Recording live TV programs

[mvallevand]

I think the confusion starts from the title of the thread since Live TV and Recordings are completely different functions. LiveTV is just that LiveTV which can be started and viewed, stopped or turned into a recording a with ctrl-K. Recordings have to be scheduled manually or via information in the EPG, or started interactively from the guide or from live tv. It is not stopped, except at the end of the scheduled recording, but it can be cancelled, and you still have to remove cancelled recordings from the recordings menu.

If you have trouble with keyboard shortcuts. a remote is more intuitive but you can right click the screen with the mouse too.

Martin

[johnsonx42]

yeah, that's why I added my comment starting with "also, just so you understand". I think our new friend is confusing the two functions.

[a_edwall]

Thank you for this valuable information. In other programs which I am familiar with, recording only starts once you pause and start time-shifting. If you never time-shift/pause in these other programs, then nothing is recorded and you can never go back and see something in the past. So apparently NPVR is different and is always active so I would never miss anything, regardless of whether I paused or time-shifted or anything else. I can see that as being a good thing.

[johnsonx42]

I gather that was one of the major design points of the new NextPVR program vs. the old GB-PVR program. GB-PVR did have an 'always-record' mode as well, but it made livetv startup and channel changes painfully slow so most people used what was called "LiveTV Preview" mode that worked similar to how you described other programs. Sub apparently put considerable effort into combining the two modes to be able to always buffer yet still have reasonably fast channel changes in the new software.

I can see that as being a good thing.

NextPVR is chock-full of Good Things

edit: the new live tv system in NPVR also enables Multi-Record with live tv, something that sub said was flat out impossible with GB-PVR. As a QAM user you should get good use out of that.

[a_edwall]

I will have to read the docs on what is meant by "Multi-Record". It could have a couple of definitions that I can think of.

[Reddwarf]

Here it simply means that you can record more that one channel at the same time with only one capture device (provided that the channels are transmitted on the same frequency).

Edit: ..record and/or watch.. would be a more precise definition

[johnsonx42]

if you go into your Device Setup screen (where you did the channel scan before) and look at your channels, each channel will have a Freq: and Sid: parameter. Any channels on the same Freq: (aka Physical Channel) can all be recorded/watched at once, using just one tuner. As a QAM user, you should find 2 or 3 HD TV channels on one Freq: or as many as 10(!) SD TV channels. Make yourself a little cheat-sheet of which TV channels are on the same frequency, and have fun.

It also works with over-the-air broadcast TV (commonly called ATSC), but there are far fewer channels per frequency and far less commonality - I don't get ABC and CBS on the same frequency for example. It still comes in handy sometimes though: just recently my wife called to me "hey, johnsonx42, something's wrong with this thing - it says it's recording 4 shows right now, but you said we only have 2 tuners". I blew her mind by putting a 5th channel on LiveTV too. Then I tried to explain Multi-record and which channels were on common frequencies, and her eyes glazed over and she wandered off...

[mvallevand]

Multirec does have value even when there is only one channel on the frequency because you can have two or more clients watching live tv on the same channel simultaneously and independently.

Martin

[a_edwall]

I see that now when I pause a live TV show and start it up again 5 minutes later, I can't go forward or backward. That seems odd. I should be able to go back or ahead as I feel like doing. So something seems wrong. I thought I could do this prior to all my troubles.

Also, hitting F8 for Recordings does not do anything - no effect.

[sub]

Also, hitting F8 for Recordings does not do anything - no effect.

The quick F-keys are only intended to work when you're are the menus, not while you're watching video or live tv.