Only Thing I Hate About SageTV

[sshapiro63]

Okay, I really do like the program. Especially with the client/server networking features. However, the number one gripe I have is the brief pause I get every time a new tv program starts.

For example, "show a" ends at 11:00 a.m. and "show b" starts right after. At 11:00 a.m, the last few seconds of "show a" will pause for a second, then continue on into "show b". I assume this is SageTV closing the disk file for "show a" and opening a new file for "show b".

Very annoying, I always miss a bit of the end of every show while I am watching live tv. I have tested SageTV on a few different systems and they all show this problem. Some systems with standard ATA interfaces for disk access and one system with SATA RAID.

Anybody else noticed this? Anybody got a fix.

[Omegadsl]

Originally posted by sshapiro63
Okay, I really do like the program. Especially with the client/server networking features. However, the number one gripe I have is the brief pause I get every time a new tv program starts.

For example, "show a" ends at 11:00 a.m. and "show b" starts right after. At 11:00 a.m, the last few seconds of "show a" will pause for a second, then continue on into "show b". I assume this is SageTV closing the disk file for "show a" and opening a new file for "show b".

Very annoying, I always miss a bit of the end of every show while I am watching live tv. I have tested SageTV on a few different systems and they all show this problem. Some systems with standard ATA interfaces for disk access and one system with SATA RAID.

Anybody else noticed this? Anybody got a fix.

If you are planning on watching two or more shows on the same channel back-to-back, set a recording of the first show with a modified stop time that coincides with the end of the last show. That way Sage will record it all in one big file.

[Narflex]

Do you have fast_mux_switch set to true in your properties file?

In some prior debugging you may have set it to false, and the 'fast mux switch' is designed to alleviate the problem you're describing.

[sshapiro63]

Sounds like a lot of work just to sit down and watch television. I want to be able to channel surf, stop, and watch a channel without the pause between shows.

Is it possible to configure the default behavior of SageTV to create 1 file for a channel instead of for each show, and only open a new file when I change channels? That way I would not get the pause problem, and I would also be able to rewind into the "channel file" and watch something that happened hours before. That is how my ReplayTV works.

I can see that some folks might want a file for each show, so perhaps SageTV could be configured for either behaviour?

[Lester Jacobs]

Originally posted by sshapiro63
...I can see that some folks might want a file for each show, so perhaps SageTV could be configured for either behaviour?

I actually do not mind at all that SageTV pauses briefly at the end of each show. I also very much like the fact that SageTV records each show on each channel in a separate file. So, if anything is done about this issue, please ensure that users are offered the option to retain the current behaviour.


Regards
Lester

[sshapiro63]

fast_mux_switch=true in my properties file. I guess Lester gets the same kind of behaviour on his system.

Jeff, is there anything else to try in order to get rid of this pause? Have you been able to duplicate it on your system? Any chance you might allow a config option to only close/open disk files when changing channels?

Steve