 2006)

Good question ...

After pressing PLAY from the playlists, I pressed PAUSE and then used REW to step back a frame at a time to get to the start. So I didn't use REPLAY - just "frame reverse". There were some tricky moments, because both the TiVo and HR20 software will resume play mode if you frame revers back to the first recorded frame - I actually found this quite annoying while trying to get it "just right" to take the photos!


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

So what's your guesstimate as to how many seconds are being lost on the HR20's?

I guess another question I'd ask is do you have a way to compare the time-of-day clocks across the units? TIA.

/steve


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## Thaedron (Jun 29, 2007)

All I have to say is WOW!!! Nice work.

That is very consistent with my general observations. However mine are very casual, you sir went the extra mile and then some to document the specifics.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

Drew2k said:


> *Final Impressions*
> Based on the frame comparisons, the TiVo DVRs seem to start recording earlier than the HR20s, while the HR20s start with the program already in progress, even if only by a dozen frames. The start of the next program is actually visible in the final frame of one of the photos on an HR20 recording, reflecting how late the HR20s actually start recording.


So do you think that if the HR20 just started it's "recording housekeeping" a few seconds earlier, the units would perform identically? Or do you think the fact that unlike the TiVo (and depending on how it's setup by the user), the HR20 may have to deal with resolution changes that will always put it at a disadvantage?

Because if it's just a matter of starting a little sooner, this shouldn't be a hard problem to fix, unless I'm missing something.

/steve


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## bozzaj (Nov 29, 2006)

One thing that I've noticed is that since I restarted my HR20 2 days ago, I'm catching much more of the beginning of recordings. For instance, Law & Order:SVU started during the opening banner screen instead of after the screen like it was doing before my restart.

Can you try the same thing, restarting your receivers within 24-48 before the recordings to see if it make any difference?


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## Drew2k (Aug 16, 2006)

Steve said:


> So what's your guesstimate as to how many seconds are being lost on the HR20's?
> 
> I guess another question I'd ask is do you have a way to compare the time-of-day clocks across the units? TIA.
> 
> /steve


Other than a watch with a second hand, that's my only way to measure this. I'll have to look closer to try to determine the time difference between the units.

One thing I find troubling is that even the two HR20s were starting at different frames ....


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## Drew2k (Aug 16, 2006)

Thaedron said:


> All I have to say is WOW!!! Nice work.
> 
> That is very consistent with my general observations. However mine are very casual, you sir went the extra mile and then some to document the specifics.


Thank you, and I should have thanked Steve earlier for his compliments, so shame on my for my lack of manners! :nono:

I didn't realize how long it would take to write this up, but it's worth it if we can have a good dialog and identify some of the issues causing these late recordings ...

Sadly, though, it probably took me more time last night browsing the guide just to find channels I haven't watched recently (to ensure the tuners had to be changed) and to find back-to-back programs that were in SD for the first program, and then HD for the second!


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

Drew2k said:


> One thing I find troubling is that even the two HR20s were starting at different frames ....


Ya, but that could just be because their clocks are a second apart. I'd consider a one-second difference tolerable, but that's just me. /steve


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## Thaedron (Jun 29, 2007)

There was a thread circulating last week (?) where there was some concern that the HR20's clock wasn't being kept in sync. I don't know if that concluded anything, but if it's not actually being synced in a timely manner that could explain some minor inconsistencies. I agree it's concerning that two HR20s wouldn't start at precisely the same time.


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## Drew2k (Aug 16, 2006)

Steve said:


> So do you think that if the HR20 just started it's "recording housekeeping" a few seconds earlier, the units would perform identically? Or do you think the fact that unlike the TiVo (and depending on how it's setup by the user), the HR20 may have to deal with resolution changes that will always put it at a disadvantage?
> 
> Because if it's just a matter of starting a little sooner, this shouldn't be a hard problem to fix, unless I'm missing something.
> 
> /steve


I wonder about the resolution changes, and how much they contribute to the problem, if at all. The TiVo recordings were just like the HR20 recordings in that there were SD recordings first, followed by HD recordings. There is one difference, with NATIVE ON for the HR20 - the TiVos don't have that setting - but that's only an OUTPUT setting that should in no way have affected how the recording was made.

There are so many variables it's hard to say how to fix this ...

I can think of implementing soft-padding*, but that wouldn't help when both tuners are in use for back-to-back recordings on different channels. *(Soft padding: Where there are no conflicts, automatically record 1 minute before and 1 minute after the scheduled start and end times.)


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## Drew2k (Aug 16, 2006)

I should have mentioned one other similarity between both the TiVo and HR20s - I have them all set to record Dolby Digital.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

Drew2k said:


> There is one difference, with NATIVE ON for the HR20 - the TiVos don't have that setting - but that's only an OUTPUT setting that should in no way have affected how the recording was made.


True. The resolution change might only affect initial playback at a new resolution, blanking the screen momentarily at the same time the recording has already started playback, creating the illusion that the recording is starting a little later. /steve


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## Milominderbinder2 (Oct 8, 2006)

Drew,

Fantastic work!

Here is some more background: Is This The Secret of the Start Late Bug? 

- Craig


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

Drew2k said:


> I can think of implementing soft-padding*, but that wouldn't help when both tuners are in use for back-to-back recordings on different channels. *(Soft padding: Where there are no conflicts, automatically record 1 minute before and 1 minute after the scheduled start and end times.)


I was thinking more in terms of accelerating the preparations other than changing the channel needed to start a new recording (history episode ID checking, checking for available disk space, et al). If the HR20 is starting those things on the hour, maybe it can start them 5 seconds before the hour, even while another recording may be finishing up on the same tuner. /steve


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## Drew2k (Aug 16, 2006)

Steve said:


> I was thinking more in terms of accelerating the preparations other than changing the channel needed to start a new recording (history episode ID checking, checking for available disk space, et al). If the HR20 is starting those things on the hour, maybe it can start them 5 seconds before the hour, even while another recording may be finishing up on the same tuner. /steve


Sure - any steps taken behind the scenes to prep for the next recording must be examined and revisited by DIRECTV. The time taken to do any backend processing should be allowed for and there should be compensation for it.


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## 420benz (Dec 20, 2006)

I have Two and a half men programed to record every night at 7:00 and 7:30.Sometimes it starts 60sec. early,but most of the time it is 15sec. late.


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## texasbrit (Aug 9, 2006)

Drew2k said:


> Sure - any steps taken behind the scenes to prep for the next recording must be examined and revisited by DIRECTV. The time taken to do any backend processing should be allowed for and there should be compensation for it.


Drew - I have done similar testing to yours but using my SD TiVo and my two HR20s - one -700 and one -100, and I have repeated these tests on each of the past six or seven releases so I have a LOT of data, including testing the HR20s on SD, on MPEG-2 HD and on MPEG-4 HD. My results are in line with yours. I don't have the pretty pictures but I do have timings taken using an "atomic clock". The HR20s are consistently about 5-6 seconds slower then the SD TiVo in starting a recording, even when they are recording the SD program. The two HR20s virtually never both start recording at the same point in the program - one or two seconds apart is not unusual. 
There was a fair amount of randomness in the end of recordings - sometimes the HR20s ending before the TiVo, sometimes the other way around. 
One interesting observation was that the "displayed clock" on the HR20s seemed to have little if anything to do with the start times of the recordings.


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

Drew,

So what you're saying is the HR20 is not at fault that it's now certain that it is the networks and/or Tribune with bad guide data.
I'm glad we have finally cleared that up. 

Seriously, thank you for putting in the effort to do this. I hope it means the denials will stop and someone will take a look at and fix the issue.

Thank you again...very much.


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## BudShark (Aug 11, 2003)

Interesting - I'll have to spend some time on this problem. I've read both Milo's post and this one.

It seems to be related to Native/HDMI as both Drew and Milo discuss. The Tivo's obviously didn't have the native issue.

That being said - they've obviously got priority/order wrong. The capture stream shouldn't be dependent on a display handshake/resolution. I'm surprised by that *find*.

Also, the HDMI handshake varies by device. I have a Samsung DLP which on native is almost unwatchable due to the delay. I have a Samsung LCD which native has very very little effect on channel changing delays. I've also been able on the Samsung DLP to change channel, experience a delay on display, and rewind to the content that was missed while the handshake was occuring. What this proves is the HR20 capture stream (at least in buffer mode) is NOT dependent on resolution or HDMI handshaking.

The work Drew and Milo have done give us a great starting point. I'll go take a look at it, but we probably need to start doing a standard form of version/model/connections and start delay to get a better handle on how much this varies and if we can identify a trend of any sorts external to HR20.

Chris


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## Indiana627 (Nov 18, 2005)

Great thread and testing! I had done something similar but much less extensive last summer http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=92460.

My theory was/is: it appears the HR20 starts to record based on when the show description changes to the name of the show scheduled to record (the show description change appears to happen simultaneously in the progress bar and info banner). BUT this show description appears to happen a few seconds after the clock in the info banner (upper left corner) changes. And since this clock seems to be dead on as to when the show starts (in my experience), the first few seconds of the show are missed since the show description change lags behind the clock change.

Go back and read my first post of my thread for a more detailed explanation.


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## Scott J (Feb 14, 2007)

Good work Drew and others. 

While I have not put forth the effort that you folks have, I can say that it is unusual for me to see the beginning of a program that I have recorded. In addition, the beginning of the next program is generally at the end of the recording as you have also illustrated. I may try an RBR to reset the clock and alleviate the issue somewhat. 

Thanks again and hopefully this issue will get some attention.


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## Lee L (Aug 15, 2002)

Ken S said:


> Drew,
> 
> So what you're saying is the HR20 is not at fault that it's now certain that it is the networks and/or Tribune with bad guide data.
> I'm glad we have finally cleared that up.
> ...


Ha Ha, I was going to post something about how this was all in his imagination as ther eis no way this is happening because at least one person has never noticed it on their machine. 

I have also had a few frames from another channel at the beginning of more than one recording.

At this point, I would say this is definitively proven and we should ban anyone who comes in and mentions anything to do with the clock or guide data in one of these threads. 

DirecTV. If you care about customer satisfaction, you will get to work on this.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

texasbrit said:


> DThe HR20s are consistently about 5-6 seconds slower then the SD TiVo in starting a recording, even when they are recording the SD program.


 If this is, in fact, the same time difference that Drew measures between his HR20's and HR10's, and equal to the length of program that's missing from the start of his HR20 recordings above, then this may be a simple issue for D* to correct by just starting the whole recording process a few seconds earlier than the do now.

/steve


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

Lee L said:


> At this point, I would say this is definitively proven and we should ban anyone who comes in and complains about the clock or guide data in one of these threads.


All that's been proven so far is that there is a few seconds difference between start times on the 2 units.

It could be due to the clock, based on Texasbrit's observation.

There are times when the GUIDE data will be wrong, or the GUIDE data is well-intended and the networks don't adhere to it. I had that experience trying to record the Twilight Zone marathon on Sci-Fi on New Year's eve. It was a complete disaster, with most recordings missinge 2-4 minutes of the show's start.

/steve


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## bozzaj (Nov 29, 2006)

Thaedron said:


> There was a thread circulating last week (?) where there was some concern that the HR20's clock wasn't being kept in sync. I don't know if that concluded anything, but if it's not actually being synced in a timely manner that could explain some minor inconsistencies. I agree it's concerning that two HR20s wouldn't start at precisely the same time.


I can safely say that the HR20 loses time - at least mine does - once it's been on for a while. I gained about 25 seconds at least on each of the beginning of my recordings this week after restarting my HR20 on Sunday.

I guess I'll have to do some similar work, at least on the SD side since I don't have an HR10.

I rarely restart my receiver - Only on CE days. The first CE I received (HR20-100) I noticed that recordings seemed to be working much better, but I didn't sit and do some research. After about a week though, it started to get bad again. I haven't spent anywhere near the amount of time you guys have on this, so it's just really more theory at this point.


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## Lee L (Aug 15, 2002)

So, how many iterations of this exact same thing does someone have to document before people will give up denying it?

I and all the people who have posted about this understand that sometimes network start times or guide data are off and we know the difference between this problem and that issue.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

BudShark said:


> That being said - they've obviously got priority/order wrong. The capture stream shouldn't be dependent on a display handshake/resolution. I'm surprised by that *find*.
> 
> Also, the HDMI handshake varies by device. I have a Samsung DLP which on native is almost unwatchable due to the delay. I have a Samsung LCD which native has very very little effect on channel changing delays. I've also been able on the Samsung DLP to change channel, experience a delay on display, and rewind to the content that was missed while the handshake was occuring. What this proves is the HR20 capture stream (at least in buffer mode) is NOT dependent on resolution or HDMI handshaking.s


I'm not sure we have enough data yet to definitively say that either resolution changing or handshaking have anything to do with delayed recording starts.

I have come to believe that they have more to do with PLAYBACK starts. E.g., while the screen is blank during resolution adjustment to match the recording, PLAYBACK may have already started, giving us impression that the HR20 missed part of the beginning, but in fact it's there, and we can RW back into it once we finally get a picture on-screen.
*
As a result, perhaps the HR20 needs to check the recording's resolution before PLAYBACK is started, and if it sees there is going to be a resolution change required, the start of PLAYBACK could to be delayed a second until the change can be completed.* This is a separate issue from late recording starts.

/steve


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

Lee L said:


> At this point, I would say this is definitively proven and we should ban anyone who comes in and complains about the clock or guide data in one of these threads.





Lee L said:


> So, how many iterations of this exact same thing does someone have to document before people will give up denying it?


No one is denying there's a difference. Based on Drew's and Texasbrit's testing, that difference _may_ just be entirely due to the difference in the clocks, so declaring that folks shouldn't complain about the clock is a bit premature, IMO. You may ultimately be proven right, but the facts that are in so far are not conclusive. Just my .02. /steve


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## arob (Dec 1, 2007)

Perhaps one of the D* insiders can find out what the time source is for the HR20/21. Seems like such a simple thing... Tivo's been on time for years.


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## mattbooty (Jul 19, 2007)

BudShark said:


> Interesting - I'll have to spend some time on this problem. I've read both Milo's post and this one.
> 
> It seems to be related to Native/HDMI as both Drew and Milo discuss. The Tivo's obviously didn't have the native issue.
> 
> ...


One thing a lot of people are pointing to here is the fact that HR20 has native, but Tivo doesn't... would performing these tests with native turned off and running the hr20 in a set resolution be a better test to run to more compare "apples to apples"? If doing this creates the same starting late delay we are seeing with native on this would remove that from the equation as a culprit. I am of the opinion that this shouldn't be coming into play until the show is broadcast because the output is what changes, BUT if the HR20 is tuning to the new channel on the active tuner it may be changing the resolution and slowing down processing.


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

Certainly at this point DirecTV could be using their QA/Development resources to look into the problem rather than depending on their customers to perform painstaking tests and reporting on a third-party forum. Especially, since they're in a far better position to know exactly what the process (flow) is for a recording to start.


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## cadet502 (Jun 17, 2005)

I run my HR20 with native off, fixed at 1080i. I didn't set up shows on purpose, but Tues. night my SL/SP both caught Dirty Jobs at 9:00 pm. No padding on either end. SD channel in both cases.

The HR20 just barely catches the opening of the show while the HR10 has about 8 seconds of credits from the previous show. At the other end, the HR10 gets the first second of two of the next show, while the HR20 gets at least 30 seconds of the next show. Nothing scheduled to record at that time on either box.

I checked the time on the boxes, and the HR20 is about 2 seconds behind the HR10, and the HR10 is within 2 seconds of NIST.

I'll try to set up some OTA and MPEG2 HD tests tonight. I'm still on 0x1de on the HR20-700. Both boxes connected through a 4x1 switch to the same HDMI port on the TV.


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## dreadlk (Sep 18, 2007)

Drew thank you so much for this, it proves without a doubt that there is a problem with the HR2x. This must have taken you lots of time to do, thanks again.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

arob said:


> Perhaps one of the D* insiders can find out what the time source is for the HR20/21. Seems like such a simple thing... Tivo's been on time for years.


It's not the time source, I'm pretty sure. My HR20's are usually within 2 secs of time.gov, which matches my atomic Seiko wristwatch exactly, so they only seem to be off by what I assume is sat lag (time it takes to for signal to travel to earth). I don't know why DirecTV is not compensating for this, if I'm correct in my assumption.

Based on *Cadet502's* observations, it might just be that the HR20 is not starting the recordings early enough and as a result is running them too long on the stop side, if you know what I mean. Because he's fixed at native off, 1080i, that's another indication that resolution change may not be a recording delay factor, as *Drew2k* observed.

Just throwing ideas out there. 

/steve


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

Just sat down to watch last nights "Criminal Minds" and the showing appeared to start about 15 seconds in to the story. Annoying because I checked another HR20 in the house, and that same showing only appeared to start about 5 seconds in, and those 10 seconds contained important plot info, believe it or not. (The condition of the victim's body.)

There was a difference between the 2 HR20s. The show that lost 15 seconds was recorded from CBS-DT OTA. The show that lost 5 seconds was local MPEG-4 CBS.

What's interesting is that these are the first two shows I've seen in several weeks where I didn't get the whole start of the episode on any of the major networks.

/steve


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## Drew2k (Aug 16, 2006)

I guess I was premature when I wrote earlier that we need to start a dialog on the start-late bug, but it seems that conversation has been started multiple times by multiple people... I can only thank those that started posting about this long before I did, and hope that the more light shined on the issue, the more attention DIRECTV will pay to it, and devise a solution. 

One of the problems with this bug is that there are indeed so many variables that are involved, that pinpointing the cause of the recording delay will be difficult. As Steve mentioned earlier, though, there is a difference between issues here: recording issue versus playback issues. Yes, theHR20s have a setting for NATIVE output and the TiVos don't, but NATIVE only affects the output - not what has actually been recorded to the hard drive. 

I was not present for any of the recordings I made as part of this test, so all testing was done by playing back the recordings from the playlist to take pictures from the first frame. I still have to find a watch to time how many seconds difference there is between the HR20 and TiVo, but without a doubt, the HR20 is not starting to record on time. As suggested, either the HR20's clock is wrong, or there's a delay from the time the HR20 is instructed to change channels to the time it actually begins recording that is causing this. I guess one way to confirm this is to record multiple shows back to back on the same channel and see if the shows do NOT suffer a delay ...


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## ub1934 (Dec 30, 2005)

One more thing for Drew to check if he will , HR10-250 on CNN SD and HR 20-700 on CNN HD , the HR 20 is always about 3 to 4 words behind the HR 10, is it the feed to or from two different sats that causes the delay ? I have been told the HR 10 reads from the hd first and the HR 20 is direct is that true and if so the HR 10 should be behind and not ahead , can any one shed some light on this one and might it be part of the late start that we get ?


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

Steve said:


> Just sat down to watch last nights "Criminal Minds" and the showing appeared to start about 15 seconds in to the story. Annoying because I checked another HR20 in the house, and that same showing only appeared to start about 5 seconds in, and those 10 seconds contained important plot info, believe it or not. (The condition of the victim's body.)
> 
> There was a difference between the 2 HR20s. The show that lost 15 seconds was recorded from CBS-DT OTA. The show that lost 5 seconds was local MPEG-4 CBS.





Drew2k said:


> As suggested, either the HR20's clock is wrong, or there's a delay from the time the HR20 is instructed to change channels to the time it actually begins recording that is causing this. I guess one way to confirm this is to record multiple shows back to back on the same channel and see if the shows do NOT suffer a delay ...


Precisely what I was going to add to my previous post before reading Drew's comments.

On the same HR20 upon which Crimininal Minds appeared to start 15 seconds late (CBS OTA), CSI:NY recorded perfectly in the next hour. A second or two of a Letterman promo, followed by the lead-in to CSI:NY. It ended perfectly too, including "scenes from the next episode" and a full promo for the news at 11.

Had there been a channel change, I probably would have missed the Letterman promo and part of the CSI:NY intro. This also tells me that Criminal Minds started at least 5 seconds "earlier" than GUIDE time, because a channel change into it couldn't have caused me to miss 15 seconds of it, which I believe I did. So the network was partly at fault as well, assuming CSI:NY started exactly at 10PM.

On the second HR20, recording WCBS MPEG-4, the CSI:NY recording started way early. I got all the Criminal Minds "scenes from the next episode", the full Letterman promo and the start of CSI:NY. It ended just at the start of the 11PM news promo.

*The time of day on both units was verified to be identical, both of them just 1/2 second behind "atomic" time.
*
/steve


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## drded (Aug 23, 2006)

One thing constantly being ignored in these discussions: Other than the Eastern time zones, all the network stations are relaying these programs on a delayed basis. I think it is very safe to assume that the local market stations are not as punctual as the network origination points. I've seen my local NBC station start Law & Order as much as a minute early some nights, same for my CBS affiliate which does not always start CSI at 8:00 on Thursdays.

No matter how much DirecTv or Tribune media fixes and fine tunes, the end result still won't take into account the local stations not being exactly on time. That is a problem I can't even imagine a solution for. Other than sports which are usually carried "live", everything else fed by the networks is delayed 1-2-3 hours from Eastern time, depending on zone and DST.

Dave


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

drded said:


> One thing constantly being ignored in these discussions: Other than the Eastern time zones, all the network stations are relaying these programs on a delayed basis. I think it is very safe to assume that the local market stations are not as punctual as the network origination points. I've seen my local NBC station start Law & Order as much as a minute early some nights, same for my CBS affiliate which does not always start CSI at 8:00 on Thursdays.
> 
> No matter how much DirecTv or Tribune media fixes and fine tunes, the end result still won't take into account the local stations not being exactly on time. That is a problem I can't even imagine a solution for. Other than sports which are usually carried "live", everything else fed by the networks is delayed 1-2-3 hours from Eastern time, depending on zone and DST.
> 
> Dave


drded,

If that was the problem in this case then it would start late on a Tivo and an HR2x. That's not what happened here and in my testing.


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## Scott J (Feb 14, 2007)

There have been numerious posts, on this topic, about varying network start times. The HRs have an issue that needs to be addressed.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

Ken S said:


> drded,
> 
> If that was the problem in this case then it would start late on a Tivo and an HR2x. That's not what happened here and in my testing.


My CBS OTA is from the Empire State Building in NY, from where the East Coast feed originates. It's the one that's copied by DirecTV to create the MPEG-4 East Coast local feed. Since both my HR20's have identical clocks, and the OTA feed was missing more of the start than the MPEG-4 feed, I can only conclude that CBS started the OTA feed a a couple of seconds early to allow the MPEG-4 conversion and retransmission to start on time.

Thinking out loud here.... The TiVo's record MPEG-2. The MPEG-4 signals always have to start a few seconds later than the TiVo recordings because of the conversion processing time required. If TiVo recordings are starting on time, that would mean that TiVo may actually start their recordings a bit BEFORE the hour.

I'll bet if Ken checks identical recordings, the TiVo recordings will always end sooner than the HRx recordings.

/steve


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

Scott J said:


> There have been numerious posts, on this topic, about varying network start times. The HRs have an issue that needs to be addressed.


So explain why, up until last night's CBS recordings, I haven't missed a show start in the past 6 weeks. Between the wife and I, we record and watch about 25-30 shows a week, I'm embarrassed to admit. /steve


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## photostudent (Nov 8, 2007)

I have an HR21, and the missed beginning on Criminal Minds really freaked my wife out last night. I find more and more plot "hooks" at the beginning of shows these days. Never had a late start with TiVo. The HR21 late starts seem to be getting more frequent and longer on my unit. I am sure the vast majority of DirectTV HR* users (who do not read this forum), are bewildered.


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

Steve said:


> My CBS OTA is from the Empire State Building in NY, from where the East Coast feed originates. It's the one that's copied by DirecTV to create the MPEG-4 East Coast local feed. Since both my HR20's have identical clocks, and the OTA feed was missing more of the start than the MPEG-4 feed, I can only conclude that CBS started the OTA feed a a couple of seconds early to allow the MPEG-4 conversion and retransmission to start on time.
> 
> Thinking out loud here.... The TiVo's record MPEG-2. The MPEG-4 signals always have to start a few seconds later than the TiVo recordings because of the conversion processing time required. If TiVo recordings are starting on time, that would mean that TiVo may actually start their recordings a bit BEFORE the hour.
> 
> ...


Steve,

Actually, that's not the case. For whatever reason I have had a problem with HR20 recordings actually ending early from time to time. This may be a network issue...I can't be sure.

The start late bug has effected all types of shows for me. I first noticed this issue on SD channels.

I have also noticed that when I had four HR20s set to record the same show that no two of them started recording at the same time or ended at the same time. There was as much as a 15 second span between them.

I can't do a Tivo/HR20 comparison any longer. We deactivated our T60.


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## Milominderbinder2 (Oct 8, 2006)

Don't these results basically prove that whatever is wrong with the HR20 is also wrong with the HR10?

I have been testing comparing to atomic clocks and the delay is 8-15 seconds depending on channel change, resolution change, and HDMI. I have gotten the same results on 2 HR20's and my one HR21.

As Steve has pointed out, you can resolve part of the problem on playback by pressing REPLAY and you can see a few seconds lost due to that delay. We have talked about that for months.

The other problem is due to the Start Late Bug: the time it takes the HR20 to change channel, change resolution, and open a recording file when the file was first recorded.

Let try these tests comparing the start time to atomic clocks. If you watch it as it starts recording you will see that delay is absolutely consistent.

- Craig


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## jwd45244 (Aug 18, 2006)

Just to throw a wrinkle into this:

I have not had a late start in months. My set up is Native Off and I use the Component HD cables to connect to my TV.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

Ken S said:


> Steve,
> 
> Actually, that's not the case. For whatever reason I have had a problem with HR20 recordings actually ending early from time to time. This may be a network issue...I can't be sure.
> 
> ...


My HR20's always seem to record the right length of time, no matter when starting. So if a recording appears to end early, it also appears to start early, like my CSI:NY example above (the one recorded MPEG-4). I got the whole show, but the recording could have started 45 seconds later and I still wouldn't have missed the beginning of the show.

/steve


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

Milominderbinder2 said:


> Don't these results basically prove that whatever is wrong with the HR20 is also wrong with the HR10?


Based on my Criminal Minds example above, I'm leaning more towards the networks being more at fault than I'd like to think. Two HR20's with clocks synced exactly equal and a 10 second difference between the start time of the CBS OTA feed vs. the MPEG-4 feed? I'm not inclined to blame the HR20's for that. Neither one of them got the exact beginning of the show, however, so I do blame the HR20s for the first 5 seconds.


> I have been testing comparing to atomic clocks and the delay is 8-15 seconds depending on channel change, resolution change, and HDMI. I have gotten the same results on 2 HR20's and my one HR21.


Start of recording off 8-15 seconds? Or Time of Day clocks off. I suspect the former. I definitely think that no matter what, DirectTV needs to start up the whole recording process at least 10 seconds earlier than it does now, maybe as much as 15 seconds. And I'm not talking about soft-padding. The whole process should just start earlier, IMO.


> The other problem is due to the Start Late Bug: the time it takes the HR20 to change channel, change resolution, and open a recording file when the file was first recorded.


Agree, except I'm pretty convinced now that changing resolution has no effect on recording, just playback. Channel change time is the biggest culprit, IMO. I believe Drew's right that the recording is just capturing data and not "interpreting" it.


> Let try these tests comparing the start time to atomic clocks. If you watch it as it starts recording you will see that delay is absolutely consistent.


Agree 100%. *If DirecTV can just ensure that the YELLOW record light goes on 1 second (atomic time) before the the recording is supposed to start, and that the recording runs for the allotted length of time, then we can blame the networks, instead of the HR20's.
*
Just my .02. /steve


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## Scott J (Feb 14, 2007)

If I could turn the clock forward one minute +/- on my HR20, I would probably resolve the late start problem about 90% regardless of what is causing the issue. This may not be a realistic solution, but from a layman's perspetive this is all I need.


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

Milominderbinder2 said:


> Don't these results basically prove that whatever is wrong with the HR20 is also wrong with the HR10?
> 
> I have been testing comparing to atomic clocks and the delay is 8-15 seconds depending on channel change, resolution change, and HDMI. I have gotten the same results on 2 HR20's and my one HR21.
> 
> ...


Craig,

I took four HR20s and recorded the same show on the same channel at the same time and no two of them started the recording at the same time. There was a span of 15 seconds between the first one starting and the last one starting. with the two others somewhere in the middle.

In normal viewing when I may record the same show on two or three DVRs (please bring MRV to the HR20!) the shows never start at the same time. I always rewind back as well.

The only absolutely consistent thing about this is that the HR20 rarely gets the very beginning of the shows I record. There are times it doesn't get started in time to catch the TV ratings symbol.

Off the top of my head the channels we record here:

Noggin, BBCA, Discovery, NBC (DirecTV feed), Fox (DirecTV feed).

Is every show starting late? No...but it's not a small percentage. BTW, I define starting late as not seeing the first frames of the show. In many cases it's the first couple words of dialog or narration. So, when we watch a show that has "Last week we learned that Laura.." The HR20 recording will start around "...that Laura".


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## Lee L (Aug 15, 2002)

Milominderbinder2 said:


> Don't these results basically prove that whatever is wrong with the HR20 is also wrong with the HR10?
> 
> .
> 
> - Craig


AllI know is that I had a HR10-250 for 3 years and I almost always got all of the shows I wanted to record. I switched to the HR20 October 19th and all of the sudden, 75% plus of my recordings are missing the beginning. I am recording the same shows at the same times as before. Both recievers are set up to *ONLY* output 1080i as my TV will only accept that. I have no naitive issue and this seems to affect shows record from 480i, 720p and 1080i sources pretty much equally.

Heck, I even can record shows back to back and I still miss 10 seconds of it. Something is clearly wrong with the logic of the HR20.

Prior to the HR10-250, I had a Dishplayer 7200 for 4 years and I never had any consistent issue with back to back recordings missing content on that machine. Plus, since Microsoft and Echostar actually thought it through the machine would even start the recording 1 minute early if the tuner was free to make sure you got it all.

Yes, sometimes networks start shows at odd times, but this is different.


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## Lee L (Aug 15, 2002)

Scott J said:


> If I could turn the clock forward one minute +/- on my HR20, I would probably resolve the late start problem about 90% regardless of what is causing the issue. This may not be a realistic solution, but from a layman's perspetive this is all I need.


No, this is not a realistic solution as the device would then mess up the end of the show.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

Lee L said:


> No, this is not a realistic solution as the device would then mess up the end of the show.


I agree. A minute isn't realistic, but 10-15 second is. The HR20 may not start on time, but when you tell it to record for 60 minutes, it does. I've checked it with a stop-watch. So I think it's a matter of finding the "sweet spot" for when the recording process (i.e., YELLOW LIGHT comes on) should begin. I think that ideally, DirecTV should shoot for 1 second before the GUIDE-indicated start time.

If the HR20 would just do that reliably, then any future problems will be due to network start times, not our h/w. Just my .02. /steve


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## dsm (Jul 11, 2004)

It seems to me there are several cases where the startup time of a recording may take longer. For example, if you leave your box on all the time, then part of starting a new recording could include wrapping up the live buffer recording. Also, if there is a recording or download going on that could slow things down. Could someone devise a test to see how long the box takes to start a recording under the different scenarios?

steve


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## mattbooty (Jul 19, 2007)

Lee L said:


> AllI know is that I had a HR10-250 for 3 years and I almost always got all of the shows I wanted to record. I switched to the HR20 October 19th and all of the sudden, 75% plus of my recordings are missing the beginning. I am recording the same shows at the same times as before. Both recievers are set up to *ONLY* output 1080i as my TV will only accept that. I have no naitive issue and this seems to affect shows record from 480i, 720p and 1080i sources pretty much equally.
> 
> Heck, I even can record shows back to back and I still miss 10 seconds of it. Something is clearly wrong with the logic of the HR20.
> 
> Yes, sometimes networks start shows at odd times, but this is different.


I am in the exact same situation. I got my HR20 in december and prior to that had never had an issue missing the beginning or ends of shows, now its a significant issue. And is still not an issue on the tivo as I can record the same show on both and watch the beginning of the show on Tivo, but not on the HR20.

Bottom Line: If you can plug a 10 and 20 into the same satellite and record the same program at the same time, 1 has the problem and 1 doesn't, then you've ruled out every variable except for the box, its basic debugging. I understand not everyone has the issue, but from reading these forums it seems pretty obvious that the HR20 is very good at creating problems that not everyone has (perhaps its a QC problem with subpar boxes leaving the facility, i don't know).

So what happens is you have 1 person with a box that either doesn't have this problem, or never notices the problem due to the types of programming he/she watches, then they run into an issue where they lose part of a recording due to programming change (which does happen, no one is denying that), and suddenly they think that must be the cause of everyone's problem, when it clearly isn't.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

dsm said:


> It seems to me there are several cases where the startup time of a recording may take longer. For example, if you leave your box on all the time, then part of starting a new recording could include wrapping up the live buffer recording. Also, if there is a recording or download going on that could slow things down. Could someone devise a test to see how long the box takes to start a recording under the different scenarios?


I have some free time this morning, so I've been fooling around setting up manual recordings and watching how long it takes for the YELLOW light to go on. So far I've tried SD and HD channels, HR20 in standby and HR20 "on". Results have been pretty consistent. On 4 different recordings, the YELLOW light appears to be going on about 5 second late, according to time.gov. Whether the recording is actually starting when the light goes on, I can't tell, because I haven't done it at the start of a show, just random start times. Based on this early test, at least a 5 second start of recording correction is needed.

I'm will try these tests both on a different HR20 and HR21 and report back. /steve


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

Just tried my HR21. I set it to record a different HD channel than the one I was viewing live. When I checked the INFO time of day, it was 5 seconds behind time.gov. The YELLOW light came on exactly 7 seconds late, so as far as the HR21 "internals" go, the recording started 2 seconds late.

I believe the HR21 has a slightly "faster" processor than the HR20, so I'm not surprised by this result. I am disappointed about the time of day difference tho. I'm going to restart the receiver to see if the clock adjusts at all.

/steve

*EDIT: RESTART did nothing to improve time of day accuracy. HR21 is still 7 seconds behind time.gov.*


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

Just tried a second HR20. Set it to record an OTA-HD channel while the unit was on. Time of day clock was off by 3 seconds. Recording started (Yellow light came on) 5 seconds behind.

There goes my theory that the HR21 has a faster processor. 

So I've currently got one HR20 that starts recordings 5 seconds late (according to time.gov) and 2 seconds late according to its internal clock, another HR20 that starts recordings 5 seconds late (according to time.gov) and 2 seconds late according to it's own time, and an HR21 that starts recordings 7 seconds late (according to time.gov), and 2 seconds late according to it's own time.

All 3 are consistently starting 2 seconds late according to their own clocks. Appears any other lost time is due to clock inaccuracy.

/steve


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## texasbrit (Aug 9, 2006)

Just to say: I have NINE MONTHS of testing for this issue, enough to eliminate all the variables, and:
Yes, there are cases where the guide is wrong, sometimes very wrong.
Yes, there are cases where the network does not start the program exactly when it should.
BUT: the HR20 (both versions) and the HR21 CONSISTENTLY start recording around 6 seconds later than the TiVo on exactly the same program (including when they are all recording SD). 
And NONE of this has anything to do with HD vs SD, with native on vs off, or with HDMI vs component - I have been able to do most of this testing with a projection CRT system, at a fixed resolution, with component cables. 

There has been lost of speculation about what the HR20/21 is doing during this six seconds or so of delay. We're not writing the code for the DVR so we don't really know. What is almost probably true is that starting this process early, as some people have suggested, is almost certainly NOT possible since it will almost inevitably screw up what that tuner is currently doing.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

texasbrit said:


> What is almost probably true is that starting this process early, as some people have suggested, is almost certainly NOT possible since it will almost inevitably screw up what that tuner is currently doing.


Not quite sure I understand. If the HR20 just set it's "internal" clock 6 seconds early, how might that screw-up the tuner? The recordings end 6 seconds earlier as well. As long as a 60 minute recording is actually 60 minutes (and recording length accuracy is NOT currently an issue according to my testing), it seems to me that it's just a matter of simply moving the whole process start point back some number of seconds in time, to match what the HR10 is doing.

/steve


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## texasbrit (Aug 9, 2006)

Steve said:


> Not quite sure I understand. If the HR20 just set it's "internal" clock 6 seconds early, how might that screw-up the tuner? The recordings end 6 seconds earlier as well. As long as a 60 minute recording is actually 60 minutes (and recording length accuracy is NOT currently an issue according to my testing), it seems to me that it's just a matter of simply moving the whole process start point back some number of seconds in time, to match what the HR10 is doing.
> 
> /steve


The problem is that the recordings are not necessarily ending six seconds early. My testing (lots of it) shows that the end times are very inconsistent. Sometimes the HR20 records for longer than the TiVo on the same program. 
Also, as some people believe is the case, if the HR20 will not start a recording until it has checked the guide data for the current program, this check would not happen until "time zero" anyway.

Without knowing exactly how the HR20 code works, it's pretty impossible to come up with a solution. All we can do is decide that there is a problem.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

texasbrit said:


> The problem is that the recordings are not necessarily ending six seconds early. My testing (lots of it) shows that the end times are very inconsistent. Sometimes the HR20 records for longer than the TiVo on the same program.
> Also, as some people believe is the case, if the HR20 will not start a recording until it has checked the guide data for the current program, this check would not happen until "time zero" anyway.
> 
> Without knowing exactly how the HR20 code works, it's pretty impossible to come up with a solution. All we can do is decide that there is a problem.


I guess that's where my testing shows different results. I only tried it once, but I actually let a one-hour show run through and timed it with a stop-watch and I measured exactly 60 minutes to the keep/delete pop-up. That show started late and ended late.

I'm guessing the times your HR20 ran longer than the TiVo on the same recording, those HR20 recording starts were later than the TiVo's, but only you can tell me that. 

I'll set up some shorter manual records and time those as a control. /steve
_
EDIT: This week's 'Til Death has 1:29 of "Back To You" at the beginning of the recording. I'm letting it play through now with a stopwatch on it. I'll report back. It's listed as a 60 minute recording._


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

Steve said:


> I guess that's where my testing shows different results. I only tried it once, but I actually let a one-hour show run through and timed it with a stop-watch and I measured exactly 60 minutes to the keep/delete pop-up. That show started late and ended late.
> 
> I'm guessing the times your HR20 ran longer than the TiVo on the same recording, those HR20 recording starts were later than the TiVo's, but only you can tell me that.
> 
> ...


Steve,

Back to You and Til Death... seem to be a network game because recording Back To You usually catches about 1:30 or so of Til Deah...A lot of times they don't run any commercials between the two shows.


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## bobcamp1 (Nov 8, 2007)

Ken S said:


> Craig,
> 
> IOff the top of my head the channels we record here:
> 
> ...


Noggin doesn't start on time on my Tivo S1 (connected to stand-alone DirecTV receiver via serial cable). They seem to be off a bit from time to time. Sometimes they are late, sometimes they are early. No problems with BBCA, though.

I haven't had a problem with any other channels -- they all start recording 5 to 10 seconds early. Pretty impressive considering its clock only gets updated every 30 hours. I've got the DirecTV banner turned off (I don't need it -- the Tivo banner is already there), so I can't tell what time the DirecTV receiver thinks it is. Maybe I'll turn it on tonight to see what happens.

I think Tivo shifts all the times (including the end times) up by 5 to 10 seconds to play it safe. On most shows, it's just commercials at the end anyway -- it's more important to make sure you catch the beginning of the show. On a couple of shows that have a last-second blurb after the credits, sometimes my Tivo misses that, so on those shows I add a minute of padding to the end. But I've never even thought of needing padding at the beginning.

Maybe the HR10s are doing the same thing as my S1, and the HR20s just need to copy them.


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## dreadlk (Sep 18, 2007)

Jeez you would think that Directv would just add a 20 second pad to the start of whatever time you set it to record and be done with this problem in one swift move. My Panasonic DVR from 4 years ago does this, I set it for 9pm and it spools on the HD at 8:59pm and starts recording at 8:59:30.
How hard can this be to do in the code?

Also another thing that is starting to annoy me is the FF command. It seems like it Revs up over the time it is running, making it very hard to judge when it will get to the point when you want to stop it. The 1x and 2x modes are so slow that they are almost useless and the 4x at full tilt seems to get faster as it progresses.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

dreadlk said:


> Jeez you would think that Directv would just add a 20 second pad to the start of whatever time you set it to record and be done with this problem in one swift move. My Panasonic DVR from 4 years ago does this, I set it for 9pm and it spools on the HD at 8:59pm and starts recording at 8:59:30.
> How hard can this be to do in the code?


Only problem with this type of "autopadding" is you can't do it if there are two recording on two different channels going on in the prior hour. That being said, we have a long-standing Wish List request to "*Autopad start and end times by a minute, when it won't cause a conflict.*" /steve


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

Ken S said:


> Back to You and Til Death... seem to be a network game because recording Back To You usually catches about 1:30 or so of Til Deah...A lot of times they don't run any commercials between the two shows.


Ya. I've seen them do this often. I thought it would be a good timing test case, tho, in reference to my response to *Texasbrit's* post.

Well it just finished timing it. I got 59 minutes, 59 seconds to the pop-up on my stop watch, so the one second disparity could just be due to my reflexes. And Fox knew what they were doing with the late start. I got 1:29 of "Back to You" and the whole first and second episode of "Til Death", but FOX anamorphically squeezed the last minute of "Til Death" so they could show the credits simultaneous with it, so they knew they needed to make up some time. The playback ended with 15 seconds of a commercial.

The whole point of this exercise was to verify that no matter what the start time, the HR20 is recording for the correct amount of time, so, IMO, it's just a matter of DirecTV finding the right HR20 recording start "sweet spot", similar to the way TiVo apparently finds it.

Now of course, someone who only taped "Back To You" will complain that the ending was cut-off and blame the HR20 for it, but that's obviously not the case here.

/steve


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## Drew2k (Aug 16, 2006)

I haven't forgotten about this ... I've been very busy the last couple of days but still have the programs in my playlists, so I'll be trying to get that watch out soon and take my timing measurements!


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

Drew2k said:


> I haven't forgotten about this ... I've been very busy the last couple of days but still have the programs in my playlists, so I'll be trying to get that watch out soon and take my timing measurements!


Thanks! 

Based on my timing of recording lengths being OK, it seems to me that this "fix" just needs to be an adjustment of about 10 seconds to the time a recording starts. It may not be perfect, but I think it will solve 99% of the "late starts" and make the HR20 comparable to the HR10 in that regard.

I think DirecTV also needs to come up with a better way to tweak time of day accuracy. Some days I'm spot on, some days I'm off by 5 seconds on the same unit, compared to *time.gov*. /steve


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## texasbrit (Aug 9, 2006)

Steve said:


> Thanks!
> 
> Based on my timing of recording lengths being OK, it seems to me that this "fix" just needs to be an adjustment of about 10 seconds to the time a recording starts. It may not be perfect, but I think it will solve 99% of the "late starts" and make the HR20 comparable to the HR10 in that regard.
> 
> I think DirecTV also needs to come up with a better way to tweak time of day accuracy. Some days I'm spot on, some days I'm off by 5 seconds on the same unit, compared to *time.gov*. /steve


I don't think this will work (as has been pointed out by other people before). First, the tuner can't start the new recording until the previous program on the same tuner has finished. To start a program early will either generate a conflict or will cut off the previous program ten seconds early. Second, from some of the other posts it seems the recording can't start until the HR20 has verified via the guide that it's the correct program, which can't easily be done until the guide "rolls over".

FYI, my testing seems to show that the displayed clock has nothing to do with the start time of the recording. I have seen situations in the past where the displayed clock is 45 seconds adrift of the "atomic clock" but recording still begins on time.

I am rerunning my timing tests later today and will post back.


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

Steve, A friend came over and we decided to do some timing. I had three HR20-700s recording Friday Night Lights in HD from NBC. All were series links and none of the TVs was tuned to that station beforehand or had any other scheduled recording going on before that show. We used a stopwatch for the timing. Rewound the shows to the beginning of the recording as best we could. All three units are on a UPS. Here's how it ended up.  Machine Start Total Record Time One 0:00 59:58 Two 0:04 60:00 Three 0:07 59:55  There was no consistency on start time, end time or length of recording other than all of them were off. I'm not going to suggest a fix. To do so without the knowledge of how they're system really works is just kind of foolish. I just want someone there to acknowledge the issue and fix it.


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## texasbrit (Aug 9, 2006)

Ken S said:


> Steve,
> 
> A friend came over and we decided to do some timing. I had three HR20-700s recording Friday Night Lights in HD from NBC. All were series links and none of the TVs was tuned to that station beforehand or had any other scheduled recording going on before that show.
> We used a stopwatch for the timing. Rewound the shows to the beginning of the recording as best we could. All three units are on a UPS.
> ...


Ken, your testing is in line with all my previous testing, which shows inconsistent start and end times, and duration. I am going to repeat it anyway on the current software. 
I completely agree with your last statement. We don't know how the system really works, and that's why I think suggesting a fix is not very valuable (I have made this comment several times).


----------



## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

Ugh sorry about the formatting above. I tried using a fixed fond and the Advanced editor to get things to line up..didn't work so well


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

texasbrit said:


> I don't think this will work (as has been pointed out by other people before). First, the tuner can't start the new recording until the previous program on the same tuner has finished. To start a program early will either generate a conflict or will cut off the previous program ten seconds early. Second, from some of the other posts it seems the recording can't start until the HR20 has verified via the guide that it's the correct program, which can't easily be done until the guide "rolls over".
> 
> FYI, my testing seems to show that the displayed clock has nothing to do with the start time of the recording. I have seen situations in the past where the displayed clock is 45 seconds adrift of the "atomic clock" but recording still begins on time.
> 
> I am rerunning my timing tests later today and will post back.


No. I mean start EVERYTHING 10 seconds early. Recordings will end 10 seconds early as well, but not a problem, as long as recording "length of time" is correct. IOW, if _everything _in the recording process is moved up about 10 seconds across the board, there will be no interfering with other recording time slots.

Now if, as Ken reports, durations are NOT consistent, then we're back to square one. The two one-hour recordings I checked were both one hour, give or take 1 second on one, so I don't know where we stand.

/steve


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

Ken S said:


> Steve, A friend came over and we decided to do some timing. I had three HR20-700s recording Friday Night Lights in HD from NBC. All were series links and none of the TVs was tuned to that station beforehand or had any other scheduled recording going on before that show. We used a stopwatch for the timing. Rewound the shows to the beginning of the recording as best we could. All three units are on a UPS. Here's how it ended up.  Machine Start Total Record Time One 0:00 59:58 Two 0:04 60:00 Three 0:07 59:55  There was no consistency on start time, end time or length of recording other than all of them were off. I'm not going to suggest a fix. To do so without the knowledge of how they're system really works is just kind of foolish. I just want someone there to acknowledge the issue and fix it.


Ken, I'm sure you checked, but just in case... is it possible that on the 59:55 recording the HR20 Playback start was not just miscued? I find this still randomly happens, and that there is often a few seconds of "show" available before the point where playback wants to start.

I'm thinking you checked this, but figured it doesn't hurt to ask.  /steve


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## texasbrit (Aug 9, 2006)

Here we go with some more test results. One SD TiVo, one HR20-700, one HR20-100, one HR21. All recording the same SD program on the same channel. All were switching tuners from a different SD channel.
Displayed clock (compared with "atomic clock").
SD TiVo - 1 to 2 seconds late 
HR20-700 - 3 seconds late
HR20-100 - 7 seconds late
HR21 - 5 seconds late

One hour recording, actual run time (no "miscues"):
SD TiVo - 60 minutes 1 second
HR20-700 - 59 minutes, 58 seconds
HR20-100 - 59 minutes, 56 seconds
HR21 - 60 minutes 1 second

Start recording times:
SD TiVo used as the benchmark
HR20-700 started 3 seconds later than SD TiVo
HR20-100 started 4 seconds later than SD TiVo
HR21 started 7 seconds later than SD TiVo

Finishing the recording 10 seconds early would have lost both the closing credits and part of the programming on the two HR20s, and the closing credits on the HR21.


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

Steve said:


> Ken, I'm sure you checked, but just in case... is it possible that on the 59:55 recording the HR20 Playback start was not just miscued? I find this still randomly happens, and that there is often a few seconds of "show" available before the point where playback wants to start.
> 
> I'm thinking you checked this, but figured it doesn't hurt to ask.  /steve


Steve,

We rewound (there's an old term) back to the beginning the best we can using pause and rewind to try and get every last frame.

I think there is an internal clock issue, but I don't think it's typical clock drift...I think there's something running that is screwing with the internal timekeeping. The problem may be exacerbated by a memory leak which would explain to some extent why different machines don't act the same way. But...once again...just wild guesses.


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## bobcamp1 (Nov 8, 2007)

texasbrit said:


> Finishing the recording 10 seconds early would have lost both the closing credits and part of the programming on the two HR20s, and the closing credits on the HR21.


Who cares about the closing credits? You aren't going to get it perfect -- you just want to capture the beginning of the show. And for shows that do have that little blurb on the end, you can always add a minute of padding. Not all shows do this. More and more are because it forces you to add the padding, which causes you to capture a minute of the next program, which counts as you watching it, etc.

Your results do show that the HR20/21 is slow out of the gate. Memory leaks cause odd behavior and reboots. Poor coding and/or an under-spec'd CPU would cause this kind of behavior.


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## texasbrit (Aug 9, 2006)

Ken S said:


> Steve,
> 
> We rewound (there's an old term) back to the beginning the best we can using pause and rewind to try and get every last frame.
> 
> I think there is an internal clock issue, but I don't think it's typical clock drift...I think there's something running that is screwing with the internal timekeeping. The problem may be exacerbated by a memory leak which would explain to some extent why different machines don't act the same way. But...once again...just wild guesses.


I've spent years writing and testing software for embedded computers (and that's basically what we have with the DVRs). I don't think this is a memory leak issue (although some of the others might be). My guess is that there are a number of asynchronous processes, all of which have to be complete before the DVR starts recording. All of these processes will have a minimum processing time (such as "change the channel and wait for the signal to stabilize"). Each process is running via a scheduler and the scheduler will behave differently each time you run it. Add to that the probability that the boxes do not have much processing power to spare (or are constrained by some other internal bandwidth issue) and you get the sort of behavior we see on the DVRs.


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

texasbrit said:


> I've spent years writing and testing software for embedded computers (and that's basically what we have with the DVRs). I don't think this is a memory leak issue (although some of the others might be). My guess is that there are a number of asynchronous processes, all of which have to be complete before the DVR starts recording. All of these processes will have a minimum processing time (such as "change the channel and wait for the signal to stabilize"). Each process is running via a scheduler and the scheduler will behave differently each time you run it. Add to that the probability that the boxes do not have much processing power to spare (or are constrained by some other internal bandwidth issue) and you get the sort of behavior we see on the DVRs.


texasbrit,

You could very well be correct on what the cause of the issue is. Without really seeing what's going on your educated guess is probably better than mine.


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## Milominderbinder2 (Oct 8, 2006)

Has anyone else noticed that when you start playing you are now very close to the beginning of the recording?

It used to be at least 6 seconds into the recording when playback began. So I still instictively press REPLAY twice every time we start playing back a recording. 

Now playback begins just a few frames late but never mroe than a second.

Can anyone else test and confirm this?

Thank You to whatever group is working on that!

- Craig


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

Milominderbinder2 said:


> Has anyone else noticed that when you start playing you are now very close to the beginning of the recording?
> 
> It used to be at least 6 seconds into the recording when playback began. So I still instictively press REPLAY twice every time we start playing back a recording.
> 
> ...


Craig,

On the latest CE I had it set to record Terminator last night.

When I started the playback it started with her racking the shotgun.

When I rewound it went all the way back to NFL on Fox with the Terminator countdown clock at 0:08

and it captured :10 seconds of the NFL on Fox countdown to the show.

I have seen where that it has been much less on other shows. This may have happened because I was watching the game earlier and hadn't changed channels.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

Ken S said:


> Craig,
> 
> On the latest CE I had it set to record Terminator last night.
> 
> ...


Agree. This is a problem that seems to come and go with each new CE cycle. I know when I've reported "miscued" recording starts in the past, the next CE usually cured the problem. So this is definitely something that can be "tweaked", especially since it's not an MPEG "I" or "Key" frame issue, since we're talking about the start of a recording.

It actually may not be miscuing, but a well-intentioned effort by DirecTV to start recordings earlier than scheduled, but cue PLAYBACK to the GUIDE start time. If the time of day clocks were always on atomic time, that actually might make sense. Since they're not, it's probably better to default to showing us everything that's there.

/steve


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## Drew2k (Aug 16, 2006)

It took forever jumping back and forth, but I finally finished comparing the start of recordings on the HR20 to the HR10. My results show the HR20s were approximately 6-7 seconds behind the same recordings on the HR10s.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

Drew2k said:


> It took forever jumping back and forth, but I finally finished comparing the start of recordings on the HR20 to the HR10. My results show the HR20s were approximately 6-7 seconds behind the same recordings on the HR10s.


Hate to ask this, but did the HR20 recordings run 6-7 seconds later at the other end? Maybe you can just spot-check a couple of them? /steve


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## jdspencer (Nov 8, 2003)

This is a good a place as any to mention what I've noticed. And that is the internal clock in my HR20-100s is 57 seconds slow. Bring up the Info screen and compare it with the internet or an atomic clock. My HR10 is 4 seconds slow. There is no place in setup to change this that I could find. The time is sent from the sats, so why would the HR10 and HR20 be so different?


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## Drew2k (Aug 16, 2006)

Steve said:


> Hate to ask this, but did the HR20 recordings run 6-7 seconds later at the other end? Maybe you can just spot-check a couple of them? /steve


I had to delete the recordings for space reasons, so that's my last test with these programs, but I should have posted that, sorry. It was very close to the same time difference on the end. In one case I thought I had only 5 seconds difference, but I chalked that up to sweep-hand fatigue!


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## jdspencer (Nov 8, 2003)

Okay, I restarted the HR20-100s and the time is now about 5 seconds fast.


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## Fish Man (Apr 22, 2002)

texasbrit said:


> I've spent years writing and testing software for embedded computers (and that's basically what we have with the DVRs). I don't think this is a memory leak issue (although some of the others might be). My guess is that there are a number of asynchronous processes, all of which have to be complete before the DVR starts recording. All of these processes will have a minimum processing time (such as "change the channel and wait for the signal to stabilize"). Each process is running via a scheduler and the scheduler will behave differently each time you run it. Add to that the probability that the boxes do not have much processing power to spare (or are constrained by some other internal bandwidth issue) and you get the sort of behavior we see on the DVRs.


As someone who has also spent years writing embedded software and firmware (much of it on embedded Linux and Unix), I think your description is just about perfect.

The fix, then, should be to schedule these tasks just a bit earlier.

I also think it would be appropriate to automatically pad the beginning and end of every recording by about 30 seconds, IF it doesn't cause a conflict with a recording on another channel.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

Fish Man said:


> As someone who has also spent years writing embedded software and firmware (much of it on embedded Linux and Unix), I think your description is just about perfect.
> 
> The fix, then, should be to schedule these tasks just a bit earlier.
> 
> I also think it would be appropriate to automatically pad the beginning and end of every recording by about 30 seconds, IF it doesn't cause a conflict with a recording on another channel.


Exactly my thoughts. If the whole "process" just started *Drew2k's* measured 6-7 earlier (and recorded for the correct duration), it won't be perfect, because the clock is often a few seconds off from "atomic" time, but I bet a large majority of the "late start" complaints would go away. Just my .02.

Regarding auto-padding, we do have a request on the Wish List to *AUTOPAD a minute at each end, when it won't cause a recording conflict*, so if you haven't already voted for it, please do so here. TIA. /steve

/steve


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## Milominderbinder2 (Oct 8, 2006)

You guys have done some great testing!

Also, I could not help but notice that this thread sparked a number of other threads documenting the start late bug.

both my HR20 and HR21 are off by 11+ seconds, according to US Naval Observatory Time

HR20 recording delay

Priority One HR20-100 Bug: Recordings start late

We know that DIRECTV often reads our posts and threads.

I hope that all of your hard work caught their eye!

- Craig


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## dreadlk (Sep 18, 2007)

Same thing I said a page ago. One gets the feeling that with such a simple fix and so many complaints, yet nothing gets done that someone or some group is not interested in us having perfect recordings. Every recording problem that the HR20 has had from the start is still here, and seems like it will never gets fixed.

The Late Recording Start Bug

The Repeats Versus New Episode Problem

The Missing Recording Problem

The Out Of Sync Audio issue which is a lot worst on recordings.

All of this makes me very uncertain that the unit will record and leaves me in the posistion of always watching live TV when the show is important, rather than take a chance.



Steve said:


> Exactly my thoughts. If the whole "process" just started *Drew2k's* measured 6-7 earlier (and recorded for the correct duration), it won't be perfect, because the clock is often a few seconds off from "atomic" time, but I bet a large majority of the "late start" complaints would go away. Just my .02.
> 
> Regarding auto-padding, we do have a request on the Wish List to *AUTOPAD a minute at each end, when it won't cause a recording conflict*, so if you haven't already voted for it, please do so here. TIA. /steve
> 
> /steve


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

Milominderbinder2 said:


> You guys have done some great testing!
> 
> Also, I could not help but notice that this thread sparked a number of other threads documenting the start late bug.
> 
> ...


Craig,

Except threads like this have been posted here since at least March of 2007 and we haven't seen any real progress. Well, there are fewer people that say they're not experiencing the problem...but that's about it.

I'm sure this isn't an easy fix for someone...but it really should be a high priority.


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## Lee L (Aug 15, 2002)

I still think that the main difference is because DirecTV has always made satellite receivers until now. Devices made to watch live TV. 

On the other hand, TiVo was made from the beginning as a device to record shows and watch recorded shows and therefore more thought was put into those functions. In fact, as an add on device they had to be that much better or people would just pass (and lots did anyway).


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## Drew2k (Aug 16, 2006)

Milominderbinder2 said:


> You guys have done some great testing!
> 
> Also, I could not help but notice that this thread sparked a number of other threads documenting the start late bug.
> 
> ...


Thanks Craig. As I said earlier, I am only one of the most recent posters to start a thread on this topic, in my case inspired by a comment from a poster in the Wish List thread. I'm hopeful that continued discussion on the topic will result in eventual software updates to correct this ...


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## jdspencer (Nov 8, 2003)

Anyone remember the time problem a couple of years ago where the DirecTV TiVo internal clock would be different based on the transponder that was tuned at the time? DirecTV eventually got things in sync. 

I'm wondering how often the HR20s update their internal clocks? As I said above, my HR20's clock resynced with a restart. So now I'll be watching for divergence of the time.


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## Drew2k (Aug 16, 2006)

jdspencer said:


> Anyone remember the time problem a couple of years ago where the DirecTV TiVo internal clock would be different based on the transponder that was tuned at the time? DirecTV eventually got things in sync.
> 
> I'm wondering how often the HR20s update their internal clocks? As I said above, my HR20's clock resynced with a restart. So now I'll be watching for divergence of the time.


I remember what you're talking about from discussions at TiVo Community Forum, and I've brought that point up a few times here in various threads. However, no one can seem to find the reference from TCF to back this up ...


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

Here's a 2006 thread from the Tivo Community forum similar to this one. A bunch of SD DirecTiVo users complaining about late starts, clock errors and inconsistent recording lengths. Sound familiar? 

What's different, though (and to *jdspencer's* point), is they seem to think that the Sat clocks that the TiVo's are sync'd from are off... and not the units themselves.

If in fact incorrect HR2x TOD is a transponder clock problem, I wonder why it's so difficult to keep the sat's "on time"? Is it an inherent problem with the technology? And if different units are sync'ing to different transponders, how will we ever be able to debug a "time of day" accuracy problem? /steve


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

Steve said:


> Here's a 2006 thread from the Tivo Community forum similar to this one. A bunch of SD DirecTiVo users complaining about late starts, clock errors and inconsistent recording lengths. Sound familiar?
> 
> What's different, though (and to *jdspencer's* point), is they seem to think that the Sat clocks that the TiVo's are sync'd from are off... and not the units themselves.
> 
> If in fact incorrect HR2x TOD is a transponder clock problem, I wonder why it's so difficult to keep the sat's "on time"? Is it an inherent problem with the technology? And if different units are sync'ing to different transponders, how will we ever be able to debug a "time of day" accuracy problem? /steve


Steve,

If that was the issue why now would the Tivo units be starting on time and the HR2x units not be? Same show = same transponder. It also wouldn't explain why two HR2xs don't start at the same time or record for the same period of time.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

Ken S said:


> Steve,
> 
> If that was the issue why now would the Tivo units be starting on time and the HR2x units not be? Same show = same transponder. It also wouldn't explain why two HR2xs don't start at the same time or record for the same period of time.


True, and I'm not saying this is the case, but it could be an indication that the transponders the DirecTivo's pull T.O.D. from are more accurate time-wise than the ones the HR2x's pull from, if they're not the same transponders.

That thread also brings up the possibility that like the HR2x's, the DirecTivo's may not always record for the exact length of time they are supposed to. I never put a stop-watch to my HR10's to check recording length while I had them.

/steve


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## Drew2k (Aug 16, 2006)

Steve said:


> Here's a 2006 thread from the Tivo Community forum similar to this one. A bunch of SD DirecTiVo users complaining about late starts, clock errors and inconsistent recording lengths. Sound familiar?
> 
> What's different, though (and to *jdspencer's* point), is they seem to think that the Sat clocks that the TiVo's are sync'd from are off... and not the units themselves.
> 
> If in fact incorrect HR2x TOD is a transponder clock problem, I wonder why it's so difficult to keep the sat's "on time"? Is it an inherent problem with the technology? And if different units are sync'ing to different transponders, how will we ever be able to debug a "time of day" accuracy problem? /steve


Thanks for finding this Steve! You're too good! :up:


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## Drew2k (Aug 16, 2006)

Ken S said:


> Steve,
> 
> If that was the issue why now would the Tivo units be starting on time and the HR2x units not be? Same show = same transponder. It also wouldn't explain why two HR2xs don't start at the same time or record for the same period of time.


Ken, the theory was that the clock is constantly syncing in the background based on the 'current' channel tuned to, receiving clock time from the transponder currently in use. If the transponders had the wrong time, then the DVR clock becomes wrong, which causes recordings to not start on time. The next channel change (when the recording starts) should cause a new sync with the time from the new transponder being used, but that would only affect future recordings, assuming the new transponder has the right time.


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## jdspencer (Nov 8, 2003)

Thanks for finding that TCF thread. There are others, but that one tells the story. My HR20 is now about 10 seconds slower than when I last posted. I suspect that the HR20 doesn't sync with the sat clock often enough (if ever until a restart is performed) and it drifts internally.


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## rebkell (Sep 9, 2006)

I've got two HR20-100's and one of them is 45 seconds behind and the other is a full minute behind real time. I have recordings set to record a minute early and they start on time. That's pretty pathetic.


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## Tom Robertson (Nov 15, 2005)

Some other points:
1) some shows, especially comedies end after the credits with one last funny bit. 

2) A long time ago I could repeatedly see the HR20 lag by almost a minute and correct at least once per day. Things have improved greatly! 

3) I'd like to see someone do a split screen of an HR20 already tuned to a channel against an HR20 that has to change the channel, preferably involving a major satellite and transponder switch. That could proving interesting and allow us to see when the show actually started against time.gov

4) Very few locations actually do their own delay of network feeds. They almost all use one of the two other network re-feeds, appropriate for their timezone. (That said, I happen to live in a state where most of the prime time is locally recorded, edited, and then retransmitted within an hour.)

Cheers,
Tom


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## photostudent (Nov 8, 2007)

_Quote:
Originally Posted by Milominderbinder2 
You guys have done some great testing!

Also, I could not help but notice that this thread sparked a number of other threads documenting the start late bug.

both my HR20 and HR21 are off by 11+ seconds, according to US Naval Observatory Time

HR20 recording delay

Priority One HR20-100 Bug: Recordings start late

We know that DIRECTV often reads our posts and threads.

I hope that all of your hard work caught their eye!

- Craig _
Actually , does anyone not have these problems? If it is only some of us, then it must be our units, and we could ask for a replacement. If it is everyone then it must be a major glitch that Directv can't fix.


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## Lee L (Aug 15, 2002)

photostudent said:


> _Quote:
> Originally Posted by Milominderbinder2
> You guys have done some great testing!
> 
> ...


Well, there are some people who, due to whatever circumstances of thier systems and recordings have either not had the problem or not noticed it. However, I seriously doubt something like this is the result of a few wonky receivers.


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## jdspencer (Nov 8, 2003)

Since my HR20 seemed to resync after a restart, but it is drifting again. Right now its 17 seconds slow. Therefore, it looks like the unit doesn't update from the satellite that often. Thendepending on how well the internal clock keeps time, you could see it drifting slow or even fast.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

jdspencer said:


> Since my HR20 seemed to resync after a restart, but it is drifting again. Right now its 17 seconds slow. Therefore, it looks like the unit doesn't update from the satellite that often. Thendepending on how well the internal clock keeps time, you could see it drifting slow or even fast.


Internal clocks on modern motherboards rarely drift much anymore, as far as I can tell from the 4 or 5 computers I regularly use. Maybe 1-2 seconds a day at most, I'd guess. Are you sure the HR2x's might not be updating via the sat more often than you think, and that the transponder time may be off? Just throwing it out there as a possibility. /steve


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## jdspencer (Nov 8, 2003)

Not sure why it slows down, but it does it.
The transponders issue may indeed be back.

See this newer thread on a way to resync the clock other the the reboot.
http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=116210


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

The latest round of HR-2x CE's promises improved "clock round-up", so we'll have to keep an eye on recording start times this week. I suspect it has to do with the GUIDE's clock, which I think I remember someone saying rounded-up in 30 second increments? I could be totally mis-remembering that, however.  /steve


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## Milominderbinder2 (Oct 8, 2006)

Steve said:


> The latest round of HR-2x CE's promises improved "clock round-up", so we'll have to keep an eye on recording start times this week. I suspect it has to do with the GUIDE's clock, which I think I remember someone saying rounded-up in 30 second increments? I could be totally mis-remembering that, however.  /steve


Did it help?

- Craig


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## Kojo62 (Aug 9, 2007)

Thank you to Drew2K for taking so much time to test and document this issue. It's a problem that I've noticed ever since I first got my HR20 back in October. I never have this issue with my older DirecTiVo unit, which is my only basis of comparison.

On top of that, I'm convinced my HR20 also suffers from "clock drift," where it gets progressively later over time. It's caused me to get into the habit of doing a Reset periodicaly, just to try to coax the clock to resync itself. I think even simply offering a Setup menu option for manual clock adjustments would go a long way towards helping the user deal with this.

Hopefully, these are issues that D* will be able to confirm and correct, _whatever_ the proper fix may be.


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## Drew2k (Aug 16, 2006)

Steve said:


> The latest round of HR-2x CE's promises improved "clock round-up", so we'll have to keep an eye on recording start times this week. I suspect it has to do with the GUIDE's clock, which I think I remember someone saying rounded-up in 30 second increments? I could be totally mis-remembering that, however.  /steve





Milominderbinder2 said:


> Did it help?
> 
> - Craig


We really shouldn't be discussing CE results outside of the CE forum, but I will say that my first several recordings made under this CE, without padding, all started on time, with none of the show cut off on either end.  :up:

I'll do some more testing with the HR10 to measure against and will report back later ....


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## Drew2k (Aug 16, 2006)

Kojo62 said:


> Thank you to Drew2K for taking so much time to test and document this issue. It's a problem that I've noticed ever since I first got my HR20 back in October. I never have this issue with my older DirecTiVo unit, which is my only basis of comparison.


Thanks, Kojo, but I'm just one of many who has been bringing up this topic, and hopefully the community has shed enough light on this issue that the changes currently being tested will prove to be worthy of a national release soon.


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## Kojo62 (Aug 9, 2007)

Drew2k said:


> Thanks, Kojo, but I'm just one of many who has been bringing up this topic, and hopefully the community has shed enough light on this issue that the changes currently being tested will prove to be worthy of a national release soon.


Apologies, since I shouldn't have excluded others who made contribution in resolving this issue. I just appreciate the detail you put into your presentation here. But certainly, thanks to all actively involved in this.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

Milominderbinder2 said:


> Did it help?
> 
> - Craig


So far, 3 out of 4 recordings I checked starte "on time", but the majority of my recording were starting OK before this CE, so I want to give it some more time. Even after switching time zones in set-up and reverting back to "auto", two of my INFO bar clocks are sitll 5 seconds behind "atomic' time, but I don't know if that's what D* uses to start the recordings, given the difference in the way the GUIDE clock updates. /steve


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## jdspencer (Nov 8, 2003)

Since my last restart, my HR20 has drifted to be 15s slow. 

Anyone know how often the unit updates its clock?
I would think it should do an update every time it gets new guide data.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

Should probably combine these threads, but until the, I thought this post from the other thread might be of interest here as well:



steve said:


> jwd45244 said:
> 
> 
> > A question I have is that are we seeing the start late on Standard Network (NBC, CBS, etc.) content or others? I have an OTA connection and DirecTV is delivering my locals via Satellite. I used my TV and split screened my local NBC over the Sat and over the Antenna and I found about an 8 second difference (this is using my H20). Using my HR20 The difference is over 10 seconds.
> ...


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## Lee L (Aug 15, 2002)

I only record OTA locals when I can help it because the MPEG 4 locals from DirecTV do not look as good. I often miss the beginning of OTA recorded shows.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

Lee L said:


> I only record OTA locals when I can help it because the MPEG 4 locals from DirecTV do not look as good. I often miss the beginning of OTA recorded shows.


Interesting. On my 50" Fujitsu 768p plasma, I see no difference in PQ between MPEG-4 and MPEG-2 OTA PQ from my normal viewing distances, about 8'-10' away. With my glasses on, my corrected vision is about 20-15. I wonder if you are either using a 1080p display, or sitting closer to the screen than I am?

I like recording OTA for two reasons. As back-up to Sat signal loss and for smoother trickplay for sporting events. /steve


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

Gordon Ramsay's F Word recorded Sunday on two HR20s...one NR one CE.

NR: Started later and ended on time
CE: Started ontime and ended on time

Chuck recorded on Saturday (NBC Aff here pushed it to Saturday because of Presidential Debate)
NR1: Stated late ended early
NR2: Started on time ended early, but better than NR #1
CE: Started on time ended early. same as NR #2

Definition of Starting On Time: None of the show missed and not more than a second or two of the previous program/commercials

Definition of Ending On Time: None of the show missed (including audio).

For some reason at the very end of a show before the Keep/Delete box pops up I lose about a second of audio.


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## Lee L (Aug 15, 2002)

Steve said:


> Interesting. On my 50" Fujitsu 768p plasma, I see no difference in PQ between MPEG-4 and MPEG-2 OTA PQ from my normal viewing distances, about 8'-10' away. With my glasses on, my corrected vision is about 20-15. I wonder if you are either using a 1080p display, or sitting closer to the screen than I am?
> 
> I like recording OTA for two reasons. As back-up to Sat signal loss and for smoother trickplay for sporting events. /steve


I have an old school 46" CRT RPTV with component only and we are just under 10 feet from it. (though I am replacing with a 58 inch 1080p plasma that we will be about 11 feet from in a couple of weeks.)

I will say it is not much of a difference, but I can tell in less than a minute if we recorded off the Mpeg 4 or the OTA now that I know what happens. Mostly the backgrounds are the issue. The foreground looks the same from what I can see, but backgrounds that are more or less the same color have posterization problems that tend to cause flashing blocks. It does not bother my wife, though she can see it when I point it out.

It will be interesting when we get the bigger TV to see if it is more or less prevalent.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

Lee L said:


> I have an old school 46" CRT RPTV with component only and we are just under 10 feet from it. (though I am replacing with a 58 inch 1080p plasma that we will be about 11 feet from in a couple of weeks.)
> 
> I will say it is not much of a difference, but I can tell in less than a minute if we recorded off the Mpeg 4 or the OTA now that I know what happens. Mostly the backgrounds are the issue. The foreground looks the same from what I can see, but backgrounds that are more or less the same color have posterization problems that tend to cause flashing blocks. It does not bother my wife, though she can see it when I point it out.
> 
> It will be interesting when we get the bigger TV to see if it is more or less prevalent.


Strange. Sounds like you're experiencing macroblocking, but I thought CRT's were immune to that. At any rate, I'm sure you're gonna absolutely love your new 58" plasma. Congrats! /steve


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## AltaLomaDon (Jan 20, 2008)

I have been trying to get answers on the late start of my two 21-700's with no better success than you are having. I do find that the clocks drift with time, always getting slower, and the slower they are, the more I miss. Yesterday my two units were slow y 20 and 29 seconds. After a reset they were within one second of each other and atomic time. However the clocks are supposed to be sync'ed, its not happening. I now reset every 2 to 3 days in hopes of catching most of the program starts


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

Things are looking up with the latest CE, 0x0229. On both my HR20-700 and HR21-700, spot-checked recordings all appear to be starting a second or two before the true show start. As you can see by clicking on the attached thumbnail, last night's 12:35 AM recording of Without A Trace actually started recording at about 12:34:57. (The "Sleepy's" clock on-screen actually flipped to 12:35 right before the show started, so I was able to time it.)

That being said, I still often experience miscued PLAYBACK starts, and I have to hit REPLAY a couple of times to find the true recording start. Sometimes hitting REPLAY once too often will actually jump me forward about 30 seconds into the buffer. RWX1 is a much more reliable way to find the true start, but instinctively, my thumb always seems to want to find REPLAY.  /steve


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## jdspencer (Nov 8, 2003)

Any idea when the latest CE will go NR?


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

jdspencer said:


> Any idea when the latest CE will go NR?


0x0229 is the 9th in a new CE cycle for the HR20, and only the 2nd in a new CE cycle for the HR-21, so probably sooner for the HR20 than the HR21.

That being said, there are still other unresolved issues being reported under these CE's that make them not quite ready for "prime time", IMHO. (E.g., "blank" recordings, or recordings being deleted because of "1002" errors.)

/steve


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## jdspencer (Nov 8, 2003)

I can wait.


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## Lee L (Aug 15, 2002)

Steve said:


> 0x0229 is the 9th in a new CE cycle for the HR20, and only the 2nd in a new CE cycle for the HR-21, so probably sooner for the HR20 than the HR21.
> 
> That being said, there are still other unresolved issues being reported under these CE's that make them not quite ready for "prime time", IMHO. (E.g., "blank" recordings, or recordings being deleted because of "1002" errors.)
> 
> /steve


Well, it is not like the blank recordings are only in the CEs.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

Lee L said:


> Well, it is not like the blank recordings are only in the CEs.


Point well taken... unfortunately!  /steve


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## rawilson (Oct 9, 2007)

Since we've been having trouble with our Tivo-based R10, we've begrudgingly been using our HR20. We are also seeing just about every recording start late...seems to be almost a minute simetimes. Very annoying.


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## Rocker07 (Jul 1, 2007)

rawilson said:


> Since we've been having trouble with our Tivo-based R10, we've begrudgingly been using our HR20. We are also seeing just about every recording start late...seems to be almost a minute simetimes. Very annoying.


Yes VERY annoying


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

Might be helpful if you guys could post some specific examples of shows that started recording late, unless you've simultaneously recorded them on a DirecTiVo and know for sure that the TiVo caught the entire start of the show.

I say this because I've been tracking this pretty closely, and I find my 3 HR20's are just about spot-on in terms of recording starts, usually starting a second or two before the actual show start. OTOH, more often than not, my two HR21's appear to start recordings about 5 seconds late.

/steve


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## bmerrow (Jul 26, 2007)

Medium and Dexter have a pattern of late starts. Comedy Central has a pattern of late starts combined with ending funny (that means sometimes early, sometimes late).


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

bmerrow said:


> Medium and Dexter have a pattern of late starts. Comedy Central has a pattern of late starts combined with ending funny (that means sometimes early, sometimes late).


As you probably know, anything on CBS on Sunday night will generally not start on-time depending on that day's sports programming. IIRC, last week was the first time in months _Cold Case_ started when it should have. I normally record _Cold Case_ with a 1-hour pad on the back-end.

My _Medium _ (4/28) HR20 recording started a second before the start of the show, but 5 seconds late on both my HR21's. /steve


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