Buffer recorded with program

[Ruby]

When I record a program I am already watching on my Tivo HD, the buffer contents is appended to the beginning of the program. The program is recorded in its entirety so nothing is lost but space. However, this is not how it works on my DirecTivo.

Anyone else see this? Is there a fix?

[Luke M]

When I record a program I am already watching on my Tivo HD, the buffer contents is appended to the beginning of the program. The program is recorded in its entirety so nothing is lost but space. However, this is not how it works on my DirecTivo.

Anyone else see this? Is there a fix?

It's supposed to include the buffer to the extent it overlaps with the requested recording. Are you saying that a prior program is included?

[Roderigo]

When I record a program I am already watching on my Tivo HD, the buffer contents is appended to the beginning of the program. The program is recorded in its entirety so nothing is lost but space. However, this is not how it works on my DirecTivo.

Actually, this is how Tivo boxes have always worked, there are just situations where it's more noticible on the Tivo HD box.

The way I understand it, Live TV is made up of several buffers. When you press record, the tivo will grab the first buffer that contains the start of the program you're recording, but dump all of the buffers before it. It's more noticible because the buffers on an HD box are larger to allow them to contain HD content. So, while on a Series2 box, you may get a few minutes of stuff at the beginning of the recording, on an HD box watching a low-bandwidth SD channel, it could be 20 minutes or more. It's all random based on where the buffer edges fall relative to the start of the program.

[Ruby]

Interesting. My only Tivo experience until now has been with DirecTivo both SD and HD. On both, the recording includes the program only.

Thanks for the responses.

[pl1]

When I record a program I am already watching on my Tivo HD, the buffer contents is appended to the beginning of the program. The program is recorded in its entirety so nothing is lost but space. However, this is not how it works on my DirecTivo.

Anyone else see this? Is there a fix?A FIX? This is a GREAT thing! Think about it for a minute. You turn on your TV. You start watching a program. You like it, but you wish you could have seen it from the beginning. You can either rewind the buffer, or press record and get the whole show for later viewing. How great is that?

[Turtleboy]

Wait.

If you are watching a DirectTivo and are 15 minutes into a 30 minute program, and you hit record, it only records the next 15 minutes and not the whole show??

[Ruby]

No, it records the whole show in that example. However, the first 15 minutes of the buffer, which is from a different show, is not recorded.

"Fix": yes, it is a great feature. The "fix" I was looking for was to not record part of the show I wasn't intending to record. This is not a big deal but it is different from DirecTivo so I wondered if I was doing something wrong.

Thanks.

[bkdtv]

"Fix": yes, it is a great feature. The "fix" I was looking for was to not record part of the show I wasn't intending to record. This is not a big deal but it is different from DirecTivo so I wondered if I was doing something wrong.As Roderigo explained, the TiVo records in blocks. If the program start is in the same block as the two minutes before the program, so you get that extra two minutes in your recording too.

[Mars Rocket]

The buffer is dumped when the channel changes, so it will never contain data from a previous channel. When you elect to record the current show and include the buffer it will include as much as it can, up to the previous 30 minutes - if you're currently 45 minutes into a show you'll lose the first 15 minutes in the recording. Of course, they would already be off the start of the buffer so you couldn't watch the first 15 anyway. If the channel hasn't changed but the current show started 15 minutes ago it will try to only include the previous 15 minutes of the buffer, not the entire thing.

BTW, TiVo's haven't "always" been like this - the feature to include the buffer was introduced somewhere around v3.0 of the software.

[btwyx]

However, this is not how it works on my DirecTivo.Its how it worked on all my DirecTiVos.

Are you complaining about recording to the beginning of the buffer, or recording past the beginning of the buffer? Not recording to the beginng of the buffer would be a problem, recording past the beginning of the buffer is can be handy.

[Ruby]

btwyx, I am not complaining about this feature. I am just not used to it.

[pl1]

btwyx, I am not complaining about this feature. I am just not used to it.OK, then, what would you like to be fixed? That was your original question. That is what we are trying to figure out.

[Ruby]

I thought there was something I needed to set. Thanks to all for explaining that this is normal with Tivo HD.

[greg_burns]

Question:

Say you are watching Seinfeld that started at 9:30. It is now 10:10 and the another show is airing (say the 10 pm news). I am trying to watch Seinfeld from the buffer, but want to record what is left to watch later. So I press record and it comes up saying it is going to record the 10pm news, not Seinfeld.

What happens if I let it record? I am always afraid to do it in this situation for fear it will dump the buffer and I will loose what is left of Seinfeld (which is what I was trying to record!).

Make sense?

(I know I should just make a season pass for Seinfleld. :))

[pl1]

Question:

Say you are watching Seinfeld that started at 9:30. It is now 10:10 and the another show is airing (say the 10 pm news). I am trying to watch Seinfeld from the buffer, but want to record what is left to watch later. So I press record and it comes up saying it is going to record the 10pm news, not Seinfeld.

What happens if I let it record? I am always afraid to do it in this situation for fear it will dump the buffer and I will loose what is left of Seinfeld (which is what I was trying to record!).

Make sense?

(I know I should just make a season pass for Seinfleld. :))Just a guess. Sounds like you need to switch tuners and hit record. Either the LIVE BUTTON or INFO> Arrow Down

[greg_burns]

Just a guess. Sounds like you need to switch tuners and hit record. Either the LIVE BUTTON or INFO> Arrow Down

Not following. :confused: The other tuner probably is not on same channel, so will not have Seinfeld in its buffer at all.

Probably take me less time to just test this out for myself than ask the question. Never think of it though until I am in the situation described above. :D

[CrispyCritter]

Question:

Say you are watching Seinfeld that started at 9:30. It is now 10:10 and the another show is airing (say the 10 pm news). I am trying to watch Seinfeld from the buffer, but want to record what is left to watch later. So I press record and it comes up saying it is going to record the 10pm news, not Seinfeld.

What happens if I let it record? I am always afraid to do it in this situation for fear it will dump the buffer and I will loose what is left of Seinfeld (which is what I was trying to record!).I hesitate to answer, because I'm pretty sure I've lost at least one show and gotten at least one when I've done it, and I don't know the differences between them. Perhaps with an HD show it doesn't know exactly where the beginning of the current show is within the disk buffer, so it includes some of the old show as well?

So perhaps you should experiment!

[pl1]

Not following. :confused: The other tuner probably is not on same channel, so will not have Seinfeld in its buffer at all.

Probably take me less time to just test this out for myself than ask the question. Never think of it though until I am in the situation described above. :DI just thought about what I said and realized the error of my ways. Sorry. I have noticed sometimes if I'm too close to the next time slot, the guide changes. If I rewind to the start of the buffer and hit record, it seems to take. I'm not sure if that really helps, though.

[Luke M]

Say you are watching Seinfeld that started at 9:30. It is now 10:10 and the another show is airing (say the 10 pm news). I am trying to watch Seinfeld from the buffer, but want to record what is left to watch later. So I press record and it comes up saying it is going to record the 10pm news, not Seinfeld.

What happens if I let it record? I am always afraid to do it in this situation for fear it will dump the buffer and I will loose what is left of Seinfeld (which is what I was trying to record!).


Yes, you have to do a manual record in this case if you want the buffer. (Although this won't work if it crosses 12:00 AM since you can't start a manual recording "yesterday").

[wiedmann]

Ruby, is it true that in your case, the Tivo will record a different show if it is in the buffer? That is, if you start recording a show at 8:10pm that started at 8:00pm, you'll get 20 minutes of the previous show?

I haven't seen this behavior on the Tivo HD, and don't think it's a setting. Did you have correct guide data for the program you recorded?

[btwyx]

I thought there was something I needed to set. Thanks to all for explaining that this is normal with Tivo HD.You still haven't told us which particular behaviour you were commenting on (and not complaining about) in the first place.

[jmoak]

Say you are watching Seinfeld that started at 9:30. It is now 10:10 and the another show is airing (say the 10 pm news). I am trying to watch Seinfeld from the buffer, but want to record what is left to watch later. So I press record and it comes up saying it is going to record the 10pm news, not Seinfeld.

What happens if I let it record? I am always afraid to do it in this situation for fear it will dump the buffer and I will loose what is left of Seinfeld (which is what I was trying to record!).It will dump the buffer (keeping only the beginning of the 10pm news) and you will loose what is left of Seinfeld (which is what you were trying to record!).

The dtivo's haven't always worked this way and I miss it.

[Ruby]

Weidman, we get some portion of the prior show in your example. Not necessarily all 20 minutes.

Btwyx, I was commenting on what weidman described. We get a portion of the prior show that is still in the buffer.

[Turtleboy]

Weidman, we get some portion of the prior show in your example. Not necessarily all 20 minutes.

Btwyx, I was commenting on what weidman described. We get a portion of the prior show that is still in the buffer.

Well, that's not right. Something is messed up.

Is it a short enough portion to account to clock disparity?

[PajamaFeet]

Yep, I get this too. For example I turn on the TV at 8:10 and see something I want to record that started at 8:00. I press record. The show I am currently watching records all the way to the end but it also includes the previous 20 minutes in the live TV buffer. So I get the last 20 minutes of the 7:30 show and all of the 8:00 show.

Thanks for the info Rodrigo about the multiple buffers that actually make up the live TV buffer.

Like Ruby, my only problem is that extra 20 minutes of a show I don't care about taking up space.

[Ruby]

Update. I just noticed our 4 year old DirectTV is now doing the same thing. My wife confirms that this is not how it used to be so it must have started with some s/w update.

Oh well.