With "other" DVRs, if I tune to a show, and watch a few minutes, and decide I like the show, I can hit record and it starts the recording from the spot I started watching (i.e., the beginning of the rewindable buffer I already have collected), but with Channels-DVR it appears that it starts the recording from whenever I hit the "Record" button.
It would be a lot nicer if it merged the existing buffer of the show to the recording it's making. Probably just have to dump off the buffer, and merge it on the back-end with the stream that was recorded from the point in time that the user pressed Record.
This isn't presently possible. The reason is that the buffer is on the client, but the recordings happen on the server.
That does explain why there are several quality of life features not already available. Things like being able to toggle between tuners / channels and maintain the buffer / pause status of what you're watching. One of the best features about watching live TV on a multi-tuner DVR had always been the ability to toggle between tuners during commercial breaks, without the fear of missing what you were watching.
It probably wouldn't be a herculean effort to enable this feature by having the client ship the buffer back, asynchronously, to the DVR server when the recording is initiated. It could be limited to local clients only, to prevent having to bridge a WAN connection. There might be some other issues that present themselves, like persistence of the client (i.e., I'm watching a show for ~ 10 minutes or so, decide to record the rest, then turn off my TV/device. It might not have enough time to dump the data before powering down). I imagine there might be some other significant hurdle to holding that data in buffer at the server, but seeing as how that's how watching something that's currently being recorded is handled today, I can't see why it couldn't implemented to be an option to buffer at the server to give us this kind of capability?
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Agreed, and I came here looking for a thread like this. I was just watching a live pursuit on TV news and it suddenly got very exciting so I wanted to save it as a recording, only to realize afterward that Channels doesn't work like TiVo, and I lost the buffer 
My #1 Gripe with Channels DVR is not keeping the buffer from when you start watching if you hit record.
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Even with Tuner sharing On?
The buffer for tuner sharing is very small and it is only kept in memory.
Looks like a bigger buffer is needed for live viewing.
The buffer on the Client still exists even if using tuner sharing. The buffer on the dVR in memory is to feed any clients using tuner sharing watching the same channel.
Seems the most practical approach would be if the DVR started recording in the background as soon as you tune to a channel. This would be separate from whatever buffering is happening on the client. The recording can would be discarded at the end of the show or saved if you hit record. Seems technically plausible, but not likely a simple change.
Making the buffer, on the DVR side, bigger is impossible?
Where it could get fun, is if an entire show is "buffered", it could go to Trash instead of just disappear. That way, you could retrieve it a day later if you decide you want to see it again or save it. I don't know of any other DVR that does that, but it would be cool.
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The way SageTV does it is treat every thing as a recording ... If I start watching a show the server writes it just like it would a recording... If I want to keep it I hit record and it will keep it from when it was started being watched... If not it will be deleted after a while.
If I start watching a 1 hr show and another person in my household starts watching the same show later on they have the option to start watching from when I stated ... also they can save the recording and it will include the whole show.
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Let me time shift without having to plan the experience in advance 
Seems the most practical approach would be if the DVR started recording in the background as soon as you tune to a channel.
Agreed. This seems much more doable than trying to transfer the buffer from the client back to the server.
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Always Be Recording. Just like TiVo.
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TiVo had a lot of really good ideas. That’s why TiVo is still a verb for a lot of people. The business failed, the idea didn’t.
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A final attempt to revive TiVo before it was sold to Xperi:
