I am curious if there is a way to configure the buffer length\duration for pausing live TV. When I pause live TV it starts playing automatically after about 10-15 minutes.
I would prefer to configure at least 30-60 minutes.
I searched the forums before posting and didn't see any relevant topics.
Thanks
John
The buffer size has an upper limit of 90 minutes but it can only be as big as the available storage on your device.
OTA TV broadcasts are as big as 10GB per hour. Check the available storage on your device and see if there’s anything you can remove to free up some space.
Thanks for the quick reply. I have about 2.5 TB of available space on my NAS so that isn't the issue. I have rebooted the NAS in the past thinking the app may need a kick start but that didn't seem to help.
All of my devices are in the Fire family and I run a Synology NAS, all of which are hard wired on a Cisco gigabit switch. My signal is clear QAM distributed by an HDHR Quattro.
We typically only have one device viewing at a time.
Any other suggestions?
The timeshift buffer is in the client, IIRC, not the server.
Related question, though: if using Tuner Sharing is the timeshift buffer on the server? (And, if it is still on the client, why?)
I don't recall seeing that in the FTV client settings. I will check tuner sharing when I get home.
And the timeshift buffer controls how long I can pause live TV?
Yes
Any plans to use a server-based timeshift buffer for clients using Tuner Sharing. This would greatly extend the buffer on limited storage devices like FireTV.
Putting the buffer on the server would allow for a TON of different, new, and awesome features. It's an extremely significant change that would not just take a long time to implement, but impact our current stability. It'd be like doing this all over again, but also while having to maintain the buffer on the device too for non DVR users.
Because of this, there is no immediate plans to make this change.
Ok, I'm getting confused. Is my FireTV the client or is the Channels app on my FireTV the client?
When you said that I should free up space, were you talking on my DVR\NAS or my FireTV device?
The client is the Channels app on your FireTV. The amount of free space on your FireTV controls how much of a buffer you have.
That's truly a shame, because those features would make for a superior TV/DVR experience.
I guess I don't see much of a difference between this and watching a channel live while it's being recorded. You're already pulling in the stream and saving it to disk ...
That's one of the things I miss about Tvheadend was a unified server/client environment.
Well that might explain things. I purchased a Toshiba FTV edition recently to replace my first gen FTV. Pausing worked fine on the first gen.
I wonder if I can use a USB thumb drive for my buffer.
I have to say that I am disappointed to hear that a change - which would "allow for a TON of different, new, and awesome features" isn't really being seriously considered. Your product is great, but make no mistake, someone will come along and build a better mouse trap sooner or later. Please keep innovating!
Just because I said there were no plans for that, doesn't mean we don't have plans for many other things 
Looking forward to seeing what you have in mind... Happy, as always, to beta new features.
Beware the “Why don’t you just ____?” mentality. In software development, almost nothing is as easy to implement as it might seem on the surface. 
Since moving to Channels from HDHR-DVR, the minimal buffer on my Shield is probably the one thing I feel is a step back. This is because the buffer is not very long. It's only about 15 minutes when I used to have at least 60 minutes. If I pause and leave the room, sometimes it's for longer than I intend and I often hear the program resume playing on it's own once it runs out of buffer.
However, when you say limited to "amount of free space on client", do you mean we're limited to the amount of RAM that the Shield has (3GB) or we're limited to the amount of internal strorage on the Shield. It looks like the Shield has 11gb of usable user storage to start with. RIght now I have 4.1gb available.
If it's the latter, can we point the buffer to utilize additional USB storage or are we only able to use the internal storage?