Feature request: Confirmation on EXIT of live TV

[Duhhh]

How many times have you done this...

You're watching LIVE TV, but have paused several times, so you're now about 15 minutes behind live. You might be skipping a channel, or doing some other fiddling with the remote when you press EXIT. BTV goes back to the main menu, and flushes the buffer of the show you were watching. You can't go back!

If BTV had an option to confirm exit of live TV, it might save you. The confirmation could be turned on based on the time delta between your current viewing point, and where the live broadcast is being recorded. I'd love to say, "if I am more than 3 minutes in the past, confirm an exit of LIVE TV viewing."

[redlion4]

Pretty much never. We don't watch live TV anymore. Shows that we watch all get recorded for viewing on our schedule, and usually after smart chapter generation.

The evening news might be a partial exception - it is still recorded, and I always watch the recorded version of it....usually the same day, so no smart chapters.

[Terminal]

They confirm everything else, so it probably wouldn't be a bad idea. Although I never watch live TV either so it's not a big deal to me. Send in a feature request.

[TomXP411]

What used to get me was when I'd hit Info, then hit Exit to hide the info. Invariably, the timer would close the info screen just as my thumb was going down on the button... and I'd be looking at the main menu (or recorded shows list.)

I'd rather see live TV continuously buffered, even when you exit - the same way that TiVo, WMC, and Sage do it. (I don't care about displaying it, but I'd like it to still be recorded in the background.)

If I really want to STOP live TV, I'll hit the stop button, exit BTV, or start playing a recording.

[Terminal]

Originally Posted by TomXP411

What used to get me was when I'd hit Info, then hit Exit to hide the info. Invariably, the timer would close the info screen just as my thumb was going down on the button... and I'd be looking at the main menu (or recorded shows list.)

I'd rather see live TV continuously buffered, even when you exit - the same way that TiVo, WMC, and Sage do it. (I don't care about displaying it, but I'd like it to still be recorded in the background.)

If I really want to STOP live TV, I'll hit the stop button, exit BTV, or start playing a recording.

If they did that they should allow you to set up a tuner that you dedicate to live TV. Not something I think would be all that useful, but to each his own.

[BasVanDerBrugge]

Originally Posted by Duhhh

How many times have you done this...

You're watching LIVE TV, but have paused several times, so you're now about 15 minutes behind live. You might be skipping a channel, or doing some other fiddling with the remote when you press EXIT. BTV goes back to the main menu, and flushes the buffer of the show you were watching. You can't go back!

If BTV had an option to confirm exit of live TV, it might save you. The confirmation could be turned on based on the time delta between your current viewing point, and where the live broadcast is being recorded. I'd love to say, "if I am more than 3 minutes in the past, confirm an exit of LIVE TV viewing."

It might be more useful for BeyondTV to keep the liveTV buffer if you exit to the main menu and then go back to (the same channel) on Live TV.

[enigma9o7]

I like that idea. Just keep the buffer going even if you exit livetv for a certain amount of time, like 1 hour or something (maybe user selectable), unless a scheduled recording needs the tuner.

[Duhhh]

Keeping the live TV going might fix something else I've seen. While watching live TV, sometimes I will pause it for a long time (an hour or more). Then I'll start watching, but BTV decides to use a new slice, so it throws away what I'm watching, and fast-forwards me an hour. VERY annoying. I've learned that if I'm going to be away from a broadcast for a while, just record it so you don't get sliced into oblivion.

[DonK]

BTV used to do like TiVo and continuously buffer. They changed it back around the time 3.5 came out and started supporting multiple tuners. It was a design decision based on a few factors, and IMHO, it was right at the time. Now, I'd like to see the ability to revert back to that behavior sometimes to alleviate those issues, but that's probably not going to happen, guys.

[TomXP411]

I don't want to see it buffer 24x7, primarily because I don't want to wear out my hard drive prematurely.

But it's frustrating that the buffer gets dumped when you exit live TV. I'll frequently see an ad for another show I want to record, but I can't jump to the search menu and look for it real quick, because I'll lose my live stream.

Now I know that I can just hit Record and the program will be buffered, but considering the fact that all of the other DVR's and PVR's can maintain the buffer while in the menus, I think BTV should, too. And what happens if I'm between programs? If I happen to be 15 minutes delayed and I'm at the end of one show, waiting for the next one to start, I can't just hit record, since the show I actually want to watch hasn't started yet.

In all, I think continuing to buffer while the user is in the menus is the most viable solution.

Now I'm not averse to having the buffer automatically stop if I leave the computer idle for a period of time. Make it configurable. I never watch more than 2 or 3 hours of TV at a time, so if my computer is sitting idle for 4 hours, I'm okay with dumping the buffer. I'm also okay with BTV dropping out of live TV mode and going back to the main menu. However, in both cases, it should pop up a confirmation dialog with about 5 minutes to hit Enter and keep buffering.

[tscales]

Simple solution. Instead of watching Live TV, go into the program guide and RECORD the show. Then immediately go into recorded shows and start watching it. No matter what you do, it records the show.

[TomXP411]

But it doesn't get the NEXT show properly. If you just want to watch tv for a couple of hours, maybe channel surfing, it just plain doesn't work when you do that.

[Duhhh]

Originally Posted by tscales

Simple solution. Instead of watching Live TV, go into the program guide and RECORD the show. Then immediately go into recorded shows and start watching it. No matter what you do, it records the show.

Yes, that works... unless you also have the problem of skip not working when you are watching a recording that is in progress. That is so frustrating, but when watching live, skip seems to work fine.

[TimW]

When this happens, as frustrating as it is, I can usually just open up Explorer and navigate to the recording drive. The slice is usually still intact so I can play it back in another app. Not an ideal solution, but at least it's not totally gone.