# Why is it? (Buffer lost going between live and DVR)



## thefunks67 (Feb 4, 2007)

The buffer gets dumped when I hit Live TV while watching a recorded program?

I was watching a recorded program and decided I wanted to drop out of it and watch the last channel I was on before watching the recorded program. When I hit the Live TV button the buffer was dumped and I was Live.

Is there a more graceful way to exit viewing a recorded program and get back to the tuner that was buffered?

-Funk


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## Jim5506 (Jun 7, 2004)

Hit DVR twice, select the program and the resume option should be there. As forgoing back to live after viewing a recording, yes the buffer gets dumped, the only way around it is to record what you were watching live.


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## thefunks67 (Feb 4, 2007)

Jim5506 said:


> Hit DVR twice, select the program and the resume option should be there. As forgoing back to live after viewing a recording, yes the buffer gets dumped, the only way around it is to record what you were watching live.


Jim, I understand the resume feature with regard to a recorded program. What is curious is why does the buffer get dumped when going from viewing a recorded program to Live TV? I haven't changed the channel, the buffer should still be going.

I was under the impression that when a tuner is on a channel that channel will be buffered unless I switch the channel on that tuner. Lets leave the "pause buffer" out of the equation.

-Funk


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

If I understand things correctly, the buffer actually got dumped when you started watching the recorded program... and while you are watching the recorded program (even if the recording is in progress) the buffer for that particular channel is not in use entil you exit the program.

As evidence... I knew I was going to be late getting home to a football game one Sunday so I set a timer to start at 4:30pm and record for 45 minutes. I got home at 4:45 so I started watching the recording in-progress until it ended, skipping commercials along the way... but found that once I caught up with the end of the recording I had missed about 10 minutes of live viewing since the buffer had not been filling up while I was watching the recording.

So that's how I decided what must be happening. Is it a bug or a feature? I dunno... but I'm inclined to think it is working as designed.


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## brettbolt (Feb 22, 2006)

HDMe said:


> ... Is it a bug or a feature? I dunno... but I'm inclined to think it is working as designed.


I encountered something similar tonight. I was watching a recording and reached the end, ten minutes after the show ended in real time. Then I wanted to watch the next show on the same channel, but had to miss the first 10 minutes.

What purpose does it serve to delete the buffer? None that I can think of. It just is annoying -- theres plenty of room on my hard drive and the machine is capable of recording up to 3 shows at once. I wish Dish would ALWAYS buffer the last hour of the station you are tuned to. Or at least make it an option. I'd even like the option of not losing the buffer with each channel change.

Since my 501 had the same buffer dumping tendencies as my 622, its probably designed this way.

They really should reconsider their design decision.


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## lujan (Feb 10, 2004)

This is when PIP is my friend. When I want to do this, I pause the program I'm currently viewing, hit PIP (still tuned to the same station I was watching), start the recorded program, then SWAP back to the original station. I do this all the time, the only problem is you have the PIP window on the way of part of the screen. The split screen PIP is going to make a lot of us happier.


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## suignrs (May 16, 2006)

The buffer on the tuner you were not watching (assuming you are in single mode) does not get dumped when you go to a recording. So, if prior to watching the recording, you swap tuners so that what you were watching is now on the other tuner, when you end watching the recording the buffer will have maintained what had been aired from your original program. Hope that make sense. Why the buffer drops the last tuner you were watching but keeps the other is beyond me.


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## Hall (Mar 4, 2004)

The 622 doesn't buffer once you start watching a pre-recorded event. Too much drive activity ?? I swear the 522 did this and I know 100% that the Scientific Atlanta 8000/8300, SD and HD versions, also maintained the buffer while watching a recording.


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## elbodude (Jul 13, 2006)

Hall said:


> The 622 doesn't buffer once you start watching a pre-recorded event. Too much drive activity ?? I swear the 522 did this and I know 100% that the Scientific Atlanta 8000/8300, SD and HD versions, also maintained the buffer while watching a recording.


Tivo also does this. It also buffers when on 'standby'. I would like the 622 to hold the pauses when I swap tuners without having to use PIP, also a Tivo feature.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

I think what we are looking at here is a realistic limitation of the receiver's processing power.

When not recording anything... the 622 is buffering tuner 1 and tuner 2. This is true whether you are in single or dual mode as long as the receiver is on. For the purposes of my post I will discuss single mode, since I do not run in dual mode.

In single mode... once on, tuner 1 and tuner 2 are being buffered if no timers have fired and recording is in process. The OTA tuner is sort-of a floating extra tuner in that you cannot buffer 3 tuners at the same time, so whenever you switch to the OTA tuner you stop buffering the other satellite channel and start buffering OTA instead.

Ok... so now you fire off a timer to record on tuner 2. Tuner 2 is now recording, and you can watch that in progress or wait until it is done... but tuner 2 is now in use for recording and you cannot switch it to another channel without stopping the recording. Tuner 1 and OTA are available to watch, and either will be buffered with the buffer dumped after a channel change.

So now you fire off a timer on tuner 1 and both tuner 1 and tuner 2 are recording... You can watch either recording in progress, or you can watch OTA. OTA will be buffered if you are watching that.

Now, you fire a timer on OTA... all three tuners are recording in progress... so no channels are being buffered. You can watch any recording in progress OR watch a previously recorded program while those are going... but no more buffer available.

In single mode you can record 3 programs, and watch one pre-recorded simultaneously. In dual mode the receiver will let you watch 2 pre-recorded simultaneously.

IF it also had to buffer the tuners... that would be recording 5 programs simultaneously and I don't think the receiver has the capability to do that with its current processing power.

Ultimately I think that is what we are looking at here... At any given time a tuner can be buffering OR recording (essentially the same process) but not both as that would be more processes than it was designed to handle.

I understand the frustration... but I think that kind of feature is beyond the scope of the design.


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## koji68 (Jun 21, 2004)

HDMe said:


> IF it also had to buffer the tuners... that would be recording 5 programs simultaneously and I don't think the receiver has the capability to do that with its current processing power.


Huh? If you are recording 3 things at the same time, all tuners are already in use. There is nothing to buffer.


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## thefunks67 (Feb 4, 2007)

elbodude said:


> Tivo also does this.


That is why I asked the question. I was used to the Tivo buffer after coming out of watching a recorded program.

-Funk


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## Hall (Mar 4, 2004)

HDMe said:


> I think what we are looking at here is a realistic limitation of the receiver's processing power.


 That may be true. The Scientific Atlanta units had (2) HD-capable tuners only. The 522 has (2) SD-capable tuners. The 622 has (3) HD-capable tuners. That can generate a lot of "traffic" and heavy traffic at that. On the 522, if you were recording (2) programs and tried to watch (2) pre-recorded programs, it ran like a dog.... That is if you tried to bring up the guide, pause, rewind, etc, etc, i.e. interact. If you just watched the show, it was fine. The 8300HD was a bit better than the 522.

I can't say we've tried to record (3) things and watch (2) pre-recorded events with the 622 to say how it performs.


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## thefunks67 (Feb 4, 2007)

I went back and did a search. Good info on my original question here:

http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=62811&highlight=1+minute

Oh, and the 625 exhibits the same behavior.

-Funk


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## 4bama (Aug 6, 2006)

thefunks67 said:


> The buffer gets dumped when I hit Live TV while watching a recorded program?
> 
> I was watching a recorded program and decided I wanted to drop out of it and watch the last channel I was on before watching the recorded program. When I hit the Live TV button the buffer was dumped and I was Live.
> 
> ...


OK, I just verified this procedure works and you do not have to bring up a PIP screen. It works in single mode for me.

First, select the channel you want to watch when you press "view" from watching a DVR event.

Second, select "Swap" without opening a PIP screen. This takes you to the "other" tuner...doesn't matter what tuner you were using, "Swap" will switch you to the "other" tuner.

Now select DVR twice and view your selected recording. When you are tired of that or want to check on the "other" channel just select "View".

Now select "Swap" and your back on the channel you wish to view, but you are "real-time".

Select "rewind" 3 times and you will go back to where you left your program, up to a maximum of the 1-hour buffer.

From listening to Tech Forum the L401 software will allow you to "pause" the program before "swapping" tuners so when you come back from watching DVR events and "swap" back the program will be paused (still 1-hour max buffer) so you don't have to rewind.

Anyway, the procedure above works now.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

koji68 said:


> Huh? If you are recording 3 things at the same time, all tuners are already in use. There is nothing to buffer.


I think you missed the question that prompted all the discussion. The original question had to do with the fact that once you start watching a recording the tuner buffer is dumped.

So if you are watching a recording on channel 105, but then wanted to watch the program that came on 105 while you were watching the recording... you would miss any overlap time because that tuner was not being buffered.

If this example doesn't make sense to you, please re-read the thread to see what we've been talking about.

I know how the receiver works... and proposed a reason why it works that way... the original question was why it couldn't work differently and still buffer even while watching a recording.


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## articos (Oct 10, 2006)

Re: the buffers dumping if you jump into the DVR playback...

This is something that has annoyed me since I switched to the 622 from Tivo. (With Tivo, it's just a given that the buffers would always be going in the background no matter what I'm doing.)

I've gotten two possible answers from Dish engineering on this, but they won't give any specific details on either, nor do I know which is the actual answer. First answer is the 622 buffers rely more on software than hardware, and they wrote the buffer code like this on purpose to be less taxing on the box, and because they didn't think the customer would use the buffers like this/it's not a necessary feature. Second answer is because it may run a little too close to Tivo's patents, although Tivo's buffers are more hardware based. I don't know if either of these are correct, but these are the answers I've gotten. I've asked to pass it up for the platform engineering team to look at making the buffers truly independent, but so far have only been told it's something they don't think will be added. They seem to think it's not something people want (or notice), even though it's really unintuitive, and so it's an unimportant issue as of right now - might be a good idea to mention it if people want it, and happen to be talking to dish customer service.


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## clyde sauls (Nov 16, 2007)

Could be something with the tivo lawsuit that dish had to drop the receivers from doing . So that way maybe they arent violating the copyright .


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## CABill (Mar 20, 2005)

HDMe said:


> I think you missed the question that prompted all the discussion. The original question had to do with the fact that once you start watching a recording the tuner buffer is dumped.


My question won't make any difference to the end user, but do you have a way of detecting that the buffer is dumped when you START a recording as opposed to when the recording switches to Live? This first came to my attention with the single tuner 501. If the current channel didn't continue to buffer during recorded playback, the tuner would have been "free" to do Guide updates for the duration of the recorded program (but that didn't happen). At the time, it seemed like the buffer was dumped when recording ended and Live STARTED (same as if a channel change).

All I can say with certainty is dumping the buffer has been how the DISH DVRs operate for a long time. Never had a 7x00 do know if they were different.

And I agree that the receiver could easily behave "correctly" instead. Dunno why it never has.


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## moman19 (Oct 22, 2004)

elbodude said:


> Tivo also does this. It also buffers when on 'standby'. I would like the 622 to hold the pauses when I swap tuners without having to use PIP, also a Tivo feature.


Perhaps Dish cannot do this without stepping on Tivo toes. Remember, there is a lawsuit.......


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

CABill said:


> My question won't make any difference to the end user, but do you have a way of detecting that the buffer is dumped when you START a recording as opposed to when the recording switches to Live?


Good question, though admittedly it wouldn't make a difference to us as end users... and I don't know the answer or how to find out. I supposed it could be buffering in the background until you go to live viewing... but my assumption for it being the other way around (i.e. no buffering during playback) is because of the limited number of tuners.

At any given time, on a ViP622/722 anyway, there are 3 tuners available. Two satellite and one OTA... you can record on all three and watch something pre-recorded. Or you can record on one and watch the other two in PiP (assuming single mode operation) and both are buffered... or you can record on 2 tuners and the one remaining one is buffered.

What never happens, though, is all three being buffered. Never more than 2 tuners (either both SAT or one SAT and the OTA) are buffered at the same time even though there are 3 total tuners and recording simultaneously from all 3 is possible.

IF the tuners continued to buffer during playback and only dumped after going to live viewing, then the receiver would have to make unique choices when all 3 tuners are being used to record so I'm not sure how it would decide what to buffer + that would imply an ability to track 5 total streams at the same time, which I'm not sure it can handle + the ability to playback prerecorded at the same time!

So my assumption, that it dumps when you start playback and doesn't start buffering again until you switch back to live is one that creates the least headache for the firmware programmers and is less taxing on the hardware.

Who knows, but that's sort of where I made the leap to conclusion that I've made.


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## h2ouup2 (Oct 11, 2008)

I have noticed the same thing. However I also noticed the other tuner still buffers. So at the end of watching a recording if I press PIP then swap, I can rewind that channel.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

h2ouup2 said:


> I have noticed the same thing. However I also noticed the other tuner still buffers. So at the end of watching a recording if I press PIP then swap, I can rewind that channel.


I do that too... put tuner2 on something I want to pause, then swap back to tuner 1 before playing the recording.


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