Timeshift- again!- and mini-epg

[frazer]

I've read the other posts on the issues of timeshifting, and how it would take a major redesign to allow for some of the sophisticated timeshifting options some people desire, but was still wondering whether all improvements to make the handling of timeshift files a little more user friendly are totally out of the question. Maybe they all are, but I'll start with the most basic anyway.

 

1. allowing a timeshift file to be kept as a one off choice rather than toggling between keeping all files and keeping none. the present way usually ends up with a number of unwanted files which are hard to distinguish from the ones I wanted to keep.

 

2. having that file moved to the top of the recorded programmes list; when setting timeshift files to go in the recordings folder they always end up at the bottom rather than as the most recently recorded file.

 

3. having the current epg data attached to the file name when the "keep file" request is made.

 

4. or better still, given that if the programme has been paused, the current epg data may not be the part of the timeshift file I'm interested in, having all the epg data kept for the duration of the timeshift file, and then asking which name to attach to the kept file.

 

Beyond this, any editing to cut out the particular part of the file I might want to keep could be done manually, and given that most often I am watching "live" anyway, and don't leave the same channel on for hours on end, editing would usually not be necessary anyway. One of the major benefits of timeshifting all the time is, I think, the ability to keep something that turned out to be more interesting than expected, or that you decide retrospectively would be of interest to someone else to watch, and at least these measures would make it easier to locate this file at a later date.

 

My other main request, which I know has come up before as well, is to allow the mini-epg to scroll through the various channels without changing channel (using either the up/down or channel up/down buttons, as I figure many like me may use the channel up/down for favourites), and also scroll through the future epg for the epg channel now showing using the left/right buttons. This is fairly common practice on set top boxes I believe, and unless it is a technical problem in separating the response to up/down commands when the mini-epg has been called manually as opposed to displayed automatically on channel change, I can't imagine many instances where someone would want to call up the mini-epg for the current channel and then immediately change channel. But then I probably lack imagination.

 

Thanks for listening,

 

Frazer

[CX23882-19]

I would really like to see timeshifting change. Ideally, the ability to treat the timeshift buffer the same way as live so that if I am at -2 hours in a timeshift buffer, I could record a segment of say 15 minutes from within that 2 hour timeshift buffer (similar to Topfield PVRs). But failing that even an option to just dump the timeshift file as a one-off option would be welcome (but ideally dump the buffer to disk and then continue recording from the end of the buffer until instructed to stop).

[Moses]

there is no buffer in memory... everything is already recorded to disc in timeshift mode.

 

there is an action to toggle the "keep timeshift file" option, sadly it doesn't give any optical feedback in the current release version, but that will be implemented in the next version.

That action could be useful: if you want to keep the timeshift file you are currently viewing, just enable "keep timeshift file" and, if you stop timeshift (for example by switching channel) the file will stay on your harddrive. Then you'd have a simple *.ts recording somewhere in your timeshift directory. The newest betas even add the name of the watched channel to the filename

Just disable keep timeshift again and the next timeshift file will again be deleted after timeshift is over.

Edited November 30, 2008 by Moses

[frazer]

Hello,

 

I am using the toggle option at the moment, I just think it would be a bit more user friendly if it were possible to keep only the file you are asking to keep, as it is very easy to forget to switch off again, and then end up with a lot of files distinguished only by their channel name. Plus they end up at the bottom of the recorded files if you select the same directory for recording and timeshifting, rather than showing as the most recently recorded thing. Creating a different file for timeshift files means navigating to the movie menu to find them again. If renaming and moving timeshift files around were not possible, I guess even having a sub-menu in the recorded programmes menu for kept timeshift files would be of benefit.

 

Thanks,

 

Frazer