Is there a way to force buffered recording. . .

[beardy]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

If all you want to do is watch live TV with the occasional wish to record something, known ahead of time, it seems there's nothing you want that a VHS VCR can't do. Why bother with the computer at all?

I want the ability to:
Record programming on the fly
Use the EPG to record one off programmes
Use the EPG to record recurring programming
Watch live TV (no recording to HDD)
Be able to pause programming
Archive recordings for easy playback

As far as i can tell a VCR doesn't really cut it.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by beardy

I want the ability to:
Record programming on the fly
Use the EPG to record one off programmes
Use the EPG to record recurring programming
Watch live TV (no recording to HDD)
Be able to pause programming
Archive recordings for easy playback

As far as i can tell a VCR doesn't really cut it.

You have to understand that these two are mutually exclusive. If you are watching TV in whatever solution you are talking about that has to buffer, and you decide "I want to record this show" you can record from that point on. However, in Sage, you can record what you have already watched PLUS what is yet to come. This advantage comes with no discernible disadvantage. When you were asked what practical advantage you think you would gain from this, you said nothing other than that it didn't matter because you already uninstalled it. That, frankly, is why people may have seemed hostile. Bringing up a subject that has been discussed at length, then when someone else chimes in, shooting them down by saying 'doesn't matter' is nothing but trolling.

So, perhaps another try. WHY do you want sage to NOT buffer viewing through the disk? What usability feature are you trying to achieve that sage is not providing to you?

[ytulpan]

I must say that you Americans are pretty religious. I read somewhere that 70% believe in Heaven and Hell, and 90% out of those believe they'll get to Heaven.

For the record, I should say that I have a pretty large SageTV installation, and I am not overly troubled by the Live (or for that matter The Pause) issues, since I only suffer less than 2 sec. delay over STBs, and my Pause is usually less than 1 second. But this is since I am now using DVB-S2 tuners with software decryption. The days with HD-PVR's were much, much worse.

Let me share with you an experience we had when supplying a large French satellite broadcaster parts of the conditional access technology at the dawn of digital broadcasting in the early 90's (Yes, those frog-eating soccer-playing barbarians with bullet trains, universal health coverage, really working cell networks, 45 days paid vacations and NO hue adjustments on their old analog TV's).

The test users with STB's complained they got the signal one and a half seconds late compared with the analog ones. This was obviously due to compression/decompression delays. Everyone with the broadcaster laughed, until questioning actual users. They all said:

"We hear the shouts for goals from the neighbors before we even see the kick"

Of course there was no solution except quickly phasing out the analog. It helped that they got 6 times the channels, porn on PPV and other goodies.

So, obviously there is something called Live TV. News and CNN depend on that. Sports and Live concerts. I guess that all of you watched 9/11 live. Hell, I did. In the age of the Internet, you can (or will be able) to download anything, but still live TV will be broadcast (maybe via IP).

Now also, for those of you that record from STB's, and re-compress, a few seconds' delay is extremely annoying if you ever have to manually control the STB, say when ordering a PPV movie or need any other type of STB control. Having a 2-3 sec. delay between pressing on the remote and seeing the result is really awkward.

Of course that there are many ways to achieve Live, none being terribly difficult, and Sage supporters have to understand that it makes sense. Of course, with development resources being what they are, and with Sage still muddling their way in trying to provide a bug-free demux, maybe this is not the highest priority.

If I would backseat-code for a minute, one solution could be as follows: normally the server writes data to end the file, thereby extending it, and reads data from the point of the file that the client requests. Since there is some memory buffering by Sage, the file system, etc, the read is a few seconds late. Now, if the client wants to advance *further* then the length of the file, the Sage server could supply it with the data being written to the file instead of rereading it. That would be a seamless transition. The server would still continue to do its usual shtick, cutting a channel into shows, etc. but could pump the client the data being written to the file. Only if the client wants to go *behind* live, it will necessitate a read from the current file.

But of course I know very little about the actual code. So maybe this would be impossible given the architecture, but, really there are many more solutions.


All in all, Sage is really very nice, but kind of amateurish.I can't find something better, though.

[nick_l]

Originally Posted by ytulpan

Sage supporters have to understand that it makes sense.

No we don't, because, frankly, It does not make sense. No one has come up with a single good reason for wanting this behavior.

What Sage users, and Sage LLC, do need to understand is that although the request is irational, it is something a fair number of users do want. Sometimes it is in a products best interest to attempt to fulfill requests for features such as this, even though they make little real gain to the product feature set.

Nick

[sdsean]

I think there are several good reasons to have a "buffered" mode, or mix the modes . . .
especially for LiveTV

1.) It should reduce the amount of lag between channel changes. . . no deletion of files
and perhaps no cycling of the HD-PVRs in analog cases.
2.) It would allow you to save partial recordings or snippets, rather than having to hit record, being forced to record the whole show. Right now you can't stop recording, just cancel it. . .which of course deletes the show.
3.) Assuming a multi-tuner setup, it could allow for "double-buffering", keeping the last channel or 2 or 3 as still recording so that flipping back and forth would be faster. and of course that could also enable picture in picture in the guide. (aka previewing the channel you are going too)
4.) It would allow for the buffer to go accross channel changes if desired, so that if say flipping through sports games you could re-wind to what you had watched previously withought having to start up a new video

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by beardy

I understand at a pretty fundamental level how they work. I also understand that the easiest way to take video from a tuner is to decode it and display it, not decode it, record it, decode it again and then display it.

The video doesn't really get decoded twice. In the case of an analog tuner, it goes something like encoding->recording->decoding. In the case of digital it can just dump the digital stream mostly directly to disk, so it goes something like recording->decoding.

Originally Posted by beardy

EDIT: It's also wierd how i've been jumped on by a lot people for suggesting a feature, you guys should lighten up. There's plenty of software out there that doesn't need a buffer file or has the option to use it or not. All i'm doing is pointing out an optional feature that some would enjoy. I guess it's SageTVs loss anyway.

Well, it's too bad people jumped on you the way they did. This a topic that comes up quite a bit, and I think people don't really like to rehash past arguments. Generally speaking the people on this forum are very helpful and considerate, especially compared to many of the forums. This is sort of a touchy subject for some reason, probably just because it comes up so much.

That being said, I think most PVR software does have a buffer. MCE, BeyondTV, GB-PVR, and even the Hauppauge software, all have buffers, I believe. What's a little different about Sage is that it doesn't use a circular buffer- a single file that any live TV gets appended to in a circular fashion, so the size is bounded. Sage each live TV program to it's own file, which has it's advantages and disadvantages. But it sounds like you don't even want the circular buffer.

Originally Posted by nick_l

No we don't, because, frankly, It does not make sense. No one has come up with a single good reason for wanting this behavior.

We're potentially talking about two things- bufferless playback and playback from a circular buffer. Either way, I think there are decent reasons for wanting it. The main one is probably gapless playback, so you don't have the pauses between recordings.

In general, I think it's probably a bad idea to go with either one. How many people would really want to use a DVR with bufferless playback? And, the circular buffer has all kinds of consequences for playback on extenders, commercial skipping, etc. I think there are probably better solutions to the pauses in playback.

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by sdsean

2.) It would allow you to save partial recordings or snippets, rather than having to hit record, being forced to record the whole show. Right now you can't stop recording, just cancel it. . .which of course deletes the show.

Actually, you can basically do that now if you turn off the setting that deletes partial live TV recordings. I forget what the specific setting is called, but you should be able to identify it pretty easily in the Detailed Setup menu.

[GKusnick]

Originally Posted by beardy

EDIT: It's also wierd how i've been jumped on by a lot people for suggesting a feature, you guys should lighten up.

Not that weird if you realize that this is not a forum for suggesting features to the devs; it's a forum for discussing SageTV with other users. By posting your suggestion here, you're inviting other users to comment on it, so that's what we did.

It seems to me this is primarily an aesthetic issue for you. You haven't tried very hard to make a convincing case for bufferless recording on usability grounds; it's just that the idea of those partial recording files existing even temporarily somehow offends your sense of how a DVR ought to work. You're entitled to your aesthetic sensibilities, of course, but by itself that hardly seems like sufficient grounds for an architectural change that offers no clear usability advantage.

Originally Posted by sdsean

2.) It would allow you to save partial recordings or snippets, rather than having to hit record, being forced to record the whole show. Right now you can't stop recording, just cancel it. . .which of course deletes the show.

This seems to be another example of a similar aesthetic. If you can push a button to mark the start of the clip you want to save, push another button to mark the end of it, and end up with a file containing the extracted clip, then why should you care if there's a temporary file that contains the whole program? What should matter is the user experience, not how Sage achieves it under the hood.

[ytulpan]

The argument against "buffering" or "live" is, if I sum up the reactions:

1) We're happy as it is. Don't mess with our perception of reality.
2) Some of the missing features can be achieved by workarounds.
3) It is a question of apples *or* oranges. It's subjective what one likes best.

As I said in a previous post, I personally don't care too much about this issue. I have others (in fact, most important for me are DVB subtitles). However:

1) Higher general acceptance of Sage is extremely important, if we want to make sure that our current investment with Sage stays solid. Lack of live is, like it or not, one of the issues in reviews I read. Joe Pvr can't get it.

2) All proprietary DVR/PVR and most PC ones I know about are on-line with no extra buffering delay (have a seamless live mode). A large majority of people *with* PVR's still watch live TV at any specific time.

3) Adding an online mode does not subtract anything, but only adds options. One could have *both* apples *and* oranges.

4) The only advantage the current solution has, is simpler coding. And not *that* much simpler. It is a question of write-ahead or write-behind.

5) One of the most important reasons for "live" in proprietary applications was hard disk I/O load. Being constantly behind live needs twice the I/O. Even more, in most OS's one wastes a full disk rotation. So they had to work hard to have the pause/play with delay feature. Also, you don't really want to know what is the hard disk failure rate in PVRs and what this costs the operators. I do agree hardware is much better today.

So, what I'm saying is that this is a perfectly legitimate request that can, in my opinion, make Sage more mainstream with no loss of functionality for the old school. Also, I think, this is not such a big deal for architectural changes.

Please, feel free to disagree. New Coke was a failure too.

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by ytulpan

2) All proprietary DVR/PVR and most PC ones I know about are on-line with no extra buffering delay (have a seamless live mode). A large majority of people *with* PVR's still watch live TV at any specific time.

Is this true? I'm not convinced. As far as I know, all other PC-based DVR software plays live TV from a circular buffer on disk. I'm less sure, but still pretty sure, that Dish Networks' DVR plays from a circular buffer. In cases where a DVR has a "live TV" button, I believe that just moves you to the "end" of the file.

I might be wrong about that, but certainly all those DVRs seem to always record live TV to disk, whether it is playing stuff back from disk or not.

[GKusnick]

Originally Posted by ytulpan

2) All proprietary DVR/PVR and most PC ones I know about are on-line with no extra buffering delay (have a seamless live mode).

Then your experience differs markedly from mine. Every Tivo or satellite DVR I've ever used has buffered everything, with a one- or two-second delay even in "live" mode. Aside from bad soundproofing between you and your neighbor, I can't see why this delay should be objectionable (and apparently neither does Tivo.)

Originally Posted by ytulpan

3) Adding an online mode does not subtract anything, but only adds options. One could have *both* apples *and* oranges.

People keep saying this but it just isn't true. Dev time is a zero-sum proposition; time spent implementing oranges is time subtracted from implementing apples.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by ytulpan

The argument against "buffering" or "live" is, if I sum up the reactions:

1) We're happy as it is. Don't mess with our perception of reality.
2) Some of the missing features can be achieved by workarounds.
3) It is a question of apples *or* oranges. It's subjective what one likes best.

As I said in a previous post, I personally don't care too much about this issue. I have others (in fact, most important for me are DVB subtitles). However:

1) Higher general acceptance of Sage is extremely important, if we want to make sure that our current investment with Sage stays solid. Lack of live is, like it or not, one of the issues in reviews I read. Joe Pvr can't get it.

And first and foremost to "fix" that, is an update to the UI. Complaints about the current UI utterly dwarf any other complaints.

2) All proprietary DVR/PVR and most PC ones I know about are on-line with no extra buffering delay (have a seamless live mode). A large majority of people *with* PVR's still watch live TV at any specific time.

Essentially all DVRs have a buffer and thus a buffering delay. Can't say I recall using any DVR, well maybe I should say "PVR" that hasn't buffered everything (SageTV, WMC, Tivo, etc). The difference between Sage and most is the use of a circular vs per-show buffer.

Only apps I've seen that offer a true live mode are the very basic ones, like Hauppauge WinTV, ATI's recording SW, etc.

3) Adding an online mode does not subtract anything, but only adds options. One could have *both* apples *and* oranges.

Adding on now subtracts from other development, like the UI, or your DVB subtitles. That's the real issue, and what many of the posts in this thread have been trying to get across. An "online mode" as you put it, would likely require a ground up rewrite of the current Sage recording and playback logic, logic which has been refined over 6 versions of Sage.

4) The only advantage the current solution has, is simpler coding. And not *that* much simpler. It is a question of write-ahead or write-behind.

Not really. Right now, the UI requests to "Watch" an airing, doesn't matter if the UI is local, client, extender, placeshifter, or if the airing is currently airing but not recoding, recording, or previously recording. If a file exists (current or previous recording) the UI plays it, if not, the core "schedules" a new recording and points the UI to that file.

To implement a bufferless live mode (like the OP wants) Sage would have to create a completely new tuner-to-UI interface for routing a video stream without a file. This inteface would have to support not only local, but LAN clients and extenders, plus WAN placeshfiter clients (which includes transcoding).

To implement a circular buffer like you want, would require an entirely new "type" of recording and all new logic for managing whether to create a new buffer, reuse an existing one, or skip the buffer entirely.

All of these changes are definitely non-trivial, almost certain to introduce new bugs that negatively impact the user experience, something we're hoping to improve.

While we're on the subject, there are, IMO, better ways to solve "the pause" issue, formost among them is to just fix the current recoriding logic to allow seamless switching and ideally overlappng of recordings from one tuner. If that were done, 99% of the people who want a buffer would be happy and not know the difference.

So, what I'm saying is that this is a perfectly legitimate request that can, in my opinion, make Sage more mainstream with no loss of functionality for the old school. Also, I think, this is not such a big deal for architectural changes.

I disagree on the magnitude of the change. Were Sage a single user, single instance app like a cable DVR, then I'd agree, but Sage has to contend with an arbitrary number of clients from arbitrary locations, including local and internet (transcoding required).

[ytulpan]

Well, well, I must say this is interesting...

I can't disagree too much with the marketing points. Although I personally find the UI (both stock and MC) efficient and usable, I agree that it's a bit weird in this eye-candy age and unappealing to consumers. However, the real competitors of Sage are the proprietary guys, and their UI is not that great, too. Functionally, though, they're moving to networked boxes, and potential external storage. That would be more detrimental to Sage. Murdoch's NDS is one of the bigger ones and develop their stuff here in Israel; I know quite a few people there. They are very adept in playing the content providers / networks sensitivities and in claiming that if it doesn't run in proprietary boxes, it's piratable. We all know this is mostly besides the point, but it works on their customers. PC's are anathema for them.

What I do disagree with is the tech stuff. Not that it matters too much, neither of us really is Sage's architect, but the only change I was proposing was in the server's design. No additional circular buffer, this is not how it's done. Just that the reading thread may advance all the way to the top and serve the client the exact same packets that are being written to the disk (instead of rereading them from the disk). This, of course, only while the file is being extended (written to). This is how I know things are done in boxes. It does not prevent multiple clients being at different points; it just says that any client can advance to the end and (in that case only) suppress reads from the file. The last step is not "continuous", one can be either be 4 sec or more behind, in which case one has to read from the disk, or current, in which case there is no need to.

Responding to another comment, there is an inherent delay of at least 2 seconds in any digitally compressed video feed, compared to analog. One needs a sizable chunk of frames to be able to compress efficiently, and have to receive them all before you can display anything. It's just that Sage adds a few more seconds to that because of the "always read after write" at the server, which is unnecessary.

Well it's very late here, I'm short on musings and my previously botched transcode finally ended, so I sadly leave you for now and wish you all a good night and happy dreams.

[nick_l]

Originally Posted by reggie14

wanting it. The main one is probably gapless playback, so you don't have the pauses between recordings.

While I'm sure you are right about this, I just can't get it through my head why this would be much of an issue. Unless I'm missing something, This would only be an issue if someone were to sit down to watch "live" tv and leave it on the same channel through multiple shows. do people really still sit down in front of the tv and watch and entire evening of NBC or Comedy Central? I mean, I remember the days of "Must See TV" (man, hard to believe that was only a decade ago), but even then I wasTiVoing as soon as it became available.

Maybe I'm just out of touch.
Nick

[nick_l]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Adding on now subtracts from other development, like the UI, or your DVB subtitles. That's the real issue, and what many of the posts in this thread have been trying to get across. An "online mode" as you put it, would likely require a ground up rewrite of the current Sage recording and playback logic, logic which has been refined over 6 versions of Sage.

Not really. Right now, the UI requests to "Watch" an airing, doesn't matter if the UI is local, client, extender, placeshifter, or if the airing is currently airing but not recoding, recording, or previously recording. If a file exists (current or previous recording) the UI plays it, if not, the core "schedules" a new recording and points the UI to that file.

To implement a bufferless live mode (like the OP wants) Sage would have to create a completely new tuner-to-UI interface for routing a video stream without a file. This inteface would have to support not only local, but LAN clients and extenders, plus WAN placeshfiter clients (which includes transcoding).

To implement a circular buffer like you want, would require an entirely new "type" of recording and all new logic for managing whether to create a new buffer, reuse an existing one, or skip the buffer entirely.

All of these changes are definitely non-trivial, almost certain to introduce new bugs that negatively impact the user experience, something we're hoping to improve.

I disagree on the magnitude of the change. Were Sage a single user, single instance app like a cable DVR, then I'd agree, but Sage has to contend with an arbitrary number of clients from arbitrary locations, including local and internet (transcoding required).

This is the best, most concise explination of why "buffering" is a bigger issue for Sage than I would first seem. I suggest (only half jokingly) we make this a sticky and required reading for new forum members!!

Nick

[nick_l]

Just to clarify for people who might think I'm a jerk: I'm not one of those people who reflexivly says no to any change. If someone could come up with an "easy" way to ad gapless/bufferless playback to Sage without adding instability, I'd say Woo Hoo. But I guess my personal oppinion is that, at least for me, its not an important enough issue for Sage to spend development time and money on, especially as I assume that the practice of watching "live" tv will become less and less common.

Nick

[Fullsound Recor]

I have a few questions.

sage 6.6 and 1250

1. How do I turn completely off the back ground recording of the sage TV? as
in absolutely no writing to hard drive.

This is why I don't use the Win TV 7.0 of Hauppauge application.

The back ground recording is using resources on a machine that we just cant
have. We need to just have the tuner working no PVR.

2. And how does one use the numeric key pad to enter in say QAM ch 92.7
then hit enter for channel select?
3. Is there a way to use the + and - keys for channel up and down?

4. And last, when the TV viewer is say docked up in a corner of the desktop
screen all reduced to say a couple inches how does one get rid of the top
blue bar of the frame so one just has the simple outline of the frame around
the TV picture until the mouse is floated over it again ofcourse?

Thanks and I wont bother you any more once I get the 1. question all figured
out as this is a must for this particular system.

Oh one more thing, Is there a card you guys recommend over all other as to
stability and good tuner and speed of changing channels. Its very slow this
1250 card when changing channels.

Thanks again

* merged *

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by ytulpan

Well, well, I must say this is interesting...

I can't disagree too much with the marketing points. Although I personally find the UI (both stock and MC) efficient and usable, I agree that it's a bit weird in this eye-candy age and unappealing to consumers. However, the real competitors of Sage are the proprietary guys, and their UI is not that great, too.

I disagree, most people who would be using STB solutions wouldn't be looking at Sage. Sage's competitors are WMC, XBMC, MediaPortal, MythTV, etc, the other PC solutions (well unless Sage massively changes their marketing).

What I do disagree with is the tech stuff. Not that it matters too much, neither of us really is Sage's architect, but the only change I was proposing was in the server's design. No additional circular buffer, this is not how it's done. Just that the reading thread may advance all the way to the top and serve the client the exact same packets that are being written to the disk (instead of rereading them from the disk).

You can try that I think, there's a property that defines how far back from live Sage stays when playing back a current recording, try setting it to zero.

But that doesn't really solve the primary issue, it wouldn't make channel changes much faster, or fix the pause either.

Responding to another comment, there is an inherent delay of at least 2 seconds in any digitally compressed video feed, compared to analog. One needs a sizable chunk of frames to be able to compress efficiently, and have to receive them all before you can display anything. It's just that Sage adds a few more seconds to that because of the "always read after write" at the server, which is unnecessary.

Try the property (unfortunately I can't find the exact name right now).

[MitchSchaft]

Originally Posted by nick_l

While I'm sure you are right about this, I just can't get it through my head why this would be much of an issue. Unless I'm missing something, This would only be an issue if someone were to sit down to watch "live" tv and leave it on the same channel through multiple shows. do people really still sit down in front of the tv and watch and entire evening of NBC or Comedy Central? I mean, I remember the days of "Must See TV" (man, hard to believe that was only a decade ago), but even then I wasTiVoing as soon as it became available.

Maybe I'm just out of touch.
Nick

It's an issue whether it's live TV or not. The pause is there and the last few seconds of a show is paused then skipped. Why is it so hard for you to understand that?

[MitchSchaft]

Originally Posted by Fullsound Recor

1. How do I turn completely off the back ground recording of the sage TV? as
in absolutely no writing to hard drive.

That's not possible. It has to write to the harddrive so you can watch it.