I've been playing with 'Event Based Recording' for a while this morning. For the first shot out of the box, it's a pretty good start. Priority setting is pretty powerful. The biggest problem I have found is with conflict resolution.
If there are two timers that are in conflict on one tuner and nothing is recording on the other tuner, one of the timers will be skipped, even though 'Record Plus' is enabled.
The only way to get both programs to record is to completely delete the timer and to recreate it. This works in the short term, but if a conflict is encountered in the future, the problem will not be solved.
I'll search the program to see if there is a setting to fix this, but I haven't found it yet.
I have a couple of suggestions, too.
The 'New' option for a timer doesn't really mean new episodes. It really means any episode that has been recorded in the current season. While this is a good feature, it should be renamed to 'Current' instead of new. Also, a feature that only recorded new episodes would be a welsome addition.
A way to control the number of episodes kept on the machine would be a good idea, in my opinion. I have a daily timer set to record the news every night. If I'm not home, the news records every day. There is really no benefit to keeping a couple of weeks of news. It would be great if I could tell the machine to only keep a single copy (or some other number) of the news program.
While I was writing this, my wife came in to COMPLAIN about the new version. When she selects shows to record for the day, she used to click select on the program guide. Then she would create a single-time timer (the default). If there was a conflict, she would see the conflict on the next screen and choose how to resolve it.
Now, she selects a show. Then she has to change the default to ‘Once’ from ‘All’. If there is a conflict, she has to decide how she wants the conflict resolved. Then she has to go to another screen to determine the resolution. She’s not happy that what was once a fairly simple operation has now gotten so complex.
The functionality is almost there, but the user interface needs a whole lot of work. The ability to select defaults would be nice, but her biggest complaint is that they are trying to do too many things on the same screen.
If there are two timers that are in conflict on one tuner and nothing is recording on the other tuner, one of the timers will be skipped, even though 'Record Plus' is enabled.
The only way to get both programs to record is to completely delete the timer and to recreate it. This works in the short term, but if a conflict is encountered in the future, the problem will not be solved.
I'll search the program to see if there is a setting to fix this, but I haven't found it yet.
I have a couple of suggestions, too.
The 'New' option for a timer doesn't really mean new episodes. It really means any episode that has been recorded in the current season. While this is a good feature, it should be renamed to 'Current' instead of new. Also, a feature that only recorded new episodes would be a welsome addition.
A way to control the number of episodes kept on the machine would be a good idea, in my opinion. I have a daily timer set to record the news every night. If I'm not home, the news records every day. There is really no benefit to keeping a couple of weeks of news. It would be great if I could tell the machine to only keep a single copy (or some other number) of the news program.
While I was writing this, my wife came in to COMPLAIN about the new version. When she selects shows to record for the day, she used to click select on the program guide. Then she would create a single-time timer (the default). If there was a conflict, she would see the conflict on the next screen and choose how to resolve it.
Now, she selects a show. Then she has to change the default to ‘Once’ from ‘All’. If there is a conflict, she has to decide how she wants the conflict resolved. Then she has to go to another screen to determine the resolution. She’s not happy that what was once a fairly simple operation has now gotten so complex.
The functionality is almost there, but the user interface needs a whole lot of work. The ability to select defaults would be nice, but her biggest complaint is that they are trying to do too many things on the same screen.
