Is there a way to continue to buffer live tv even if the channel is changed? I have applied the hack to push live tv buffer out to 2 and a half hours, but it annoys me that MCE stops the live tv buffer if you change the channel and starts buffering the new channel.

It is quite annoying and has caught me out a few times and was wondering if anyone had a work around or reghack or something so MCE always has that longer buffer full, even if you change channels.
Thanks

Sorry, I don't believe there is any way around this.

 

---

MCE2005 (Reluctantly decided not to upgrade to TV Pack - will see if 7MC fixes the issues) | AMD64X2 3600+ | 1Gb Ram | 3x500Gb SATA | Hauppauge PVR150 | nVidia 7300LE silent GPU | Pig ugly big black case | Virgin Media cable | Xbox 360 wired extender

hit the record button


that's the only way

If you hit the record button you cant change channels though. An example of why this would be good would be while the news is on I like to flick over and watch the simpsons during the ad, but still keep the news for the wife to watch.

sure you can

unless you only have 1 tuner

hrm
there's just basically no way around it with the current MCE versions

I don't think you can with any current media htpc type software (it might even be a limitation of the tuner implementation)

If you only have one tuner this is impossible no matter what kind of software you run. To do this you will have to be tunning two channels at once.

The feature of dual live buffers is something that I hope MS gets right some day.  Tivo has been doing this since they had dual tuners and it's a great feature.  I know you can always hit record but that's not always a practical thing.  Sometimes you don't realize you need this until you flip back and realize you missed something and you should have hit record before you changed the channel.

Most DVR's from the Cable Companies (like the Scientific Atlanta boxes used by Time Warner) do not keep dual buffers.  The buffer is there only while you are watching that channel live.  You can watch a recorded show and the buffer will keep going (a functionality that Media Center lacks), but as soon as you tune to another live channel it loses the buffer.

If you have 2 tuners it really is not that huge a deal to press record before you jump around, IMHO.  The only caveat to that is that Media Center does not record your whole buffer which sucks.  It will only record from that point forward so pressing record may not truly get you what you want either.

---

My Network Project - Media Center Blog

Try Spyn Doctor's "Timeshift Buffer backup Utility", see this thread: Spyn Doctor's Add-Ins for Vista - Timeshift-Buffer Backup and others...

It works really well, it records the entire timeshift buffer (or optionally from a specified point) including all channel changes. Definitely worth a try. Extremely useful if you're timeshifting a program and then accidentally change channels.
-edit-
Oops, I didn't realise that this was the XP forum; there's also an XP version of the same tool, see this thread: Spyn Doctor's Add-Ins - Timeshift-Buffer Backup and others...