# Adjusting the Tivo clock manually



## az1097

Is there any way to manually adjust the Tivos clock on HD and Premiere units? My shows often record off by a minute or so. Any help? Thanks.


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## mr.unnatural

The clock signal is sent to the Tivo by your provider. There is no manual adjustment AFAIK. This is the very reason why most people pad their recordings. Adding several minutes at the beginning and end of every recording eliminates any clock errors and ensures that you record the entire program.


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## lpwcomp

mr.unnatural said:


> The clock signal is sent to the Tivo by your provider.


No it isn't. It is set during the daily "call". One of the first things it does is get the time from a time server.


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## mr.unnatural

lpwcomp said:


> No it isn't. It is set during the daily "call". One of the first things it does is get the time from a time server.


You're right. I knew one of the first thing that happens when a Tivo connects to the mothership is to set the clock. The fact is that the clock is set automatically with no operator intervention. I just misrepresented the source. I've been without a Tivo for some time now so I was probably thinking back to the days when certain VCRs would sync their clocks with local PBS stations.


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## philhu

Padding each show to fix this is an unreasonable solution. Unless you can change it so we can auto pad the ending of a show in seconds, NOT minutes and autoadjust start time in seconds. Like, autopad 20 seconds, autostart 20 seconds late.

Current Padding model causes back-to-back nightmares and missed recordings due to the pad. A full minute is a HUGE amount of time to fix a seconds problem. The granularity is to low. It makes the whole situation unreasonable.

Many are experiencing this problem. Alot of us think it IS a provider uissue caused by delays in signal reception, then signal processing, etc, each adding time to the delay.

I've watched a show direct off an antenna and off my cable, same channel and found the signal delay can be upwards of 8 SECONDS

The same channel shows Bloomberg overnight. The delay to the normal channel on cable is 8 seconds. The delay to the real bloomberg channel is 10 seconds, so the channel processing and redisplaying the signal added another 2 seconds.

All we are asking for is a way to adjust the tivo time by 1-30 seconds. It is not rocket science. As more channels combine and more video processing is required to redisplay programs, this will get worse.


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## mr.unnatural

Well, it's mostly an issue with single or dual-tuner Tivos and not the Elite or other types of advanced DVRs. This is nothing new to the world of Tivo owners, which is why many of them have more than one Tivo. The easiest and best solution is simply to have more tuners. 

I'll make one shameless plug and then let it be. My HTPC has access to 17 tuners, both cablecard and ATSC, so I never have an issue with padding programs. The best part is that I don't need multiple boxes and remotes taking up space and no monthly or lifetime fees in addition to my monthly cable bill. The tuners also get me a higher return on investment if I ever decide to sell them compared to Tivos.


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## philhu

mr.unnatural said:


> Well, it's mostly an issue with single or dual-tuner Tivos and not the Elite or other types of advanced DVRs. This is nothing new to the world of Tivo owners, which is why many of them have more than one Tivo. The easiest and best solution is simply to have more tuners.
> 
> I'll make one shameless plug and then let it be. My HTPC has access to 17 tuners, both cablecard and ATSC, so I never have an issue with padding programs. The best part is that I don't need multiple boxes and remotes taking up space and no monthly or lifetime fees in addition to my monthly cable bill. The tuners also get me a higher return on investment if I ever decide to sell them compared to Tivos.


I've got 2 Premiere4 and 2 TivoHD, so 12 tuners. The problem is this would be such an easy fix in the tivo software. As a matter of fact, there WAS a tcl script that did just this (padded the clock 20 seconds), on hacked Tivo systems. It ran nightly and after a guide/slice download

The way a tivo stacks shows or stores them, it becomes unmanageable to remember where the shows are. If Tivo had a real whole house solution, where it decided where to put the recordings and let us see a unified list, that would be a fine solution.


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## mr.unnatural

I believe the script you're referring to allowed you to pad all recordings by whatever amount you specified. I never used it becauase it would automatically pad each and every recording by whatever amount you preset using the script. I always preferred to pad mine manually when setting up season passes.

FWIW, my HTPC has access to 17 tuners. I don't currently use media extenders, but when I did I had the ability to manage my recordings from anywhere in the house. I have several other small HTPCs throughout the house that can share recordings since I'm on FIOS and they don't flag anything but the premium channels as copy once. I can set up the RecordedTV folders on each PC so that they're shared with the other PCs, allowing all recordings to show up in a single folder regardless of which PC I'm using. However, I can't manage recordings globally since I only use the primary HTPC for that purpose. The other PCs are used mainly for watching live TV from my networked tuners and streaming movies from my server so it's not an issue for me.

I do have the Ceton Companion app on my smart phone which allows me to access any PC I have the app configured for. I can control pretty much anything in the Windows Media Center menus so I can see what's been recorded, what's scheduled, and set up recordings remotely. I can also use it as a remote to control each WMC PC individually.

Now, back on topic to some degree. I use an app that synchs up my PC clocks with an atomic clock. I forget which one it is, but it's a national standard, IIRC. However, just keeping your clock accurate doesn't guarantee that the broadcasters will air their programs exactly on schedule. I have to pad anything I record on CBS on Sunday nights by an hour because their air times are always bogus. The same goes for setting the clocks on your Tivos.


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## philhu

mr.unnatural said:


> I believe the script you're referring to allowed you to pad all recordings by whatever amount you specified. I never used it becauase it would automatically pad each and every recording by whatever amount you preset using the script. I always preferred to pad mine manually when setting up season passes.


No, it did a nettime and incremented it by 20 seconds. It was not a pad thing. I remember it from my System 2 Tivo



> FWIW, my HTPC has access to 17 tuners. I don't currently use media extenders, but when I did I had the ability to manage my recordings from anywhere in the house. I have several other small HTPCs throughout the house that can share recordings since I'm on FIOS and they don't flag anything but the premium channels as copy once. I can set up the RecordedTV folders on each PC so that they're shared with the other PCs, allowing all recordings to show up in a single folder regardless of which PC I'm using. However, I can't manage recordings globally since I only use the primary HTPC for that purpose. The other PCs are used mainly for watching live TV from my networked tuners and streaming movies from my server so it's not an issue for me.


Great! You have that. The topic is what a TIVO has. No unified storage or recording, even though they say they have a whole house solution.

I also can get to my tivos, and network storage from any tv in the house. HDMI HD on my bdrm tv and den tv. RF on my other 5 sets. But, again, that is not the point of this discussion.

I have FIOS too, and currently they are only doing 'record once' on HBO/MAX channels. I use my jailbroken TivoHD to record those. Once recorded there, they can be moved anywhere to another Tivo.



> Now, back on topic to some degree. I use an app that synchs up my PC clocks with an atomic clock. I forget which one it is, but it's a national standard, IIRC. However, just keeping your clock accurate doesn't guarantee that the broadcasters will air their programs exactly on schedule. I have to pad anything I record on CBS on Sunday nights by an hour because their air times are always bogus. The same goes for setting the clocks on your Tivos.


Well, I've never had it off an hour, because my listing on my tivo have always been spot on. It is the 20 seconds or so, that is a constant problem, that never changes. Not a schedule issue. I really think you are missing the point of this discussion. There are schedule/guide issues (like your 1 hour off stuff) and WHOLE SYSTEM delays (caused by video propogation/network retransmits that NEVER change and are ALWAYS there)


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## ronsch

I think what you gentlemen are referring to is endpadplus, which I am still using quite successfully on my Series 1 DSR6000.

It's a shame that TiVo never adapted the code as a standard feature. Their version of padding just doesn't have the flexibility.


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## lpwcomp

I've had shows:
Start and end on time
Start on time and end early
Start on time and end late
Start early and end on time
Start early and end late
Start early and end early
Start late and end early
Start late and end on time
Start late and end late

Only the final one is addressed by setting the clock back and that is only if it happens on _*all*_ programs on _*all*_ channels.

With both going through the TiVo, I see absolutely no difference between antenna and cable.


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## mr.unnatural

ronsch said:


> I think what you gentlemen are referring to is endpadplus, which I am still using quite successfully on my Series 1 DSR6000.
> 
> It's a shame that TiVo never adapted the code as a standard feature. Their version of padding just doesn't have the flexibility.


Yep, that's the one I was referring to. Unfortunately, this forum censors links to that "other place" you tried to reference.


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## mr.unnatural

philhu said:


> I use my jailbroken TivoHD to record those.


You jailbreak an iPhone. You hack a Tivo.



philhu said:


> Well, I've never had it off an hour, because my listing on my tivo have always been spot on. It is the 20 seconds or so, that is a constant problem, that never changes. Not a schedule issue. I really think you are missing the point of this discussion. There are schedule/guide issues (like your 1 hour off stuff) and WHOLE SYSTEM delays (caused by video propogation/network retransmits that NEVER change and are ALWAYS there)


I assume you don't record CBS on Sunday nights on the east coast. The guide is almost never right because CBS consistently overrruns their earlier programs which causes a ripple effect for the rest of their prime time programs. Try setting a season pass for The Good Wife or The Mentalist and let us know how many episodes start on time. Even though the guide may indicate a start time of 8PM, I've had many shows start as much as an hour later than what's scheduled.

FYI - my point of having multiple tuners is has everything to do with this discussion. You can't pad programs if you have a limited number of tuners due to overlap and back-to-back recordings. If the clock's off or shows don't begin or end exactly when they're supposed to you run the risk of getting part of the show chopped off. Padding reduces the risk of this happening. More tuners means you can pad to your heart's content and never worry about missing a thing. I know I don't.


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## wkearney99

mr.unnatural said:


> Try setting a season pass for The Good Wife or The Mentalist and let us know how many episodes start on time. Even though the guide may indicate a start time of 8PM, I've had many shows start as much as an hour later than what's scheduled.


This is easily worked around. Just set it to record both and pad The Mentalist by an hour. The other Tivo is set to do that as it's not likely to be recording anything else. This way if they 'new only' SPs on the main Tivo don't catch the show the other one has them padded. This was also applicable for CSI Miami when it was still on.

This is a lot less tedious that trying to wrangle an HTPC, let alone more than one. It happens rarely enough to not be worth THAT much trouble. If it does that show just becomes one we don't bother to watch until it's out again in re-runs. No TV show is worth that much nonsense.


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## mr.unnatural

wkearney99 said:


> This is easily worked around. Just set it to record both and pad The Mentalist by an hour. The other Tivo is set to do that as it's not likely to be recording anything else. This way if they 'new only' SPs on the main Tivo don't catch the show the other one has them padded. This was also applicable for CSI Miami when it was still on.
> 
> This is a lot less tedious that trying to wrangle an HTPC, let alone more than one. It happens rarely enough to not be worth THAT much trouble. If it does that show just becomes one we don't bother to watch until it's out again in re-runs. No TV show is worth that much nonsense.


What nonsense? What trouble? Nothing tedious about using a HTPC whatsoever. My HTPC is as simple and easy to use as your Tivo, not to mention just as reliable, as long as I don't tinker with it excessively.  Padding a recording is a quick and easy task and works exactly the same on my PC as it does on your Tivo. Correction, it works better on my HTPC than it does on your Tivo because WMC doesn't truncate back-to-back recordings.  I set up the series settings for The Good Wife when it moved to Sunday night last year and haven't had to bother with it since (never missed an episode, either).

FWIW, I stopped watching most CBS Sunday night programs because of the way they schedule their shows. The schedule is more of a suggestion than actual broadcast times. I can't recall the last time any prime time shows on CBS began at the times listed. I used to watch the Mentalist but recently dropped it from my lineup. It wasn't so much because of the schedule mess but rather because the show plots were becoming tedious (don't even get me started about any of the CSI series). The Good Wife is probably among my top 10 favorite shows on network TV and worth the extra effort to record it, IMHO.


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## philhu

mr.unnatural said:


> You jailbreak an iPhone. You hack a Tivo.
> 
> I assume you don't record CBS on Sunday nights on the east coast. The guide is almost never right because CBS consistently overrruns their earlier programs which causes a ripple effect for the rest of their prime time programs. Try setting a season pass for The Good Wife or The Mentalist and let us know how many episodes start on time. Even though the guide may indicate a start time of 8PM, I've had many shows start as much as an hour later than what's scheduled.
> 
> FYI - my point of having multiple tuners is has everything to do with this discussion. You can't pad programs if you have a limited number of tuners due to overlap and back-to-back recordings. If the clock's off or shows don't begin or end exactly when they're supposed to you run the risk of getting part of the show chopped off. Padding reduces the risk of this happening. More tuners means you can pad to your heart's content and never worry about missing a thing. I know I don't.


You are missing my point. Yes, CBS does the sports preempt, lat thing. But that is not what I am talknig about. This and anything really cant fix that

This is a systemec problem where EVERYTHING is off 20-40 seconds. I am not trying to fix preempts, late shows, sports stuff, etc. Just the 20-40 second digtal tv/air/conversion delays inherent in a cable system.

The topic is NOT sports preempts and late shows, please keep the topic to the point.

New threads for preempts and late stuff would be great!


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## mr.unnatural

philhu said:


> You are missing my point. Yes, CBS does the sports preempt, lat thing. But that is not what I am talknig about. This and anything really cant fix that
> 
> This is a systemec problem where EVERYTHING is off 20-40 seconds. I am not trying to fix preempts, late shows, sports stuff, etc. Just the 20-40 second digtal tv/air/conversion delays inherent in a cable system.
> 
> The topic is NOT sports preempts and late shows, please keep the topic to the point.
> 
> New threads for preempts and late stuff would be great!


And you completely missed my point. The problem is only partially a result of what you mentioned and the only fix is to pad recordings to account for the overflow. The mention of Sunday nights on CBS was to make the point that shows don't always air on time and getting your clock set exactly down to the second won't do a damn thing to fix that. Padding is the only surefire way that will guarantee you'll get 100% of any program that's aired, regardless of the provider.

BTW, who died and made you moderator?


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## wkearney99

mr.unnatural said:


> And you completely missed my point. The problem is only partially a result of what you mentioned and the only fix is to pad recordings to account for the overflow. The mention of Sunday nights on CBS was to make the point that shows don't always air on time and getting your clock set exactly down to the second won't do a damn thing to fix that. Padding is the only surefire way that will guarantee you'll get 100% of any program that's aired, regardless of the provider.
> 
> BTW, who died and made you moderator?


And yet, he's right and you're off-topic.


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## mr.unnatural

wkearney99 said:


> And yet, he's right and you're off-topic.


And if you look back at the previous posts you'll see that philhu was the first to raise the topic of padding shows in post #5 so he's the one that took the thread off-topic. He opened the door and now he's complaining.

My point was that fixing the clock won't make up for networks not starting or ending their shows exactly at the time specified. Your clock can be dead accurate and you could still miss the beginning or end of a recorded program without sufficient padding of the start and stop times.

Just as a point of interest, The Good Wife started 56 minutes late this past Sunday. If I hadn't padded the recording by an hour I would have missed the bulk of the program. Having a dead accurate clock would not have made one bit of difference. The fact is, you have to pad recordings by necessity in some instances such as this. Perhaps it's not a requirement for all programs, but I prefer to be safe than sorry. In the mean time, you can all go about complaining that your clocks are off. I'll be watching TV.


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## philhu

mr.unnatural said:


> And if you look back at the previous posts you'll see that philhu was the first to raise the topic of padding shows in post #5 so he's the one that took the thread off-topic. He opened the door and now he's complaining.
> 
> My point was that fixing the clock won't make up for networks not starting or ending their shows exactly at the time specified. Your clock can be dead accurate and you could still miss the beginning or end of a recorded program without sufficient padding of the start and stop times.
> 
> Just as a point of interest, The Good Wife started 56 minutes late this past Sunday. If I hadn't padded the recording by an hour I would have missed the bulk of the program. Having a dead accurate clock would not have made one bit of difference. The fact is, you have to pad recordings by necessity in some instances such as this. Perhaps it's not a requirement for all programs, but I prefer to be safe than sorry. In the mean time, you can all go about complaining that your clocks are off. I'll be watching TV.


You took it off topic. I answered you.

Please stay on topic. And as the OP, I *AM* the moderator for this topic, as I asked a simple question and had to listen to your million dollar system solution. I played along to be polite, but I kept going back to topic. You did not. Staying on topic is not a moderator thing but a etiquette thing. People do not like to read 30 pages of posts where 60% are off topic. A problem is presented, a solution should be given.

The topic presented is that there is a systemic problem with cable/tv and tivo. The tivo clock is set to exact nettime, and *THIS PROBLEM* can be solved EASILY by modifying the nettime the tivo uses uo to +/- 40 seconds, depending on cable/sat system used. Then allowing the SUBSCRIBER to modify the time.

That would (and still does on a Hacked tivo), fix the time delay problem. All the others time delays, program late stuff, etc described are OFF TOPIC and can have their own topic

BTW, on my hacked tivo (tivohd), I modified the slice loader and cron to set the clock BEHIND 13 seconds from nettime, and it works perfectly FOR WHAT IT WAS INTENDED on my Boston FIOS system.

Thank you.


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## mr.unnatural

philhu said:


> You took it off topic. I answered you.


Actually, I responded to the initial post and offered an alternative solution. You responded and then I responded to you.



> Please stay on topic. And as the OP, I *AM* the moderator for this topic, ....


Uh, no, az1097 was the OP in this thread, not you, making you just another participant, same as me. If you would like to be an OP you are free to start your own thread on the topic and I'll gladly stay out of it.



> The topic presented is that there is a systemic problem with cable/tv and tivo. The tivo clock is set to exact nettime, and *THIS PROBLEM* can be solved EASILY by modifying the nettime the tivo uses uo to +/- 40 seconds, depending on cable/sat system used. Then allowing the SUBSCRIBER to modify the time.
> 
> That would (and still does on a Hacked tivo), fix the time delay problem. All the others time delays, program late stuff, etc described are OFF TOPIC and can have their own topic
> 
> BTW, on my hacked tivo (tivohd), I modified the slice loader and cron to set the clock BEHIND 13 seconds from nettime, and it works perfectly FOR WHAT IT WAS INTENDED on my Boston FIOS system.
> 
> Thank you.


The actual topic was whether or not there was a way to manually adjust the time on a Tivo. You embellished it with a further explanation of the issue.

FYI - if you use your Tivo for recording both OTA and FIOS or digital cable, you're going to end up screwing the pooch one way or the other with regards to the clock settings. Obviously this doeasn't apply to all Tivos since some of them are digital cable only.

There is definitely a delay involved, which is why padding a recording is the simple solution. Complaining about the slight offset in the Tivo's clock vs. the actual air time is a personal problem you'll have to deal with. You can certainly hack the Tivo to set the clock however you want, but it's an awful lot of work just to change the timing by a few seconds. Hacking a Tivo is something the vast majority of Tivo owners really don't care to get into, especially with the most recent models. I used to hack every Tivo I've owned until it became totally unnecessary and more trouble than it was worth.

Apparently you are in the minority in seeing that this problem even exists. The rest of us understand that shows are not aired precisely on time so we pad our recordings to compensate for it. It's something the vast majority of us have come to accept. Sorry we're not as anal as you are about it.

Now to properly answer the real OP's question, yes, you can adjust the clock manually. However, it requires that you hack the Tivo to accomplish this task. Hacking a late model Tivo generally involves replacing the surface mount EPROM with one that has been programmed with a hacked image. This requires soldering skills and hardware that the average user simply does not possess. There are people available that offer this service, but then you'd still have to hack the Tivo to set the clock. This involves removing the drive from the Tivo and installing it in your PC and booting from a Linux distribution on a CD. You'll have to know some basic Linux commands as well as a bit of knowledge about accessing the various Tivo partitions via command line. You may also have to connect to the Tivo via serial connection to telnet into the Tivo. Most late model Tivos no longer have a serial connection, but they do have a header on the mainboard that will allow you to connect your own serial cable. This was the case for the original S3 model, but I can't say for sure if it's true for subsequent models. I'm not 100% sure you can even hack the latest models using the EPROM hack.

Did I mention that you'll have to rehack the Tivo every time you get a software update? There are ways to avoid taking the updates, but then the software will soon be out of date and won't have the latest features.

Or you could just pad the recordings like I originally suggested and be done with it. Your call.


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## philhu

Mr. Natural do you debate for a living. Do you get pleasure just trying to kill other people posts.
I answered it. It works as I intend it to. In my TivoHD, its been used for years. It needs to be a real patch/change.

Sorry about beint the OP, I had posted this exact same topic elsewhere and forgot this wasnt my post. For that, I was wrong.

WHY ARE YOU POSTING HERE! You dont even have a tivo anymore.

Anyway, I am off this post. Have fun arguing with yourself


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## mr.unnatural

No, I just like to tell it like it is. You indicated that it was indeed possible to adjust the clock on a Tivo manually, which is what the OP asked. Unfortunately, you left out the details of what is required to perform this function, which is far more involved than you implied. I just set the record straight about what it takes and offered a much less painful solution which you declared to be unacceptable.

Just because I no longer own a Tivo with a subscription (I still have several Tivos sitting on the shelf) doesn't preclude my involvement here. I've got the same right to be here as you. I've been a Tivo user and hacker and a member of this forum as far back as when it was still part of the AVS Forums (i.e., before it split off and became the TCF and I had a different user name). I'd like to think that all that time spent here and other Tivo hacking forums allows me to share some insight based on years of experience with Tivos and other DVRs. I also like to think that since I no longer own a Tivo I can offer an unbiased opinion as to how Tivo compares to other DVRs. People may like to hear opinions from someone other than the biased Tivo fan base that resides here. Then again, considering that the vast majority of members here fall into that category, they probably take exception to hearing anything negative about their beloved Tivos.


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## philhu

what is so hard about my method? If you have a hacked tivo, it requires 1 tcl file that gets called in 2 places. It works fine. I never have to worry about it, it seems to be a nice patch and don't have to ever check if your padding has somehow clipped the next show being recorded because I am using all my tuners

Anyway, it works on my TivoHD, which is fine and dandy.

So, you can stop now. As we say:

"Talk to the hand"


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## mr.unnatural

philhu said:


> what is so hard about my method? If you have a hacked tivo, it requires 1 tcl file that gets called in 2 places. It works fine. I never have to worry about it, it seems to be a nice patch and don't have to ever check if your padding has somehow clipped the next show being recorded because I am using all my tuners
> 
> Anyway, it works on my TivoHD, which is fine and dandy.
> 
> So, you can stop now. As we say:
> 
> "Talk to the hand"


You hit the nail on the head with "If you have a hacked Tivo." If you don't have a hacked Tivo and know nothing about what's involved, it can be extremely difficult as I outlined above. The level of expertise required to perform what you perceive as a simple task may take someone else months of reading to understand the process, most of which is contained in forums other than this one. I'm pretty sure the OP was looking for a simple way to adjust the clock via a menu option and not looking for a method that requires hacking his Tivo. Your method is worthless to a non-hacker as it is not within the realm of possibility for them.

Like I said, I used to hack all of my Tivos that I owned spanning more than a decade, and I've literally owned dozens of them. I've only hacked one Tivo using the EPROM replacement method and it was way more trouble than it was worth compared to what I wanted it to do. The primary reason most of us hacked our Tivos was to have the ability to transfer recordings to our PCs. With Tivo Desktop and kttmg, this is no longer necessary, unless your provider flags the shows as copy once. That's another ball game entirely which can't be discussed here.

With a hacked Tivo and enough knowledge, adjusting the clock probably isn't all that difficult. Otherwise, it can be quite daunting. I applaud you for having the ability to do this. Others aren't quite so fortunate. I do possess the ability to hack a Tivo but simply choose not to do so since padding is much simpler and essentially foolproof.


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## Lips

mr.unnatural said:


> You hit the nail on the head with "If you have a hacked Tivo." If you don't have a hacked Tivo and know nothing about what's involved, it can be extremely difficult as I outlined above. The level of expertise required to perform what you perceive as a simple task may take someone else months of reading to understand the process, most of which is contained in forums other than this one. I'm pretty sure the OP was looking for a simple way to adjust the clock via a menu option and not looking for a method that requires hacking his Tivo. Your method is worthless to a non-hacker as it is not within the realm of possibility for them.
> 
> Like I said, I used to hack all of my Tivos that I owned spanning more than a decade, and I've literally owned dozens of them. I've only hacked one Tivo using the EPROM replacement method and it was way more trouble than it was worth compared to what I wanted it to do. The primary reason most of us hacked our Tivos was to have the ability to transfer recordings to our PCs. With Tivo Desktop and kttmg, this is no longer necessary, unless your provider flags the shows as copy once. That's another ball game entirely which can't be discussed here.
> 
> With a hacked Tivo and enough knowledge, adjusting the clock probably isn't all that difficult. Otherwise, it can be quite daunting. I applaud you for having the ability to do this. Others aren't quite so fortunate. I do possess the ability to hack a Tivo but simply choose not to do so since padding is much simpler and essentially foolproof.


For all you talk, you simply miss the point. I have four TiVos and all of them mis-record every thing by about 40 seconds. Every recording starts with the end of the previous show and (unless I add a minute) stops short.

I fail to see why everyone wants to use padding and hacking and any other workaround. First and foremost, they are all workarounds. Second, it is hubris on the part of TiVo to assume their time will ALWAYS match provider time. Why is it such a big deal to add a clock adjust setting? Not rocket science.


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## dublatte

I use Frontier FIOS north of Seattle. I suspect their clock is off. All my shows start and end about 20 seconds late (per my Tivo clock). It would be a nice feature in the settings to adjust the Tivo clock fwd or back by 10, 20, 30, 40, or 50 seconds. I'd take it even if we only could move it 30 seconds. 

I need to pad the ending of every show I schedule. Something I've forgotten to do every so often.  But, can't pad Tivo suggestions. Nothing is worse than getting to the end of a show... and missing those last few words in the last 20 seconds.


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## jth tv

Lips said:


> it is hubris on the part of TiVo to assume their time will ALWAYS match provider time. Why is it such a big deal to add a clock adjust setting? Not rocket science.


Not exactly hubris though, if TiVo uses net time, if TiVo does indeed have the right time.

If a provider wants to use a different time, then they should expect the consequences, like lost customers.

One of the nice things about cancelling cabletv and moving to Antenna, was getting rid of almost all regular non-sports padding, I think I only have one show left that I start early (PBS), and none I end late. IE. ALL the broadcast stations here I watch (10, majors) can properly keep time.

No padding really is nice.


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## bradleys

The providers have been doing this little trick for years - it pre-dates DVR's... And the lower tier channels are the worse.

A good modern example is Big Bang Theory. They push the final joke into the next time slot - to feed you into their next show. It actually overlaps.

TiVo sets net time, since the channels aren't consistent adjusting the clock really would do what you think it should.


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## lpwcomp

bradleys said:


> The providers have been doing this little trick for years - it pre-dates DVR's... And the lower tier channels are the worse.
> 
> A good modern example is Big Bang Theory. They push the final joke into the next time slot - to feed you into their next show. It actually overlaps.
> 
> TiVo sets net time, since the channels aren't consistent adjusting the clock really would do what you think it should.


I hope you meant to write "would _*not*_".


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## bittmann

There used to be more than one way to skin this cat (I even remember one guy who ran a script to tweak his clock after the daily call using the "date" command - good for plus or minus a half-second or so).

As for me, I miss the "endpad" plugin on my Series1 (also works on hackable Series2), but it requires terminal access and a changeable /var directory in to install and configure. So, it's not very useful anymore, unfortunately. With endpad, you could set a negative 0.25 minute start *and* stop default "pad", and it would automagically time-shift everything (including suggestions) back by 15 seconds. No collisions, no missed recordings, just worked, happy wife, etc.

Sadly, hackable TiVos have gone the way of the Dodo, so we're stuck with what we have, barring external solutions.


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