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

[Brent]

Maybe it's just me. But I'd rather be able to commercial skip on liveTV as it is now. The slight "pause" as it's switching to the new hour is not much of a problem for me. Besides, who really watches liveTV other than for sports

[95TBird]

Just to clarify, my intention was to find out if there could be the "Option" to get rid of the pause.

I understand that there may be trade offs, but I believe the the wizards at Sage could make the Option available, that way those who prefer to go pauseless could do so & those who desire the advantages of the current system could also "have it their way".

I'm a huge fan of Sage & I believe that lots of the folks who see my system would be customers, but I truly believe that the "Pause" is keeping them away.

My opinion (FWIW) is that most folks are coming from the world of Cable / Sat DVRs & Tivos, so, no matter how many times you explain to them why the "pause" is "Normal" Their brains tell them it is "Broken" because their DVR "does not do that".

(Dismounts soapbox / Thanks crowd for their indulgence)

-Bruce

[reggie14]

I agree that the pause is a bit of a usability concern. Whenever people come over to watch TV they think the hourly hiccup is some sort of problem. I think people get over it quickly, but it does sort of make the setup feel a little less professional.

This actually is something that I see quite a bit. I don't watch completely live TV very often, but I quite frequently start watching shows 15 minutes in, and catch up by the end of the episode. So, I'm typically watching TV when it goes from one show to another.

Really, some type of gapless video playback, along the lines of gapless audio playback, would be ideal. I'm just not convinced it's possible with the technology that's out there. Has anyone seen a video player that can go from one video seemlessly to the next in a playlist? I haven't. Though, DVDs kind of do this already.

aflat makes a good point on the problems of using comskip on any type of circular buffer system. I don't think I'd be willing to use a circular buffer just to fix this minor annoyance if it meant comskip wouldn't work on live TV.

[MitchSchaft]

I watch liveTV all the time. And the skip is there even if it's recorded and I watch it 12 hours later. It's always the last few seconds of the show.

[trini0]

Originally Posted by Brent

This "issue" isn't something that bothers me at all really.

However I don't think I remember ever experiencing that "pause" with BeyondTV either.

i used to use BTV before SageTV, and the pause wasn't there. And if I recall correctly, there was even an option in the config for the size of the live tv buffer...

[tmiranda]

The pause doesn't bother me at all BUT I think it bothers enough people that Sage should try to fix it or provide some options. In a competitive market these "small" issues are big product differentiators.

[71_Cuda]

Originally Posted by Brent

Maybe it's just me. But I'd rather be able to commercial skip on liveTV as it is now.

How do you skip commercials on live TV? Can you jump into the future? Is your SageTV box a time machine?

On a serious note, the pause drives me crazy, too. I don't watch much live TV - mostly sports. It's easy to miss something exiting in a few seconds. Plus it does seem cheap and like something is wrong to those that don't understand why it's there.

I'm far from being a programmer or developer, but it's seems to me this could be solved by combining both - using a circular buffer for live TV that writes to a file as it deletes. If you choose to record late in the show, the file is saved. If the show ends without being recorded, the file can be deleted.

I'm sure it's not that simple. But I can't believe that the problem can't be solved without compromising other functionality.

[Brent]

Originally Posted by 71_Cuda

How do you skip commercials on live TV? Can you jump into the future? Is your SageTV box a time machine?

Ha! Well I did misstate that now didn't I I should have said skip commercials of a show while watching that same show as it is still recording.
But yeah, my HTPC is pretty close to a time machine anyway

like something is wrong to those that don't understand why it's there.

Just tell them your TV is monitoring for Janet Jackson "slip" moments so it can censor those out - or for more fun, record and highlight those moments. You know, let them know it's pretty smart...

I'm far from being a programmer or developer, but it's seems to me this could be solved by combining both - using a circular buffer for live TV that writes to a file as it deletes. If you choose to record late in the show, the file is saved. If the show ends without being recorded, the file can be deleted.

I'm sure it's not that simple. But I can't believe that the problem can't be solved without compromising other functionality.

There probably is a solution, but I would think a combination of circular buffer with the current process would be a very complicated mess to program and debug. But you never know, those devs are pretty smart.

[thorforyou]

I don't mind the pause because I understand what it does.

My wife complains every time a program exceeds it's time-slot and a pause occurs. This requires me to explain what the pause is to her off after the event.

I wish that Sagetv could somehow be smart enough to record a whole program when a show exceeds its time-slot schedule. I often find that I record a program and the end is missing.

[sandor]

Originally Posted by MitchSchaft

That's the biggest annoyance ever. Missing the last few seconds of a show is not what I call a quality experience. From the sound of it, this is a permenant issue that they do not plan to "fix". Saying that's just the way it is.

huh. THAT i don't see. i never lose any of the recording.


what i see is, if watching live tv, at the end of the scheduled program (hour, half-hour, 3 hour, whatever length the guide has) there will be a 3/4 second pause, and then the video will pick up again. it pauses, but all the content is there.

now, i would like to see it dealt with, but i probably watch < 5% of my media live, so it isn't a **personal** issue to me.

[MitchSchaft]

That's what I'm talkin about. It pauses, then fastforwards through the part it paused to the very end. It's like missing the end. Maybe 5 seconds or so. It's definately not 3/4 of a second. And it happens with recording a show ahead of time, too. It still has to get ready for the next show, regardless of if it's scheduled or not.

[evilpenguin]

Ok, there seems to be some confusion about what "Pause" we're talking about here.

I'm talking about when you're watching LiveTV and the guide transitions from one show to the next (watching show from 12:30->1:00 and clock hits 1:00) the playback stops for a 1-2 seconds and then starts up again in the next file. I don't miss any of the 12:30->1:00 show but I miss the first few seconds of the next show (whatever the tunetime is set to for that specific tuner).

[MitchSchaft]

There is no confusion here.

[sandor]

Originally Posted by MitchSchaft

That's what I'm talkin about. It pauses, then fastforwards through the part it paused to the very end. It's like missing the end. Maybe 5 seconds or so. It's definately not 3/4 of a second. And it happens with recording a show ahead of time, too. It still has to get ready for the next show, regardless of if it's scheduled or not.

now i am a little confused, are you actually **missing** portions of the show?

i am not

[ghostlobster]

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

Ok, there seems to be some confusion about what "Pause" we're talking about here.

I'm talking about when you're watching LiveTV and the guide transitions from one show to the next (watching show from 12:30->1:00 and clock hits 1:00) the playback stops for a 1-2 seconds and then starts up again in the next file. I don't miss any of the 12:30->1:00 show but I miss the first few seconds of the next show (whatever the tunetime is set to for that specific tuner).

That's The Pause as I know it.
I hate it. We watch a lot of live TV in this house, particularly sports, and generally hockey games go over the allotted 2.5 hours. Which really sucks, especially if the game is in overtime at the time of The Pause...things are getting dicey, The Pause happens, and when it comes back, sticks are raised in the air in celebration. That particular scenario only happened once, but Mrs. Lobster brings it up often...she was not a happy camper that night.
I don't want to sacrifice current functionality, but I'd love to see The Pause gone.

[Skirge01]

Originally Posted by MitchSchaft

That's what I'm talkin about. It pauses, then fastforwards through the part it paused to the very end. It's like missing the end. Maybe 5 seconds or so. It's definately not 3/4 of a second. And it happens with recording a show ahead of time, too. It still has to get ready for the next show, regardless of if it's scheduled or not.

This sounds strangely similar to what happens on my server when I'm running a disk intensive application and trying to watch a recording. If I go to fast forward (or skip forward), the time jumps, then it pauses playback, and eventually it fast forwards to where it should've stopped when I skipped/ffwd and begins playing normally again. But, I know my issue is the application tying up the playback drive, not Sage or any other piece of hardware. Plus, this happens at any point during playback, not simply at the end.

[MitchSchaft]

So I suck at wording things . It pauses like what everyone else is describing. I need a nap.

[trini0]

I've never experienced a "clean" pause between programs.
I usually lose material at the very end and beginning of content due to the "pause".
IMHO, I wish there was an option to have it either way (Straight to a file or to a circular buffer).
Me personally, I would prefer a circular buffer...

[robogeek]

Lots of good debating here. Personally, I've gotten use to the pause and don't mind it so much. Like some others have posted, yes there are instances where a few seconds of a show get missed right at the end during the switch over or possibly missing more if it was a recording that wasn't watched live. That's more of a clock issue on the SageTV Server machine (clock running fast) or the networks intentionally running over their timeslots to deter viewers from recording instead of watching live. In either case, that's what padding is for. And you can't really fault SageTV for the poor timeslot management of the networks or poor EPG data provided by Zap2It.

SageTV allows you to be watching a show, and then 10 minutes in you have to leave but don't want to miss the show. You can hit record and it will record the entire show from the beginning and not just from the time you hit the record button. So a couple of days later you finally decide to watch the show. You can start it from the beginning instead of starting it from the 10 minute mark when you hit the record button. With a circular buffer, I'm pretty sure we would lose that feature. Hitting the record button 10 minutes in would start the recording at the 10 minute mark. And to keep live TV going without a pause, you'd have to keep putting that recording into the circular buffer while also writing it to a new file for later playback...so that would double the disk activity. For a single or dual tuner setup, like what would be common for an MCE setup, that wouldn't be a problem. With 4, 8, 12 or more tuners (especially HD tuners), there is no easy way to have a large numbers of tuners write that much data to the hard drive without bringing the hard drive to it's knees. I'm sure some sort of pauseless playback would be possible, but there would probably be trade-offs and still some people will be left out and still complain that it does this or doesn't do that. It definitely wouldn't be a trivial task, as a good portion of the recording and playback code would probably have to be completely rearchitected.

As far as BeyondTV and MCE not having a pause between shows, I'm not sure why they don't or even if it's true since I've never used either of them. I've been using SageTV exclusively since v1.4 for all of my video recording and TV viewing. (All the complainers about the UI not beeing flashy should have seen v1.4 ) I can only guess that perhaps that the live TV you see on the screen with these other DVR software packages is coming direct from the preview pin of the capture card driver and not from an mpeg file on the hard drive.

[trini0]

Originally Posted by robogeek

That's more of a clock issue on the SageTV Server machine

So not true. My whole network is synced to a few external ntp servers, and my time is fairly accurate. I still miss out during pauses, that I have to run to a tv network website to catch what I missed, (which I've done a few times for a good show), then for me, whats the true value of the pause.
Setting overlap wouldn't cure all situations (such back to back programs).

Originally Posted by robogeek

SageTV allows you....

Regardless of what SageTV *allows* you to do, it doesn't *allow* for people like myself to *choose* whether or not they want the pause.

Me personally. I'm not asking for either pause or no pause. I respect that some like it the way it is.
I'm asking whether or not its possible to do both, and to let the end user decide what they want. A feature I would gladly pay for.