No STOP Function for SAGE

[Joshua]

I recorded a documentary series from 1pm - 3pm every Friday
At 2pm, I would like to stop the recording and extract some highlight from 1-2pm

Problem
=====
As Sage UI do not have STOP recording functionality, I chose CANCEL this recording. To my surprise, Sage deleted the recording from 1-2pm. Is there any ways to get around with it ? Is there any STOP recording function that will not delete away this file ?

Secondly, as I chose CANCEL this recording, all my future programming of this particular documentary (every Friday) were also cancelled. I have to re-program again. Is there any ways that I can get around it also ?

[nielm]

already discussed many times. The reasoning is that
a) Sage is not a VCR
b) with mutliple tuners recording simulataneously, how to you know what to stop!

Current workaround is, make it a manual recording (if it is not already) and then set the recording options so that the 'stop time' is 'Now'. This will stop recording and keep the file.

This is implemented in the SageMC (i believe), and on my to-do list for the multi-function stop plugin.

[blade]

Do you always only want to record from 1-2 pm? I guess I'm a little confused because if you stop the recording early then of course you're not going to have the entire program. If this is what you want to do just set the padding so that it stops recording an hour early.

If you want to cancel a future airing set it as watched or do not like and Sage won't record that episode.

[Joshua]

Originally Posted by nielm

already discussed many times. The reasoning is that
a) Sage is not a VCR
b) with mutliple tuners recording simulataneously, how to you know what to stop!

Current workaround is, make it a manual recording (if it is not already) and then set the recording options so that the 'stop time' is 'Now'. This will stop recording and keep the file.

This is implemented in the SageMC (i believe), and on my to-do list for the multi-function stop plugin.

Thanks Nielm didn't seems to find this answer in the forum. One funny thing is that sometimes SAGE did not remove the file and sometimes it did. Would you mind enlighten me on this phenomenon.

Btw, I understand that you wrote the webserver and I am eager to add some more functionality in it. Especially on the recording. Is it possible for me to add "Once", "Daily", etc on your webserver ?

I also noted that the webserver doesn't allow changing of timing like what you had recommended above to get around the problem. Is it also possible for me to add on to the webserver ? Or it is really the limitation of the APIs available ?

Appreciate very much of your advice. Thanks

[jbarr]

Originally Posted by nielm

b) with mutliple tuners recording simulataneously, how to you know what to stop!

Hmmmm. The viewer shouldn't need to know or care what tuner to stop, because SageTV already knows. SageTV knows what's currentel recording, and SageTV knows where it's recording. So logically, SageTV should be able to be instructed how to handle that recording, be it extending or reducing the padding time, flagging it as "Watched", cancelling and deleting the recording, and cancelling and retaining the recording.

This is a philosophical issue that I've seen debated (and debated myself ) over the past couple months, and I find the differing perspecetives quite intriguing. I'm coming from an obviously biased background with experience with several other DVR's, so it's inevitable that I will draw comparisons, but wouldn't it be to SageTV's advantage to draw on and learn from the successes and mistakes of other implementations to improve and mature its offerings?

[nielm]

Originally Posted by Joshua

Btw, I understand that you wrote the webserver and I am eager to add some more functionality in it. Especially on the recording. Is it possible for me to add "Once", "Daily", etc on your webserver ?

for timed recordings? not at present.

I also noted that the webserver doesn't allow changing of timing like what you had recommended above to get around the problem. Is it also possible for me to add on to the webserver ?

it does allow it: Detailed info -> Record options; set end time; 999 mins earlier (where 999 is a number greater than (end Time - NOW).

NOTE that for repeated timed recordings, doing this is a bad idea and will affect all future timed recordings!

The reasons for the disappearance is via sage's calcualtion of what a partial recording is. If a show is scheduled from 1pm to 3pm and you cancel it at 2pm, only 50% is recorded, and sage thinks it's a partial and deletes it (*) If you cancel it at 2:59pm, then 99% is recorded and sage thinks its a full recording. I am not sure what the threshold is for determining something is a partial.

(*) it doesn't always delete it: if the option in detailed setup/Advanced/delete livetv files ... is disabled, then it just hides them from view and leaves them on disk, and can be viewed in my delete partials plugin or SageV6's hidden extra show partials screen.

[nielm]

Originally Posted by jbarr

Hmmmm. The viewer shouldn't need to know or care what tuner to stop, because SageTV already knows.

Ok, my point is that I am in the main menu, nothing playing and I press STOP. I have 7 tuners currently recording...

Or I am playing back something non-live (eg prerecorded or music). 7 tuners are currently recording. What should STOP do here?

This is why currently STOP applies only to playback -- it gets too confusing when applied to both recording and playback on a system that can do both things at once...

(About the only thing I can see that could handle this would be an option in the detailed info / record options popup to 'stop recording now'.)

[domc]

If you use the SageMC UI, you can start and stop recordings for a portion of the show that you want and it will save that portion of the show as an .mpg as usual.

[jbarr]

I have to preface this by saying that I do NOT use the stock SageTV STOP function--I use neilm's AMAZING Multi-Stop plugin. In my opinion, this plugin functionality should be rolled into the core SageTV. While the stock STOP function is fairly intuitive in most cases, this is one function that I feel can seriously benefit from the added functionality that the plugin provides. OK, onward...

Originally Posted by neilm

Ok, my point is that I am in the main menu, nothing playing and I press STOP. I have 7 tuners currently recording...

In this case, STOP should do absolutely nothing, because there is no "focus" for STOP to know what to do. I guess you could present a simple "Stop" menu with a button for each currently recording show allowing the viewer to select a show to stop recording...hmmm...something to think about...

Originally Posted by neilm

Or I am playing back something non-live (eg prerecorded or music). 7 tuners are currently recording. What should STOP do here?

It should stop music playback. Intuitively, STOP should affect whatever you are currently working with. If you are listening to music, then it should stop playback of music. Anything in the background (ie: recordings) should be unaffected by STOP--there should be another facility to manage background recordings.

Originally Posted by neilm

This is why currently STOP applies only to playback -- it gets too confusing when applied to both recording and playback on a system that can do both things at once...

I agree to a point. Playback is the most straight-forward concept for STOP to handle: If you are watching a recorded show, then STOP should stop playback of the recorded show. If you are listening to music, STOP should stop playback of music. If you are watching Google Video, STOP should stop playback. And if you are watching live TV (ie: anything that is currently recording), then intuitively, STOP should stop PLAYBACK of live TV and return you to the HOME menu. Should it stop RECORDING? Well....

As for recordings, I don't think it really needs to be complicated. Whatever is recording, should be able to be stopped, but within the proper context. If you are watching what is recording (ie: live TV) then pressing STOP should affect only what you are watching. If you are in the EPG, or on any other screen that displays the currently recording show, and you highlight that show, then STOP should affect only THAT show. (I would personally prefer to leverage the Options menu in these cases, but if it's kept intuitive, then STOP is a good candidate.)

The potential confusion is that the stock SageTV STOP function does simply that: it stops. While it is intuitive in most cases, I feel that functionality like neilm's Multi-Stop plugin enhances STOP while still keeping things simple. The goal for most DVR users (from my experience) is to minimize the button presses, but it is also to make things consistent and intuitive.

Sorry for going on about this, but I think that this is one weak spot in SageTV's arsenal. Improving the STOP functions can, in my opinion, help reduce the confusion of new users, and users transitioning from other DVR's.

[GKusnick]

What the Stop button does is already intuitive and consistent. It always stops playback, and never affects recording. What could be more consistent than that?

The problem with having it stop recording as well in some cases is that the user may not realize that recording is still in progress. Suppose I sit down in front of the TV, without looking at a clock or a TV schedule, bring up SageTV Recordings, choose something near the top of the list, and start watching. As it happens, that particular program is still in the process of recording, but I neither know nor care about that; I'm just here to watch.

Then the phone rings and I push Stop. Imagine my surprise when I come back to that program later and find that only half of it got recorded, because Sage thought I meant "Stop recording" when in fact I had no clue that it was still in the process of recording.

If you insist on a "stop recording" function, it should clearly be separate from the Stop Playback button on the remote. Context sensitivity is a bad idea for something like this because it requires the user to be aware of Sage's internal state (i.e. recording or not) in order to know whether it's safe to push the Stop button. That's neither intuitive nor consistent.

Personally I don't see why being able to stop a recording in progress is such a big deal. It's always possible to edit out any parts that you don't want to keep. It's not always possible to get back the parts that didn't get recorded in the first place.

[jsonnabend]

Well, the discussion is all well and good, but it misses the bigger point. If there is a "cancel this recording" option anywhere, there easily could be a "stop this recording" option there as well.

The whole "what should the stop button do" discussion is a red herring.

- Jeff

[dragon]

Originally Posted by Joshua

I recorded a documentary series from 1pm - 3pm every Friday
At 2pm, I would like to stop the recording and extract some highlight from 1-2pm

Problem
=====
As Sage UI do not have STOP recording functionality, I chose CANCEL this recording. To my surprise, Sage deleted the recording from 1-2pm. Is there any ways to get around with it ? Is there any STOP recording function that will not delete away this file ?

Since you know that you only want the first hour of the two-hour show, just set the record padding to end 60 minutes early.

That's the easy solution and it will work for favorites and for manual recordings. You don't have to be there.

If you are there, and want to stop a show and keep it, just change the recording padding (or favorites padding, if it is a favorite).

I always set the padding to end the show about a minute or so after the "current time." I don't know what would happen if you set to a time that had already passed.

Terry

[nielm]

Jbarr: I (finally) got your point about focus and context.

The next version of the multifunction stop will have a 'stop this recording' feature if

• you are watching live tv
• you are not watching anything and you highlight a currently recording show in the EPG/recordings list/scheduled recordings list (pretty much anywhere) and press STOP

It will be V6 only I am afraid...

Originally Posted by jsonnabend

Well, the discussion is all well and good, but it misses the bigger point. If there is a "cancel this recording" option anywhere, there easily could be a "stop this recording" option there as well.

It will add this too

[jbarr]

nielm:
Glad we're on the same page. I'm looking forward to the update!

jsonnabend:

Well, the discussion is all well and good, but it misses the bigger point. If there is a "cancel this recording" option anywhere, there easily could be a "stop this recording" option there as well.

The whole "what should the stop button do" discussion is a red herring.

I hope we can agree to disagree on this. Maybe this speceific thread wasn't the most appropriate place to bring up the "what should the stop button do" issue. But my intent was to get people thinking about the overall concept of "STOP" instead of just adding a feature here or there. Why? Because I think that SageTV is an excellent product, and in order for it to maintain and increase its quality, it needs to not only retain its uniqueness, but it also needs to draw upon the successes and failures of other DVS's. I'm not advocating lots of change--far from it. I'm just trying to get other SageTV users who may not have exposure to the features and concepts of other DVR's to understand that many people are coming to SageTV from other DVR platforms, and expectations may differ greatly from the "seasoned" SageTV users.

And yes, I do agree that the bottom line is providing a "cancel this recording" option. And thanks so nielm, it looks like our wish will be granted....

[Joshua]

Originally Posted by nielm

for timed recordings? not at present.
it does allow it: Detailed info -> Record options; set end time; 999 mins earlier (where 999 is a number greater than (end Time - NOW).

NOTE that for repeated timed recordings, doing this is a bad idea and will affect all future timed recordings!

I went to the webserver --> Detailed info --> Record options BUT still can't find set end time.

I am using the latest webserver found at
sageweb

Is version 2.9 the latest ?

Is there anything else that I need to download ?

[nielm]

sorry that should be set end PADDING not time, and it will only be there for future or currently recording shows.

[nielm]

as promised

[jbarr]

EXCELLENT!!!!!!!!!!!!!