# Curious behaviour - is this a known bug?



## Snowyowl (Dec 16, 2001)

My TiVo has on a number of occasions experienced a very odd chennel-chane problem - and last night I trapped it sufficiently to see what it was doing. The behaviour strikes me as extremely odd - and I wonder if anyone can shed light on the circumstances that lead to this - or if this is a known problem? Here goes the description:

*1/ * 19:35: I see that a programme scheduled to record at 19:30 (on BBC2) is recording - entry present with red dot in the Now Playing menu.

*2/ * I play the programme (which shows the first ten minutes of the green bar) from the Now Playing entry and note that it is not actually recording BBC2 - but another channel (the one it had been on previously)

*3/* I go to the menu of the Now Playing entry - and select "stop recording"

*4/ * With the intention of changing the channel to BBC2 and starting the recording, I go to "Live Tv". It is now 19:40

*5/ * I am amazed to see tht "Live TV" is on BBC2 - even though the TivO had been recording the wrong channel and I have not changed channel since. The green bar is only tiny, however, starting at 19:40.

*6/ * I rewind to the start of the green bar (the previous minute or so) - which is the instant that I stoped the recording which was on the wr0ng channel. I am AMAZED  to see that at that point, the TiVo sent the BBC2 channel change code to the STB!!!! You can clearly see the channel change digits being received by the STB - which show up on the picture - and the channel change to BBC2 at 19:40!

So - it appears that for whatever strange reason, the TiVo did not send the channel change code atr 19:30 as it was supposed to - but as soon as I stopped the recording at 19:40 - it proceeded to do what it was supposed to do 10 minutes earlier.

This has happened on a number of occasions over several months... Can anyone shed any light on this? Please?

Thanks,
Snowy 

UK TiVi 2.5.5


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

If you check the start of the 10 minute recording, can you see an attempted channel change? 

The channel change after you stop the recording is normal behaviour, so it sounds as if the first one just failed for some reason.


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## Snowyowl (Dec 16, 2001)

Interesting. The start of teh 10 minute segment at 19:30 shows no channel change on the STB at all. I guess this has two possible causes: either the TiVO did not send the code or the STB did not receive anything. I would be surprised if it was the former - but equally am surprised if it is the latter - as I have the IR extension strapped across the front of the STB receiver... 

Thanks for the heads-up on the TiVo re-sending the channel code to the STB when you stop recording - did not know it did this - though it seems a strange thing to do.

Snowy


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## AMc (Mar 22, 2002)

The channel change at the end resets the recording quality to Best for the live buffer from whatever it was set to in the recording - even if you record everything at Best 

Usually when I've seen this type of thing happen it's been because Tivo was playing back the live buffer with a significant delay. I panic and assume something is wrong only to discover that what I thought was 'live TV' is actually almost half an hour old and Tivo is working fine, the programme I'm watching has actually finished broadcasting. Based on what you've said you had an actuall glitch though.


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## mikerr (Jun 2, 2005)

The "send change channel signal to the same channel" at the end of recordings has often bugged me, as it clears the live-buffer.

This means you can't rewind live tv, even though its not actually changed channel !

Yes, I know its in the recorded programme if you hunt it down (it could be a suggestion or recording), but losing the live buffer unecessarily is an annoyance.

Its particularly annoying when the start of the current program is contained in the previous recording due to padding


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

mikerr said:


> Yes, I know its in the recorded programme if you hunt it down (it could be a suggestion or recording), but losing the live buffer unecessarily is an annoyance.


If you have rewound the buffer during a live recording you actually stay watching the program until the end of the recording and not the time of the channel change.


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## aerialplug (Oct 20, 2000)

I'd been quite puzzled about the sending of the channel number at the end of a recording until someone explained that it's actually part of the actions of the live buffer recording starting up. Whenever a record is initiated, the channel number is selected, so as the live buffer starts, it "changes channel".


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

aerialplug said:


> I'd been quite puzzled about the sending of the channel number at the end of a recording until someone explained that it's actually part of the actions of the live buffer recording starting up. Whenever a record is initiated, the channel number is selected, so as the live buffer starts, it "changes channel".


You mean that when you watch a recording live you aren't watching the normal Live Buffer which is stopped during this time. Instead you are watching the recording live.

The live Recording buffer lets you fast jump through a program by quarter or half hourly increments whereas the regular live buffer does not This is something I am all too painfully aware of with my 3 hours worth of BufferHacked live buffer if I want to rewind a long way.


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## TCM2007 (Dec 25, 2006)

Pete77 said:


> You mean that when you watch a recording live you aren't watching the normal Live Buffer which is stopped during this time. Instead you are watching the recording live.
> 
> The live Recording buffer lets you fast jump through a program by quarter or half hourly increments whereas the regular live buffer does not This is something I am all too painfully aware of with my 3 hours worth of BufferHacked live buffer if I want to rewind a long way.


The live buffer is just a recording like any other; it's not a distict area of the disk or anything. The difference in rewind behaviour will be in the software, not in the nature of the recording.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

TCM2007 said:


> The live buffer is just a recording like any other; it's not a distict area of the disk or anything. The difference in rewind behaviour will be in the software, not in the nature of the recording.


Its a different kind of recording though as it is constantly dropping part of the recording at one end and replacing it with new more recently recorded program at the other. I believe it is for this reason that the facility to jump through the live buffer by quarter or half hourly index points is not made available.


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## TCM2007 (Dec 25, 2006)

Pete77 said:


> Its a different kind of recording though as it is constantly dropping part of the recording at one end and replacing it with new more recently recorded program at the other. I believe it is for this reason that the facility to jump through the live buffer by quarter or half hourly index points is not made available.


I actually don't think it quite works like that, as that's not how the TiVo's filesystem works.

The Live Cache is a recording object like any other. It doesn't continuously drop off old stuff, but it does regularly lose Parts (the basic unit of a recording) off the end. Parts are smaller in the cache Recording object than in schedulked recordings; around 5 mins rather than 30.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

TCM2007 said:


> It doesn't continuously drop off old stuff, but it does regularly lose Parts (the basic unit of a recording) off the end. Parts are smaller in the cache Recording object than in schedulked recordings; around 5 mins rather than 30.


But isn't that still why the facility to skip back 15 or 30 minute increments is not offered on the Live Buffer though. Namely because its a recording object that doesn't have a permanent indexing structure like a fixed period recording does?

Certainly its a pain that even though I can skip back up to three hours through the Live Buffer when nothing else has been recording recently I can't do it quickly.


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## mikerr (Jun 2, 2005)

I expect if you could make a fake entry for the live buffer in now-showing,
- probably been done, surely its just a few markers - then you'd have the 
same set of controls as a recording at your disposal.

A better method, and what I've often thought would be a good hack 
would be to record every programme currently showing as a suggestion. 
That's actually how I assumed tivo would work when I first got it all those 
years ago.

On that line, is there a shortcut to go straight to the suggestion section 
of now-showing? apart from page-down a few times (I have too many shows...)


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

mikerr said:


> I expect if you could make a fake entry for the live buffer in now-showing,
> 
> - probably been done, surely its just a few markers - then you'd have the
> same set of controls as a recording at your disposal.


Its been done for the dancing Tivo guy track when the machine starts up which can be made into a Now Playing item.

See www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=309987



> On that line, is there a shortcut to go straight to the suggestion section
> of now-showing? apart from page-down a few times (I have too many shows...)


Not in the Tivo interface on your television. Only on the User Interface/Now Playing and Now Playing with Sort modules in TivoWeb. There you can scroll straight to the bottom of the screen and see Suggestions and if you like any change them to Keep until a specific date or Keep Until I Delete. That promotes them up to the top of the Now Playing list back on the Tivo tv menus. You can now easily view them.

As I have 600 items or so in Now Playing this is the only convenient way that I can ever review or watch recently recorded Suggestions. All that thumbs downing and back 90 times on the Tivo box is just too much to bear.


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## TCM2007 (Dec 25, 2006)

Pete77 said:


> But isn't that still why the facility to skip back 15 or 30 minute increments is not offered on the Live Buffer though. Namely because its a recording object that doesn't have a permanent indexing structure like a fixed period recording does?
> 
> Certainly its a pain that even though I can skip back up to three hours through the Live Buffer when nothing else has been recording recently I can't do it quickly.


Since the live buffer was only intended to be 30 minutes long, they probably just didn't implement skip-to-tick when in Live TV mode as there was no reason to.


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## TCM2007 (Dec 25, 2006)

Pete77 said:


> As I have 600 items or so in Now Playing this is the only convenient way that I can ever review or watch recently recorded Suggestions. All that thumbs downing and back 90 times on the Tivo box is just too much to bear.


With 600 unwatched items you have told it to record, I'd have thought the chances of you having time to watch a suggestion would be slim!


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

TCM2007 said:


> With 600 unwatched items you have told it to record, I'd have thought the chances of you having time to watch a suggestion would be slim!


Ah but there are some programs I have to watch right away and some of those turn out to be Tivo's own suggestions.


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## hokkers999 (Jan 5, 2006)

Snowyowl said:


> My TiVo has on a number of occasions experienced a very odd chennel-chane problem - and last night I trapped it sufficiently to see what it was doing. The behaviour strikes me as extremely odd - and I wonder if anyone can shed light on the circumstances that lead to this - or if this is a known problem? Here goes the description:
> 
> *1/ * 19:35: I see that a programme scheduled to record at 19:30 (on BBC2) is recording - entry present with red dot in the Now Playing menu.
> 
> ...


I am going to presume that you also have SKY. If you do as my family does and change channels with the SKY remote and not the Tivo remote then your poor Tivo has no idea the channels been switched...

...so if you were on BBC2 and used the SKY remote to switch to say BBC1 then the Tivo won't need to change channels will it, as it thinks it's still on BBC2


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

hokkers999 said:


> I am going to presume that you also have SKY. If you do as my family does and change channels with the SKY remote and not the Tivo remote then your poor Tivo has no idea the channels been switched...
> 
> ...so if you were on BBC2 and used the SKY remote to switch to say BBC1 then the Tivo won't need to change channels will it, as it thinks it's still on BBC2


This isn't the situation the OP is talking about.


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