Vip 622 Dvr Timer Limit

[BASDSucks]

95 timers set
395 On the daily Schedule (including skipped shows)

i was setting a new timer and it popped up and said i couldn't make no more, no complaining or anything im just seeing if anybody else has hit the limit besides me yet..

 

[KKlare]

AFAIK, you can have 96 timers defined. Not sure of the number of shows (several hundreds) but it may not warn you about some that are skipped because you exceeded that limit and it may change day to day. If possible, set some of the timers that have common strings in them in one timer.

I then put a number (~30) of the less likely candidates in the search list and once a week go through that list, down to the bottom and then select, and repeat because it is easier to find the bottom than to remember where in the list I was. It is good to have a few empty slot in the timer list because you may find a new show in the guide to record.

Each few days I go through the guide (usually HD and then those near IFC/TCM) and for 3-star show, I look them up on IMDB and show an interest only for those with at least a 7.5 rating. The 3-star lower limit (YMMV) narrows the search enough to reduce the lookup to a reasonable level. I have 5 drives with 4 for movies--all nearly full. They are divided by IMDB rating with ranges 9.1-8.3 (a few 8.2), 8.2-8.0, 7.9-7.8, 7.7-7.6 (a few 7.5). It might be better to just add them a random in case the disk dies--easier to buy a new disk, one at time. Keep an Excel list or you will not find them easily.

For series, we surely need groups for the EHD--my fifth disk is for that and PBS--full.

I have 2 722s so each has 80-95 timers on each lurking but had to clear space while away a week and kill the daily recordings. Would like a switch to just disable the recordings without deleting them and reconstructing them--put them in red?
-Ken
P.S. It will be nice to get HDNet Movies, HBO, and SHO in MPEG-4 to shrink some of the file sizes. -K

 

[jimjo3298]

622 use to be 288 timers, so 390-395 must be the new limit. My wife uses the 722 she had 575 and couldn't create any new timers until some were deleted

 

[NotMe546]

95 timers set
395 On the daily Schedule (including skipped shows)

i was setting a new timer and it popped up and said i couldn't make no more, no complaining or anything im just seeing if anybody else has hit the limit besides me yet..

Good when do you find the time to watch them all?

 

[Yes616]

Sounds like the man is planning to start up his own TV station. Maybe Satelliteguys will be one of the sponsors?

 

[Hall]

There is definitely a limit to "timers" and in combination with "events". You have to remember, when you set a "timer", and this applies to either ALL or NEW, it counts every instance of the show, regardless of whether or not it will record it, i.e. a NEW timer still has to reference ALL episodes. It simply doesn't record them.

 

[BobaBird]

The limits are 96 timers or 576 possible events generated by those timers, whichever comes first.

 

[joshr915]

sorry for reviving an old thread, but does anyone have any idea if this limit will ever be lifted? I just hit this limit for recurring shows and now cant schedule any individual movies to be recorded, sort of confining. why does there have to a timer limit in addition to the event limit? isnt one enough?

The limit Ive hit is the 96 timer limit.

 

[KKlare]

(1) The 96-element list takes memory space. Programmers, like I, guess more than they think will be enough but usually underestimate or feel constrained by the total memory available.
(2) The list must be scanned for each entry, every time the schedule changes and maybe every time a program is recorded.
The Daily Schedule list must be updated then, but DS provides a short list to look for new starts.
-Ken

 

[joshr915]

i see. well heres to hoping the new 922 will have a higher memory capacity (havent heard one way or the other)

 

[Laddyboy]

I use weekly timers for recurring national shows. That really cuts down on the # of events. All and New are your worst enemies as they rapidly increase the # of events for recurring shows. Name-based recording can also really increase the # of events.

 

[Bob Haller]

my old 721 exceeeded the limit thanks to my wifes recording cooking shows, she rarely cooks but likes the shows.

the pop up is far better than the 721 which went into endless rebooting.

E CSRs hadnt a clue, problem had never been seen here.

ended with my having 5 refurb boxes because of software incompatiblity with quad lnbs

E has come a long way to improve things, i think the limit was about 71?

 

[ESPNSTI]

(1) The 96-element list takes memory space. Programmers, like I, guess more than they think will be enough but usually underestimate or feel constrained by the total memory available.

The actual amount of memory it takes to store that 96 element list and 576 element event list shouldn't amount to more than a few kb.
Even if memory was a problem, you could store that information on the HDD.
With indexing and memory paging, that shouldn't cause much if any performance hit.

(2) The list must be scanned for each entry, every time the schedule changes and maybe every time a program is recorded.
The Daily Schedule list must be updated then, but DS provides a short list to look for new starts.
-Ken

I suspect that this is the real reason that they limit it.
If you would increase the timer and event list, then with the current program logic, things would probably come to a crawl.
I think that it probably would be possible with the help of indexing and other optimizations to alleviate this problem, however given how complex the logic must be to get the behavior of timers (at least reasonably) correct, I imagine that they're reluctant to modify that code.

I'm usually at or close to the 96 timers / 576 events limit, but most of that amounts to skipped events.
Currently, SlingGuide tells me I have 95 timers, 141 scheduled, 387 skipped, and 42 conflicts.
Once I go through and manually skip more of the 141 scheduled, I should end up with maybe 5-10 of actual events per day.

For today for example this is probably my actual event list:
Attack of the Show!
Smallville
Chuck
Kyle XY
Heroes
Medium
Saving Grace
The Daily Show With Jon Stewart
The Colbert Report

 

[Stargazer]

I ran into this problem lots of times when I had the free 3 months of HBO/Starz and tried to record a bunch of movies.

 

[Hall]

I'd like to think that Dish's programmers have good, technical reasons why there's such a limit...

They did increase it once before since the release of the 622. Thing is, whatever the limit is, someone will hit it and ask to have it increased.

 

[joshr915]

Probably, but its their job to keep increasing usability over time. It shouldnt stay a certain way forever. They need to keep improving.

 

[Hall]

Who says it's an improvement ? The hardware itself isn't getting faster, so it could be seen as a negative, i.e. it makes the user interface or experience slower.

 

[ESPNSTI]

Who says it's an improvement ? The hardware itself isn't getting faster, so it could be seen as a negative, i.e. it makes the user interface or experience slower.

I suspect that speed concerns are the real reason for the limit.
However I very much doubt that the hardware is the significant factor in the performance.
I suspect that a lot better performance can be had if the software was re-written or optimized.

 

[NotMe546]

I suspect that speed concerns are the real reason for the limit.
However I very much doubt that the hardware is the significant factor in the performance.
I suspect that a lot better performance can be had if the software was re-written or optimized.

Don't we have enough bugs in the software.

 

[ESPNSTI]

Don't we have enough bugs in the software.

Well yes, and that's probably the reason why they're not fixing it.
I assume everyone is afraid to touch it.