[rpcameron]

I've been using Tvheadend-git for a while now, and have no problems with timeshifting. When I pause live TV I can see the timeshift buffer increasing, and when I fastforward it reduces. When I reach the end of the buffer, playback continues as regular.

For recordings-in-progress, the reported length is shown based upon what the EPG duration of the recording ought to be. (So for a 1 hour program that is 23 minutes in progress, the duration would still show 1 hour; for a sporting event that I requested an extra 45 minutes recorded, it displays the EPG duration of 3 hours, not 3:45.) When I start to watch a recording in progress (such as the one 23 minutes into a 60 minute program), the videoplayer displays the length of the program then as the 23 minutes. However, if the program has continued on and when I reach the 23 minute mark, but the recording is now 45 minutes in, when I fastforward past the 23 minutes, the length of the program continues to increase until it reaches the end of the recorded amount.

While this is not the best implementation, I feel it is better than what I experienced with MythTV where the recorded program's duration never changed once playback started. So if I moved beyond the 23 minute point in the example above, the interface would always indicate the program was only 23 minutes long, but allow you to watch past that until it reached live. TVH's implementation is better, IMO.

The best option would be to replicate what WMC is doing (and honestly, I don't know why other implementations cannot do this as I haven't personally looked at the code).

[kavehebadi]

Hi
Sorry for my english
I m using (RPi 3 + Technisat Skystar USB HD DVB card) as my hardware package and (TVHeadend 4.2 + Kodi 16) as my software package. When I m going to see some satellite channels (which they dont have EPG data) I cant use for example rewind option. It seems that TVHeadend disables skip forward/backward,fastforward,rewind if there's no EPG data.
I mean:
1. If there's EPG data for the channel, you can skip forward/backward,fastforward,rewind, pause and play.(Timeshifting works great)
2. If there's NO EPG data for the channel, you can only pause/play, all other options are unavailable.
How can I fix this .

[kavehebadi]

Hi its been solved with kodi 17

[rpcameron]

Yes. It's a bug in Kodi 16 that has been fixed in 17.

From the gist of the comments, it looks like it will not be fixed for 16, so if timeshifting is required for channels without EPG data, then you'll need to either wait for 17, or use the alphas.

[WimKl]

I've been using Tvheadend-git for a while now, and have no problems with timeshifting. When I pause live TV I can see the timeshift buffer increasing, and when I fastforward it reduces. When I reach the end of the buffer, playback continues as regular.

@rpcameron
Wow, this is a feature I requested. Which version of TVH and Kodi are you using? And what settings have you set regarding buffers in TVH?

Wim
EDIT: I meant specifically the last part "when I fastforward", "when I reach the end of the buffer, playback continues as regular". I'm using Kodi 16.0 and when I FF to the end of the buffer, Kodi stops playing completely and returns to the menu.

[rpcameron]

I've been using Tvheadend-git for a while now, and have no problems with timeshifting. When I pause live TV I can see the timeshift buffer increasing, and when I fastforward it reduces. When I reach the end of the buffer, playback continues as regular.

@rpcameron
Wow, this is a feature I requested. Which version of TVH and Kodi are you using? And what settings have you set regarding buffers in TVH?

Wim
EDIT: I meant specifically the last part "when I fastforward", "when I reach the end of the buffer, playback continues as regular". I'm using Kodi 16.0 and when I FF to the end of the buffer, Kodi stops playing completely and returns to the menu.

Kodi 16.1, and TVH git. (I tend to update TVH weekly or so, so it's a moving target.) I've never had Kodi kick me out of the video player during Live TV.

As far as timeshift settings: I have a share on my NAS that I use specifically for DVR. I have it mounted on the machine running TVH, and it contains 3 folders: one for channel icons, one for recordings and one for the timeshift buffer. In TVH, it's set for a max of 120 mins and 20480 MB—2 hours or 20GiB which is enough for me, since I'm coming from DirecTV where the timeshift buffer was 90 mins. It is also not set for "on demand" or "RAM only"—I don't like that I can't rewind unless I've paused the program to activate the buffer.

[WimKl]

@rpcameron:

I installed Kodi 16.1 and latest TVH, I think the same settings as you have. No changes in behaviour here.
Maybe I'm not clear on this one. When I record a show-in-progress and start playing it from start, then FF untill the point where it would be "live", playback in Kodi stops and it returns to the menu. Does live playback start with you at that point?

[rpcameron]

I misunderstood your comment/question; I thought you were talking about timeshifted live tv, not a recording in progress.

In reference to watching a recording in progress, I don't believe I have ever tried to fast forward or seek beyond what has already been recorded. When seeking beyond what the length of the recording was when I started watching, the counter for the duration of the recording increases along with my present position in the buffer. However, I don't believe I have ever tried to seek beyond what is recorded.

I should point out, though, that when seeking past the end of a Movie or TV Episode in Kodi does the same thing: if I am at the end of a Movie or Episode and press the UP arrow on my remote to skip forward 10 minutes, it sees that I am seeking beyond the end of the video/file, and returns me back to the Library. Therefore, while Kodi's behavior in the case of watching a recording in progress may not be the best implementation, I would not call it a bug, either. The problem is that Kodi sees you playing a file from your Library (albeit from a Recording, but still a file), and when it sees you seeking beyond the end, it assumes you are finished.

Perhaps some changes for watching a recording in progress should be made, such as stopping the seek operation at the end of the buffer if the recording/timer is still active. However, I don't foresee this changing until 18, especially since it's a corner case/special situation and not a bug, per se.

[rpcameron]

I just had a thought: perhaps something similar to the Unpause Jumpback add-on could be implemented here. It could watch for playback of an in progress recording, and when the seek reaches the end of the file it would set the playback position to the end of the file if the recording is still in progress.

I just skimmed the Unpause Jumpback source, so I am uncertain how doable this would be, but it certainly seems practical and possible.

[WimKl]

I misunderstood your comment/question; I thought you were talking about timeshifted live tv, not a recording in progress.
...

Perhaps some changes for watching a recording in progress should be made, such as stopping the seek operation at the end of the buffer if the recording/timer is still active. However, I don't foresee this changing until 18, especially since it's a corner case/special situation and not a bug, per se.

No problem. This was a feature I requested not so long ago, so I was very surprised that it was already implemented.

I just had a thought: perhaps something similar to the Unpause Jumpback add-on could be implemented here. It could watch for playback of an in progress recording, and when the seek reaches the end of the file it would set the playback position to the end of the file if the recording is still in progress.

I just skimmed the Unpause Jumpback source, so I am uncertain how doable this would be, but it certainly seems practical and possible.

Would be great.

[raptorjr]

Perhaps some changes for watching a recording in progress should be made, such as stopping the seek operation at the end of the buffer if the recording/timer is still active. However, I don't foresee this changing until 18, especially since it's a corner case/special situation and not a bug, per se.

For functional PVR software I would say this is a bug.

Not very uncommon that you set a recording for something that you don't know you will be able to get home for in time, or something that you let record for a while to be able to skip commercial. And at some point you will skip to the LiveTV point. Kodi shouldn't stop the playback and throw you back to the menu.
Maybe wont/cant be fixed until v18, but still a bug =)

[rpcameron]

Perhaps some changes for watching a recording in progress should be made, such as stopping the seek operation at the end of the buffer if the recording/timer is still active. However, I don't foresee this changing until 18, especially since it's a corner case/special situation and not a bug, per se.

For functional PVR software I would say this is a bug.

Not very uncommon that you set a recording for something that you don't know you will be able to get home for in time, or something that you let record for a while to be able to skip commercial. And at some point you will skip to the LiveTV point. Kodi shouldn't stop the playback and throw you back to the menu.
Maybe wont/cant be fixed until v18, but still a bug =)

I wouldn't call it a bug because that's exactly how the player operates in other conditions. Were it to continue upon reached the end of a recording in progress, this would be a feature.

Maybe I just have more of the mindset of the developer's side, seeing that a function works exactly as intended, rather than seeing it from a user's perspective where it doesn't do what I expect, and therefore it is a bug. It's this disconnect that is a huge problem with many open source projects: the users want the software to do what they expect it to do, without realizing their expectations are not inline with what the developer has done.

So, while this may be unexpected behavior, it is certainly not a bug: you are seeking beyond the end of a file, and in Kodi that ends playback.

[canipar]

I've been using Tvheadend-git for a while now, and have no problems with timeshifting. When I pause live TV I can see the timeshift buffer increasing, and when I fastforward it reduces. When I reach the end of the buffer, playback continues as regular.

For recordings-in-progress, the reported length is shown based upon what the EPG duration of the recording ought to be. (So for a 1 hour program that is 23 minutes in progress, the duration would still show 1 hour; for a sporting event that I requested an extra 45 minutes recorded, it displays the EPG duration of 3 hours, not 3:45.) When I start to watch a recording in progress (such as the one 23 minutes into a 60 minute program), the videoplayer displays the length of the program then as the 23 minutes. However, if the program has continued on and when I reach the 23 minute mark, but the recording is now 45 minutes in, when I fastforward past the 23 minutes, the length of the program continues to increase until it reaches the end of the recorded amount.

While this is not the best implementation, I feel it is better than what I experienced with MythTV where the recorded program's duration never changed once playback started. So if I moved beyond the 23 minute point in the example above, the interface would always indicate the program was only 23 minutes long, but allow you to watch past that until it reached live. TVH's implementation is better, IMO.

The best option would be to replicate what WMC is doing (and honestly, I don't know why other implementations cannot do this as I haven't personally looked at the code).

Hi.

I still have problem with timeshift in Kodi 16.1, tvheadend is updated to unstable 4.1-2126(previous was stable release).
Now I can say that timehift for live tv is much better than before, but I still have problems in case when FF reach end of the buffer. Then it starts to be choppy and to fix it I need to change channel.

Server and client are on the same machine running on Linux Mint 17.3.

Can you maybe check do you have same problem on build 4.1-2126?

Regards.

[raptorjr]

I wouldn't call it a bug because that's exactly how the player operates in other conditions. Were it to continue upon reached the end of a recording in progress, this would be a feature.

Maybe I just have more of the mindset of the developer's side, seeing that a function works exactly as intended, rather than seeing it from a user's perspective where it doesn't do what I expect, and therefore it is a bug. It's this disconnect that is a huge problem with many open source projects: the users want the software to do what they expect it to do, without realizing their expectations are not inline with what the developer has done.

So, while this may be unexpected behavior, it is certainly not a bug: you are seeking beyond the end of a file, and in Kodi that ends playback.

But I think that most developers do develop software for the end users? And hence it should be the end users experience that should be "right"? Anyway, as many open source projects have the mentality that if you need something do it your self or f* off, many projects is just for the developers. That is one thing I like about Kodi, or maybe it is just because there are many developers in Kodi, but with Kodi there actually seems to be developers that wants what is best for the project and not only what is best for them. So I have no doubt that this will be fixed.

Although, with a little note that I'm running the latest LibreELEC builds on my Pi3 with dev builds, this problem maybe is a small step closer to be solved.
With the MythTV plugin I can skip past the end of a in progress recording and it resumes playback as it should. However if you try to FF past the end you have some problems. Not that the playback stops, but you FF beyond the end of the recording and that makes the playback pause and/or get very unpredictable. But if you let it catch up or skip back the playback will resume eventually. Almost the same with LiveTV, but there you cant go beyond the end, so the playback is buffering/FFing and the picture gets jerky. But if you press play it resumes in a few seconds.

So, I have no doubt that this will be fixed. Compared to the age of Kodi the PVR funtionality is merely a grand-child and will probably take some time to get perfect.

[raptorjr]

I wonder if is the same with TVH. But using LiveTV in MythTV, Kodi uses the EPG data to know the end of the recording. Why isn't that done with a in progress recording? Then we would have a real end.
In LiveTV you are also at the end of the file, most of the time, but Kodi understands that it isn't the real end because of the EPG data.

Or am I missing something?