Manual Programming

[puka0001]

I recently noticed that when I have two manually recorded shows recording at about the same time slot, only one will run. Other shows that coincide about the same time but are not manually set will record. My system uses a Hauppauge 500mce with Windows XPmce so the two tuners should record without any problems. It does not generate any Snapstream time conflict errors that i'm aware of. Has anyone else run into this problem?

It would be nice if Snapstream could include the following features:

1) An option to view any conflicts in programming an anytime so we can do any necessary adjustments to resolve them. That way we can tweak our start times rather than just changing priorties at the time of programming. Sometimes just changing priorties may correct that initial problem but might be causing other conflicts which you may not be aware of, unless you have an option to double check for any other conflicts that might create.

2) It would be nice if you could go back and edit the title of your manually created program. Sometimes the series ends and another starts in that same time slot but you have to delete the old program and create a new one with the same specs but just a different name.

3) The ability to input a specific start or stop time rather than 15 minute intervals. Instead of 10:15, we might want 10:18. I know there are time padding available but you could avoid that if we could specify our exact start time. Currently if you use time padding it is limited to 5 minutes and if you need more than that you have to specify start xx minutes +/- and end xx minutes +/-.

4) It would be nice if Web Admin could be an option to add during setup. That would eliminate a lot of questions new users have as to how to get to it.

5) The ability to view our start and stop times we inputed in our manual progrmming and the option to change them.

Question --- if you have padding set to 5 minutes and on your specific program you had it start 10 minutes earlier, does this mean it will really start 15 minutes early? Sometimes I swear the program is supposed to start 10 minutes earlier but it actually starts 5 minutes instead so I lose the start of the program. I increase the start time a few minutes more and it still records short. Its like the padding entry overrides the late start entry. Ended up deleting the program and reprogramming it with a much earlier start time and now I have a huge block of unwanted recording before I get to what I want to watch. Fortuantely the harddrive is large enough to accomadate the additional storage demands but if i'm not able to clear out my default storage folder daily, it would easily overflow and start deleting earlier entries.

Oh and yes I have not upgraded to the latest version of BTV as yet. Tried it on a backup drive and it totally dropped response time to an unmanageable crawl. I actually got a 100% cpu usage warning from windows. The first time i've ever seen that happen.

Aaarrgghhh... time for a cold one.

[jwhitmire]

Originally Posted by puka0001

3) The ability to input a specific start or stop time rather than 15 minute intervals. Instead of 10:15, we might want 10:18. I know there are time padding available but you could avoid that if we could specify our exact start time. Currently if you use time padding it is limited to 5 minutes and if you need more than that you have to specify start xx minutes +/- and end xx minutes +/-.

This is huge for me. I'm recording homeschool material for my kids, and often the time does not start or stop on 15 minute increments. It is ok if there is not another one starting right away, but if one class stops at 2:05, and the next class starts at 2:05 then I have a big problem. Can somebody please address this for me? Is there any way to edit the schedules programmatically or in a file/registry so I could adjust it to what I need?

[Cal]

Read the FAQ and the Manual. use the Web admin to set it to the exact min you want.

[Rich A]

Originally Posted by Cal

Read the FAQ and the Manual. use the Web admin to set it to the exact min you want.

A while back I was running the Windows XP MCE 2005 full install with the MCE options so I could record HDTV OTA. I also had Beyond TV installed and running at the same time to handle cable PVR duties with two PVR-x50s.

I had many instances of conflicts showing up similiar to what you have. I then removed the MCE and installed it in a second PC running as a dedicated HD PVR, leaving the BTV system in a normal XP Pro environment (no MCE) All problems went away.

I know others have had success running both the MCE PVR and BTV at the same time, but I never found the magic combination. If you have it enabled try turning it off (the MCE app). (I think I still had problems then ??)

The MCE worked fine (I didn't like it though) by itself. As did the SS applications. This could have had something to do with the fact that I was running an ATI HDTV Wonder with both inputs active (Digital and Analog) in MCE which required some special confuration. Possibly all very unique to my situation. YMMV.