NBC is messing with PVR users again

[DonK]

FYI folks, you might want to consider adding more padding and watching the actual start/end times for any NBC shows... I recorded Chuck and Heroes tonight and of course, the times were off, and my BTV server has it's time adjusted to atomic clocks every 240 minutes (yes, every 4 hours, JUST to be sure, even though it's clock is very accurate).

And my system is set to have 2 minutes of padding, and Heroes had already started when the padding kicked in, within the first minute of the show. Also, Journeyman showed 8:58pm to 10:01pm. Do the math... even with 2 mins of padding something's off.

Stupid NBC.... grrrrr (FYI it's not just us that it affects, Tivo users got hit by the same thing)

[pwlong]

Thanks for the heads-up -- padding adjusted.

[Nick Burns]

I used to have a 2min global padding and I believe sometime last week I set it to 3min. I hope it's enough!

[nanook105]

Even with all of my tuners, I set global padding to 4

[ZetaVu]

Fox was off as well, Prison Break ended on the hour as my tuner switched to nbc, I did not get the next week feature. Switched to Heroes as it was just starting the previously. THen cut off the last 10 seconds and next week as it switched to journeyman. Chuck recorded fine on my other tuner, with the 1 minute padding, but this tuner switched on the hour for continuous recordings, no padding. The one minute padding should have been fine for Heroes, Journeyman finished within the hour as it switched to Daily Show.

[Mistergq]

I used to have a 5 minute padding. I then dropped it down to 3 minutes, maybe I should go to 4 to be on the safe side?

[RiderFan]

I don't have any padding and I have never missed the start/end of any shows that I can remember. I live in Canada so maybe that's why.

[myktek]

those bastards! ! !

[Bigbird999]

What Rider said!!!

BB

[Rich A]

I have a question for those of you who are getting wrong times. Let's take "ER" for a good example. Can you tell me what your guide says for starting time for this upcoming episode (Thursday Oct. 4th) ??

I wonder if the problem is simply your cable provider? I don't do any kind of padding to fix start or stop time problems They just don't exist for me .. I do pad the end of sports events in case they run over.

Now some years ago we had this big discussion about ER. And for several months I noticed the preceding show ran over around one minute and then ER started a minute late. My GUIDE was saying ER started at 10:00 PM. When in fact it started at 10:01.

After fooling with padding a while as a temporary fix, a few weeks later the GUIDE suddenly became accurate. And ever since then when a show starts or stops at an odd time it reflects the same in my guide. And I subsequently have never had to enable any padding. Now I just let the guide set the start stop times because they are now correct.

For example this weeks show prior to ER is on MY guide showing that it stops at 10:01. Not 10:00. And ER accordingly shows as starting at 10:01, not 10:00. And that's how the BTV recording engine will handle it. Starting and stopping both shows at their actual times.

So if your GUIDE shows this week's ER as starting at 10:00 it's WRONG. Get on SnapStream's case to contact their guide provider for your area and have them get it right.

It seems those guys in Canada are getting accurate guide information. As am I here as well. No padding required. What does YOUR guide say?

[cfaslave]

Originally Posted by Rich A

It seems those guys in Canada are getting accurate guide information. As am I here as well. No padding required. What does YOUR guide say?

When I read this today I was a little curious so I went back to check. My guide data seemed to have the correct times for NBC. My start times were all one minute after the hour like 7:01pm for instance.

[Bigbird999]

Like Rich's EPG, those 61 min shows end at 10:01 in my guide. The only issue I have is that I have a single tuner and BTV won't let me record a show on a different channel .if it overlaps even 1 min with the previous show. I know the answer is more tuners but that means more STBs etc so I live with the issue.

BB

[DonK]

The guide is inconsistent for nbc. I've seen the 1min difference in the guide but the shows aren't starting where the guide says they are.

[Rich A]

Originally Posted by DonK

The guide is inconsistent for nbc. I've seen the 1min difference in the guide but the shows aren't starting where the guide says they are.

Well that really is weird. No matter what the time is listed in the guide, everyone should be seeing the live broadcast at the same time. At least if they are in the same time zone anyway.

All I can say is that I don't use padding and ER and the other shows with odd times are always fully recorded.

[nanook105]

Originally Posted by DonK

The guide is inconsistent for nbc. I've seen the 1min difference in the guide but the shows aren't starting where the guide says they are.

After all these years of using BTV, I've never had a show start at a different time than what is in the guide - that is just strange