# Longer Buffer



## SomeRandomIdiot (Jan 7, 2016)

I would like a longer Buffer. FiOS DVRs have 60 minutes...and DirecTV have 90.

The TiVo Buffer is just too short!


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## Bytez (Sep 11, 2004)

Yes, they're too arrogant to change it.


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## jmccorm (Oct 8, 2000)

Bytez said:


> Yes, they're too arrogant to change it.


That's such an absolute shame it is almost a crime. I can't count the number of times that this has been an issue for me. Here recently, it has been while watching CNN while I have other things going on. I don't want to have to actually record CNN to get it to act how it should act, so I end up just letting it play and sometimes just muting the TV.

What is the reason they've given for this, anyhow, 'the user experience' and they think that too big of a buffer disconnects the user from actually viewing live TV, or... ?


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## JayMan747 (Nov 10, 2008)

Somewhat related is to display "buffer" in time window for current program instead of 1 hour.

It's nice to see where the current point is for the program being viewed. for example, if the movie is 2 hours, it shows 2 hours, with its start time and end time. The current method of live tv is to only show a sliding 1 hour that is changed at the top and bottom of the hour.


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## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

100% on both of these ideas.


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## GoodSpike (Dec 17, 2001)

Bytez said:


> Yes, they're too arrogant to change it.


That seems to be their position on a lot of things, and it's really disappointing. It sort of keeps me from recommending Tivos to people I know, since there might be some stupid little thing like this that will annoy them, and that I'll hear about in the future.


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## PSU_Sudzi (Jun 4, 2015)

It's also user driven. I agree we should have a longer buffer, my Moxi DVR had 90 minutes and I used it all the time. Most TiVo users, if you read this forum all the time, think that watching live TV is insane and if you want to watch something, record it. I enjoy live TV and usually keep the tuners on the channels I watch the most and often jump back to watch before commercials or pause while talking on phone, etc.


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## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

PSU_Sudzi said:


> It's also user driven. I agree we should have a longer buffer, my Moxi DVR had 90 minutes and I used it all the time. Most TiVo users, if you read this forum all the time, think that watching live TV is insane and if you want to watch something, record it. I enjoy live TV and usually keep the tuners on the channels I watch the most and often jump back to watch before commercials or pause while talking on phone, etc.


Stockholm syndrome


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

TonyD79 said:


> 100% on both of these ideas.


0% for me.  I have no problems with how it's currently done. I certainly don't need a longer buffer. In 15 years of using dozens of TiVos. I can count on one hand the number of times a 30 minute buffer has ever been an issue.
Because no matter how long the buffer is, an errant button press would wipe it out. So I always record anything I might watch. That is the only way to avoid any issues.


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## wkearney99 (Dec 5, 2003)

aaronwt said:


> 0% for me.  I have no problems with how it's currently done. I certainly don't need a longer buffer. In 15 years of using dozens of TiVos. I can count on one hand the number of times a 30 minute buffer has ever been an issue.
> Because no matter how long the buffer is, an errant button press would wipe it out. So I always record anything I might watch. That is the only way to avoid any issues.


Agreed. With two tuners it could sometimes have been an issue, but with six I've never run into a situation where it'd matter. That and, besides network TV, just about everything else is repeated often enough to allow for passes to catch it soon enough for my interests.

The one thing I do kind of wish it had would be some kind of 'timed switch to channel option'. As in, just switch to local CBS, NBC and ABC affilites in the morning for the news and leave the buffers running. Without having to set up passes for them or have to 'see' the recordings kept in the NPL. Yeah, pretty trivial, especially in light of the larger drive capacities.

Would I care if it had a longer buffer? No, but with six tuners that'd require a LOT more disk space than it currently dedicates for it. Which could still potentially be an issue unless you shell out for the much larger drive options (or add an external one).

I'm guessing there's some old part of the software that would really be tricky to work around, at least in ways that would work across the entire range of devices they have in the field.


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## tomhorsley (Jul 22, 2010)

I think TiVo has decided the buffer should be absolutely useless. Aside from the length of the buffer, if you are watching a program out of the buffer and another program starts recording on the same channel, it discards the rest of the buffer you haven't watched yet. They clearly believe that if you want to watch something and use buffer-like feature, you should press "record" first.


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## wkearney99 (Dec 5, 2003)

tomhorsley said:


> I think TiVo has decided the buffer should be absolutely useless. Aside from the length of the buffer, if you are watching a program out of the buffer and another program starts recording on the same channel, it discards the rest of the buffer you haven't watched yet. They clearly believe that if you want to watch something and use buffer-like feature, you should press "record" first.


In fairness, it does warn you when it needs to use a buffer to start your recordings (hmmm, on the same channel though, not sure...) With two tuners I do remember that being a little annoying. With six I've never run into it as a problem.

I could see where folks trying to channel surf with a Tivo Mini would be annoyed with only having a single buffer. I know it's bugged me enough to not have a Mini anywhere I'd actually be watching. But a longer buffer wouldn't help that.


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

wkearney99 said:


> In fairness, it does warn you when it needs to use a buffer to start your recordings (hmmm, on the same channel though, not sure...) With two tuners I do remember that being a little annoying. With six I've never run into it as a problem.
> 
> I could see where folks trying to channel surf with a Tivo Mini would be annoyed with only having a single buffer. I know it's bugged me enough to not have a Mini anywhere I'd actually be watching. But a longer buffer wouldn't help that.


Slight adjustment to that. Since you have six tuners, the host will always have one. A Mini that selects a tuned channel on your host not used by the host's TV, it gets the buffer. If you select another channel on the host not being used, you get that buffer. So a Mini could be using five buffers in this special case. Silly, but true.


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## wkearney99 (Dec 5, 2003)

JoeKustra said:


> Slight adjustment to that. Since you have six tuners, the host will always have one. A Mini that selects a tuned channel on your host not used by the host's TV, it gets the buffer. If you select another channel on the host not being used, you get that buffer. So a Mini could be using five buffers in this special case. Silly, but true.


I suspected as much. I've grown accustomed to using the "Live TV" button to quickly jump around between buffered shows and didn't like how the Mini handled it. This was a while ago, and perhaps the situation has changed.


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## Jonathan_S (Oct 23, 2001)

tomhorsley said:


> I think TiVo has decided the buffer should be absolutely useless. Aside from the length of the buffer, if you are watching a program out of the buffer and another program starts recording on the same channel, it discards the rest of the buffer you haven't watched yet.


Hmm, that behavior must have changed at some point over the years. Ages ago, on my 2 tuner DirecTV-TiVos (pre-high def), if you were actively watching but behind in the buffer when a recording started you could finish watching the "orphaned" buffer. It would last until the recording _finished_ before being wiped out. However we termed it an "orphaned" buffer because if you left it there was no way to get back. So even entering the menu would cause you to lose the rest of the program you were watching.

So even back then the safer approach was to record everything, but if you didn't you had a little time to try and finish watching your buffer.
But I haven't tested that scenario in probably a decade, so it doesn't much surprise me to hear that it changed somewhere along the way.


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## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

To those who said no: I guess you think tivo should just get rid of the buffer since you don't use it. 

As for recording every thing you watch? That's a bit of a nuisance for trivial live programming or things like news or sports. If I want to dump the buffer, I have to stop and delete the recording. And I have to delete the recoding all the time anyway. 

There are things you don't really care if you save and things you do. There are things the buffer is useful for and others that you need to record because you want them. 

And there is the time that the live show changes and you can't record the one from half an hour ago because TiVo won't let you.


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## NorthAlabama (Apr 19, 2012)

we've actually got about a 45min buffer now, and if you don't believe me, test it:

leave a tuner on an hour+ long program for 45 minutes, and press "record". the progress bar will indicate a 30min buffer, but guess what - your recording will begin going back as far as 45min.

it's been this way for a couple of software updates.


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## GoodSpike (Dec 17, 2001)

Jonathan_S said:


> Hmm, that behavior must have changed at some point over the years. Ages ago, on my 2 tuner DirecTV-TiVos (pre-high def), if you were actively watching but behind in the buffer when a recording started you could finish watching the "orphaned" buffer. It would last until the recording _finished_ before being wiped out. However we termed it an "orphaned" buffer because if you left it there was no way to get back. So even entering the menu would cause you to lose the rest of the program you were watching..


I think it does work differently than the DTivo. I was only switching between tuners once without recording, but I was shocked when I could no longer switch once the program ended. Not what I remembered at all.

So basically you can still switch between tuners, but you should also set it to record just to make sure it doesn't go away.


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## SomeRandomIdiot (Jan 7, 2016)

Using a 6 tuner TiVo and pressing "Live TV" to cycle through channels (which obviously had some program you were interested in) you find a program that interest you, only you cannot go back to the beginning.

It is buffering anyway - so its no extra wear and tear on unit/hard drive. Just takes a simple change in the code to expand the minutes.

Comical that TiVo wants to record things it *thinks* you might watch, but won't let you view stuff that is already there on a channel you did turn to!

In line with another post, where I noted I just came back to TiVo last Quarter after using the DirecTV HR10-250 Tivo 12+ years ago, and I noted that I am shocked that TiVo has essential stood still for the last decade, now I read the current TiVo CEO of last 11 years is leaving 1/31/2016. Interesting that those 11 years are the years of TiVo arrogance and that they "went to sleep".

The would be advised to read a story yesterday concerning GoPros current issues:

http://read.bi/1UPUfzk

Marc Andreessen predicted GoPro's current problems back when it filed to go public

GoPro shares are tanking more than 20% after the sports video camera maker warned of lower than expected holiday sales and announced plans to slash its headcount by 7%.

It's a remarkable turn of events for GoPro, a hardware industry success story that had a blockbuster IPO in 2014.

But even back when GoPro was basking in glowing investor sentiment, there were already warning signs that the company could face problems as VC Marc Andreessen pointed out on Twitter at the time GoPro filed to go public.

In February 2014, the day after news broke that GoPro had filed to go public, Andreessen Horowitz partner Chris Dixon tweeted

GoPro is a company that develops communities of sports enthusiasts and happens monetize by selling electronics. http://t.co/25RwgJ4YRX

- Chris Dixon (@cdixon) February 8, 2014

Andreessen's response?

@cdixon Ah yes! The convenient fiction of all new hardware companies until their product gets commoditized .

- Marc Andreessen (@pmarca) February 8, 2014

Andreeseen warned that GoPro faces many of the same commoditization threats that 
hurt Flip, another once highflying video camera hardware company that was ultimately shut down after being acquired by Cisco.

@octal @cdixon @BenedictEvans At the time many smart people believed Flip had fundamentally cracked code on ease of use in sustainable way.

- Marc Andreessen (@pmarca) February 8, 2014

@cdixon @BenedictEvans Lose product edge especially in hardware and customers say sayanora with no second thoughts.

- Marc Andreessen (@pmarca) February 8, 2014

The whole thread is worth reading.

Andreesen closed the argument with:

@smc90 @cdixon @BenedictEvans Latest theories . Let's check back in 3 years .

- Marc Andreessen (@pmarca) February 8, 2014

That was 704 days ago.

A lesson TiVo should have learned.


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