[fl panthers]

Just a thought but can d* make the 90 min buffer hold the last 90 min veiwed no matter what channel's have been watched.To clairify if you watched 10 min of 206 and switched to 209 for 5 min and you pause and go take the garbage out and your 2 year old changes the channel while you were out.if it just kept the 90 min buffer you could see a little more than you can see now.Or another ex.you have on (pick a channel)and you are doing something else and it's been playing for 1/2 hr,which covered the entire show that was on and you sit down to rewind and push the up button be accident.If the last 90 have been buffered no big deal just rewind.I know i could just push record every time i get up but why,so please don't give me that as the answer.just a feature i thought would be cool if possible.thanks for any opinion you may share,unless your call me an idiot

 

[joshjr]

I just wish the buffer was 2 hours and not 90 minutes. Then most movies would be covered in the buffer or a longer period of time for any pro sports games as well.

 

[jdspencer]

I think that DirecTV should make the size of the buffer an option. Along with activating DLB, of course. I'd be happy with two 60min buffers. I'm going to wait to see what happens with the new DirecTV HDTiVo box.

 

[dbronstein]

I had a first-generation ReplayTV box that just buffered for the available space on the hard drive. I don't understand why all these newer DVRs have limited buffers. Just use the full space available.

 

[joshjr]

I had a first-generation ReplayTV box that just buffered for the available space on the hard drive. I don't understand why all these newer DVRs have limited buffers. Just use the full space available.

Yeah I can see that now. Someone hits record and it just never shuts off until your hard drive space is gone. I think there would be all kinds of problems if it was set like that.

 

[inkahauts]

Yeah I can see that now. Someone hits record and it just never shuts off until your hard drive space is gone. I think there would be all kinds of problems if it was set like that.

Not how replaytv worked... If you hit record, the unit saved only the show that you are currently viewing... It still had all the guide data for all the shows and new which you were watching when it saved it, even if it was delayed by 4 hours... I never had any problems with my replays... They were the most stable DVR I ever used, and yes, that very much includes tivo... Everything they did, they did it better than anyone else...

I think the reason they don;t do it on the HR is because they are using some of the 120 gigs of Hard drive saved for Directv for the buffer... they should be able to fit 2 90min buffers in there, and I would love it if they also kept 90mins, no matter if you changed the channel or not as well...

 

[cartrivision]

I had a first-generation ReplayTV box that just buffered for the available space on the hard drive. I don't understand why all these newer DVRs have limited buffers. Just use the full space available.

Good point. The live buffer should be a minimum of 90 minutes, and extended past that minimum based on free disk space.

As to the OP's question, I agree, the live buffer should not be cleared upon a channel change. I can't think of a good reason for doing that. Maintaining the live buffer across channel changes would just require a bit of houskeeping for when the user decides to press record to save a program that is contained in the live buffer.

 

[dbronstein]

I think the reason they don;t do it on the HR is because they are using some of the 120 gigs of Hard drive saved for Directv for the buffer... they should be able to fit 2 90min buffers in there, and I would love it if they also kept 90mins, no matter if you changed the channel or not as well...

That makes sense that they limit it because they are buffering on the reserved space rather than the "user" space. But it still doesn't answer the question of why they did it that way. If a DVR from 8 years ago could buffer 30 hours, it's obviously techncially possible to do it today.

 

[Mike Bertelson]

Just a thought but can d* make the 90 min buffer hold the last 90 min veiwed no matter what channel's have been watched.To clairify if you watched 10 min of 206 and switched to 209 for 5 min and you pause and go take the garbage out and your 2 year old changes the channel while you were out.if it just kept the 90 min buffer you could see a little more than you can see now.Or another ex.you have on (pick a channel)and you are doing something else and it's been playing for 1/2 hr,which covered the entire show that was on and you sit down to rewind and push the up button be accident.If the last 90 have been buffered no big deal just rewind.I know i could just push record every time i get up but why,so please don't give me that as the answer.just a feature i thought would be cool if possible.thanks for any opinion you may share,unless your call me an idiot

Are you saying that you want it to just accumulate a buffer made up of however many channels that you were on in the last 90 min.

Is there a DVR that will let you change the channel and keep the buffer of the channel you were watching?

Even with DLB if you change the channel of the tuner you're currently on you lose the buffer of the previous channel.

I'm not sure how this would work.

Then again, maybe I'm not understanding what your are asking. :grin:

Mike

 

[Jared701]

Are you saying that you want it to just accumulate a buffer made up of however many channels that you were on in the last 90 min.

Is there a DVR that will let you change the channel and keep the buffer of the channel you were watching?

Even with DLB if you change the channel of the tuner you're currently on you lose the buffer of the previous channel.

I'm not sure how this would work.

Then again, maybe I'm not understanding what your are asking. :grin:

Mike

He's asking for the DVR to store EXACTLY what is shown on the tv for the last 90 minutes, minus the guide more than likely. So if I'm on channel 12 for 30 minutes then switch to channel 700 for 60 minutes that is exactly what would be on the buffer channel 12 for 30 minutes then channel 700 for 60. It doesn't seem like it should be that hard to write a code to do this and it should be possible to have an option of that or stop the recording and start again if you switched the station for people who don't like that.

What I think would be really cool is if the DVR worked kind of like this idea but if you were not using the second tuner it would create some sort of buffer for protection. Something such as the second tuner takes however long you've been watching a channel and when you switch channels it keeps recording and holding from that previous channel. I'll try to make an example because no one probably understands what I mean so far. You are watching channel 7 for 30 minutes and the previous station had been channel 6 which you watched for 15 minutes. When you switch to station 7 the second tuner kicks in, picking up the recording info stored for channel 6 and keeps recording so now you have 45 minutes of channel 6 and 30 minutes of channel 7. If you switch off channel 7 and NOT back to channel 6 then the 45 minutes from channel 6 is lost and that second tuner grabs the info from 7 and starts adding to it. This way if you accidently hit to switch channels (just one time) you would NOT lose either your previous time on that last station nor the few seconds to minutes you had accidently switched the channel. I don't know if it is even possible for someone to write code switching tuners and adding information like that.... but it would be really sweet if someone released a DVR that could do that. Obviously this feature would be disabled if you had the DVR set to record something.

 

[Grentz]

Well at least it is 90min, the 30min on a lot of DVRs (DirecTivos, Cable Box DVRs, etc.) gets exhausted very quickly.


Also remember that the DVRs are always buffering and rebuffering, so too long of a buffer may cause issues, especially since these units have much bigger hard drives than the old Replay units did.

 

[fl panthers]

Are you saying that you want it to just accumulate a buffer made up of however many channels that you were on in the last 90 min.

Is there a DVR that will let you change the channel and keep the buffer of the channel you were watching?

Even with DLB if you change the channel of the tuner you're currently on you lose the buffer of the previous channel.

I'm not sure how this would work.

Then again, maybe I'm not understanding what your are asking. :grin:

Mike

read post #10 this is what i mean exactly

 

[rudeney]

read post #10 this is what i mean exactly

Other than the length of the buffer, that's pretty much the wish-list for DLB.

 

[Mike Bertelson]

He's asking for the DVR to store EXACTLY what is shown on the tv for the last 90 minutes, minus the guide more than likely. So if I'm on channel 12 for 30 minutes then switch to channel 700 for 60 minutes that is exactly what would be on the buffer channel 12 for 30 minutes then channel 700 for 60. It doesn't seem like it should be that hard to write a code to do this and it should be possible to have an option of that or stop the recording and start again if you switched the station for people who don't like that.

What I think would be really cool is if the DVR worked kind of like this idea but if you were not using the second tuner it would create some sort of buffer for protection. Something such as the second tuner takes however long you've been watching a channel and when you switch channels it keeps recording and holding from that previous channel. I'll try to make an example because no one probably understands what I mean so far. You are watching channel 7 for 30 minutes and the previous station had been channel 6 which you watched for 15 minutes. When you switch to station 7 the second tuner kicks in, picking up the recording info stored for channel 6 and keeps recording so now you have 45 minutes of channel 6 and 30 minutes of channel 7. If you switch off channel 7 and NOT back to channel 6 then the 45 minutes from channel 6 is lost and that second tuner grabs the info from 7 and starts adding to it. This way if you accidently hit to switch channels (just one time) you would NOT lose either your previous time on that last station nor the few seconds to minutes you had accidently switched the channel. I don't know if it is even possible for someone to write code switching tuners and adding information like that.... but it would be really sweet if someone released a DVR that could do that. Obviously this feature would be disabled if you had the DVR set to record something.

Then I was right.

I suppose it would be possible. It probably entails more than just keeping track of file pointers though.

Mike

 

[Mike Bertelson]

Other than the length of the buffer, that's pretty much the wish-list for DLB.

If you change the channel on the tuner you're watching, you'll lose the buffer even with DLB.

That is of course if it isn't the channel the other tuner is on.

Mike

 

[ATARI]

Just give me DLB, thanks.

 

[cartrivision]

Are you saying that you want it to just accumulate a buffer made up of however many channels that you were on in the last 90 min.
Is there a DVR that will let you change the channel and keep the buffer of the channel you were watching?

If it does or doesn't exist on any other DVR doesn't change the fact that it would add value as a feature on the DirecTV DVRs.

Even with DLB if you change the channel of the tuner you're currently on you lose the buffer of the previous channel.

I'm not sure how this would work.

It would work by simply not clearing the live buffer whenever the channel is changed, and instead continuing to add to the existing buffer just the same way that it currently does when a new program starts without a channel change.... the position in the live buffer of the end point of the previous program is noted internally, as well as the position of the start point of the new program. Those start and end points are used to display the correct program info when watching "behind live" in the live buffer and to enable saving live buffer segments as recordings in the playlist.

 

[Mike Bertelson]

If it does or doesn't exist on any other DVR doesn't change the fact that it would add value as a feature on the DirecTV DVRs.

It would work by simply not clearing the live buffer whenever the channel is changed, and instead continuing to add to the existing buffer just the same way that it currently does when a new program starts without a channel change.... the position in the live buffer of the end point of the previous program is noted internally, as well as the position of the start point of the new program. Those start and end points are used to display the correct program info when watching "behind live" in the live buffer and to enable saving live buffer segments as recordings in the playlist.

IIRC, the buffer doesn't know a new program starts on the channel you're watching. It's simply a continous stream of data.

If you start recording a time slot, does it insert the appropriate file pointers and retain that portion of the buffer? I'm just guessing.

Mike

 

[Sirshagg]

Just a thought but can d* make the 90 min buffer hold the last 90 min veiwed no matter what channel's have been watched.To clairify if you watched 10 min of 206 and switched to 209 for 5 min and you pause and go take the garbage out and your 2 year old changes the channel while you were out.if it just kept the 90 min buffer you could see a little more than you can see now.Or another ex.you have on (pick a channel)and you are doing something else and it's been playing for 1/2 hr,which covered the entire show that was on and you sit down to rewind and push the up button be accident.If the last 90 have been buffered no big deal just rewind.I know i could just push record every time i get up but why,so please don't give me that as the answer.just a feature i thought would be cool if possible.thanks for any opinion you may share,unless your call me an idiot

I tend to like this idea. Parental controls would need to be enforced though.

 

[mikek]

Is there a DVR that will let you change the channel and keep the buffer of the channel you were watching?

Mike

Yes, my crappy built-in LG HD-DVR keeps the buffer even if you change channels. It also allows you to edit recordings.

-mk