Are we ever going to get rid of the "pause"? YES WE DID!

[rosemary]

stranger89 made plenty of good points, but they all have a staggeringly simple answer: provide circular buffers only as an option in single-user instances.

Done!

Seriously, I'd like to see the stats for multi-user use versus single-user. Unless you're going to claim multi-user is the majority, this would be a great option for those "unwashed masses" who just want to use SageTV like a traditional PVR.

[heffe2001]

Originally Posted by jsonnabend

No, guys, it's not a "squeaky wheel" nor a question of "target audience". 75% of respondents said this is an issue. A "squeaky wheel" is a vocal minority, not a majority. The "squeaky wheel" here is the 25%, not the 75%. (and heck, Briands, you even say this "should be on the list".)

And it defies logic to say that the "target audience" is a subset of the actual audience.

Of course, that all assumes the poll has some statistical validity.

- Jeff

You're also assuming that the 208ish people who've voted on the poll are the entire userbase, what about the other 13779 forums users/customers who've abstained from voting (I know that all the registered members on the forums aren't neccessarily users/customers, and I'm sure many of those registered users either no longer user, or never got past the trial, I'm just making a point that your 151 Yes votes don't necessarily make it a 'majority' of users...).

[HelenWeathers]

Originally Posted by rosemary

Seriously, I'd like to see the stats for multi-user use versus single-user. Unless you're going to claim multi-user is the majority, this would be a great option for those "unwashed masses" who just want to use SageTV like a traditional PVR.

I came to Sage after MCE and BeyondTV. I just wanted a single user system that would support the HD PVR.

Then I discovered all that SageTV could do. With Sage I was a singleuser for almost 1 and a half months.

Now I'm multi-user whole house. I think most Sage owners are as well.

EDIT: Maybe we need a poll for that.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by rosemary

stranger89 made plenty of good points, but they all have a staggeringly simple answer: provide circular buffers only as an option in single-user instances.

There's really no such thing. Even in a "single user" situation, the most simple, with SageTV running as an app, with no servers enabled, Sage's engine works exactly the same. Recording and playback are entirely separate.

Seriously, I'd like to see the stats for multi-user use versus single-user. Unless you're going to claim multi-user is the majority, this would be a great option for those "unwashed masses" who just want to use SageTV like a traditional PVR.

I'd guess the majority of users, probably vast majority are at least one of the following:

• Run the SageTV backend as a service (which essentially means true client-server situtation).
• Run an extender
• Run more than one client, eg a couple extenders, placeshifter, etc.

[bastafidli]

Thread like this illustrates that Sage is not as mature and user friendly solution as most potential users would expect it to be. Existing users got used to this behaviour and argue for keeping it either because of habit, because of fear of breaking what is working or because of having preference for Sage to spend their limited resources on something else. New users would look at this behaviour and ask what is wrong with this software. If they are to replace their existing TV watching setup with Sage, they would expect it to behave AT LEAST the same as before. Live TV outside of Sage has no pauses so any pause is regression, inconvenience and from their standpoint a bug. I have been using Sage for almost 2 years only as a media playing solution staing away from replacing our TV setup. First because of the issues with HD-PVR now because of this thread. I had no clue that this is how Sage behaves but now when I know and I have read this discussion in detail I am pretty certain that WAF would go straight down. I would say that now cat is out of the bag and in open. Any potential customer or reviewer if he looks at the forums before making any conclusionor decisions would find this quite popular thread and include this fact in list of features that set Sage and other competitors apart. Uninterrupted watching of TV: competitors check, Sage pass. This leads me to believe that Sage should start thinking about addressing this issue. As a software engineer I know that every such problem is just a matter of time and money. Sometimes in the past Sage made decision that this was acceptable behaviour and based on this discussion they may need to reconsider this. What it comes down to is comparing what is the cost of solving this technical problem vs. cost of lost opportunity with users who opt out to do not go with Sage because of this.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by bastafidli

If they are to replace their existing TV watching setup with Sage, they would expect it to behave AT LEAST the same as before.

Well the obvious, if they want it to be the same, why are they changing.... If they are changing, obviously they are looking to either add new functionality or overcome some issue. Either of which implies they are looking for something different and may be willing to trade one quirk for a different one.

Live TV outside of Sage has no pauses so any pause is regression, inconvenience and from their standpoint a bug.

SageTV is a PVR, maybe I'm weird, but I've NEVER thought of a PVR as a replacement for live TV. IMO, regardless of which solution/architecture you're using, the best solution for live TV is to not have it going through your DVR.

I have been using Sage for almost 2 years only as a media playing solution staing away from replacing our TV setup. First because of the issues with HD-PVR now because of this thread.

The HD PVR hasn't been out two years

I had no clue that this is how Sage behaves but now when I know and I have read this discussion in detail I am pretty certain that WAF would go straight down. I would say that now cat is out of the bag and in open.

It's been out of the bag for years. This isn't some new revelation that the OP just uncovered. It's not some big secret that only just got outed.

As a software engineer I know that every such problem is just a matter of time and money.

Exactly. And if you really look down into how Sage handles LiveTV and recording, you'll see that fixing this is most certainly NOT a trivial change.

Sometimes in the past Sage made decision that this was acceptable behaviour and based on this discussion they may need to reconsider this.

They made the decision at least 6 years ago in version 1. It hasn't held Sage back so far. Definitely not as much as the UI might be/have been. I don't see this issue coming up on other forums, where as I've continually seen comments about how (MCE users in particular) won't switch because they don't like the Sage UI.

What it comes down to is comparing what is the cost of solving this technical problem vs. cost of lost opportunity with users who opt out to do not go with Sage because of this.

Which apparently so far, SageTV has judged the cost to "fix" it, to be higher than any gain they'd get from not having the "problem".

[Polypro]

On the other side of the coin, I can't believe this thread is as big as it is. I have Sage doing everything and my wife and 8 yo daughter use it with impunity. No matter what is watched, the entire program is always there (from the point of watching) for rewinding or saving. It's THREE SECONDS for the pause...3. It was brought up exactly once since 2005

P

[Seek2034]

I never had time/desire to watch live tv until this last week and find this pause to be extremely long and annoying when using the Client. While the systems (both c2d at 3/3.4GHz, 2/4GB ram/decent video) and network perform great, there is a 10 second delay. This is shorter directly on the Server but not used as often.

I'd prefer to just stick 8GB of ram in each system and cache it all - the problem would be solved. My main system has 8GB which only cost $80 a year ago. The stuff's cheap and can perform miracles for things like this, not to mention better performance/less wear and tear on the pagefile disk(s).

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by stanger89

SageTV is a PVR, maybe I'm weird, but I've NEVER thought of a PVR as a replacement for live TV. IMO, regardless of which solution/architecture you're using, the best solution for live TV is to not have it going through your DVR.

Maybe I'm weird, but I think you're the weird one here. I think DVRs make perfect sense in the live-TV/near-live-TV context. Even if I sit down to watch something live I don't know if I'm going to get a phone call in the middle of a show, or if I'm going space out and need to rewind a few minutes to understand what's going on. It's really nice to have the pause, rewind and fast forwarding features even if you basically expect to watch something live. You still get the moderately annoying pause even when you're watching TV slightly timeshifted.

Other people have made this observation, but I'll repeat it. Yes, ~75% of people are saying that this is something they'd like "fixed". But, that doesn't provide any indication of how much they want it fixed, or what the priority should be. I voted that I wanted it fixed, but it isn't even in the top 3 of my wish list for big changes. I'd much rather see a new default interface, improved blu-ray support, and improved music library functionality. I'd even put things like mkv chapter support ahead of this. Personally, the pause doesn't bother me that much, I just don't like getting questions from guests about why the TV stopped working (followed up quickly by a "nevermind").

[babgvant]

Originally Posted by reggie14

Maybe I'm weird, but I think you're the weird one here. I think DVRs make perfect sense in the live-TV/near-live-TV context.

What's live tv?

[HelenWeathers]

I have been experimenting (again) with the Always Tune Channel setting. With it set to NO, I only get about a 1 second pause at the transition. (and this is with the HD PVR and DirecTV STBs)

So when I watch live football next week, I'll go into Setup > Detailed Setup > Customize and set Always Tune Channel to NO.

Disclamer: I can't leave it set to NO all of the time because when my DirecTV receivers receive new software update or reboot after a long power outage they don't return to the last channel they were on.

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by babgvant

What's live tv?

You're right that that I'm talking about something a little different than true "live tv". But, various people in this thread have claimed that this problem doesn't impact them because (paraphrasing) they've "stopped watching live TV". But, it actually impacts more than just that. If you start watching a show before its done recording, and you continuing watching that channel when the show is scheduled to be over, you'll experience the "pause" when it switches over to the next file.

Why am I grouping slightly timeshifted TV with live TV? Because for the purpose of this discussion there doesn't seem to be a difference. Actually, the pause is quite a bit longer if you're using STBs and you really are watching TV almost completely live, but people here seem to complain about the "simple" case just as much, where you don't need to worry about channel changes and delays.

Though, I'd still say DVRs make sense even if you really are planning to watch something truly live because you really don't know if you're going to keep watching something live until the shows over. Some people, stanger included, seem to be arguing that it doesn't matter how Sage acts when doing live TV because you shouldn't be watching TV live in Sage. The implication is that if you know you're going to watch live TV then you should just watch TV directly (which might be easier said than done if you have a SageTV household, given the setup of STBs). That's fine, but it doesn't seem like a very realistic situation, since you won't know when you start watching the show if you're going to keep watching it live.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by reggie14

Maybe I'm weird, but I think you're the weird one here. I think DVRs make perfect sense in the live-TV/near-live-TV context. Even if I sit down to watch something live I don't know if I'm going to get a phone call in the middle of a show, or if I'm going space out and need to rewind a few minutes to understand what's going on. It's really nice to have the pause, rewind and fast forwarding features even if you basically expect to watch something live. You still get the moderately annoying pause even when you're watching TV slightly timeshifted.

I know what you're saying, but anything I watch that's worth, well actually watching, is a favorite or a manual recording, even if I start watching it while it's recording.

I "surf" at my parent's house, they don't have a DVR, but I just don't in my own setup, because there's always something pre-recorded, something I want to watch, that I can fire up.

Originally Posted by reggie14

You're right that that I'm talking about something a little different than true "live tv". But, various people in this thread have claimed that this problem doesn't impact them because (paraphrasing) they've "stopped watching live TV". But, it actually impacts more than just that. If you start watching a show before its done recording, and you continuing watching that channel when the show is scheduled to be over, you'll experience the "pause" when it switches over to the next file.

It should be realized, that the most "popular" solution to the pause that's been mentioned in this thread, the Circular buffer option, wouldn't fix the pause in these circumstances.

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by stanger89

I know what you're saying, but anything I watch that's worth, well actually watching, is a favorite or a manual recording, even if I start watching it while it's recording.

So that's a good argument for why the circular buffer is bad. But, making everything you watch a favorite or manual recording doesn't fix the pause issue.

Which, come to think of it, reminds me that I think your position is basically that the pause is annoying and ideally would be fixed, but that the circular buffer is a bad fix (is that a fair characterization?). That's quite a bit different than the position that the pause doesn't matter because users don't watch a lot of live TV.

It should be realized, that the most "popular" solution to the pause that's been mentioned in this thread, the Circular buffer option, wouldn't fix the pause in these circumstances.

Good point. I'm not a big fan of the circular buffer approach because of that. Like you, a significant number of the things I watch are favorites, even if I am watching them live, or near-live.

I really "just" want to see fast transitions from one recording file to the next. I'm not sure how technically feasible that is though. Maybe my memory is just bad, but I really think the pause between shows was much shorter back in the Sage v1.4 days than it is now, even for old-school analog recordings. I suppose the biggest problem on current systems is that you're going to lose a couple seconds if you have a tune an STB. And, even if you don't, I don't know how quickly something like an HD-PVR, or even a HDHR, can transition from one recording to the next.

As I've said earlier in this thread, the thing I really don't like about the pause is that it looks, at least for one brief moment, like Sage broke. Some sort of pop-up window at file transitions might help alleviate the feeling that it just broke.

[HelenWeathers]

Originally Posted by reggie14

I don't know how quickly something like an HD-PVR, or even a HDHR, can transition from one recording to the next.

In case you missed it:

I have been experimenting (again) with the Always Tune Channel setting. With it set to NO, I only get about a 1 second pause at the transition. (and this is with the HD PVR and DirecTV STBs)

So when I watch live football next week, I'll go into Setup > Detailed Setup > Customize and set Always Tune Channel to NO.

Disclamer: I can't leave it set to NO all of the time because when my DirecTV receivers receive new software update or reboot after a long power outage they don't return to the last channel they were on.

So it seems to me that most of the issue is not so much with SageTV's speed, but with all of the things they've put in to allow us to get better reliability with devices like the HD PVR.

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by HelenWeathers

So it seems to me that most of the issue is not so much with SageTV's speed, but with all of the things they've put in to allow us to get better reliability with devices like the HD PVR.

Yeah, I saw your post. 1 second isn't bad, but I really thought back in the v1.4 days with my PVR-250 I could transition from one recording file to the next in significantly less than a second. I might be crazy though- it's been a long time since I used v1.4. It's possible that that was only the playback transition time, and had I been watching something close to live I would have experienced a longer pause. I certainly remember audio bleeps and the video jumping forward a bit, I just don't remember blank screens for any appreciable amount of time.

So, I'm still curious, even of that 1 second, how much of that is something Sage could do something about in the ideal case, and how much of it is just how quickly the HD-PVR or HDHR can stop and start a recording (so hardware and driver limitations, really).

I'm really curious about the pause in v1.4 thing though. Does anyone else remember the pause lengths back then? Am I just out of my mind?

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by reggie14

Which, come to think of it, reminds me that I think your position is basically that the pause is annoying and ideally would be fixed, but that the circular buffer is a bad fix (is that a fair characterization?). That's quite a bit different than the position that the pause doesn't matter because users don't watch a lot of live TV.

My position is twofold. Yes, the pause is annoying and it should be on the fix list, and/but I don't think it's enough of a problem to take priority over some of the other things that should be on the list, which I think would have more impact on the Sage community.

I really "just" want to see fast transitions from one recording file to the next. I'm not sure how technically feasible that is though. Maybe my memory is just bad, but I really think the pause between shows was much shorter back in the Sage v1.4 days than it is now, even for old-school analog recordings.

There are several things that can affect the speed IIRC:
delay_to_wait_after_tuning (4 seconds with the HD PVR)
fast_mux_switching

Maybe a few more. But AFAIK they're all there for stability reasons for "overall" community.

As I've said earlier in this thread, the thing I really don't like about the pause is that it looks, at least for one brief moment, like Sage broke. Some sort of pop-up window at file transitions might help alleviate the feeling that it just broke.

This is, I agree, the real issue, or maybe I should say, the real reason it should be on the fix list. Problem is, there are other, "bigger" things that need polish first IMO.

[rosemary]

Originally Posted by stanger89

I'd guess the majority of users, probably vast majority are at least one of the following:

• Run the SageTV backend as a service (which essentially means true client-server situtation).
• Run an extender
• Run more than one client, eg a couple extenders, placeshifter, etc.

That's just it - it's your guess. We're all guessing here and building arguments based on those guesses. I'd guess the exact opposite of what you're guessing. I think part of the problem is that you're basing your guesses on people who are active on these forums. But I'd say that's almost as poor of a sample as none. First off, the people using it as a simple PVR are the ones who are least likely to have the technical inclination to hunt out the forums and post here. Second, the ones who are using it as a simple PVR are less likely to run into problems and need help. Even if we did a poll here on "How do you use Sage?", it would still at best only tell you how forum posters use Sage.

From my own experience, Sage might as well not even HAVE the ability to tune channels and record tv off a tuner. For me, Sage is a way of playing and managing imported media. My spouse, on the other hand, likes both the live TV and the shows on it.

I will 100% admit that I have no solid idea WHO is using sage for WHAT. But as has been shown amply here, the pause IS an impediment to a potential market, no matter what the current userbase uses it for.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by rosemary

I will 100% admit that I have no solid idea WHO is using sage for WHAT. But as has been shown amply here, the pause IS an impediment to a potential market, no matter what the current userbase uses it for.

But really no more or less so than it has since the very first release, somewhere around 6 years ago.

Lack of HD audio decoding/bitstreaming on the extenders is also an impediment to a potential market, as are:

• Lack of BD menus
• Lack of cablecard
• Lack of Hulu, Netflix
• Lack of "good" UI
• Lack of a satellite tuner
• Lack of MKV chapters
• Lack of MKV menus
• Lack of DVB Closed Captions
• etc
• etc

So which should they fix first? Something that's been there and basically been of equal impact since the beginning and they've chosen not to fix yet, or some of the other hot new functionality that their competitors are racing to implement?

[DigitalMan]

The pause hasn't been an issue at all here. I hardly ever notice it.

Originally Posted by rosemary

That's just it - it's your guess. We're all guessing here and building arguments based on those guesses. I'd guess the exact opposite of what you're guessing. I think part of the problem is that you're basing your guesses on people who are active on these forums. But I'd say that's almost as poor of a sample as none. First off, the people using it as a simple PVR are the ones who are least likely to have the technical inclination to hunt out the forums and post here. Second, the ones who are using it as a simple PVR are less likely to run into problems and need help. Even if we did a poll here on "How do you use Sage?", it would still at best only tell you how forum posters use Sage.

From my own experience, Sage might as well not even HAVE the ability to tune channels and record tv off a tuner. For me, Sage is a way of playing and managing imported media. My spouse, on the other hand, likes both the live TV and the shows on it.

I will 100% admit that I have no solid idea WHO is using sage for WHAT. But as has been shown amply here, the pause IS an impediment to a potential market, no matter what the current userbase uses it for.