TV: is the timeshift buffer still deleted when zapping? (1 Viewer)

[gxtracker]

By default the timeshift buffer is 1 hour long

I just checked my MP installation: default on it is 30 minutes: enough for a half hour show, or half of a full hour show. If I want to record something, I use the record function.

Why? Because you say so?

Hey, im not a TV developer but im sure if you really want that feature badly enough the TV development team would love to have your coding experience as part of their team. :wink:

Seriously, to me, the feature is called 'timeshifting' not 'timerecording'. It's designed to allow a user to not miss anything. If you change the channel, it can be taken as a sign that you're done with the current content and want to move on to another show. As soon as you change the channel it will stop recording that channels contents, so keeping timeshifting on between channel changing seems pointless to me.

I agree that a great strength of MediaPortal is its customizability, but right now that customizability is coming at the expense of development time and ease, as well as usability. Like the saying goes; Keep It Simple, Stupid! (K.I.S.S.)

Let me try to understand the point of view better - of those who want to keep the buffer after channel changing.

Lets say you're watching a TV show, the show is on from 1:00 to 2:00. you are timeshifting and are currently 15 minutes behind live TV. At 1:30 the channel is changed by accident. you've now broken the bufferstream.

Which means that you've only recorded in the buffer up to 1:45.

What do you do now?

if you watch the last 15 minutes of the show, then you've missed the 15 minutes between 1:30 and 1:45 - if you watch the timebuffer, then you're going to have a channel change in the buffer at 1:45 - so you will get this distraction where you changed channels.

In this instance you would have just been better off planning before hand and recording the entire show, no?

I simply see it as extra work for developers on a feature that is rather trival and minor compared to some of the other glaring issues with MediaPortal at the moment. Im not saying its a bad idea - just that it shouldn't be a priority. MediaPortal has been in RC2 status for almost 6 months now. the proposed relase for 0.2.0.0 was november. At this rate, by the time we hit 1.0 I'll have kids!

 

[igalan]

Oh well, I see that recording seems the best alternative. Instead of relying on the timeshift buffer, from now on I should record instead of pause. I don't like it much because that means that MP will store the recording when I don't need it; it will need the extra step of deleting the recording later. A bit less convenient but still can be done .

Too bad that I can't help the development team . But rest assured that I did contribute in other areas: I wrote parts of the documentation of Media Portal, I've updated the Spanish translation, I am part of the test team... If I could help developing I would do it. Anyway I'm in the process of learning C#; as a VC++ and VB developer it doesn't seem that difficult, the worse part is where you have to make use of the system calls and then there is DirectX, drivers, etc.

 

[Roberdin]

Is there not a feature that enables a recording to deleted automatically following its viewing?

 

[kaybe]

If you are watching the buffer and switch the channel, it should come up saying "The show is delayed, do you still want to switch the channel? Hit select" Once you hit select it will remove the buffer and change the channel.

I dont know why you always want a notification? I am often in timeshift, i dont always want a notification every time I change the channel.

- Development Time
- Development Complexity

Not to mention that I've never even used a PVR Consumer Device that features keeping the timeshifting buffer after changing channels.

What other systems allows you to record anything and everything in the time buffer without deleting it?

1. This feature was implemented in Mediaportal till 0.1.3
2. If complexity and time is a reason you never had to start developing MP and (its sounds unfair) this is a dev problem not a user one.
3. Perhaps you know myHTPC, this app was one of the first popular free HTPC Software.
Now it is nearly four years old and with its TV-Plugin GotTV it was able to timeshift and change the channel without losing the timeshift.

what about the ability to be able to SAVE what is ever in the time buffer?

Nice idea, by the way with myHTPC and GotTV it was possible to save the timebuffer even if you changed the channel.

I don't use the TV part of MP

I don’t know why this people are discussing about a problem they don’t have and they don’t are familiar with.
It seems to me that this hinder us to make some efforts with our “We-want-this-feature-back†request.

... igalan: why do you argue so tough and personally?

Or perhaps he is disappointed that he has to discuss this thing again and again and again, without any result.

3. When you have a set buffer it can usually get very large, Going back in a 6 gig file can really slow the system down.

No, I don’t think so. Why it should do so?
I have set my timebuffer up to 90 min, I have no problems.

Finally, I hope some dev could say something to this discussion and say that they the will bring this feature back.

 

[ASiDiE]

The notification is only if you are WATCHING the buffer. This will solve the problem of accidentally hitting a channel button and loosing the buffer you were currently watching. The notification would not come up if you were watching LIVE tv and flipping around.

myHTPC is (from what I can tell) no longer around... it was replaced my Meedio. How does meedio do things? I used to use meedia right before I found MP..... and now I am hooked

 

[mPod]

All made their points clear now, that's why there's not much left to say.

- TOPIC CLOSED -