TV Wishes

[imilne]

Nothing too exciting, nor essential here, but here's a couple of ideas that might enhance Live TV functionality:

1) When you exit Live TV, NPVR just does it; this can be annoying if it happens by mistake (cat walking on the remote control, baby trying to eat it, etc) and you were 20 minutes behind actual live TV because of pausing or rewinding. How about an option to "Confirm before exiting Live TV". Or take it one further and "Confirm before exiting Live TV when at least [xx] minutes behind reality" (or words to that effect).

2) When browsing the Now/Next details with Up/Down (very handy btw), it would be nice to be able to hit Info/Ctrl+B and pop up the description of what you're looking at. Perhaps one press for now's details, a second for next's, and a third (or escape) to close and return to the previous now/next summary.

Iain

[martint123]

for (1) would resume be more useful ? (for a deliberate exit to watch later as well as your accidental exit )

[johnsonx42]

Both useful ideas. Particularly #1, though I wouldn't want to be bothered every time I try to exit LiveTV... I have a better idea that I think addresses the original concern.

One of the things I often miss about my old DirecTiVo is that the act of watching LiveTV was independant of what the tuners/recording engine were doing. I could exit LiveTV, then go back to it and it would still be buffering the show I had been watching, and I could still rewind back to the beginning of the buffer. In fact it had two tuners which could both be used for LiveTV sessions, and a button on the remote to swap between tuners. I used to watch two football games at the same time, swapping back and forth... if I returned to a game and found the score changed or the announcers were talking about some amazing play, I could rewind a bit and see what I'd missed, all the while it was still buffering the live stream of both games.

I don't necessarily propose that NPVR try to exactly emulate a TiVo and do all of that, but I can see an easy way to solve Iain's #1 above while adding a useful portion of what I described above:

Currently, when NextPVR requests LiveTV, NRecord sets up the livetv recording and hands NextPVR a LiveTV Lease. NextPVR uses that info to connect to the recording and sets up a playback graph. Every 10 seconds it requests a Lease renewal, and NRecord grants it. Finally when LiveTV is stopped, the Lease expires and NRecord shuts down the livetv recording.

To me it would seem fairly simple to do two things:
1) add a little logic to NRecord that says once a LiveTV lease expires or is canceled, just keep recording it for 30 minutes (or some other appropriate length of time - maybe the length of the livetv buffer?)
2) add a little logic to NextPVR to use any existing livetv lease when the user selects LiveTV; then it resumes renewing the lease and viewing proceeds as normal.

[mvallevand]

Instead of 1, which I hate, (how annoying would changing channels or toggling channels with prev channels?), I would like the ability to record the playback buffer and continue recording. I'd even accept an option to simply (and intentionally!) not delete the rolling file, allowing me to concatenate them back together.

Martin

[imilne]

Instead of 1, which I hate, (how annoying would changing channels or toggling channels with prev channels?)

Well, that's the great thing about making things optional. If you don't like it, you don't need to use it.

But you make a fair point about changing channels, which would affect how it works too. So maybe it should only ask for confirmation if you're more than, say, 30 seconds behind actual time. That way it wouldn't interfere with normal watching or channel flicking.

I like the resume suggestions too, but I'm not sure how that could work with channel changes, accidental or otherwise?

Iain

[BigMoose]

I've accidentally exited live TV which I'd earlier paused, watching sport, and lost the rest of the game. Bloody annoying! So yes, I echo the wish for something to be done to solve this, but appreciate a popup asking "are you sure?" would drive everyone mad....

[imilne]

Actually, jokes about cats and babies aside, I think most of my accidental exits (and there haven't been many thankfully, but it is annoying when it happens) have come from mistakenly pressing or double pressing Exit/Escape when trying to close one of the OSD elements (TV Guide, programme description, etc). So perhaps it would be enough to have the ability to disable exiting Live TV using the same button that can close these elements, and just use Stop/Ctrl+S instead.

Iain

[johnsonx42]

Actually, jokes about cats and babies aside, I think most of my accidental exits (and there haven't been many thankfully, but it is annoying when it happens) have come from mistakenly pressing or double pressing Exit/Escape when trying to close one of the OSD elements (TV Guide, programme description, etc). So perhaps it would be enough to have the ability to disable exiting Live TV using the same button that can close these elements, and just use Stop/Ctrl+S instead.

Doesn't the same button that opens those various OSD elements close them? I don't usually exit those by pressing the Escape or Go Back button on the remote.

In any case, I think everyone is used to and likes the Escape/Go Back button exiting any form of Playback, whether it be live tv, recordings, videos, etc.

[imilne]

Doesn't the same button that opens those various OSD elements close them? I don't usually exit those by pressing the Escape or Go Back button on the remote.

Not always, no, although I think they did in GBPVR. I have a feeling (can't check just now) that Info/Ctrl+B only disappears on timeout or Exit/Escape.

In any case, I think everyone is used to and likes the Escape/Go Back button exiting any form of Playback, whether it be live tv, recordings, videos, etc.

Which is why I usually suggest making things optional. And I don't think it works with DVDs anyway. The only way to exit them is with Stop, because Exit takes you to their menu (and then out), which isn't always what you want. I think Stop is the only way out of a DVD with no menu too.

Iain

[BigMoose]

My accidental exits were because I'm stupid and forgot I was watching delayed live TV and not a recording or actually live! So I stop for some reason then swear lots when I realise I've lost the rest of the match.