Tvheadend

Hi Mark,
My experience is that once Kodi has got the end of time line I.e. 15 mins in in your case, it will stop and return to the menu. To my knowledge it doesn't do 'chase play' like a proper PVR. I maybe wrong but I can only go on what I have seen with NY own setup.

In my case it doesn't appear to be displaying the end point correctly. As I can continue to FF past the end point.
I am using V 4.0.9-7

The reason is because Kodi treats playing of Live TV different from playing Recorded TV. When playing Live TV, Kodi treats the video as a constant stream, and if it reaches the end of its current buffer, it will simply go the end of the buffer and then continue waiting for the stream to continue.

• Non-Live TV media (included Recorded TV) is assumed to be constant/stable, so it doesn't bother checking to see if its size/duration has been modified since the beginning of playback. This is why when you start watching an hour-long program 23 minutes into playback, the duration listed in the OSD is 23 minutes, not 1 hour. (There is a slight exception to this that I have noticed with Tvheadend, but not other backends like MythTV: when the playback reaches the 23 minute point and beyond, the pvr.hts addon will update the duration of playback to match your current position beyond where is was when you started.)
• You cannot seek beyond the end of playback: In Live TV, when you seek beyond the end the existing buffer, you are placed at the end of the buffer to continue receiving the live stream. However, with finite media (such as Movies, TV Shows, and Recorded TV) when you seek beyond the end of the file, playback ends. This is why if you FF or seek beyond the current live position of a recording-in-progress, the playback ends and you are returned to your Recordings list (or wherever you last were in the Kodi interface).

There is also another weird interface bit: In the Recordings screen in Kodi, the duration listed is what the EPG duration for the recording was, not the actual Recording itself. If you have set additional pre- or post-recording padding (such as one might do for a sporting event), this extra time will not be displayed in the Recordings list. However, when you start playback of Recorded TV, the OSD duration reflects the actual duration of the recording because it is reading the file itself, not its database entry.

I know this seems a bit long winded, and it can be odd to understand. One would assume that all Live TV and Recorded TV would be handled similarly, but that is not the case in Kodi. Live TV is considered special, but Recorded TV is merely seen as a different type of finite media, more akin to Movies and TV Shows and not related to Live TV. While this may not align with what a common user might expect, it is how Kodi currently handles it.

(There are some big changes coming with how Kodi handles files and streams in 18, but those changes are not slated for 17. While there are PVR improvements coming for Krypton/17, the situation with the differences between Live/Recorded TV is not one of them.)

Thanks very much Robert for your explanation it makes perfect sense. I have a 5 min buffer on all my recordings. I am guessing when I am playing back the program which is still currently recording, my 5min buffer is not added to the time line, which is the reason for me being able to continue to FF.

Robert Cameron wrote:

(There are some big changes coming with how Kodi handles files and streams in 18, but those changes are not slated for 17. While there are PVR improvements coming for Krypton/17, the situation with the differences between Live/Recorded TV is not one of them.)

Hi Robert,

Kodi 18 is almost there and I think changes have been made in this area. Will it be possible to FF or seek beyond the current live position of a recording-in-progress WITHOUT ending the playback automatically? Will the difference between Live and Recorded TV be gone?

Greetings,

Wim

Wim K wrote:

Kodi 18 is almost there and I think changes have been made in this area. Will it be possible to FF or seek beyond the current live position of a recording-in-progress WITHOUT ending the playback automatically? Will the difference between Live and Recorded TV be gone?

It's been several months since I tested Kodi v18, but for the most part it worked pretty well.

I use TS containers for my recordings, and while watching a recording-in-progress (accessed through the Recordings screen in Kodi), the duration of the program would continually increase to show the length of the recorded portion of the program. Alsio, when fast-forwarding or otherwise seeking to the end (or beyond the end) of the recording-in-progress, playback would not stop, but rather resume from the current "live" position of the recording-in-progress. (Sometimes—perhaps 50% of the time—I would experience audio sync issues when playback resumed after trying to seek beyond the current "live" portion of the recording, but a quick press of "left" to go back a few seconds allow the video and audio to re-sync.)

Now that Kodi v18 has released their third alpha (and with the next release most likely being beta1), I imagine the situation has improved and stability is better. (The reason I am no longer using v18 was because of stability issues; perhaps I'll look into upgrading once the beta releases appear.) Another benefit to using v18: if you are running Tvheadend 4.3 instead of release/stable, season/episode information is also available to the Recordings in Kodi and not only provided by Tvheadend for live viewing/EPG only.

Robert Cameron wrote:

Wim K wrote:

Kodi 18 is almost there and I think changes have been made in this area. Will it be possible to FF or seek beyond the current live position of a recording-in-progress WITHOUT ending the playback automatically? Will the difference between Live and Recorded TV be gone?

It's been several months since I tested Kodi v18, but for the most part it worked pretty well.

I use TS containers for my recordings, and while watching a recording-in-progress (accessed through the Recordings screen in Kodi), the duration of the program would continually increase to show the length of the recorded portion of the program. Alsio, when fast-forwarding or otherwise seeking to the end (or beyond the end) of the recording-in-progress, playback would not stop, but rather resume from the current "live" position of the recording-in-progress. (Sometimes—perhaps 50% of the time—I would experience audio sync issues when playback resumed after trying to seek beyond the current "live" portion of the recording, but a quick press of "left" to go back a few seconds allow the video and audio to re-sync.)

Now that Kodi v18 has released their third alpha (and with the next release most likely being beta1), I imagine the situation has improved and stability is better. (The reason I am no longer using v18 was because of stability issues; perhaps I'll look into upgrading once the beta releases appear.) Another benefit to using v18: if you are running Tvheadend 4.3 instead of release/stable, season/episode information is also available to the Recordings in Kodi and not only provided by Tvheadend for live viewing/EPG only.

Hi Robert,

I just tested with 18 alpha 3 and indeed it works! Yesssssssss. That's great isn't it?

Thanks for the info,

Wim