# Turn off live TV buffering during Standby mode



## spocko (Feb 4, 2009)

I think live TV buffering should be disabled during Standby mode. No need to make it user configurable, this should just be the standard behavior. The main benefit is that network transfers are faster when live TV buffering is not taking place. A user could put the box in standby before doing a batch of TTG transfers for example. I don't see the point of buffering during Standby mode anyway, since it can be assumed that nobody is watching.

This change might also have some benefit in terms of hard drive longevity, since the box wouldn't have to be recording constantly if Standby mode is used.

If you want to accomplish the same thing today, you can do it by manually setting both tuners to channels that you don't receive. It would just be more convenient if Standby mode would take care of this.


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## EvilMidniteBombr (May 25, 2006)

At first glance I thought this suggestion was a lame idea. Then it occurred to me that it may actually be a good thing particularly for people going away on vacation. If someone isn't going to be home for the weekend, week or month or whatever, what use is it to continuously record live tv. Perhaps an option in the menu like Stand-by w/o Live TV Buffer.


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## Jonathan_S (Oct 23, 2001)

For what it's worth (worth nothing really) the DirecTV-TiVos _did_ stop buffering liveTV while in standby.

(Oddly, they didn't flush the existing buffer though. So when it came out of standby it'd start adding new liveTV to the existing, hours or days old, buffer. Made for a weird transition until the old stuff aged out.)


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## FairTax (Apr 3, 2009)

This feature should have been made in the first version of the software. 
Have a main menu selection to put everything in standbye so the hard drives can park and extend lifespan.  Every computer system I have does this and if no shows are scheduled to record the Tivo should do the same thing parking the hard drives. If a show is scheduled then have the Tivo start up the drives enough time ahead of the scheduled record time. Make this a menu settable feature for those that don't record a lot and want to save the life of their hard drives. Great idea!!! :up:



spocko said:


> I think live TV buffering should be disabled during Standby mode. No need to make it user configurable, this should just be the standard behavior. The main benefit is that network transfers are faster when live TV buffering is not taking place. A user could put the box in standby before doing a batch of TTG transfers for example. I don't see the point of buffering during Standby mode anyway, since it can be assumed that nobody is watching.
> 
> This change might also have some benefit in terms of hard drive longevity, since the box wouldn't have to be recording constantly if Standby mode is used.
> 
> If you want to accomplish the same thing today, you can do it by manually setting both tuners to channels that you don't receive. It would just be more convenient if Standby mode would take care of this.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

just to note: This feature does nothing for Hard Drive longevity. Google did extensive analysis of hard drives as they use a massive amount of them. They found no difference between heavily used drives or rarely used drives. So the buffer truly has no bearing on hard drive life.


Now the faster TTG transfers does have bearing since tuning the TiVo to channels with no signal and thus ending the buffer does speed thngs up. 

However some people put their TiVo in standby to avoid the emergency alert channel changes on Series 3 models - so doing in the buffer in standby would have an adverse impact for them.


I usually do TTG as an automatic download thing so speed has no bearing for me and if it does then I manually tune to like channel 0 that has no signal. A universal remote with macros could be employed to have a macro that tunes the tow tuners to no signal channels


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## spocko (Feb 4, 2009)

ZeoTiVo said:


> just to note: This feature does nothing for Hard Drive longevity. Google did extensive analysis of hard drives as they use a massive amount of them. They found no difference between heavily used drives or rarely used drives. So the buffer truly has no bearing on hard drive life.


Interesting, thanks.



ZeoTiVo said:


> However some people put their TiVo in standby to avoid the emergency alert channel changes on Series 3 models - so doing in the buffer in standby would have an adverse impact for them.


I don't understand. What's the adverse impact? They could still use Standby for that purpose. The only difference is that when they come out of standby, there is no buffer waiting for them. That buffer would have no value anyway, unless they just happened to leave the tuner(s) on the right channels and happened to miss the beginning of a show.


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## lew (Mar 12, 2002)

Turnning off the buffer during Standby mode will let the hard drive go into an energy saving power down mode. I don't know if that's enough to get energy star certification but it might be.


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