DVD recorder truncates recordings

[JosephWebber]

Very occasionally my Sony RDR-HXD890 DVD recorder fails to record the last 2-3 minutes of a TV programme. This sometimes happens when a film is split in two (often with a news programme in between), in which case it is the first part which is truncated. Any ideas?

[lordsmurf]

Did it run out of disc space?

[JosephWebber]

No, plenty of space.
It happened again last night with a film. When I checked the TV guide, the film was followed by the News.
Whether the problem is News-related or that is just a red herring, I don't know.

[lordsmurf]

Cable copy protection?

[MOVIEGEEK]

How about adding two or three minutes to the recording time?

[orsetto]

You are located in the UK, the RDR-HX890 is the top Sony recorder specified for UK use. I believe it has dual tuners (DVB-T and FreeView satellite) and relies on the European "Guide+" electronic program guide to set timer recordings. Recorders that rely on EPGs often manifest odd little issues like this, almost always because of vagaries in the EPG system or clashes between the recorders hardware clock and the second "software clock" maintained by the EPG. You can test for this by manually recording the next such broadcast: bypass the timer and just press the "record" button. See if the machine still cuts out in the last minutes of a show. If it does not, your problem is in its EPG system. I am not personally familiar with FreeView's Guide+, in North America we had a few older recorders with the similar (but inferior) "TV Guide On Screen" EPG. When encountering such problems with TVGOS, we were able to fine-tune the basic timer setting of the system so that it records a few minutes earlier and later than specified in the EPG schedule. Read your instruction book closely to see if this adjustment is available on Guide+, or browse a Guide+ forum online for more tips.

Sony tends to be more trigger-happy than other mfrs in its response to real or imagined "broadcast protection" signals, so lordsmurf's reply may also have something to with your issue. "Protection" is much less common in European broadcasts than American, but its of course possible. The recorder will not truncate a recording in that way without notifying you: an alert would appear onscreen saying "some portions could not be recorded", etc. If you don't see such alerts, and the truncation only happens in the last couple mins of a timer-recorded show that is interrupted by a news segment in the middle, odds are this is an issue with a clock conflict or data error in the Guide+ system. One other small possibility would occur if recording directly onto a disc (instead of the HDD) in timer mode: if you have the "auto-fit" feature ticked in the timer setup, the recorder may occasionally miscalculate available capacity on a blank disc and cut out prematurely because it thinks the disc has run out of space even though it hasn't.

[JosephWebber]

Many thanks for the replies; a number of things to think about here.
Orsetto, thanks for your extensive reply. I try to avoid recording directly to DVD; usually I have enough space on the hard disk; so that's one problem I can avoid. I will follow up your other suggestions.
As I am using the EPG I can't just add 2-3 minutes to the recording. I could use manual recording for the problematic recordings if I knew beforehand which they were. But I could do a manual recording on a split film and see what happens (pity I can't do the same recording both ways at the same time).

[KBeee]

You can always do manual timer recordings, and pad each end by 2 or 3 minutes, or as orsetto said, check if your machine will allow padding to the Guide+ settings.
IIRC, EPG+ is supposed set the timing of the recording via the published start/end time of the program, and this set time is supposed to be automatically overridden via a start/stop signal from the broadcaster to allow for unforeseen late/early starts to the broadcast. If the broadcaster fails to send the signal, or if your recorder fails to pick up the signal, the recording will end at the alloted time. So if the News over runs by 2 minutes and either the broadcaster or your recorder missed the Start Recording signal, your recorder will fall back on the supposed start time and you'll get 2 minutes of unwanted News, and miss 2 minutes from the end of your program.
Sometimes a firmware update can sort this out.

[lordsmurf]

Some machines have an "add padding" option.

[hech54]

I just increased the padding on my GB-PVR software to 3 minutes. It's been starting "barely" on time since we changed the clocks back.

[orsetto]

Sorry if I wasn't quite clear what I meant by suggesting you try to "adjust the Guide+" settings: I wasn't referring to individual manual timer settings (which I'm sure you knew about anyway). What I meant was, some recorders that use EPGs offer a back door or hidden menu somewhere that allows you to add "padding" to the beginning and end of each automatic timer program, as others mentioned in their followup replies. Its hard to explain without this kind of machine in front of me, but if you can find this menu and make the "padding" setting, the recorder will then automatically always start recording a couple minutes earlier than the EPG grid start time, and stop recording a few mins after the EPG grid stop time. In other words, you would still use the Guide+ in "point to a show and click" automatic mode, but the recorder will "bracket" the grids start and stop times with a couple minutes additional "grace period". The drawback to this, and why its an optional, hard-to-access setting, is it can interfere with back-to-back timer settings on different channels. Some recorders require you set the padding for each individual auto-timer, others allow a one-time "global" padding adjustment that is then applied across the board. Again, this should be laid out in the manual with an asterisk or something, or you could ask on a "Guide+"-related forum.

I hope this makes sense to you, I can't get my mind in gear this morning...

[KBeee]

It's quite a common problem in the UK - even some quite expensive gear suffers from these miss-timings, including Panasonics DMR-BS850 BluRay TwinSat recorder.