How does my DVR record entire shows even if I don’t start recording until about half way through? For example: I usually have the Today show on in the background. If a story happens to catch my eye/ear, but I don’t want to sit down at watch it at the time, I’ll just hit record. When I go back to watch that segment later, it starts at the very beginning of the whole show. How does this work? How does the DVR “go back in time” and record what’s already been broadcast? Yes, I’m kind of dumb with stuff like this. Surely I’m not the only one who doesn’t get it.
Well, if it’s a TiVo it’s always recording. TiVo keeps the last 30 minutes of the current station in it’s buffer at all times (unless you change the channel, then the buffer has to fill back up). This is what gives you the ability to rewind ‘live TV’. When you hit record in the middle of a show, it grabs everything in the buffer, up to 30 minutes, and saves it, then adds on the rest of the show. You’ll find that if you have a show on that’s more then 30 minutes and hit record after the 30 minute mark, you won’t have the beginning.
I assume other DVRs do something similar.
I think that, basically, it’s always recording, just in case. It keeps the last half hour, say, of whatever you’re watching. If you decided to officially record the program, it hangs onto what it already has recorded and appends to it, instead of eventually discarding it.
What Joey P and Sunspace said. The show you’re watching is always being written to disk, and will generally save at least the past 30 minutes (more if there’s space on the hard drive). If you’ve got 2 tuners, and aren’t recording anything else, it’ll often keep the buffer going even if you change channels & come back. But change channels twice, then come back to your original show, and the history will most likely be gone.
Yep, it works exactly how Joey P explained it. That’s why if I’m in the middle of a show and have to leave the house and want to record the rest of it, I will first jump up a channel then go back down to the original channel before recording to clean out the buffer. That way when I go back to finish the show I don’t have to FFWD through the part I’ve seen.
Aren’t some DVR systems cloud-based and run by the same company that provides your TV feed? They could obviously give you anything they’ve broadcasted, on one of those.