# Atomic clock setting daily



## dbolton (Apr 4, 2003)

Can the daily call be made to set the internal clock every day and sync to the atomic clock? Sometimes my series 2 is off by up to 5 minutes, which can be catastrophic. My cable box never has these issues and it's a piece of junk relative to the Tivo.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

the TiVo clock is reset each time it calls in. It uses something from UNIX called UTC which is quite accurate.
My TiVo DVRs are all set the same as my cable box.

If your TiVo is off then either the cable box is wrong or something is broken in your TiVo and the time is not being reset with each call in.


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## dbolton (Apr 4, 2003)

Maybe some channels are playing "fast and loose" with their listings and not providing accurate start/end times. I seem to notice more issues with Comedy Central and Cartoon Network than on other channels. I haven't noticed any other issues with the Tivo - up and running for 2+ years with no problems. I've already had more trouble with the HD Tivo (1 month old and 3 reboots so far) than with either Series 2 I've owned in terms of requiring reboots.


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## wmcbrine (Aug 2, 2003)

dbolton said:


> Maybe some channels are playing "fast and loose" with their listings and not providing accurate start/end times.


Yes.



> _I seem to notice more issues with Comedy Central and Cartoon Network than on other channels._


Also yes.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

ZeoTiVo said:


> the TiVo clock is reset each time it calls in. It uses something from UNIX called UTC which is quite accurate.


Actually, UTC is just the way *nix keeps track of time in its internal registers. It is the number of seconds since Midnight, January 1, 1970, at 0 meridian. The local time can be set by an atomic clock, a GPS receiver, a LORAN source, from WWV, from internet based servers, or just manually by the system admin. One method used to update the local system time via a network connection (including an internet connection) is called Network Time Protocol. I have NTP set up on almost all the systems I administer, and it is the means the TiVo uses to maintain its time.


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## JamieP (Aug 3, 2004)

lrhorer said:


> Actually, UTC is just the way *nix keeps track of time in its internal registers. It is the number of seconds since Midnight, January 1, 1970, at 0 meridian. ....


Just to be pedantic:

UTC stands for Temps Universel Coordonné or Coordinated Universal Time and is an international time standard not specific to Unix or computers. 
Unix Time is a way of storing points in time on a computer with second resolution which uses an encoding of UTC.
Might as well use the terms properly.

A TiVo does sync its clock with the tivo servers on each daily call. If there is significant drift, either the sync isn't working, or the clock is drifting so much that a daily sync isn't enough. Maybe replace the battery on the motherboard? More likely, as previously suggested, it's the networks that aren't following the clock. That's what padding is for.


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## WayneCarter (Mar 16, 2003)

If the problem was TiVo's clock being off, recordings on ALL* channels would be off by the same amount. Since only several channels are off, the problem MUST be with those channels.

*For channels that have ACCURATE time references. Recordings on channels using an inaccurate reference will be off by a different amount than the channels that use an accurate time reference.


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