[raptorjr]

I would like to cast a vote that the MythTV plugin/Kodi should behave in the same way as MythTV frontend when you choose to record a show that you are watching.

In MythTV frontend when you do this you get the whole show recorded, even the part that you have watched.

If you do this in Kodi you get a recording that starts at the time you started the recording.

Why do I want it like MythTV frontend? Because one of the scenarios where this could be used is if you are watching something from the beginning and then your wife/partner/child comes in to the room and likes what you are watching and decides they would like to see it also at a later time. In MythTV frontend this is not a problem, press record and the whole show will be saved. With Kodi you cant do this, you would only get from current position to the end.

Don't know how MythTV frontend does it, but I think it just changes the recording group from LiveTV to Default, since everything in MythTV is a recording.

Anyway, would be nice to have this behavior in Kodi also.

[rpcameron]

One workaround for Kodi is to find the recorded show in the LiveTV group, and then move that recording into your default or other Recording group

[raptorjr]

One workaround for Kodi is to find the recorded show in the LiveTV group, and then move that recording into your default or other Recording group

Yes that would be a workaround. But that would also mean that you have to watch the whole show, otherwise you have the show in two parts.
One in LiveTV, the beginning, that you move to Default group(or similar), and one part already in the right group, the end.

Kodi is a much better frontend in many ways. Want it to be able to do the basic MythTV frontend things also =)

[rpcameron]

I forgot about the LiveTV recording stopping if you switch away from the channel to do something else.

Also, I do not believe that this is a problem only with MythTV, but with most clients for PVR backends in Kodi. The real difference here is that this is a feature already implemented in MythTV that is not exposed to the Kodi client.

(Personally I find this indicative of problems with DVR software in general: each operation tries to open a new stream/tuner, rather than checking if a stream/tuner is already tuned and using the existing stream to write out to multiple outputs such as the 'tee' format type in ffmpeg does.)

[raptorjr]

(Personally I find this indicative of problems with DVR software in general: each operation tries to open a new stream/tuner, rather than checking if a stream/tuner is already tuned and using the existing stream to write out to multiple outputs such as the 'tee' format type in ffmpeg does.)

I agree. Very annoying when two people watch the same thing and two tuners is used. I can only hope that the devs of MythTV look into this some day. Would also allow for a message if someone new tunes to that channel that there are already X minutes in the buffer, and maybe the whole show so they can start watching from the beginning without anyone having to make a recording of it.

[nickr]

If you have just a wee bit more foresight, set ANYTHING you want to watch to record, and watch the recording.

Not always possible, but it does work well.

[raptorjr]

If you have just a wee bit more foresight, set ANYTHING you want to watch to record, and watch the recording.

Not always possible, but it does work well.

I try to record as much as I can. This is more for the shows that you didn't know about that was actually worth seeing.
And it would also require a lot more tuners and disk space if the whole household would think this way =)

And in the case of in progress recordings Kodi also have some issues. But they will probably be solved in the future.

But sure, it is a possibility, but a more intelligent backend would be nicer. And looking at what it is able to do today it shouldn't be impossible. There are some good developers there.

[rpcameron]

(Personally I find this indicative of problems with DVR software in general: each operation tries to open a new stream/tuner, rather than checking if a stream/tuner is already tuned and using the existing stream to write out to multiple outputs such as the 'tee' format type in ffmpeg does.)

Although, I just realized that Tvheadend does not suffer from this problem. At least when using an IPTV network, TVH will use an existing stream if it exists. So if two clients want to watch the same channel, TVH uses the existing stream.

Now the only thing is to get software pull the existing data from the timeshift buffer when creating a recording of a program being watched live.

[metaron]

If you do go down the route of watching the whole show, you can move the show out of the LiveTV group from within kodi:

1) Finish watching the program.
2) Find the recording of the show in the 'LiveTV' folder
3) bring up the context menu (I've got the 'yellow' remote button bound to that)
4) Select 'Client actions' -> Keep recording

backstep, browse into the 'Default' folder and there is your 'Live TV' recording ready to watch.

You need to do this reasonably soon after watching, as at least on my backend after 24hours live TV recordings seem to vanish.

I thought you might be able to simply skip back to the start of the show to watch again from there as mythtv will have the necessary data in the file, but unfortunately you can't skip backwards from within kodi when watching live TV.

This is probably something designed for compatibility with other pvr clients (which simply stream live TV data rather than recording it) as after using the pause button you can rewind back to where you initially paused at any time later on while watching a show.

I agree however that the interface is currently a bit daft as pressing 'record' while timeshifting live tv causes the backend to use another virtual tuner to start the recording and cancels the live TV you are watching due to a conflict (at least using my 0.27 backend with the #0618 Millhouse RPi build).

[metaron]

... further to my last posting, a bit of digging in the code and it looks like the pvr.mythtv client was always supposed to work the way @raptorjr requested.
Something in the pvr core re-work that came with Jarvis changed one of the assumptions that the client was making (i.e. for live tv the start time isn't 0 any longer if we have some guide data for the show in question...):

Code:

// Check if our timer is a quick recording of live tv
  // Assumptions: Timer start time = 0, and our live recorder is locked on the same channel.
  // If true then keep recording, setup recorder and let the backend handle the rule.
  if (timer.startTime == 0 && m_liveStream && m_liveStream->IsPlaying())
  {

Change this to:

Code:

// Check if our timer is a quick recording of live tv
  // Assumptions: Timer start time = 0, and our live recorder is locked on the same channel.
  // If true then keep recording, setup recorder and let the backend handle the rule.
  if (m_liveStream && m_liveStream->IsPlaying())
  {

and magically everything starts to work as expected!

This needs a bit more tweaking so you can still record shows in the future on the same channel, but a fix seems relatively simple.

Edit: I've submitted a pull request: https://github.com/janbar/pvr.mythtv/pull/39

[raptorjr]

This needs a bit more tweaking so you can still record shows in the future on the same channel, but a fix seems relatively simple.

Edit: I've submitted a pull request: https://github.com/janbar/pvr.mythtv/pull/39

So if I understand you correctly, making this change would allow to record the whole buffer already watched, and not only from the time when you press record on LiveTV?

[metaron]

This needs a bit more tweaking so you can still record shows in the future on the same channel, but a fix seems relatively simple.

Edit: I've submitted a pull request: https://github.com/janbar/pvr.mythtv/pull/39

So if I understand you correctly, making this change would allow to record the whole buffer already watched, and not only from the time when you press record on LiveTV?

Yes. (Well at least within the limits of the currently in progress EPG entry)
Works on my 0.27 backend.

[raptorjr]

Yes. (Well at least within the limits of the currently in progress EPG entry)
Works on my 0.27 backend.

I'm running something in between 0.27 and 0.28, will try as soon as I can.