# Endpad equivalent setting?



## mdolan (Jun 4, 2002)

On my old S1 box I ran endpad happily to automatically add 2 mins to the start of shows and 5 to the end. Fantastic - almost never missed a start or end of a program.

Now is there an equivalent way of doing this on the new box? I know on series links and manual recordings I can manually add padding time. But I want to make this the default on *everything*. Suggestions are a bit pointless when you discover something only to be missing the first or last minutes.

And I keep forgetting to do this with my new season passes/series links (until I watch the first episode, swear, and then add padding)

Have I missed an option? Or should this just be added to the feature improvements wishlist?

Regardless - love the new box!


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## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

mdolan said:


> On my old S1 box I ran endpad happily to automatically add 2 mins to the start of shows and 5 to the end. Fantastic - almost never missed a start or end of a program.
> 
> Now is there an equivalent way of doing this on the new box?


Unfortunately not at the moment. Fantastic idea though. May already have been mentioned in the relevant sticky thread.


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## TCM2007 (Dec 25, 2006)

You have to set it for each recording?

Seems TiVo has lost ground against its rivals in the last 10 years. Default if-possible padding is standard on MC7.


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## Trinitron (Jan 20, 2003)

Is the EPG not adjusted by broadcasters, like Sky+? So if programmes start early or run late there is no need for random padding because the box is told programme timings have changed.


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## ptruman (Jan 8, 2003)

You can add start/end time adjustments to Season Passes IIRC (I did for some I transferred (manually) from the S1 box).

It's not ideal, but it's better than "for each program".


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## Karnak (Jan 13, 2003)

Wasn't Endpad a hack? It was never part of the official software was it?


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## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

Indeed. However, I think TCM's point was that as other DVRs now have that fucntionality built-in, it comes as something of a surprise to find that Tivo doesn't. And he's right


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## warrenrb (Jul 21, 2002)

Along similar lines, I was wondering if it's possible to know, by channel, who sticks to the times accurately, and who doesn't?

For example, I was recording some movies from Film 4. Now I would assume that as it is a movie channel, no live TV or anything else, that there would be no reason why it wouldn't run bang on schedule. But of course, I don't want to miss the end of a movie.

Are there any channels that we know don't need padding, is what I'm asking, or do I just need to add it to everything, just to be sure? I know the 'terrestrial' channels are unreliable, but how about the likes of Sky One? Or FX? Or Sci-Fi? Would there be any reason for these channels not to be 'bang on' time?

I had endpad on my S1 and it was brilliant - I never had to think about padding at all. I'm amazed TiVo didn't integrate such a simple idea into their system, too.


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## deshepherd (Nov 30, 2000)

cwaring said:


> Indeed. However, I think TCM's point was that as other DVRs now have that fucntionality built-in, it comes as something of a surprise to find that Tivo doesn't. And he's right


Maybe another hang-over from the US-centric assumptions of the TiVo software. From the time when I spent a few years in the US I think that US TV scheduling is much more fixed that the UK ... i.e. if it says a program starts at 7pm then that means 7pm and not 6:58pm etc + if there's a sports game overrunning then they switch to the next scheduled program at the planned time come what may.

Anyway, what would be good would be something like Endpad functionality. Current padding is on a per program/series-link and it resolves clashes between overlaps and other scheduled recordings via priority with two options

- either cancel lower priority program involved in the overlap
- start lower priority overlapped program late or drop overlap if overlapping highre priority program

what would be good would be to add the EndPad behaviour of

- remove padding if it overlaps with any other program

+ have a global way of setting this.

This way you can have the "start 2mins early, end 3mins late 'just in case'" settings that was useful with endpad to cope with the variablity of some of the UK scheduling.


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## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

warrenrb said:


> Are there any channels that we know don't need padding....


The rule I use is that any series link on a terrestrial channel (ie BBC, ITV, 4 or Five) gets padded (usually -1, +2) gets padded. Any other channel _should_ (and usually is) okay to not pad. However, I have noticed that Sky1 and SyFy do sometimes seem to start their shows up to a minute early.

So yes, pretty-much like you described


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## alextegg (May 21, 2002)

It's relatively easy to add padding by default on Series Links and now there are 3 tuners live it shouldn't cause issues of conflict. I have been considering going through and doing this after a couple of chopped endings. 

However related to that, the question I have is if you have two programmes back to back and both are on padded series links, is TiVo clever enough to realise it can use one tuner as they are both on the same channel, or will it use 2 because of the padding. If it does the former I'll happily pad all my series links, if it does the latter that might cause issues of conflict.

Anyone tested to see which is true?


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## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

It will be the latter


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## alextegg (May 21, 2002)

Do you know that?


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## qwiki (Feb 28, 2002)

Yes, it's the latter. 

I had back-to-back episodes of South Park set to record with +4 mins end padding in the series link. Both got recorded at 34mins each.

I accept that one case is not exhaustive testing. Not had the chance to see if it's always the same though.


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## alextegg (May 21, 2002)

That's definitive enough for me, if it does it once it will presumably always do that. Might amend my series links and see if I get any issues.


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## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

alextegg said:


> Do you know that?


Well I wouldn't have mentioned it so definitively if I didn't


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## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

I have also just noticed (because I deliberately checked) that Tivo doesn't even use the same tuner for two consecutive recordings on different channels with no padding!


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## alextegg (May 21, 2002)

presumably it would if the other two were busy though..


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## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

Well yes


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