13 replies to this topic

[PaulOgilvie]

Today I tested a VU+ Duo2 machine. One of my requiremens is that it will continue recording a programmed recording after a power failure. The test was perfomed by someone who knows the PLI software, but I am not sure the test was performed correctly. Therefore my question: Does the PLI software continue recording a programmed recording after a power failure?

 

Example: I want to record the US Open tennis, which runs for 12 hours a day. Suppose, after the recoring started, there is a power failure and a few minutes later the power is restored, will the machine continue recoding the program?

 

Expected behavior: the US Open is in the list of programs to be recorded. When it is time to start the recording, the recording starts; however, the program should remain in the list of programs to record until its end time has expired. In this way, if the machine "wakes up" again from the power failure, it will still see the program, sees its end time has not yet expired and will start recording the program again (this new recording should be as a new entry in the recorded programs list).

 

I really hope the software supports this; I need to use the machine in an area where unfortunately there are regular power outages...

 

Thanks,
Paul Ogilvie

 

 

[Dimitrij]

yes

[PaulOgilvie]

Hi Dimitrij. Your simple "yes" sounds encouraging. I am new to this forum but your rating seems excellent and so your answer is correct I assume.

But just to be sure, does it follow my described behavior? Do you have a pointer to where this behavior is described? (e.g. software specs)

[Robinson]

I don't think it is described anywhere.

But I think I have had this before and I think I ended up with 2 separate recordings.

[jeanclaude]

not sure ...... a timer recording will re-start recording after any boot (crash or power outage), recording will have a numeric extension "_001" etc.....

but when launching a MANUAL recording (usin the red button) this will NOT resume after a boot of enigma2.

[anudanan]

from my point of view a manual startet timer makes the same as a programmed timers because the manual startet timer is in the normal timerlist and will also start after crashs

[PaulOgilvie]

What Jean-Claude reports on the manual recording is what we observed today: pressing the "record" button on a running program, pulling the plug and restarting did not restart the recording. Maybe pressing "record" on a running program should create an entry in the timer programming list, as you will normally want to say "record 2 hours" (e.g. you have to run away from your favorite program) and so it has become a normal timer program whose end time only expires after "now+2 hours" and so should continue recording after a power outage.

 

The extensions Jean-Claude reports _001 etc are also nice and solve another problem (requirement): Suppose you record the daily news. You'll need only 1 recording that renews every day (I assume the software supports this). Suppose the daily recording has started and there is a power failure. Upon restart the machine sees there is already 1x daily recording and would delete the part of today already recorded! With the extensions _001 etc. the machine can easily know it was in the middle of a daily recording and should not delete today’s existing partial recording.

[twol]

I think you are asking the wrong question.
I would be more worried about equipment failure after sudden power drops,... like most electrical products sat receivers don‘t like them.
The easy solution is to buy a small ups system !... and then your recording Q‘s are not that important.

[jeanclaude]

from my point of view a manual startet timer makes the same as a programmed timers because the manual startet timer is in the normal timerlist and will also start after crashs

there's one big difference : a manual recording does indeed create a timer in the timer list, but it isn't saved in the timers.xml file - it only exists in internal memory.

that's why when you pull the power cord the manual timer isn't recovered after power-up whereas the other timers are.

[jeanclaude]

What Jean-Claude reports on the manual recording is what we observed today: pressing the "record" button on a running program, pulling the plug and restarting did not restart the recording. Maybe pressing "record" on a running program should create an entry in the timer programming list, as you will normally want to say "record 2 hours" (e.g. you have to run away from your favorite program) and so it has become a normal timer program whose end time only expires after "now+2 hours" and so should continue recording after a power outage.

if you want to make a recording and you want to make sure that the recording continues after a power failure, don't use the "record" button to start a recording, but select the EPG list and create a timer from the EPG list (on the current programme). The timer will start recording immediately, just like a manual recording, and the timer is written to the timers.xml file so that it is recovered should a power outage occur.

another advantage : setting a timer will also check to make sure that no timer conflicts are created, otherwise you will get the timers conflict screen and you can adapt those timers until the conflict is resolved. with a manual recording you may find that the recording is stopped as soon as the tuner is needed for a planned timer recording, giving an incomplete recording.

[Rob van der Does]

I would be more worried about equipment failure after sudden power drops,... like most electrical products sat receivers don‘t like them.
The easy solution is to buy a small ups system !... and then your recording Q‘s are not that important.

The very reason I have all my electronic equipment running on UPS (actually on a bunch of small UPS's). I can even continue recording & watching while the whole village has a black-out (although that is not the purpose of my UPS).

[Robinson]

How long can your equipment be used after power outage? A question of minutes?

[ccs]

There are UPS capacity calculators on the interweb, so you can work out the size needed to run for as long as you think you need.  

Edited by ccs, 19 February 2018 - 17:49.

[Rob van der Does]

How long can your equipment be used after power outage? A question of minutes?

In my case around 20 minutes (using all equipment).

And that is more then sufficient: if I'm really using all equipment that means I'm there (watching TV), so I can power down all (Modem/Router/STB/Amp/TV) in an orderly way.

If I'm not there that means that the Amp/TV are not on, so powerconsumption is very low. Now the remaining equipment (Modem/Router/STB) can remain functional for quite some time; normally much longer then the power outage lasts.

In my case (in central France) the most common power outage lasts less then a second; sufficient for restarting (and hence damaging) equipment.

 

My aim is not to be able to watch TV while all the neighbours are lighting their candles; it's only meant to prevent damage. Before I switched to using UPS it did cost me several STB's, which is more expensive then a couple of UPS's.

 

PS: When calculating the desired capacity, one should take into consideration that the capacity of the embedded batteries decreases over time. So it's best to use twice the capacity one needs.

Edited by Rob van der Does, 20 February 2018 - 05:31.