My Gen 4 DVR consistently starts recording a little over 1-minute before actual start and stops 1-minute before scheduled stop time. The start is okay but the stop is annoying. I don’t want to have to manually add 15-minutes to each recording. This should be fixed in a firmware update or adding scheduling feature that would add smaller extended time to all recordings not just live broadcasts.
That is an age old problem that I saw with DirecTV and Spectrum. It’s as though the time source for the provider is behind by one minute or the time source for the DVR is ahead by one minute.
There is a lot of data encoded in the retrace area of each video frame. In the old days it was possible to get the picture out of sync and the picture would roll. There would be a black bar at the top of each frame. Data is encoded in that space to control certain functions. Data for skipping commercials is encoded there. Commercial start and commercial end are encoded there. I would believe that the start and end of the program to watch or record are also encoded there. That.is a real oversight if it isn’t encoded. the actual time in the DVR becomes irrelevant if it is encoded and the DVR is able to decode it to start and stop recording the same as what is done for commercial skip.
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I’d think the Tablo would get it’s time from the Internet. Either a normal time source, or Tablo servers.
That’s correct. Tablo gets its time from your ISP via something called ‘network time protocol’. While rare, this time can be off a smidge. Contacting your ISP is an option if this is the case.
There are other options within the advanced recording settings. The lowest start early time is 2 minutes, and the lowest end late option is 5 minutes.
This can be set at the series level vs. the individual program level to make it easier.
I doubt it would get it directly from the ISP. There are many NTP time servers available. Not certain if the Tablo is programmed to use one in particular.
https://gist.github.com/mutin-sa/eea1c396b1e610a2da1e5550d94b0453
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