Record live/pause buffer?

[nwtim]

After many years of ReplayTV, Comcast DVRs, and TiVoHD's, I finally began using Windows Media Center a few months ago after getting an HDHomeRun Dual (OTA) and an HDHomeRun Prime (CableCARD).

I had become very accustomed to watching a show for a few seconds or minutes and then if it's something I'd like to save to watch or play for a family member later, I'd simply hit record and the buffer as well as the rest of the program would be saved.

No so with Windows Media Center, and it's the single biggest reason I haven't been able to stop using the STB's. With WMC, only content that is live AFTER hitting the record button gets saved with the program. The ONLY way I've been able to get something out of the pause buffer is by grabbing the hidden folder temporary files, renaming them to .wtv files, and HOPING they would be saveable via VideoRedo (many times it is impossible to save what was in the pause buffer).

How about NextPVR? Can the live/pause buffer be saved like on most STB DVR's or does it behave the same as WMC in this regard?

Thanks!

[mvallevand]

No, and its definitely the weakest link in an otherwise great pvr program. Sub explained once that most users don't watch live tv, I'm hoping he will have a change of heart seeing how many xbmc users are primarily live tv watchers.

Martin

[nwtim]

That's really unfortunate. I find it difficult to understand why most people would NOT want the buffer to be saved with the rest of the program when choosing to record.

I love sports, and it's not unusual for there to be some 6-8 games on at the same time that I'd like to watch portions of, but there is no way I can record them all, so I have little alternative but to use browsing to determine which ones I most want to save for later. Sometimes I already know what teams I want to see, but many times I see a play or a sequence in a game that grabs my interest and I'll hit record so I can watch it in continuity later. It's just a real pain that I don't get to keep the very sequence that captured my interest in the first place with the rest of the program. That's the biggest reason I still prefer the STB - getting the buffer saved with the rest of the program.

The fundamental flaw in assuming most PVR users don't watch live TV is that when there are literally hundreds of programs on at any one time, there's absolutely no way to know if you're missing one you might really like to watch if you never browse. The assumption would have to be made that PVR users always know what they want to watch ahead of time, and I just don't see how that's possible. One of the biggest reasons movies have trailers is to pull in viewers who might otherwise have no idea what the movie might be like. Even if one is not a sports fan - where there are far too many games for anyone to keep up with - how is a time-shifting commercial skipper going to know what programs are like? If one watches the first few minutes of a TV-movie to see if it might be "up their alley" or not, why wouldn't they want those few minutes to be included in case they wanted to save it for later to watch with a partner? This happens with me on virtually every TV-movie I record to watch later with my spouse.

[mvallevand]

I'm in the same boat I like watching hockey live but can't see myself scheduling 3-4 every night and my local team's schedule has some blackout channels so I can't depend on the data anyway

Martin

[johnsonx42]

and the irony is that this is something that GB-PVR did do quite well. About the only caveat with GB-PVR is that the livetv-turned-recording would stay in the livetv buffer directory rather than being moved to wherever the recording directory was. With NPVR this could be handled with the Archive function after the fact.

That all said, LiveTV is architected very differently in NPVR than in GB-PVR, and I can't really think of a good way to convert an NPVR LiveTV session into a recording; the entire way it works just doesn't lend itself to that.

[sub]

and the irony is that this is something that GB-PVR did do quite well. About the only caveat with GB-PVR is that the livetv-turned-recording would stay in the livetv buffer directory rather than being moved to wherever the recording directory was.

Don't forget that this was only with GB-PVR's timeshift mode enabled, but virtually nobody had it enabled because it was off by default and it took about a week to change channels when enabled.

[mvallevand]

I used it on the pc and nmt/mvp used it without complaining. I assume pc clients used it too. I'll disagree about the speed since I have posted gbpvr samples here that showed it was just as fast as NextPVR on the PC for me. There was a noticeable momentary transition between shows but well worth it for all it provided.

Martin

[sub]

I guess everyone is entitled to their own opinions. Personally, as someone dealing with supporting it, I think live tv was a buggy mess on GBPVR.

[johnsonx42]

This is just one of those areas where a purpose built PVR running a customized OS and file system can easily out-ninja something that has to make do with commodity hardware running a general purpose OS.

sub, even though it would be a bit hack-ish, I think many would be happy if you could just add in a way to save the livetv rolling file(s) and add them to the recordings database based on the name of the current show from the EPG, like "ShowName Part 1", "ShowName Part 2", etc. and then have the actual recording file listed as normal. People would then be free to delete the rolling file bits if they don't want them. Of course it's probably more work than I think it is, and invites criticism over what a hack-ish way to deal with it it is, and why can't you make it better...

[mvallevand]

Sub no doubt in my mind a programmer's perspective and a users can be diametrically opposed but it was working beautifully. If you could do johnsonx42's hack and support a postKeepLive.bat passing the base filename I'd love to be able to stitch the files back together, rename them and move them via a utility.

Martin