Under advanced record options, it’s possible to set “minutes before start” and “minutes after end” options. This is a great option, as sometimes shows don’t start and end exactly when you expect them to. Unfortunately, in the current (beta2) implementation, this leads to clashes between shows if insufficient tuners are open.
For example, I have a two-tuner system. Two episodes run 9pm-10pm, and one runs from 10pm-11pm. If I set all to have 1 minute before and after, then scheduling clashes occur. A more intelligent, soft buffer solution would be better.
Would it be possible to function more like other TV recording systems, in that the “minutes before start” and “minutes before end” would only function if it does not result in clashes? This is how Windows Media Center and EyeTV work, and many others alike. When this occurs, if two successive shows are on the same channel, then plex would ideally uses the same tuner for both of those, to prevent net loss. An even more clever approach - and I’ve never seen this done before - would be to record the overlapping time to both files, or records both as a single file and then, when copying from the .grab directory, make two versions.
I have also had this truncate recordings. I recorded two back to back movies on the same channel, both set to start 2 minutes before start time and end 3 minutes after end time. Instead of using the same tuner and just stopping the first and starting the second at their ‘normal’ time (like other DVR software does), or using both tuners to record the full range of both programmed times, the recording of the first movie ran until the 3 minutes after point and then the 2nd movie started recording. This resulted in a broken recording of the 2nd movie. The 1st few minutes were missing and even if I tried to join the two recordings together there was a gap in the recording from when the first movie released the tuner and when the second movie picked it up.
@karlmitchell ~ I totally agree we can improve upon the naive implementation, which was kept simple so we can start shipping sooner. I’d expect us to enhance it in the future, along with some other work, to more closely resemble your “more clever approach”.
@bart.register@gmail.com ~ That really shouldn’t have happened, I’d love to see a log if you can reproduce.
I’m having the same issue here. I have a 3 tuner cable silicone dust and coming from nearly 7 years of WMC recordings, I prefer to give myself a buffer for shows but tonight with one show recording from 8:00 to 9:01, a second from 8:59-10:03, third recording from 8:59-9:33 and the last from 9:29-10:03 (a situation that WMC would have handled just fine, recording all 3 shows) for some reason the third time slot recording was aborted by Plex.
I accidentally cancelled the 4th recording, then modified the show recording to remove the buffer (the third and fourth recordings were actually the same show, it’s two back to back 30 minute episodes of a sitcom), set the third time slot to start recording immediately (late) and now it looks as though the fourth recording will start successfully and is no longer listed as being in conflict because of the removed start and end time buffer.
Please ignore the buffers for back to back recordings. I’d MUCH rather have the show with no buffer than not have it at all because PMS respected the buffer on both ends of all show recordings.
I believe what @WRXFanatic is meaning is a setting that if the start before/after settings of a show would cause a conflict in recording other shows to ignore the before/after to resolve the conflict. The allow partial airings would allow the conflict show to start recording when the after airing time setting ends but in that shows recording you would be missing the 3 minutes that the prior show was set to record after.
Oh I get what you are saying. Put another way USE the pre and post buffer settings if they don’t interfere with another recording but disregard these buffers if they would interfere. This way you get maximum recordings even if you don’t always have the pre or post extra recording.
Would also be helpful if Plex would use the same tuner for back to back recordings and share the overlapped buffers like most other DVRs do regardless if another tuner is available. So if you have these set to 5 minutes (pre and post) and have back to back recordings of a 60 minute show on channel 100 at 1 and 2pm it would:
Start recording at 12:55 to file one
At 1:55 to 2:00 it would write the contents grabbed from that tuner and write to both file 1 and file 2
At 2:05 it stops writing to file 1
At 3:05 it stops writing to file 2
So from 1:55 to 2:05 the DVR is writing the contents to 2 files instead of just one. This allows both files to get the pre and post recording overlap plus doesn’t tie up an additional tuner without need saving network bandwidth as well. Just a better use of resources all around.
Making the best use of tuners is important and will be even more important as LIVE TV makes it way into the product.
@cayars said:
You already have this option in the advanced recording settings called “Allow partial airings”. Just enabled that for each show if you want.
I’ve set all my recordings to “allow partial airings” and find this does NOT avoid the issue of recordings being abandoned because Plex thinks it doesn’t have a tuner available due to recording contentions.
In WMC, I believe the buffer setting says “Record x minutes before/after WHEN POSSIBLE” which is good logic and what I’d prefer Plex to do.
Also agree that being able to book the same tuner for multiple files and cut the start end times as needed for these separate files would be ideal.
Would also love native support for subtitles from the .TS files but now I’m just being greedy?
@cayars said:
Oh I get what you are saying. Put another way USE the pre and post buffer settings if they don’t interfere with another recording but disregard these buffers if they would interfere. This way you get maximum recordings even if you don’t always have the pre or post extra recording.
Would also be helpful if Plex would use the same tuner for back to back recordings and share the overlapped buffers like most other DVRs do regardless if another tuner is available. So if you have these set to 5 minutes (pre and post) and have back to back recordings of a 60 minute show on channel 100 at 1 and 2pm it would:
Start recording at 12:55 to file one
At 1:55 to 2:00 it would write the contents grabbed from that tuner and write to both file 1 and file 2
At 2:05 it stops writing to file 1
At 3:05 it stops writing to file 2
So from 1:55 to 2:05 the DVR is writing the contents to 2 files instead of just one. This allows both files to get the pre and post recording overlap plus doesn’t tie up an additional tuner without need saving network bandwidth as well. Just a better use of resources all around.
Making the best use of tuners is important and will be even more important as LIVE TV makes it way into the product.
Carlo
it should be also possible, to do the same if channels are on the same multiplex, as HDHomeRun can stream the FULL transponder with multiple Video / Audio track in it. Yes plex would need to be able to remux the file to the relevant files.
I have two HDHomeRun Primes, for a total of six tuners.
(just starting to use Plex, after using WMC for years)
Queued up a Recording of a sitcom to record all new and repeats. The Channel Aired multiple episodes back to back, and I can see where the 1st recording got cut off before it was over, and the 2nd recording got some, but not all of what was cut off in the 1st recording.
So it appears the issue posted here is still not fixed? And this has been a year that this issue was brought up?
Am I missing something here? Is it fixed, or is a Year to fix this issue, normal? I would think this would be a high priority issue.
Is there a list of outstanding issues that I can review?
