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.
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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. 
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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?
2 Likes
Can the Devs comment on this please?
I'd also like to see the buffer for live TV to be on the server for Tuning Sharing clients.
Part of the appeal of Tuner Sharing is having a single point of distribution to the clients: all clients must talk to the server to get their streams. Since the streams are all coming from the server, it would make sense for the server to maintain the live TV buffer, too. This would allow the server to set the size of the buffer, which might mean that the server can hold a larger buffer than the client.
For remote clients, this isn't as much as a problem as the file sizes are smaller. But for local clients, this means that my live TV buffer is only around 30 minutes, rather than the 90-120 minutes I would prefer.
@RockandRoller70 As has been notated in earlier comments, live stream is buffered to the local disk. Although, it is possible to store what you are watching on your DVR drive if you swipe down and hit the record button.
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That is the reason why I seldom use Channels DVR for LiveTV local buffer is just too small. HdHomerun uses the Server for livetv it only uses local buffer if you do not subscribe to the DVR.