Turning off time-shifting

[elsmandino]

Hi,

Until recently, I have been time-shifting to a dedicated RAMDisk on my Server.

However, I realised that I never rewind or pause live TV and got rid of it.

Am I correct in thinking that if I watch live TV via X-Newa, there is no way to turn off time-shifting?

At the moment, I use X-Newa for all my scheduling and playing of recordings but I have to switch to the NPVR plugin for live TV because the add-on has an option to turn off time-shifting (this does not seem to be available for X-Newa).

Thanks

[mvallevand]

Am I correct in thinking that if I watch live TV via X-Newa, there is no way to turn off time-shifting?

No problem native mode doesn't support time-shifting. Note that the NextPVR backend does still write a live tv file to disk if that is your concern for your RamDisk

Martin

[elsmandino]

Note that the NextPVR backend does still write a live tv file to disk

Martin

That is indeed what I wanted to avoid. Is there any way to turn this off or is my only choice to stick with the NPVR plugin?

[mvallevand]

That is indeed what I wanted to avoid. Is there any way to turn this off or is my only choice to stick with the NPVR plugin?

Even with pvr.nextpvr the backend will write a temp file to disk for live tv. If you had moved to a sat-ip device, you could potentially have played from it in x-newa bypassing NextPVR altogether for live tv. I do this with an HDHR.

Martin

[sub]

You can limit the size of the files, but you can't turn them off entirely.

[elsmandino]

You are completely right - annoyingly, I have spent weeks time-shifting to my SSD without realising (hope I have not done too much damage, as I leave my TV on all night).

How come NPVR must create a temporary file, even if it is merely passing the signal on to clients? I came across the same thing when I tried MythTV and could never work out why time-shifting could be completely turned off.

Also, therefore, what does the option do, in the PVR plugin, in relation to disabling time-shifting?

I guess the best workaround (other than a sat-ip device) is going to be to limit the temporary file to the bare minimum in size and recreate a small RAMDisk that will just fit - will that work?

[sub]

How come NPVR must create a temporary file, even if it is merely passing the signal on to clients?

Just because that is the way it's designed to work. Most people want timeshift, and it's easier to build in one approach for streaming live tv that accommodates this, instead of two entirely different systems (one with timeshift ability and disk buffers, and one without).

Also, therefore, what does the option do, in the PVR plugin, in relation to disabling time-shifting?

This really just controls the mechanism Kodi uses to request the stream. With it off, it just gives a http url to Kodi, and it takes care of reading the stream. With it on, it delivers chunks of data to Kodi, instead of a URL. The later used to be usable in Kodi for pausing and skipping back in Live TV etc, but this isn't really the case in the most recent Kodi builds, where they've introduced a new mechanism for timeshifting.

I guess the best workaround (other than a sat-ip device) is going to be to limit the temporary file to the bare minimum in size and recreate a small RAMDisk that will just fit - will that work?

Yeah, you can try that.

You can control the size of the file by setting the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\NPVR\SlipSeconds registry setting. It defaults to 1200 (which is 20 minutes, or 1200 seconds). Restart the recording service to pickup any changes you make to this setting. It needs to be above 60, so try 61 or similar.

[mvallevand]

I guess the best workaround (other than a sat-ip device) is going to be to limit the temporary file to the bare minimum in size and recreate a small RAMDisk that will just fit - will that work?

If you do this you are bound to have problems if you don't power off often. LiveTV temp files have a habit of not getting deleted.

I have had a cheap $60 Adata SSD in my dedicated backend for over 2 years now, recording Live TV from my HDPVR (which I can't stream), as well as many recordings and the SSD status shows green with 98% life. I have 20TB written so far which is probably about 800 hours of recordings (mine are about 2.5GB hr). I do expect 100TB of life, but it could be more. If it gets bad I will clone the drive and replace it. My backend is in sleep mode most of the time, so that probably keeps the system writes down.

Martin