Irregular TV program durations - an effort to defeat DVRs?

[ebenton]

I have noticed lately that some TV programs on my cable system have irregular durations. Some of them are a minute or two short of an hour or a minute or two longer than an hour. (1:01 or 0:59)

This appears to be the official scheduled time for the programs.
Does anyone know if this a deliberate effort on the part of the networks to defeat DVR recording?

A possible rationale for this might be that most DVRs will not record more than two programs simultaneously. If a program is scheduled for 1:01 (one hour and one minute) and the following hour has two programs scheduled to record simultaneously, perhaps the DVR will not record either the earlier or the later program, or both.

I do not know if DVRs actually work this way, nor have I witnessed this happening, but I have noticed some missing programs from my DVR list on the next day or so after they were scheduled to record.

Does anyone know if this might be happening?

Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean somebody isn't out to get me, or does it?

[thymej]

THE ETG (Electronic TV Guige) my HTPC uses always seams to have the correct irregular times so it records the 1:01 or 0:59 shows. Now if the studios were sharing with the ETG providers that the show started at 1:00 but really started at 0:59 then your PVR or DVR would miss the first 1min (if you have no padding set). IF the studio give the wrong time for the ETG then you might think its to defeat DVRs, but the ETV guides all seam to have the correct irregular times; So I would say NO to what you ask.

[ebenton]

I don't doubt what you say is true. However, my question was not exactly about whether or not my DVR could record a show scheduled to start at 7:59 PM or 8:01PM.

I was asking more about what would happen if a DVR was set to record a show that ended at 8:01 PM and also set to record two more shows, which were both scheduled to begin at 8:00PM.

Would the DVR stop and miss the last minute of the 8:01PM-ending show and go ahead and record the two, simultaneously-starting 8:00PM shows? Or would it continue recording the first show until it ended at 8:01PM and not record one or both of the shows beginning at 8:00PM? I suspect that if it needed to stop recording at 8:00PM, it would record the one program which has the most "longevity" on the DVR system (i.e. the one that you selected for scheduled recording first).

Since the purpose of recording these shows is not to have to watch them "live", I have not actually witnessed my DVR resolve any such potential conflicts.

If the DVR were to "decide" to not record any of the shows ahead of time or shortly before the start time. I would probably not see any on-screen messages about this,since I would probably not be watching TV at the time.

If the DVR does make some "decisions" to cancel one show or another, I can see this as possible motivation for the networks to create these irregular durations in order to defeat time-shifting and fast-forwarding through commercials.

Keep in mind that these programs are set to record by program name and channel, and not by start time.