DVR Specific Use Case

[Taddeusz 0]

I'm testing out Emby for use as a DVR. We are currently using SageTV. We have one of our local news stations set to record every night at 10:00pm. But we often don't start watching it till later while it's still airing. We usually start watching it from the beginning before it finishes airing and we like to continue watching the late-show programming that airs afterward.

 

SageTV does this without issue. It lets us start watching the news from the beginning and will continue to record/buffer what's on that channel until we choose to stop it. I tried doing something similar with Emby but it finished playing the program I told it to record and just stopped once it reached the end. Is there any way for me to watch a semi-live recording and continue watching the channel?

 

I'm not sure this is make or break but it is definitely important to us. The only other way I could see to accomplish this is to start the news live and then pause it. This would be inconvenient and easy to forget. This is the reason we have it set to record, so we don't miss the news. The only time we miss watching the late shows is if we miss starting the news before it has finished airing.

[Luke 42085]

Hi, welcome. It really depends on where you start playing from. If you play the channel, then it should play as long as you want.

 

But if you play the recording from the recordings library, then it will stop at the end. Is this consistent with what you're seeing? Thanks.

[Taddeusz 0]

I'm using the Android TV app on our Fire TV. The problem I ran into is that when I go to the guide and try to start playing the news that is already recording it gives me a prompt to tune or cancel recording. If I select tune it starts viewing it live. There's no option to start playing the currently tuned recording from the beginning.

 

I have a sense that Emby has a philosophical difference between recordings and live tv. SageTV doesn't have this distinction. All recorded TV, whether live or not, are considered recordings. So that if you start watching something that is currently being recorded it's the same as if you started watching something from the guide. The only difference is that live viewed programs are automatically deleted unless you specify that you want it to be saved (press the record button on the remote).

[ebr 16195]

That's correct, if you tune from the guide, you are tuning to a channel.  To watch the in-progress recording you would need to choose that from someplace that shows recordings (Latest on home screen, or from within library).

 

In the future, we may build in the intelligence you are expecting regarding recordings on live TV.

 

Thanks.

[Luke 42085]

Yea I think this is an area where there is potential for improvement in the future. Thanks.