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

[routerunner]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

...for something that only a smaller portion of sage users feel is that big of a problem.

I do apologize, but I reckon that 67% is more than a "small portion of sage users"...

[robogeek]

Originally Posted by routerunner

I do apologize, but I reckon that 67% is more than a "small portion of sage users"...

With over 1300 active forum members (see bottom of main forum page for the forum stats), only 77 cared enough to say they think the "pause" a major problem that should be fixed. That puts the actual percentage closer to 6%.

[brainbone]

Originally Posted by routerunner

I do apologize, but I reckon that 67% is more than a "small portion of sage users"...

I would hazard a guess that a good portion of the others that don't feel this is "that big of a problem" don't watch live TV much if ever, and therefore really aren't in a position to comment on the issue -- though to be fair, the original question wasn't restricted to only those that watch live TV.

Of live TV users, I would think more that 67% are bothered by this.

Originally Posted by robogeek

With over 1300 active forum members (see bottom of main forum page for the forum stats), only 77 cared enough to say they think the "pause" a major problem that should be fixed. That puts the actual percentage closer to 6%.

Of those 1300, you need to calculate how many regularly post (maybe 10% - 15%?), and of those, how many recognized the ambiguous title.

[stanger89]

And not that it matters, but I'm sure there are those who think it should be fixed but don't really think it's a "big" problem.

[tahoetim]

Come on robo geek! Using your strange logic only 4% of the total 1300+ members don't care about the pause, leaving 95% that care about it.

I love Sage and watch a lot of live tv so I am used to the pause but it does show another area of unpolished interface with tv. A typical non-geek user would wonder why it's there.

I for one could care less about recording a show at the midpoint and could live without the buffer. It's funny how some arguments in this thread are contradictory; they advocate that those who "evolve" past live tv aren't bothered by it and at the same time hold up the "feature" of hitting record partially through a show. If your not watching live tv, you don't need the buffer feature anyway, right?

If it doesn't hurt the people that only watch recorded tv and can help the people who do watch live tv, then why not change it?

[nick_l]

Originally Posted by tahoetim

I am used to the pause but it does show another area of unpolished interface with tv. A typical non-geek user would wonder why it's there.

I thought this comment was interesting. For the majority of people that the pause bothers, is it really the pause itself, or the fact that it seems like something is wrong? What if Sage flashed up a screen while switching between shows/recordings in live tv (something like "hold tight, sage is switching programs", or something like that. I don't really know the mechanics of it, but it seems as though it would be possible.

Personally I'm in the don't care group (couldn't tell you the last time I actually watched any live tv), but reading through this thread it seems like the majority of comments fall under the "I always think something is wrong" catagory. Perhaps a little spit n polish is all that is needed for most people to not be bothered by this anymore.

Just a thougth,
Nick

[robogeek]

Originally Posted by tahoetim

Come on robo geek! Using your strange logic only 4% of the total 1300+ members don't care about the pause, leaving 95% that care about it.

Now that's just crazy talk

[othy]

Originally Posted by tahoetim

Come on robo geek! Using your strange logic only 4% of the total 1300+ members don't care about the pause, leaving 95% that care about it.

Arguing about the numbers is pointless (see also: the HD-100 power failure thread ), but I think robo geek's point is that a poll with ~120 reponses is hardly representative of the total user base. It's probably safe to assume that if people think it's a "big deal", they voted. If they don't think it's a big deal, they probably didn't bother to vote at all. The thread has north of 2,000 views. How many people glanced at the thread and said "eh, whatever" and moved on because it's not a big deal to them--in fact, not even worth chiming in?

Point is, this has been a productive thread in terms of generating discussion, but I don't think the results of the poll should be treated as evidence that there's an outcry for this to be addressed.

Incidentally, this thread reminds me of the persistent complaints about .ISO support, and my concern about both issues (as has been stated by others in the ISO threads) is that this is probably not a trivial change to implement. Whatever manpower is spent putting in a circular buffer is manpower taken away from other improvements to the software (like the UI changes that many more people seem to think is a "big deal," or who-knows-what-cool-stuff-they've-thought-of-and-are-working-on).

JMHO,
Tim

[brainbone]

Originally Posted by robogeek

For the majority of people that the pause bothers, is it really the pause itself, or the fact that it seems like something is wrong?

For me its both. On my system, there is a loss of a few seconds of video during the pause, making it even more annoying.

If there was a pause with some type of visual indication of whats going on, and no actual loss of video, it would still be annoying, but maybe less so. At least I wouldn't have to hear "daddy, the TV is broken again... oh, never mind." almost every day.

[routerunner]

Originally Posted by brainbone

...At least I wouldn't have to hear "daddy, the TV is broken again... oh, never mind." almost every day.

Well, this is the main point for all of us with wife and kids, they just don't get it why this happening and actually they shouldn't bother because, in fact, "the pause" should never happen...

On the other hand though I admit that there are more important issues Sage could address, for instance why if there are two programs on the same satellite transponder and I want to record one and watch the other, Sage actually need two tuners??? Even my old crappy Topfield PVR allowed me to do that....

[Skirge01]

Originally Posted by nick_l

I thought this comment was interesting. For the majority of people that the pause bothers, is it really the pause itself, or the fact that it seems like something is wrong? What if Sage flashed up a screen while switching between shows/recordings in live tv (something like "hold tight, sage is switching programs", or something like that. I don't really know the mechanics of it, but it seems as though it would be possible.

Personally I'm in the don't care group (couldn't tell you the last time I actually watched any live tv), but reading through this thread it seems like the majority of comments fall under the "I always think something is wrong" catagory. Perhaps a little spit n polish is all that is needed for most people to not be bothered by this anymore.

Just a thougth,
Nick

I fall into this group. One or both of these things run across my mind when this happens:

A. This is really annoying.
B. I hope it recovers.

I would like it very much if Sage would simply blank the screen, mute the audio and resume playing when it can do so correctly. When my father visits, he thinks he broke something every time this occurs, so he doesn't like using it. I've actually considered hooking up a regular DirecTV receiver so that people don't ever see this.

Honestly, it's kind of embarrassing when this happens and people are over. People don't remember all the good points about something, only the bad.

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by nick_l

For the majority of people that the pause bothers, is it really the pause itself, or the fact that it seems like something is wrong? What if Sage flashed up a screen while switching between shows/recordings in live tv (something like "hold tight, sage is switching programs", or something like that. I don't really know the mechanics of it, but it seems as though it would be possible.

I actually really like this idea. I think this would resolve my complaint pretty well. As I said, when this pause happens, people always think something is wrong. This would tell people its fine before I have to explain the video will come up again in a couple seconds. It's not a perfect solution, but it's an improvement.

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by reggie14

I actually really like this idea. I think this would resolve my complaint pretty well. As I said, when this pause happens, people always think something is wrong. This would tell people its fine before I have to explain the video will come up again in a couple seconds. It's not a perfect solution, but it's an improvement.

I think it would be better to have as little pause as possible. If not no pause at all as with any other STB style DVR. I fully realize the reasons they decided to take the path they did. But in the end when watching live TV as do most "normal" people it does give it a sense of brokeness to have a gap in playback whether it is by result of design or not.

[nick_l]

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

watching live TV as do most "normal" people

The problem with this is it's not up to one person to define what "normal" tv watching is. Ten years ago, there were almost no DVRs in america. A quick Google search brings up that 34.8% of american households will have a DVR by 2010. That leads to a rather broad interpratation of what normal could be.

As the proliferation of multiple tv/monitor housholds continues, Sage's way of handling recordings in much more scalable and adept at working with this model than the competition's, at least imho.

Heck, who knows, in another ten years there may not even be such a thing as a "Tv schedule". We could be looking at an entertainment future that is entirely "on demand'. Then the normal way to watch tv will be for Sage to grab your programs in the background and stream them directly to your HD3000 ocular implants (of course, people will still complain about it's crappy interface and buggy wireless reception). Some things NEVER change.


Nick

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

I think it would be better to have as little pause as possible. If not no pause at all as with any other STB style DVR.

I agree "no pause" should be the ultimate goal (though, I don't personally think it should be a high priority), but in the meantime I think some sort of "Please wait" screen makes sense. It shouldn't add to the length of the pause in any meaningful way, and it should help to prevent people from thinking something is broken. Sure, the pause is still going to seem weird and undesirable to many people, but at least they won't think the system just crashed on them.

A system should never just freeze without some sort of warning (and, whenever possible, some indication of the duration of the freeze). I'm hoping the SageMC and Phoenix guys keep that in mind. When the default UI is tuning a channel it will pop up a little message saying so, but SageMC will just sit there for a second or two.

[Ryokurin]

Originally Posted by stanger89

And not that it matters, but I'm sure there are those who think it should be fixed but don't really think it's a "big" problem.

That's about how it is here. Been using SageTV since V2 and I've pretty much have gotten used to it. Nice to get rid of? yes, but there's bigger issues to take care of such as tuners not responding when multiple shows are starting (down 1 one minute lost than 5 in 6.6) or possibly sprucing up the gui. They aren't microsoft and can afford to hire dozens of programmers, and they aren't open sourced (which despite what people say can be a double edged sword) There are bigger things that are more important.

[RobJ]

Originally Posted by routerunner

On the other hand though I admit that there are more important issues Sage could address, for instance why if there are two programs on the same satellite transponder and I want to record one and watch the other, Sage actually need two tuners??? Even my old crappy Topfield PVR allowed me to do that....

This is not a SageTV issue, you *must* have 2 tuners to watch and record 2 different programs. If you believe you were able to do that before, then you were using 2 tuners somewhere. Perhaps it was passing the signal through to the TV you were watching, and using its built-in tuner?

[brainbone]

Originally Posted by RobJ

This is not a SageTV issue, you *must* have 2 tuners to watch and record 2 different programs.

DVB tuners are different. They can, if the application using DVB tuner supports it, record multiple channels from the same transponder that is currently tuned (all channels on a transponder are muxed into a single stream). The application's scheduler simply needs to know what channels are on what transponder -- but I think I'm getting a bit off topic...

[jamesdisco]

Originally Posted by RobJ

This is not a SageTV issue, you *must* have 2 tuners to watch and record 2 different programs. If you believe you were able to do that before, then you were using 2 tuners somewhere. Perhaps it was passing the signal through to the TV you were watching, and using its built-in tuner?

Originally Posted by routerunner View Post
On the other hand though I admit that there are more important issues Sage could address, for instance why if there are two programs on the same satellite transponder and I want to record one and watch the other, Sage actually need two tuners??? Even my old crappy Topfield PVR allowed me to do that....

Hi routerunner, im an old toppy user too. I loved it with a no. of TAPS installed. Topfields were able to use one tuner to record 2 channels as long as they were on the same mux, it was quite a handy feature.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by brainbone

DVB tuners are different. They can, if the application using DVB tuner supports it, record multiple channels from the same transponder that is currently tuned (all channels on a transponder are muxed into a single stream). The application's scheduler simply needs to know what channels are on what transponder -- but I think I'm getting a bit off topic...

Unfortunately for you, such functionality is basically useless outside Europe.