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

[DigitalMan]

You know, perhaps you should file a bug on this one. When Sage resumes from hibernation it would be reasonable to tune a channel at that point regardless of what state it thought the world was in before.

If you want a second opinion, just ask Buck Rogers.

:-D

Originally Posted by 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.

[HelenWeathers]

Originally Posted by DigitalMan

You know, perhaps you should file a bug on this one. When Sage resumes from hibernation it would be reasonable to tune a channel at that point regardless of what state it thought the world was in before.

I am thinking of sending in a support request for the addition of a third Always Tune Option. Yes, No and First Time Daily. Still mulling it over though.

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by HelenWeathers

I am thinking of sending in a support request for the addition of a third Always Tune Option. Yes, No and First Time Daily. Still mulling it over though.

Why not a sort of "do not tune on back-to-back recordings" (on the same channel, of course) option?

[bastafidli]

Hmmm, let's compare

Lack of basic functionality such as watching live TV without it going blank every hour.

vs.

Originally Posted by stanger89

• 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

You are comparing lack non basic/advanced features not necessarily related to basic watching TV vs. basic feature which is present but not working as expected (by user who is used to watching live TV).

If any of the above is not implemented you can still watch the media in enjoyable fashion. Maybe not the exact media or maybe with not all the bells and whistles but still. But there is only one way how to watch live TV and with the pause occurring during live TV especially at the moment which might be critical to the content you are watching, there is no workaround to that.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by bastafidli

You are comparing lack non basic/advanced features not necessarily related to basic watching TV vs. basic feature which is present but not working as expected (by user who is used to watching live TV).

I'm comparing a bug/quirk that's existed for at least 6 years, and in those 6 years has not (apparently) significantly affected Sage's sales, to functionality that Sage is currently lacking that if you look at the internet/other forums, you'll see is in high demand, and is likely affecting sales.

The lack of HBR Decoding/Bitstream is costing Sage sales to PopcornHour. The UI is costing lots of sales to MCE users who are unwilling to "stoop" to using Sage's UI.

If any of the above is not implemented you can still watch the media in enjoyable fashion. Maybe not the exact media or maybe with not all the bells and whistles but still. But there is only one way how to watch live TV and with the pause occurring during live TV especially at the moment which might be critical to the content you are watching, there is no workaround to that.

If it were that big of a deal, I have to think this wouldn't be the first thread this size on the issue, considering how long Sage has been around.

[HelenWeathers]

Originally Posted by reggie14

Why not a sort of "do not tune on back-to-back recordings" (on the same channel, of course) option?

I like that! And I'm open to other suggestions. SageTV might not want to change the way they do things this close to Win7's release, but something small like this might be an option they'd consider.

[bastafidli]

Originally Posted by stanger89

I'm comparing a bug/quirk that's existed for at least 6 years, and in those 6 years has not (apparently) significantly affected Sage's sales, to functionality that Sage is currently lacking that if you look at the internet/other forums, you'll see is in high demand, and is likely affecting sales.

The lack of HBR Decoding/Bitstream is costing Sage sales to PopcornHour. The UI is costing lots of sales to MCE users who are unwilling to "stoop" to using Sage's UI.

If it were that big of a deal, I have to think this wouldn't be the first thread this size on the issue, considering how long Sage has been around.

I don't disagree with you, I am just providing different perspective since that is what Sage needs to here. I don't know who is right and wrong. I do not know what features are cheap/expensive to develop and which bring/prohibit growth of sales. Sage should know this and all what we are doing is just guessing. I don't think you can state that what was good enough 6 years ago is good enough now. 6 years ago the state of these applications was different than what it is today, the competitors were also different and also expectations of users were different. That is what Sage is facing now, the increased popularity of these kind of applications is bringing more users scrutinizing and comparing every aspect of the functionality and demanding new or different ways how to do what it does. How Sage will manage such scrutiny and requests will ultimately decide how successful it will be.

Many of the features which you are mentioning might be enough to satisfy the users. As I mentioned even I use Sage only for media playing and it is sufficient for me. They got my sale so I guess the software fulfilled its purpose. On the other hand issues like this one are keeping me to start using the TV portion of the functionality just because of the possibility of degrading the existing experience.

[babgvant]

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.

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.

There's only one time in a year that I watch live tv (CPL final). With the exception of sporting events, I don't understand why you'd even want to watch slightly timeshifted content.

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by babgvant

There's only one time in a year that I watch live tv (CPL final). With the exception of sporting events, I don't understand why you'd even want to watch slightly timeshifted content.

Well, I'm saying "slightly" is anytime you're watching a show while part of it is still recording. I very frequently start watching shows 15 minutes in. Sometimes I'll even start watching shows mostly live. The Daily Show and Colbert Report are good examples of that, since I often watch those and go to bed soon after. There are very few shows that I actually like enough to not do other things at the same time. Even if I start a show live, I often end up pausing it at some point to focus on something else for a while, and come back to it a little later.

And, by the way, stanger, this certainly isn't the first time this issue has been brought up. I think even I started a thread about the "pause" years ago. This is certainly the longest thread ever devoted to this issue though. I think it often came up sort of offhandedly in other threads. It's never seemed like very many people are terribly concerned about this issue. To use your example, I think we see a lot more people terribly concerned over HD audio decoding than this issue.

[rosemary]

Originally Posted by stanger89

If it were that big of a deal, I have to think this wouldn't be the first thread this size on the issue, considering how long Sage has been around.

Again, you're making the classic mistake of thinking this forum is the world of Sage users. There's really no proof that what goes on here is or isn't fully representative of the Sage userbase or of the people have have downloaded Sage for a trial period and decided not to buy it.

Of course, others have posted that it HAS come up quite a bit before, but since I haven't posted here that long I have no idea about that. It's also probably a factor of some people finally getting tired of the issue not being fixed year after year, especially when (as some people do) friends or family members bring up the subject completely forgetting that they ask the same question every three months.

That's probably the last thing I'm going to post on the subject, as everything has just been rehash and opinion for a while. I respect that you and others just don't see it the same way and it has been an interesting back and forth. Cheers!

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by reggie14

And, by the way, stanger, this certainly isn't the first time this issue has been brought up. I think even I started a thread about the "pause" years ago. This is certainly the longest thread ever devoted to this issue though. I think it often came up sort of offhandedly in other threads. It's never seemed like very many people are terribly concerned about this issue. To use your example, I think we see a lot more people terribly concerned over HD audio decoding than this issue.

Yup, that's why I said "of this size". I've seen plenty of threads asking "what happened", several asking if there's a setting to change it. But they always disappear after hearing the answer ("That's how it works").

Originally Posted by rosemary

Again, you're making the classic mistake of thinking this forum is the world of Sage users. There's really no proof that what goes on here is or isn't fully representative of the Sage userbase or of the people have have downloaded Sage for a trial period and decided not to buy it.

I don't think so. This thread is linked from the official SageTV page, and lots of people come here looking for support. Between the fact that while the issue has come up, it's not ever come up in a big way, and that Sage hasn't fixed it, tells me there isn't some broad desire on the part of Sage's customers to get it fixed.

Reading some of the posts in this thread, if that were the sentiment of a large portion of users, I can't see how there wouldn't be many big threads on this, or how Sage wouldn't have been flooded with bug reports and fixed it by now.

And just because something is "basic" does not mean it's "important". That is one of the key issues here. It may be "basic" but it doesn't seem very important to many people. And frankly, you're coming from a pretty weak position not even using the TV functionality, and thus not even knowing how it would affect you.

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Yup, that's why I said "of this size". I've seen plenty of threads asking "what happened", several asking if there's a setting to change it. But they always disappear after hearing the answer ("That's how it works").

But what that doesn't tell us is how many people who posted "what happened" messages after they found out "that's just how it works" decided to ditch SageTV and go elsewhere.

Granted, this isn't a show stopper for me or many others. But the fact is that SageTV seems to be the only different PVR/DVR solution. Maybe it's seen by the developers as a defining characteristic of SageTV. Regardless, in many people's eyes it sets SageTV apart in a negative way. Particularly when their friends and family complain about it.

While a technically minded person may know and accept a limitation such as this a layperson views this kind of "small detail" to be either aggravating or an outright show stopper.

Just because you don't use your SageTV system as the only way to watch TV or don't channel surf doesn't mean someone else might not. The reason for this is that the normal cable or satellite DVR's allow you to do just that without a pause. When watching live or near live TV the pause between programs can be annoying. Particularly in the case of sporting events.

Even though I personally live with the pause I have come to the conclusion that a cable box must be available at each TV in order to allow viewing of live TV apart from SageTV. The idea behind why SageTV was built the way it was while noble in choice is not the way laypeople expect a DVR system to behave.

[rosemary]

Originally Posted by stanger89

And frankly, you're coming from a pretty weak position not even using the TV functionality, and thus not even knowing how it would affect you.

I think you must have missed, misread or misunderstood this part of my previous post:

Originally Posted by rosemary

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.

Emphasis added. I'm not sure how you think I wouldn't know how it affects me, unless you think I get up and leave the living room every time my spouse watches TV. Granted, that's true about some of the shows that get watched...

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by rosemary

I think you must have missed, misread or misunderstood this part of my previous post:
Emphasis added. I'm not sure how you think I wouldn't know how it affects me, unless you think I get up and leave the living room every time my spouse watches TV. Granted, that's true about some of the shows that get watched...

Do you (and/or your spouse) or do you not use SageTV for TV? The way I read your post, you don't use SageTV for TV at all, but unrelated to Sage your spouse likes live TV.

[limiter]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Yup, that's why I said "of this size". I've seen plenty of threads asking "what happened", several asking if there's a setting to change it. But they always disappear after hearing the answer ("That's how it works").

I told myself I wasn't going to respond to this thread, but the "that's how it works" answer from you is just ridiculous. It should be revised to be "Stanger89 thinks that's how it should work" because really you seem to be the only one who thinks mediocre is good enough. The 4 second pause is mediocre at best and I'm guessing a lot of people searched before they posted and saw that it has been discussed already and didn't bother posting, like me (until now of course).

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by limiter

I told myself I wasn't going to respond to this thread, but the "that's how it works" answer from you is just ridiculous. It should be revised to be "Stanger89 thinks that's how it should work" because really you seem to be the only one who thinks mediocre is good enough.

I never said that's how it should work, I've said several times that my position is that it's not the biggest thing that needs fixing/implementing.

[rosemary]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Do you (and/or your spouse) or do you not use SageTV for TV? The way I read your post, you don't use SageTV for TV at all, but unrelated to Sage your spouse likes live TV.

Sorry, I just don't know how that could be misunderstood, but let me be incredibly clear: my spouse watches live TV using Sage. As I am often in the room while this happens, I also wind up watching live TV using Sage. Were it not for my spouse, I would not watch live TV using Sage.

[MeInMaui]

Originally Posted by limiter

I told myself I wasn't going to respond to this thread, but the "that's how it works" answer from you is just ridiculous. It should be revised to be "Stanger89 thinks that's how it should work" because really you seem to be the only one who thinks mediocre is good enough. The 4 second pause is mediocre at best and I'm guessing a lot of people searched before they posted and saw that it has been discussed already and didn't bother posting, like me (until now of course).

I think you mis-interpreted what Stanger was saying. He has already stated that the pause is annoying and should be on the To-Do list. It's just a question of priority and only the SageTV guys have a handle on that.

His point above was that this is the way it works (for better or worse) and that once this point was made in the past it was generally accepted and the threads died. His point is simply that this issue never generated an uproar in the past so it was never considered a major issue.

Aloha,
Mike

Edit: I guess I took too long to type and Stanger beat me to it.

[limiter]

Originally Posted by MeInMaui

I think you mis-interpreted what Stanger was saying. He has already stated that the pause is annoying and should be on the To-Do list. It's just a question of priority and only the SageTV guys have a handle on that.

I got the impression from the "that's the way it works" and an earlier Stanger quote:

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.

Which combined make it sound like the pause is not a problem and we shouldn't complain about the pause because using SageTV to watch live tv is foolish.

But since that's not true, my bad.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by limiter

Which combined make it sound like the pause is not a problem and we shouldn't complain about the pause because using SageTV to watch live tv is foolish.

No I don't like using a DVR for live TV for reasons completely unrelated to the pause, like:

The buffering (circular or otherwise) make channel changing slow.
It chews up HDD bandwidth/space
Ties up a tuner
Affects your recording/viewing history (throws off IR)
etc
etc

Even without the pause I'd rather go direct for live TV than through a DVR. At least until with get to the point that it works like the showy instant change IPTV demos I've seen.