Television networks do not always start or finish their shows exactly at the scheduled time. MCE has the ability to add extra recording time before and after the scheduled program.  These settings are known as Soft Padding (pre and post) and can be found in Settings / TV / Recorder / Recording Defaults under start or stop where possible. They have a maximum of 4 minutes that can be set.

Whilst these values can be edited through the Registry or using MCE customizer, it should be noted that they will revert to default settings upon reboot as the values cannot be retained.

Because most TV shows either start on time or late (almost never early) the maximum soft pre-padding value of 4 minutes is usually enough to catch the start of a program.

To capture TV show over-runs, the best method is to schedule a recording through the guide, then select the program in the guide, then follow the menu Record Settings where you can alter the Stop Time known as Hard Post-Padding. This setting can be from 5 minutes to 3 hours.

For weekly series episodes 15 minutes is the recommened padding, however, for movies it may be desireable to move that out to 30 minutes and for important sporting events, especially those where extra time may be incurred, individual allowances ranging from 30 mins to 1.5 hours may be more appropriate.