I was watching The Bill on ITV1 last night and was about 20 mins behind (using the buffer) but was recording it at the same time (was a scheduled recording). When the timed recording stopped the program jumped to live broadcast and dumped the buffer completely. I wasn't recording anything else at the time. Having recorded the program it wasn;t too much of a problem as I just went into the playlist and watched the recording from there but this does seem like a bug. I haven't had this problem when recording a different program to that being watched, so maybe it is unique to recording/watching/buffering the same program? Can anyone else test this and confirm if you receive the same problem before I report it to Humax. That would be great.

Same happened to me a couple of weeks ago. Had setup to record a film, but had left the TV on the same channel. Came back 10 minutes later and realised we could just rewind it, and then when the recording stopped, we were dumped back to live with an empty buffer. Didn't bother us too much at the time, as it luckily happened at a dull part anyway, but I had meant to post saying that - completely forgot though.

This might have something to do with the box not having the feature where you can chase play a program while it is still being recorded. I know that its not quite what you are trying to do per say but it runs along the same sort of lines and therefore there may be a limitation to how the box can handle it in present software.

I would like to test this out tonight to see the behaviour first hand out of interest, as if it did work this would be a good workaround for me for the chase play from recording program omision

Hi guys. I did 2 tests.

FIRST TEST
pressed the "record" button on a program I was watching. It started to record it. the next minute I pressed "pause". I left it on pause.
At the correct time the recording stopped (the record indicator went out on the front). I was not thrown out of my live buffer and was able to stay on pause until I decided to continue watching the buffer until the end.

SECOND TEST
pressed the "record" button on a program I was watching. It started to record it. I then pressed "rewind" this time and rewound a few minutes, then started watching from my rewinded point.
At the correct time the recording stopped (the record indicator went out on the front). I was not thrown out of my live buffer and was able to stay on watching until the end of the recording.

My box does not have the same problem you are experiencing. Can you give a set of instructions to follow to replicate what you are doing exactly and I'll give it one more go.

did I not say that it was a scheduled recording? maybe this makes a difference.

Tried it again but with a scheduled recording.

I made sure I was on the same channel. After the scheduled recording started I pressed "pause" button. When the recording ended i was still on pause and I was not kicked off the buffer. When i "un-paused" I was able to fast forward to the current point in time, and went past the point when the recording stopped up to the live and I could continue chase play and rewind/fast forward up to the live braodcast point again.

I cant seem to replicate this issue.

I am now wondering if other circumstances were at play when this happened to you, like were you already recording something else as well as the channel you paused, or did you go into the menu or playlist which will also looses the buffer? Is this something that is guarateed to happen if you tried to replicate it time and again or is it intermittant? Are you now going to swap it out? So many questions sorry!

that's normal on my existing PVR (Humax) I expect I will find the DuoVision easy when it arrives.

Had a replication last night ...
Was schedule-recording Bleak House on BBC1 for posterity, but decided to watch live also. In fact the prog started 5mins late, so I was aware we would lose the last 5mins of the recording, but didn't bother to pad.
Part way thro' watching the live broadcast we put it on Pause for a couple of minutes and then continued to watch with, say, a 2min time-lapse. At the scheduled end of the broadcast (ie when the scheduled recording finished with 5mins outstanding of the live transmission) the live transmission we were watching skipped its time lapse and went into 'real-time' - ie the buffer cleared. We were watching the same channel as the scheduled recording and no other recording was in progress.
As with sdesign, in the event it was no big deal since we continued to watch in real-time the outstanding five mins of the prog, then FFd thro' the recording to view our missed time-lapsed 2mins.
But, this does seem to be a bug ... it should not be that the cessation of a scheduled recording on the same channel causes a buffer clearance.
Barry

Didn't I already say that I wasn't recording anything else? and if I had gone into the menu while recording I would have mentioned that in my initial report. You are too quick to conclude that it must have been something I did wrong just because you can't replicate it yourself.

If anyone else finds these problems then please post here.

Those who have reported the problem have generally been watching (time-slipped), not paused, at the end of the scheduled recording. Maybe this is the key?

Not directly the same, but if you are watching a programme and rewind buffer to start programme and set to record, the uffer is cleared and programme is recorded.

As example - On Friday box was on Scottish tv, came in at 9:15 and saw Taggart was on so decided to record as I was going back out. Rewound and caught a bit of Airline before so I thought I would start recording of taggart then rewind further back to watch a bit of airline.

Didn't work, as soon as I moved forward to start of Taggart and set to record, buffer cleared and could only rewind to start of Taggart.

Absolutely CJ! I've already reported similar on another thread. If you're going to do an instant recording, it's very important to rewind as far as you think you might conceivably want to go into the buffer before you hit that Instant Record button. Instant record clears the buffer, even if you don't change channel.

Barry

Nobody said 'it must have been something (you) did wrong'! I really think Marc was trying to help by attempting to replicate your concern. His questions were not criticisms - they were perfectly reasonable diagnostic queries to fine tune a description of exactly in what circumstances the fault is occurring. It was because he hadn't succeeded in replicating your prob that he was asking these follow-up questions - the very opposite of being 'quick to conclude'. Very often people don't report all the detail of what they did or didn't do that might be helpful to others trying to replicate for them, so it would have been foolish of him to assume that you hadn't done something just 'cos you hadn't mentioned it. He may know of a relevant detail, and if you haven't mentioned it either way he has to check to make sure.


Had you read the post immediately preceding yours?

Barry

Are you feeling OK? I seemed to be the only one helping and yet you dont seem interested at all in any work I am doing with/for you.

If I had all the answers or conclusions I wouldnt have been asking all those questions and continuing with the work.

What is your problem?

I experienced this yesturday but it wasnt when I was doing the tests. It was later on in the evening and I dont quite know/understand the circumstances because it happened when we had people round and we had a few recodings on the go (the xfactor shows, xtra factor stuff and the come dancing show and results thing.

Like I said, we had people round so I couldnt go into things but I definately was watching something on chase play and then was thrown out of the buffer.

Will continue on with this one but will stop with all the questions for now! Actually I am stil really curious to know, perhaps from some other people, when this happens to you, do you know exactly the circumstances and can replicate it reliably every time?

I did both the watching and paused processes in the first set of tests but didnt do the "watching" in the second and this may be key. Will have another go soon...

I tried to replicate this problem this evening and was not able to do so, though this was only with the one test.

I did however discover a couple of interesting points (well interesting to me anyway) including a feature which I have not seen documented anywhere.

I setup a scheduled recording of top of the pops (TOTP) for my daughter due at 7.00-7.35 on BBC2 this evening.

About 6.50 I tuned the Humax to BBC2 when it was showing the Remembrance Sunday highlights program. About 7.15 I started playing with the buffer and found that as normal with a live program I could rewind the buffer and play any part of it back to 6.50.

When 7.35 arrived the scheduled recording stopped but I was not dumped out of the buffer into the live program. The buffer continued to fill as normal and I was still able to rewind to any point back till 6.50.

I did notice that TOTP had overrun by a couple of minutes and my scheduled recording would have thus lost the last minute or so of Madonna's video. I checked that TOTP was in the playlist, but did not play it as I did not want to lose the buffer.

I then rewound the live buffer, now playing Malcolm in the Middle to the start of Madonna's video and started a manual recording. I allowed this to run to the end of TOTP, so that I had the bit of TOTP not recorded by the scheduled recording for my daughter, as a second recording.

I then pressed the STOP button, expecting this to stop the manual recording. This not stop the manual recording, but threw me back to the live Malcolm in the Middle program with the manual recording still running. The buffer had now gone and was starting again from the current live point.

Unsure what was now happening with my manual recording I pressed STOP again and the manual recording stopped. When I checked the playlist I found that I did have a second TOTP recording, which started as expected at the start of the Madonna video but did not end at the point where I had initially tried to stop it, i.e. at the end of the TOTP program, but at the point in the Malcolm on the Middle program which was live when I pressed STOP for the second time (i.e. about 15 mins into the Malcolm on the Middle program)

If you are still with me, the way it seems to work if you rewind a live program using the buffer, and press record when you stop the recording you will get a recording to the end of the buffer, not the point to which you leave the recording to run. This has the advantage that the whole buffer can be recorded very quickly, but the disadvantage that when you do this you lose the buffer and it starts again. Others may be aware of this already but it was a surprise to me as I had not tried it before.

The feature that I discovered which is new to me but others may already be aware of is that when playing the buffer I pressed the PLAY button. I then pressed the arrow button to the left of the OK button to see if this did anything. This brought up a small window just above the time bar on the right. The arrows to the left and right of the OK button can then be used to move to any point in the buffer without the need to fast rewind or fast forward. When you press OK the buffer jumps straight to that point. I have since discovered that this can also be used in exactly the same way when playing back recordings. Again others may know of this already but it is new to me.

I will try to replicate your problem at a later time, this time on ITV, as I notice that you were recording ITV when you got the problem, and most of the problems on this box seem to be connected with ITV and Mux2.

I have experienced this problem.

Wanting to watch top gear last night - no recordings were scheduled, I had paused it at the start of the programme (8pm) and done something else for 20 minutes. Started to watch it, and about 10 minutes in decided to keep the programme, so rewound 10 minutes to the start and pressed record, then fast-forwarded back to where I had been.

At the (real) end of the programme (9pm), I was dumped out to real-time and the buffer was lost and we annoyingly got to watch the end of the programme in the middle, as it was overrunning. Then watched the rest from the middle of the programme from the recording in the library.

Hope that makes sense. However, I'm sure I have successfully timeslipped a live broadcast without this problem, whilst a scheduled recording of the same channel was in progress, although I couldn't swear to it.

Sorry Marc, I guess I am a little defensive. My apologies

The problem did occur as I reported it. I didn't leave anything out. I had the same problem again last night in exactly the same curcumstances.


Yes, again last night I was watching the time-slipped recording (not paused) and recording the same program using the schedule. Then at the end of the scheduled recording the program I was watching jumped back to the live broadcast and the buffer was lost. Again I was able to continue my viewing by selecting it from the playlist and fast forwarding to where I was before.

I am wondering whether this is caused because the PVR is using the same tuner to record the program as it is to timeslip, so when it sends a 'stop recording' message it is acting like you've also hit stop on the timeslip function, which would take the program to the live broadcast (wouldn't it? ....as accidently losing the buffer this way was the whole reason I started recording programs that I was watching using timeslip)

Martin

The problem that you are getting here is not a fault, as sdesign may be getting, but a problem caused by the way that the box works, when you do an instant recording from the buffer. However the problem is also fairly simple to overcome.

As you might have seen from my post above, I played around with instant recording to record the end of a program, which had run over and was thus missed by the scheduled program that I had set up to try to replicate sdesign's fault.

I found that the way instant recording from the buffer works is like this.

If you start an instant recording by rewinding the buffer, as you did, the buffer will be reset to start from the point where you started the instant recording. However the buffer beyond this start point will still be retained.

A message will flash up on the screen showing the starting time and the end time. The end time will always be the end time of the current live program, even if you have rewound the buffer into a previous program.

When the instant recording reaches its end point, as you found, the buffer is deleted, you are returned to the live program and a new buffer is started. If you bring up the time bar at this point you can watch this happening.

As you found, this is most annoying if you are watching a program 20 mins behind, as you were.

The way to simply overcome this problem is to extend the end time of the instant recording, by pressing record again and moving it on in 10 min jumps further beyond its end time. The number of minutes that you add on must exceed the number of minutes that you are currently running behind the live transmission. In your case this would me 30 mins, as you were watching 20 mins behind.

The instant recording will not then dump the buffer and return your box to the live transmission until 30 mins after your program ends, by which time you will have seen it to the end even if it was running up to ten minutes late.

The only real downside of this method is that your instant recording of Top Gear will include up to 30 minutes of the following program that you did not want, though you will have the ending if it was running late. However if you want to keep it for a while or archive onto another device, it is fairly easy to cut off the bit that you don't want with the editing function.

When an instant recording is running it seems like that you can extend or bring forward the end time any time that you like up to the time that the program is due to finish. It also looks like you can extend it up to a 24 hour recording, though I have not tried a long extension and I don't know of what practical use this would be as it would appear in the playlist as one program.

Another key point to note when watching the buffer, at the same time as doing an instant recording is not to press the STOP button when doing this. If you do this the buffer will be dumped, you will be returned to the live transmission and a new buffer will be started. However the instant recording will continue, so you can still watch the program later if that is what you have decided to do. To stop the instant recording you have to press STOP again and confirm.

An oddity that I noticed when moving around the buffer is that if you ever forward to the front, i.e. the live point, of the buffer in this situation again the buffer will be dumped exactly as if you had pressed the STOP button. As this is quite easy to do with x64 fast forward it is safer to use the alternative method that I outlined at the end of my last post above.

Hi clanchief

I quickly discovered this for recordings and buffers and have been using it to check recordings are complete since I got unit as I think it is much easier and more accurate jumping about a recording this way rather than the FF REW as it jumps in 1 minute increments.

clanchief,

You certainly have investigated the behaviour in a thorough manner; I did think at the time that I should have set the end time to later than I had, in case of over-run but I was too busy enjoying the programme to be able to work out how to extend the recording once I had already set it!

It does certainly seem as if the behaviour of the live buffer is the same as watching a library recording; stop will quit it (and clear the buffer), as will fast-winding to the start (or end?) Not quite as intuitive as I may have hoped; at least when watching a recording you have the option to reload it, but when it exits and clears the live buffer you lose the programme you were trying to watch (unless you were also recording it of course). I think you are correct to recommend caution when using x64 fast-winding with the live buffer.

<rant> On an unrelated note; I wonder how long before the broadcasters are put under pressure to actually adhere to their EPG times or at least update the now and next info at the correct times. It does seems as though the Humax finishes the recording when the now and next info changes to the next programme, as many of my recordings finish at times such as 19:28.30, when it was clearly set to end at 19:29.59. This is all well and good when 19:28.30 is the actual end of the programme, but when it is 30s from the end credits, it becomes very annoying. Still, auto-padding will eventually solve this, although I can't help thinking that signalling the end of the programme at the correct time would be the preferable solution</rant>

Bofore my box disappeared back to Humax today, I tried twice to replicate your problem, but both times failed.

So it looks like you have an unusual problem here sdesign, which so far has only been replicated by one other poster, youngbaz.

I had a similar issue a few days back.

I was watching a progam in chase play that was also recording. Another scheduled program started recording and the buffer dissapeared. I dont understand why. The machine should be able to record two channels and chase play one of these too.

Any ideas?

you can't use chase play if you are recording two channels, so this is not a related problem.