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Req Better LiveTV timeshift visual feedback - Printable Version

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Better LiveTV timeshift visual feedback - Zeflash - 2013-01-13

I haven't been able to figure out where I am in time after a pause of a liveTV show; When paused, the timecode shown in the information overlay keeps going and seems to indicate the "present" time.

I believe that when paused, the elapsed time displayed by the OSD should stop going forward; along that, given the stream is paused somewhere in an EPG entry, this entry should also stay frozen in time, in order to reflect what's seen on screen.
Finally, a time value indicating the amount of time difference between live and what's being shown would also be welcome, so that the user knows how far along in the past he is.

Does that make sense?

RE: Better LiveTV timeshift visual feedback - FernetMenta - 2013-01-13

Absolutely. I think the challenge is how to bring all that information on screen or what info can be omitted. Maybe we should drop EPG times when in timeshift mode. Consider large buffer which allows to navigate back to the previous EPG. Current EPG time would be confusing.

RE: Better LiveTV timeshift visual feedback - opdenkamp - 2013-01-14

ideally we need some form of time tracking, linking it to pts or dvdplayer time when starting a new stream. but this will be quite a bit of work

RE: Better LiveTV timeshift visual feedback - FernetMenta - 2013-01-14

dushmaniac, how do you think about adding a method bool GetDisplayTimes(start, cur, end) to the pvr clients. In case it returns true we use those otherwise fall back to current method.
Only the addons know start/end time of timeshift buffer, hence we need to query them anyway.

RE: Better LiveTV timeshift visual feedback - macardi - 2013-01-14

The Mediaportal progress bar for live tv deals with this in a good way I think. Perhaps not what your after but It could perhaps be used for inspiration.

Link to the skinning wiki

Link to the user wiki




RE: Better LiveTV timeshift visual feedback - Zeflash - 2013-01-14

(2013-01-13, 23:24)FernetMenta Wrote: Absolutely. I think the challenge is how to bring all that information on screen or what info can be omitted. Maybe we should drop EPG times when in timeshift mode. Consider large buffer which allows to navigate back to the previous EPG. Current EPG time would be confusing.

If there is EPG on the backend, it's likely to be accessed via an absolute time; that's something that can be computed whenever timeshift is active. I haven't looked at the PVR addon API but asking for an EPG entry based on a time/date doesn't seem illogical to me, right?

I noticed that XBMC uses a two-level progress bar for timecode feedback. The general consensus on the matter of buffering while streaming something is to show the playing progress as one color while the buffering as the other. In the case of timeshifting, what should happen is to show the "live" point in time as the second level in the progress. That would give some indication about how much in the past the playback is.

Seems to me that the best possible way to do this would be to let the skinners handling the situation as they see fit, by providing them a way to query the EPG based on an absolute time; Return the current EPG entry, start & end time using the current playback time to get timeshifted information; Use the same function(s) with the live timecode to get the present information. And let the skinner decide the best way to present all this to the user.

RE: Better LiveTV timeshift visual feedback - opdenkamp - 2013-01-14

(2013-01-14, 09:42)FernetMenta Wrote: dushmaniac, how do you think about adding a method bool GetDisplayTimes(start, cur, end) to the pvr clients. In case it returns true we use those otherwise fall back to current method.
Only the addons know start/end time of timeshift buffer, hence we need to query them anyway.

it's not just display times, but also the program information that is displayed. but indeed, this needs some new api calls on the pvr interface to query timeshift buffer status too.

RE: Better LiveTV timeshift visual feedback - opdenkamp - 2013-01-14

(2013-01-14, 11:13)Zeflash Wrote: If there is EPG on the backend, it's likely to be accessed via an absolute time; that's something that can be computed whenever timeshift is active. I haven't looked at the PVR addon API but asking for an EPG entry based on a time/date doesn't seem illogical to me, right?
this information is already cached locally, no need to call the add-on

RE: Better LiveTV timeshift visual feedback - omriamos - 2014-01-30

Hi,

I've got here after some search about the very buggy timeshifting (seek back and forth in the watched-buffer) feature of XBMC, even Gotham (using WMC-Server and the built-in pvr client plugin).
I see that this thread is over a year old... Any updates? Smile

EDIT:
You should update the keyboard.xml file in order to at least make it useable:
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=150022
But still, a visual feedback is missing...

RE: Better LiveTV timeshift visual feedback - Namerp - 2014-02-01

It would be great if we could have an consistent control at movies and tv. Step Forward/Step Back should be the same as it is at movies. FastForward/FastRewind is more confusing than helpful.

RE: Better LiveTV timeshift visual feedback - tungmeister - 2014-03-29

Has any progress been made on this?

RE: Better LiveTV timeshift visual feedback - omriamos - 2014-03-29

A couple of months ago I switched back from XBMC to MediaPortal for its TV functions (when I originally moved from MP to XBMC I didn't use the TV module at all...).
The difference (in the TV department) is overwhelming. Much much more stable, faster, better UI by far, consistent control between TV and everything else...

I'm sorry... I guess haters gonna hate... Smile

RE: Better LiveTV timeshift visual feedback - puenktchen - 2015-01-19

(2014-03-29, 17:12)tungmeister Wrote: Has any progress been made on this?

+1
Any progress?

RE: Better LiveTV timeshift visual feedback - krustyreturns - 2015-01-19

I too would love to see this in kodi. It would make a huge difference in user experience with kodi pvr. We would support it with our backend in a second if it were available, but then its easy for us - I know the heavy lifting is on the kodi side for this feature.

RE: Better LiveTV timeshift visual feedback - omriamos - 2015-05-28

Hi again Smile
I came back to Kodi since Isengard, finally we have Skip steps and consistent controls.

However, still waiting for some visual time tracking feature, that will show me where do I stand in the timeline. Right now I have no way of knowing if I'm time-shifting 5 minutes back from the live stream, or 2 hours....
Again, MP does that perfectly for years - with a multi-colors progress bar and an indicator for the current location in the timeline.

http://wiki.team-mediaportal.com/1_MEDIAPORTAL_1/18_Contribute/7_Skins/Skin_Architecture/Skin_Controls/Tvprogress