Question about recording Live TV

[jbarr]

This may end up being a feature request as opposed to a simple question...

Many other DVR's continuously "buffer" the current channel. If you have been tuned to a channel for a couple hours and several shows hav been "buffered", then you can just rewind back into the buffer to watch the show. As I understand SageTV, when you are watching a current show, it simply records it. Then, when that show ends and the next show comes on, it stops recording the previous show, deletes it, and starts a new recording for the next show.

So my question is this: Is there a setting in SageTV to "keep" prior-watched shows instead of automatically deleting them?

Obviously for space purposes, you wouldn't want to retain EVERY show, so ideally, (and here's the probable feature request) can you define how many or how long to to keep watched shows? Say, either the last n-shows, or the last n-hours of shows.

For example, if you were to keep SageTV running on LiveTV all day, you come home from work, turn on the TV, and whatever channel it's on, the past n-shows (or n-hours of content) would be available to watch.

Comments?

[blade]

p. 236 of the manual discusses turning off the automatic cleanup for live TV.

[jbarr]

Ahh. there it is.

Now, for the feature request: The manual states that if the setting is set to not delete, then SageTV will delete the files as needed if it needs the space. That's fine. Now, it would be nice to be able to define how many shows or how many hors to save....

[BobPhoenix]

If I want to keep a show I just press the Record button on my remote and turn it into a manual recording and I leave SageTV deleting files as soon as it is done with them (or however long the short delay is). This way the file will stay around as long as I want. If I want to get rid of it I then either explicitly delete it or press the record button again to remove the manual record status. This makes the file then look like an Intelligent Recording and like LiveTV are the first to be deleted when space is needed.

BobP.

[jbarr]

Thanks Bob! Great info.

However, I was specifically referring to shows on the same channel that had recorded prior to the current show's recording. For example, if I come home from work, turn on the TV, and watch the show that is currently airing, that's cool. But what about the show that aired prior to the current show? With other DVR's, the show would simply be in the "live buffer" so I could just rewind back to see the prior show, but with SageTV's single-show recording philosophy, I couldn't...except that with the setting that Blade describes above, I could!

My suggestion is to let the viewer control how many shows to retain.

Obviously, if I really wanted to watch the prior show, then I should set it up as a recording, but if SageTV is going to record it anyway and keep it (based on the setting that Blade refered to above) then I could watch it!

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by jbarr

Thanks Bob! Great info.

However, I was specifically referring to shows on the same channel that had recorded prior to the current show's recording. For example, if I come home from work, turn on the TV, and watch the show that is currently airing, that's cool. But what about the show that aired prior to the current show? With other DVR's, the show would simply be in the "live buffer" so I could just rewind back to see the prior show, but with SageTV's single-show recording philosophy, I couldn't...except that with the setting that Blade describes above, I could!

Only if you left it on LiveTV which would then get everything on that channel. Which would be where your suggestion comes in:

My suggestion is to let the viewer control how many shows to retain.

Obviously, if I really wanted to watch the prior show, then I should set it up as a recording, but if SageTV is going to record it anyway and keep it (based on the setting that Blade refered to above) then I could watch it!

I would suggest you use SageTV's Intelligent Recording feature instead. It will go out and find shows it thinks you might like to see based on your past viewing history. But it certainly doesn't hurt to request a feature.

BobP.

[jbarr]

Sounds good! I guess it's just a matter of me moving from one mindset to another--both Moxi and ReplayTV (also assuming it's left "on") are continuously buffering whereas SageTV is only recording if it is on LiveTV. It really does make sense once you understand the logic.

[roxy99]

I like your website btw.

[blade]

Aren't the buffers limited in size? If so how do you go back and watch shows recorded hours before?

I don't use intelligent recording myself, but I use the plugin that displays the shows IR would record if it were turned on. Basically you get a list of suggested shows to choose from instead of Sage actually recording them.

I've found several shows to record thanks to the list, without Sage unecessarily filling up my drives with garbage.