Doesn't STOP after end of show - plays next

[Narflex]

astribli,

What I don't understand is if you accidentally FF over the end of a show and start a new one that you didn't want to start...why don't you just hit stop then?

If you can handle that (which should be no problem....the first couple seconds of a show is never a spoiler); then the only annoyance from your standpoint would be that it doesn't give you the prompt to delete after every recording, right?

And I understand your point....I've always wanted to improve how that part works....so I'm not knocking what you're proposing...just trying to understand your points better.

Thanks.

[astribli]

Originally Posted by Narflex

astribli,

What I don't understand is if you accidentally FF over the end of a show and start a new one that you didn't want to start...why don't you just hit stop then?

If you can handle that (which should be no problem....the first couple seconds of a show is never a spoiler); then the only annoyance from your standpoint would be that it doesn't give you the prompt to delete after every recording, right?

And I understand your point....I've always wanted to improve how that part works....so I'm not knocking what you're proposing...just trying to understand your points better.

Thanks.

Because it went several minutes into the new show. See previous post about how wife wasn't happy she already saw the answer on Wheel of Fortune when she thought she was watching the beginning of the show.

Same thing happened last night. We were watching something else, it finished, we hit fast forward several times to get to the end of the show and all of a sudden we are 7 minutes into 24 ! Then we had to rewind it to start watching 24 from the beginning.

It appears Sage is buffering the FF keystrokes. You can repeat this yourself. While watching say a 2 hour show, press and hold FF2 for a couple of seconds. All of a sudden you will see it jump to almost the end of the show due to dozens of FF keystrokes being cued up.

[cummings66]

I see now, you're doing it different than I do. I just hit the 10 seconds skip ahead to skip commercials, usually 3 taps and I'm either into the next commercial or the program. I could never ever end up 7 minutes into a show, and to date I've never been more than maybe 20 seconds into a show.

I do see how you could be however, that would definitely explain why you're more frustrated than I am.

[jkohn]

Seems to me there could be some intelligence built into the client here to make the behavior more consistent. Maybe the server doesn't know how the user got to the recording, but the _client_ should certainly know that. So if the client is playing back a file that was started from the Recordings menu, then it should always behave the same way when it reaches the end of the recording regardless of whether playback started before the recording finished. The fact that the server is still recording behind the scenes doesn't have to affect the behavior of the client (and I would expect that once the server realizes the client is no longer watching, it would delete the extra file).

This isn't about bashing Sage or saying Sage should be just like Tivo. I've never even owned a Tivo; but I have used several other PVR's and none of them behave the way Sage does. To many users the behavior of Sage in this use case is non-intuitive, and not only is it different from other PVR's but it's also inconsistent with how Sage itself behaves in the case of a scheduled recording that has already completed.

I fully understand the technical reasons why the current behavior is what it is. But as a software engineer myself one of the lessons I've learned is that underlying technical/architectural factors don't justify user-facing functionality that detracts from the experience of using the product.

Is this a huge deal? No, not really. But I don't think changing the client's behavior as I've described would be too difficult, and it would make things more consistent IMHO. You could probably even make it a configurable setting to keep fans of the current behavior happy.

[GKusnick]

Originally Posted by jkohn

Maybe the server doesn't know how the user got to the recording, but the _client_ should certainly know that.

Not to nitpick, but you don't mean the client, you mean the loaded STV. The client itself (i.e. SageTVClient.exe) knows nothing about the user-perceived meaning of the various UI screens; they're all just scripts.

While it would be possible for the STV to remember which button you pushed to start watching, and determine end-of-show behavior from that, I'm not sure I'd consider that good UI design. Ideally, UI behavior should be based on the currently visible state of the UI, not on something that happened an hour ago.

But hey, that's why the UI is customizable. Because you can't please everybody with one UI design.

[astribli]

Seems there is also a related problem when starting a show.

• Suppose Sage is on Live TV.
• Suppose it is recording a previously scheduled show just like you asked it to.
• It is 10 minutes (or some amount) into the show.
• The user goes to the main menu (before turning on the TV), selects Recordings and goes to watch the show. Wouldn't you expect it would start from the beginning? We do.

Instead, Sage jumps to wherever it is in Live TV. This is incorrect. Now the user has to rewind 10 minutes back to the beginning. Is this "normal" for Sage ? It certainly isn't what we expect.

Maybe I am wrong but it appears Sage cannot differentiate between a recording and the live buffer. Obviously it can record and play back at the same time, it just doesn't seem to know when to start playing from the beginning, and when to stop at the end. Serious design flaw in my opinion.

Seriously. How hard can this be to understand? If I play a show that has completed recording, it starts from the beginning. If I play a show that hasn't finished recording, it should still start from the beginning.

Same with stopping. If I play a recorded show, when it reaches the end, it should ask me if I want to delete it (if I have the option turned on which I do). This works fine if I do not fast forward or the live TV buffer doesn't happen to be on something else scheduled for recording.

It's just a matter of telling it when to start, and when to stop.

Regarding Tivo, I am not saying Sage needs to be exactly like it, but for those of you that say you have never owned one and don't understand why this is a big deal, maybe you should find a friend who does have one and compare it to Sage. It's sort of like saying a Kia is plenty fast car (no offense to Kia owners, just an example), but you have never driven anything with more power. How do you know what you are missing?

Bottom line, I don't want to see any part of the show until I am ready. I also don't want to see any part of the next scheduled recording until I am ready. I don't want the software showing me what it thinks I want!

In all my trials of similar software, Media Portal, Beyond TV, MCE, GBPVR, Medio, etc., NONE of them have this flaw. That speaks volumes.

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by astribli

Seems there is also a related problem when starting a show.

• Suppose Sage is on Live TV.
• Suppose it is recording a previously scheduled show just like you asked it to.
• It is 10 minutes (or some amount) into the show.
• The user goes to the main menu (before turning on the TV), selects Recordings and goes to watch the show. Wouldn't you expect it would start from the beginning? We do.

Instead, Sage jumps to wherever it is in Live TV. This is incorrect. Now the user has to rewind 10 minutes back to the beginning. Is this "normal" for Sage ? It certainly isn't what we expect.

What version of SageTV are you using? Or, what STV are you using? I just did what you described & ended up at the very beginning of the show. I had the same results no matter where I chose to watch the show, except when I chose Watch Live TV from the main menu, which started playback & then jumped to the current time, so playback was 'live'. This may have been changed functionality at some point.

Oh wait -- you started with "Suppose Sage is on Live TV." Are you already playing live tv as your menu background or in the preview window? If something is already playing, it will continue where it is already at in the show. Did you watch a portion of the show already? If so, it will restart where you last left off. Or, did you mean something else by the "Suppose Sage is on Live TV." phrase?

- Andy

[nielm]

Same thing happened last night. We were watching something else, it finished, we hit fast forward several times to get to the end of the show and all of a sudden we are 7 minutes into 24 !

I am still not sure why you are doing this... If it is to get to the end of file to stop playback and get the delete popup, there are easier ways of doing it...

If it is to get to the next show, then be a bit more gentle on how you hit FF!

It appears Sage is buffering the FF keystrokes. You can repeat this yourself. While watching say a 2 hour show, press and hold FF2 for a couple of seconds. All of a sudden you will see it jump to almost the end of the show due to dozens of FF keystrokes being cued up.

This is normal. Keys repeat at a rate of about 4/second... If you held down FF2==30 second skip for several seconds, you would be skipping several minutes! Just press-release FF2 to trigger the skip than hold it down.

Also, some mpeg2 decoders are better than others at how responsive they are to skip commands (the Sage decoder is very responsive, the Nvidia decoder is not!)

Or if you want a continuous semi-smooth VCR-style FF/REW, I have yet another plugin that can do that (but again it is decoder dependant)

[GKusnick]

Originally Posted by astribli

Regarding Tivo, I am not saying Sage needs to be exactly like it, but for those of you that say you have never owned one and don't understand why this is a big deal, maybe you should find a friend who does have one and compare it to Sage.

For what it's worth, I own both Tivo and Sage, and to my mind the Tivo UI is slow, clunky, unintuitive, full of non-sequiturs and mixed metaphors, and has its own collection of quirks just as annoying as the ones you've pointed out in Sage. So I'm not buying the argument that Tivo is obviously the best and only someone who's never used it would think otherwise. Some of us like Sage precisely because it's not Tivo.

[heffe2001]

Originally Posted by astribli

No you wouldn't. Remember, I am talking about I have the option set that specifically says ASK at the end of EVERY RECORDED show. Since I have that option turned ON, then I expect it to ASK me.

Your Live TV example would still work as you are NOT watching a recorded show, you are just watching live TV, although maybe time delayed, it is still live TV. Two completely different scenarios.

No, actually your wrong, if I change to the same channel that a recorded show is on, your example would fit as well. If you tuned to something that is being recorded live, you are watching live TV, just time-shifted. If you wait until 1 minute after the show is done recording, you're watching a recorded show. I can understand what you're wanting, but I'd dare say most Sage users would either not use the feature, or care if it's there.

Also remember alot of people switch FROM Tivo because of it's limitations, It's because they didn't want to work within it's limitations, or cost for guide, etc. It's already been mentioned several times how to get the functionality you're looking for, but for whatever reason you're either unwilling to try, or want it your way or the highway. You call it a bug, others call it a feature, who's right, who's wrong? As the system works now, it's been specifically designed that way, so I'd say it's a feature. If it were an un-intended side-effect, don't you think in the dozens of releases they'd have fixed it?

And conversely, alot of folks around here don't like it when Tivo people come in and dump on sage because it doesn't work the same as Tivo. It was never designed to duplicate a Tivo box, and I highly doubt that it ever will duplicate the functions of one. Start doing stuff like that, and get into copyright suites & such.

If most people wanted Sage to be like Tivo, there'd be a Tivo skin with extensions to make it act like one, but then it's just be an expensive Tivo box with a free guide, which doesn't make much sense to me(sure you'd not have to pay for guide info, but you have to set up an expensive PC, which uses more power, more complicated to configure, etc).

*edit* I've got to add, if you're so set on the Tivo interface, and it's the best out, why are you looking at Sage and the other software PVR's? There's something obviously that you DON'T like about Tivo, or you wouldn't be here... You could always petition Tivo to add whatever features you're seeking from a software PVR to their box. As you've stated that they are the industry leader in PVR's, why don't they offer whatever features you're looking for??

Instead of coming in and saying this is how this stuff should work, say this is how I'd LIKE it to work, you'd not step on so many toes... I also think it'd be better off asked in the customization forum, someone who could actually make a STV or import to do whatever you're wanting may see if quicker there...

[sixdoubleo]

I've brought up this issue before as well. While I can see why Sage does it the way it does, I have a problem at bedtime. Often I will watch a show as it is being recorded (or maybe a few minutes behind) and then I fall asleep. Sage continues to record through the night and all the next day while I'm at work. I usually don't notice until the next day.

If there was a way to differentiate between "Watch this show (only)" versus "Watch this channel" that would solve the problem I have.

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by sixdoubleo

I've brought up this issue before as well. While I can see why Sage does it the way it does, I have a problem at bedtime. Often I will watch a show as it is being recorded (or maybe a few minutes behind) and then I fall asleep. Sage continues to record through the night and all the next day while I'm at work. I usually don't notice until the next day.

If there was a way to differentiate between "Watch this show (only)" versus "Watch this channel" that would solve the problem I have.

If you use my Reminders plugin you can set it to stop when the show ends and this will not happen. Also I believe the sleep timer by flachbar will prevent this as well.

[Kev]

I also dislike the feature. Sage should remember whether you selected to watch a recorded show or live tv. If you are watching live TV, it should obviously just continue onto the next show as it does. If you are watching a recorded show (even if it is time shifted), it should end at the end of the show. The reason I don't like it is that when I am watching a time shifted recording, and I have a recording scheduled when that one completes, I get the annoying box that pops up asking me if it should record what I have in my recording list or to continue recording the current channel.

It is small, but I do find the pop up to be annoying and have selected the wrong option before.

[ke6guj]

Originally Posted by sixdoubleo

Often I will watch a show as it is being recorded (or maybe a few minutes behind) and then I fall asleep. Sage continues to record through the night and all the next day while I'm at work. I usually don't notice until the next day.

Flachbar's autosleep timer works great for this. If you don't change channels or bring up the OSD within a set time, it will automatically put Sage to sleep for you. Works great for people who fall asleep while watching Sage. It's buried down in this thread a bit, http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=23064 , and only works with the SageMC UI.

[astribli]

Originally Posted by Kev

I also dislike the feature. Sage should remember whether you selected to watch a recorded show or live tv. If you are watching live TV, it should obviously just continue onto the next show as it does. If you are watching a recorded show (even if it is time shifted), it should end at the end of the show. The reason I don't like it is that when I am watching a time shifted recording, and I have a recording scheduled when that one completes, I get the annoying box that pops up asking me if it should record what I have in my recording list or to continue recording the current channel.

It is small, but I do find the pop up to be annoying and have selected the wrong option before.

You hit the nail on the head on both counts! That is exactly the issue I have been trying to convey.

Thanks for putting it so succinctly .

[mayamaniac]

Originally Posted by Opus4

What version of SageTV are you using? Or, what STV are you using? I just did what you described & ended up at the very beginning of the show. I had the same results no matter where I chose to watch the show, except when I chose Watch Live TV from the main menu, which started playback & then jumped to the current time, so playback was 'live'. This may have been changed functionality at some point.

Oh wait -- you started with "Suppose Sage is on Live TV." Are you already playing live tv as your menu background or in the preview window? If something is already playing, it will continue where it is already at in the show. Did you watch a portion of the show already? If so, it will restart where you last left off. Or, did you mean something else by the "Suppose Sage is on Live TV." phrase?

- Andy

Andy, there is actually a bug in SageTV's liveTV resume that was never fixed.

If you watch a show while its recording, then hit stop at some point to take a break, then later go back to the recording menu and try to resume playback while the show is still recording, the resume point isn't correct all the time and is a bug. When it is not working, the point of playback jumps to the end of the buffer and plays from there. The timeline playback position is misleading or wrong, it shows the correct point of where you want to resume, but it is actually at the end of the buffer. Usually hitting the RW button bumps it back to the correct position.

This bug does not happen all the time but it happens often enough. And in my experience, it is only while the show is still recording, it does not happen if the show finished recording. There's a few threads that other users experiencing the same issue, and this is a BIG problem if you are watching sports and if you are not careful, you'll see the scores ahead of time when you resume.

I'm not sure if the OP is talking about the same thing, but I just want to point out the resume bug. I know it still exists in 6.019. I have installed 6.13 now and will see if the bug is fixed or not.

As for the OP's orginal complaint, I think SageTV should differentiate when a show is playing back from LiveTV or as a Recording. As the way it works right now, SageTV doesn't know what is what. For example, if a user pick a show to watch from the SageTV Recordings menu, then it should not jump to the next show at the end of it, it should just stop. But if a user chose Watch LiveTV, then it should always jump to the next show automatically. And optionally, maybe include a popup near the end of a show asking to whether the user want to continue recording the next show or not. I don't have a problem with the way it works right not, but thats just me.

[astribli]

Yea! Other people are describing the same problem I am having.

[coryking]

Ah! This is confusing to explain :-)

Here is the steps to reproduce the bug:

1) Go into "sagetv recordings"
2) Watch something

3a) Hit the end only to have it keep playing instead of asking to delete like other show in "sagetv recordings" does? Huh?! What? Why did it do that?

- or -

3b) While watching, it asks "change the channel"? Huh!? No! I'm watching this! Dont cut the end off... (that isn't what it does, but that is what the gut reaction is...)

4) Then it hits me, this was being recorded right now.... weird!

The confusion is sagetv is treating the "your watching something I'm recording right now" as a special case. When I go into "sagetv recordings", I'm thinking "watch a show" not "watch a channel". I'd argue that is the whole point of PVR's; PVR's abstract away the whole idea of watching a channel. I dont watch channels, I watch shows. I'm not watching what is "on now", I'm watching a show. The fact that the show I'm watching happens to be recording "now" doesn't matter at all, it is just stupid physics and time getting in the way of the abstraction: a design flaw in our universe, really :-)

I dont see how multi-user matters either; the issues around multi-user are a different set of problems no matter if it is "live" or "recorded". The only part that muddies it is when you hit "real time" and cannot skip anymore. Then you just get pissy because the abstraction is blown and you can't skip commercials anymore. Really, the problem is the universe. Somebody ought to file a bug report, the trick is finding the right phone number...

PS: The lady mapped the # to delete on our remote...

[blade]

There are times when people schedule recordings because they won't be home in time to see the beginning, but still want to watch it time shifted. This doesn't necessarily mean they don't want to watch the next show that airs. It looks to me like Sage decided to take the safest route. Not having the popup isn't as bad as it being impossible to watch the next show if you choose.

I also find the feature a bit inconvenient at times, but there have been times when I have wanted to continue watching a channel because a show has run long for some reason or I see the beginning of the next show and find it interesting.

I rarely select anything from the guide so over 99% of what I watch has been selected from the recordings list. If Sage were to simply remember this and not continue recording I'd have missed the endings of quite a few shows and not gotten to see many others that I found interesting when I caught the beginning of the show at the end of my recording and then chosen to watch it as well.

[astribli]

Originally Posted by coryking

Ah! This is confusing to explain :-)

Here is the steps to reproduce the bug:

1) Go into "sagetv recordings"
2) Watch something

3a) Hit the end only to have it keep playing instead of asking to delete like other show in "sagetv recordings" does? Huh?! What? Why did it do that?

- or -

3b) While watching, it asks "change the channel"? Huh!? No! I'm watching this! Dont cut the end off... (that isn't what it does, but that is what the gut reaction is...)

4) Then it hits me, this was being recorded right now.... weird!

The confusion is sagetv is treating the "your watching something I'm recording right now" as a special case. When I go into "sagetv recordings", I'm thinking "watch a show" not "watch a channel". I'd argue that is the whole point of PVR's; PVR's abstract away the whole idea of watching a channel. I dont watch channels, I watch shows. I'm not watching what is "on now", I'm watching a show. The fact that the show I'm watching happens to be recording "now" doesn't matter at all, it is just stupid physics and time getting in the way of the abstraction: a design flaw in our universe, really :-)

I dont see how multi-user matters either; the issues around multi-user are a different set of problems no matter if it is "live" or "recorded". The only part that muddies it is when you hit "real time" and cannot skip anymore. Then you just get pissy because the abstraction is blown and you can't skip commercials anymore. Really, the problem is the universe. Somebody ought to file a bug report, the trick is finding the right phone number...

PS: The lady mapped the # to delete on our remote...

That's exactly right. When I have the option set to "ASK TO DELETE EVERY TIME" after watching a show, I expect it to do just that.