Live buffer two channels at once?

[reluctantflux 38]

I don't know if it's possible, but I thought I'd ask.  Would it be possible to keep 2 channels in the buffer until you stop live tv playback?

 

Example:

 

I start playing channel ABC at 7pm.   At 7:15, I switch to channel Fox.  At 7:30, I switch back to ABC, and I can rewind as far back as 7pm.  I switch back to channel Fox, and I can rewind as far back as 7:15.  I switch to channel NBC at 7:45.  At this point, I can switch back to Fox, and can rewind as far back as 7:15, but if I go to ABC, it has to start recording fresh.  

 

You know, if you wanted something to work on since ServerWMC already seems completely finished, polished, and working flawlessly (for me, at least). 

 

I know this can be achieved by setting two shows to record, but thought it would be slick if this was just natural without having to think about it.

 

Would be great for sports and award shows.

 

[krustyreturns 191]

Are you proposing keeping the tuners tuned and capturing data while you are viewing a different channel, or just that the stuff you viewed before the switch being kept in the buffer (up until the time you switched channels).

[reluctantflux 38]

Keeping both tunes tuned. I recognize that this is no small request.

[krustyreturns 191]

Its do-able, but how would you determine when to let the tuners go?

[reluctantflux 38]

1) Determine number of available tuners (taking into effect currently in use tuners and a set number of tuners you can set to use this feature).

2) As you open channels, it opens each tuner and keeps the recording going in the background.

3) Once you've reached your available tuner limit, it releases the tuner that has created a stream with the earliest file creation date and deletes the temp file it created.

 

I'm not sure how going back to a channel that has one of the temp streams would work though.  Would you be able to get it to open that previous stream, or would it just end up starting a new stream for that same channel?

[techywarrior 688]

That logic would never let the computer sleep because it would create a stream forever. Also, not sure what sort of automatic cleanup there is but HD space could become an issue.

 

If serverWMC/MBS can know which channel is actually being watched then perhaps you could do something like what you describe but have a setting for a max record amount (like 30 minutes or so). This would help you out if you were flipping back and forth but not cause the computer to never sleep due to the tuners always being active and limit HD requirements.

[reluctantflux 38]

My HTPC is always on, anyway, so I hadn't thought of that.  It would release all tuners once a stream was terminated from a stop command.  

 

Like you said, it would need to know which one was active, and if that active one received the stop command, it would release the others, and delete the temp files.  

 

You are right that you would need to make sure you have the hard drive space for such a feature.

[techywarrior 688]

There are also problems when two people are using MBS. One person clicks stop and you need to know which streams to terminate and which are being needed by the other person.

[krustyreturns 191]

The 'stop' thing would require mbs to work differently, but I don't think we need that.  In the scheme you describe, why not just let the streams go for the configurable keep-alive time and when that runs out just stop the stream if no one is watching it.  One problem though is the mbs interface currently doesn't give the addon a way to start the streaming at any other position then the beginning, i.e. there is no resume position.  So when you switch back to your last channel it would start at the beginning again. 

Edited February 11, 2015 by krustyreturns

[reluctantflux 38]

Yeah, lots of good points.  Wish I could think of away around those, but those are pretty much show stoppers.