Back in 2013 there was a thread with the same title. Unfortunately the tread went terribly off topic and it really got confusing trying to identify the possible fixes.
First, let's review the problem... Everybody involved with delivering TV content uses the same time standards using NTP that is traceable all the way back to the atomic clocks at the Naval Observatory. Everybody's equipment is within a couple of milliseconds of the standard. This includes the TiVo time adjustment pushed out to your DVR, the television networks, and the cable companies. BUT there is a delay in the time that actual programming gets from the TV network, through the cable company, all the way out to you. There are a number of valid technical reasons why this takes place but this is really out of scope for this discussion. The fact is that it happens with virtually all cable carriers and typically causes the TiVo DVR's to startup some number of SECONDS BEFORE the TV signal is available for the programming desired.
OK, you may say that skipping through a few seconds of content from the previous show may be a nuisance, but it's something that most of us can deal with. The real problem is at the other end of the recording. The TiVo not only starts up early but it also stops early. So you certainly can't view content that isn't recorded. In the old days this wasn't much of a problem where most of the content at the end of a show was advertising. But the networks have gotten smart and are now avoiding ads at the end of their programs with the hope that you will not switch when you get a taste of the next program that is starting.
Now this delay is pretty much repeatable on all channels and I have yet to experience any drift over many years on a few different TiVos. But not every cable system has the same delay, so it really needs to be adjustable at the end user location. As of today, there is still no configurable way of compensating for this delay in the TiVo settings that I'm aware of. So what are the alternatives?...
1. Add and extra minute or so to the stop time of all your recordings and OnePasses. This sort of works OK for a while until you run out of tuners on your TiVo. I have an Elite with four (4) tuners and I must say that I end up with a fair amount of recordings that end up being clipped due to not enough tuners being available. The bottom line is that this would almost never happen if the need to add extra time to every recording was not necessary. The bottom line is that this is a poor solution that fails often and one we shouldn't really be required to deal with.
2. Get our good friends at TiVo to add a new configuration setting to allow adjustment of the local TiVo time. Well I've certainly suggested this to TiVo support but so far they are reluctant to even admit there is an issue. When you are lucky enough to get somebody that understands the issue (and is probably familiar with it anyway); they point you to item #1 to 'solve' your problem. It seems to me that the good folks at TiVo are probably well aware with this issue and have been reluctant to provide any 'fix' for this other than what we have already because of the support issues it could potentially generate. Some users would not necessarily understand the configurable and would call support to ask questions regarding what it for. BUT... I suspect TiVo management would be much more inclined to do something about it if enough people contacted them and complained. So what is the threshold of 'enough'?... Good question. I suspect that this could be bandied about pretty good in this thread.
3. Come up with a reliable hack to fix it for ourselves. This obviously requires varying levels of expertise but it seems doable. But there are a variety of issues that come up surrounding this. Any hardware modifications should be avoided so that warranties don't get impacted and to generally reduce the need of acquiring parts and/or costly hardware modification equipment. But if a software fix is in order, then it needs to be as easy and semi-permanent as possible. What I mean by this is that it would be best if we we could get by with some sort of key combination on the remote, but I suspect that this is unavailable currently. I've read about old hacks involving removing the drive and booting it up on a linux based pc. Not necessarily a bad way to go, but difficult for most users who don't know what linux is let alone any knowledge of it, and most don't have a clue how to remove a hard drive and connect it let alone configure it to be accessed on another machine. Not an out of the question modification for some of us though BUT, BUT, BUT... we certainly don't want to do this every time that TiVo sends out a service update!
I can't think of any other potential fixes but I certainly don't know everything. Lets see what the masses here think...
First, let's review the problem... Everybody involved with delivering TV content uses the same time standards using NTP that is traceable all the way back to the atomic clocks at the Naval Observatory. Everybody's equipment is within a couple of milliseconds of the standard. This includes the TiVo time adjustment pushed out to your DVR, the television networks, and the cable companies. BUT there is a delay in the time that actual programming gets from the TV network, through the cable company, all the way out to you. There are a number of valid technical reasons why this takes place but this is really out of scope for this discussion. The fact is that it happens with virtually all cable carriers and typically causes the TiVo DVR's to startup some number of SECONDS BEFORE the TV signal is available for the programming desired.
OK, you may say that skipping through a few seconds of content from the previous show may be a nuisance, but it's something that most of us can deal with. The real problem is at the other end of the recording. The TiVo not only starts up early but it also stops early. So you certainly can't view content that isn't recorded. In the old days this wasn't much of a problem where most of the content at the end of a show was advertising. But the networks have gotten smart and are now avoiding ads at the end of their programs with the hope that you will not switch when you get a taste of the next program that is starting.
Now this delay is pretty much repeatable on all channels and I have yet to experience any drift over many years on a few different TiVos. But not every cable system has the same delay, so it really needs to be adjustable at the end user location. As of today, there is still no configurable way of compensating for this delay in the TiVo settings that I'm aware of. So what are the alternatives?...
1. Add and extra minute or so to the stop time of all your recordings and OnePasses. This sort of works OK for a while until you run out of tuners on your TiVo. I have an Elite with four (4) tuners and I must say that I end up with a fair amount of recordings that end up being clipped due to not enough tuners being available. The bottom line is that this would almost never happen if the need to add extra time to every recording was not necessary. The bottom line is that this is a poor solution that fails often and one we shouldn't really be required to deal with.
2. Get our good friends at TiVo to add a new configuration setting to allow adjustment of the local TiVo time. Well I've certainly suggested this to TiVo support but so far they are reluctant to even admit there is an issue. When you are lucky enough to get somebody that understands the issue (and is probably familiar with it anyway); they point you to item #1 to 'solve' your problem. It seems to me that the good folks at TiVo are probably well aware with this issue and have been reluctant to provide any 'fix' for this other than what we have already because of the support issues it could potentially generate. Some users would not necessarily understand the configurable and would call support to ask questions regarding what it for. BUT... I suspect TiVo management would be much more inclined to do something about it if enough people contacted them and complained. So what is the threshold of 'enough'?... Good question. I suspect that this could be bandied about pretty good in this thread.
3. Come up with a reliable hack to fix it for ourselves. This obviously requires varying levels of expertise but it seems doable. But there are a variety of issues that come up surrounding this. Any hardware modifications should be avoided so that warranties don't get impacted and to generally reduce the need of acquiring parts and/or costly hardware modification equipment. But if a software fix is in order, then it needs to be as easy and semi-permanent as possible. What I mean by this is that it would be best if we we could get by with some sort of key combination on the remote, but I suspect that this is unavailable currently. I've read about old hacks involving removing the drive and booting it up on a linux based pc. Not necessarily a bad way to go, but difficult for most users who don't know what linux is let alone any knowledge of it, and most don't have a clue how to remove a hard drive and connect it let alone configure it to be accessed on another machine. Not an out of the question modification for some of us though BUT, BUT, BUT... we certainly don't want to do this every time that TiVo sends out a service update!
I can't think of any other potential fixes but I certainly don't know everything. Lets see what the masses here think...
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