Continuous recording - help

[wjb]

I have been reading and searching for help, and I see many answers pointing out that a pvr is always recording - as a long time TIVO user, I understand that. But is it normal for everything to be saved so that every night I come home to 24 hours of saved programs? TIVO just saves to a buffer it overwrites, but SAGE is keeping ALL its programs. Even if it would delete them when the HD is full, it is still annoying to have to weed through 24 unwanted programs just to get to the 2 or 3 I want. ( yes I have intelligent recording off). Is this what everyone means by constant recording?

And btw, just running the service by itself doesn't stop this problem. Anyone have any ideas?

[greggerm]

Are you putting Sage to sleep when you're done watching TV? I made this mistake when I first got Sage...

The software has no idea you turned your TV off. If you were watching Live TV, it will keep "watching" live TV until you come back. This may account for the continuous recording you are seeing. If you put sage to "Sleep", it will stop recording live TV and act a little more like what you're used to. I was not a TiVo user prior to Sage, so I am not sure how it works... but unless you tell Sage you're done watching, it thinks you still are and will record and record.

Sage simply collects all the live TV recordings (don't forget - it think's you ARE watching them) for your convenience, in case you wanted to go back to them. If you put it to sleep, it knows you've gone away and will stop recording.

It takes a bit to get used to (all of 2 days!) , but just hit that remote control button before powering off the TV (so you can see the screen saver kick in) and you'll be all set. I hope!

-Greg

[ben_95sl1]

if you don't want to put it to sleep...just selecting STOP while watching something will stop it from recording LiveTV....atleast, that's what I read, and it seems to do just that.

[Opus4]

Live TV keep going until you either do one of the 2 things mentioned above or a 3rd thing: start playing a prerecoded show (which stops the live TV show, so it stops recording). (pp. 24-25 in the v2.2 manual, in your SageTV dir.)

- Andy

[bhageman]

There is also a setting in Sage Properties. Can't remember the exact language and I'm at work, but it is something like "always_record=true". If this is set, Sage will always find something to record even when you are not watching live TV.

[mayamaniac]

I think constant recording means that it is always recording when you are watching Live TV, therefore it allows you to timeshift or pause, its the same for TIVO or any PVR systems. But of course there's always the option to stop it from recording. Thats why there's the STOP button on your remote.

But I too hoping for some improvements regarding LiveTV. Sage should have an option to turn on an alert after every show (or number of shows you specified), whether you want to continue LiveTV. And it gives you a few minutes to decide. If you click YES then it continues to record the next show, if you select NO or no selection is issued within the given time frame, then Sage will stop Live TV. Also, I think this will be useful for people with intelligent recording ON, so that you don't get screw by accidently leaving Live TV ON.

[wjb]

I appreciate all the helpfull responses. I followed the first one yesterday and put it to "sleep" last night. ( system program was still running). Checking now I see that it started recording at 12 noon today and recorded everything on channel 6 (the last channel I recorded last night).

Again, this is not like a Tivo - Tivo doesn't fill up the disk storing all the programs, it just rewrites over a buffer.

I'll look at any suggestions tonight, and try another one. Again, thanks everyone for your help. This is the best support I've gotten on anything in a long time.

[wjb]

I tried the suggestion of watching a previously recorded show - it didn't work. Despite watching the prerecorded show for an hour, it didn't stop recording - when the prerecorded show was over, the entire live show and been recorded and it was on to recording yet another.

I also tried to "stop" while watching live tv, but I don't have the remote set up yet, so I'm using the keyboard and mouse, and I didn't see a stop button on the screen, only a pause. At this point I'm 0 for 3.

[Opus4]

As bhageman suggested, check for a property like: mmc/encoders/<some_number>/never_stop_encoding=true.

Also: what tuner are you using?

Live TV should be deleted fairly soon after the show is over (unless IR is turned on or unless you have this property set: seeker/clear_partials_and_unwanted_when_ir_off=false), so if those recordings are sticking around, it sounds lke it is more than just live TV going on & on.

- Andy

[wjb]

I'm using the Hauppauge PVR 350
seeker/clear_partials_and_unwanted_when_ir_off=true
I don't see anything like "mmc/encoders/<some_number>/never_stop_encoding=true" and in fact neither the word "never" nor the word "stop" appears at all in my sage.properties.

[Opus4]

Something doesn't sound right, but I'm not sure what is happening. Is there a client somewhere that is watching live TV? But, those live TV recordings shouldn't be hanging around in the SageTV Recordings screen... do they have a colored border around them?

You could try exiting SageTV compeletly, moving the properties file & its autobackup to some other directory to save them, then restart SageTV & reconfigure.

The 350's driver is up to date?

What version of SageTV are you using? (Or did I ask that already...)

Maybe someone else will remember something simple that I'm forgetting, or you could try tech support.

- Andy

[mayamaniac]

Originally Posted by wjb

Again, this is not like a Tivo - Tivo doesn't fill up the disk storing all the programs, it just rewrites over a buffer.

Originally Posted by wjb

I tried the suggestion of watching a previously recorded show - it didn't work. Despite watching the prerecorded show for an hour, it didn't stop recording - when the prerecorded show was over, the entire live show and been recorded and it was on to recording yet another.

I also tried to "stop" while watching live tv, but I don't have the remote set up yet, so I'm using the keyboard and mouse, and I didn't see a stop button on the screen, only a pause. At this point I'm 0 for 3.

There's something wrong with your SageTV if its not behaving like Tivo. It shouldn't continue to record after those 3 methods.

And more strange is you are missing some lines in your sage.properties file. Maybe attach your sage.prop file to this thread and someone can analyze it for you.

[wjb]

Andy and everyone who's helped - Thanks. Your comment "Something doesn't sound right, but I'm not sure what is happening. Is there a client somewhere that is watching live TV?" got me to thinking - and feeling like an idiot. Could my trial version of Beyond TV be still doing something? Well, I did a full uninstall of BTV and everything looks good. I watched a recording and the recording of live TV stopped !!! Great ! I'll see what happens tomorrow but I think its working. I'm leaving on vacation Saturday, and I'm anxious to see how it works during the week I'm gone. If no problems, I'll buy Sage - I didn't like the BTV anyway.
Thanks Again,
Walt

[Jet_Jaguar]

I'm having this same issue. I'll detail my setup so perhaps we can find a commonality.

I did a clean install of WinXP on a new hard drive. Drive has two partitions, C: and D:. Installed the latest nvidia DVD decoder, as well as the latest Sage (2.2.7.) I'm using the hauppauge 350 and the 150mce (not that this really matters, since it seems to be a sage-only thing. )

I had one program record from one channel, and was watching another program on another channel. The tuner kept recording every program on those two channels.

You know, I really haven't had much luck with Sage. I think it's time for BeyondTV.

[mayamaniac]

Just as a note, it is not possible to Run SageTV 2.x with BeyondTV 3.5x on the same system. They will conflict with each other. However, if you use BTV 3.4 or earlier versions, then its ok to run it along SageTV.