Can I record programs from the live TV buffer?

Yes. you can create recordings from the Live TV Buffer.

If you’ve been watching a live television show for awhile, use the on-screen remote control to navigate to your desired start point by rewinding, jumping or erasing the timeline. Then click the red record button. To end your new recording, navigate to the desired end point, and click the red button.

If you know that you’d just like to record the show that is currently playing on screen — no need to navigate to the beginning of the show. Control-click the player window, and select Record > Current Show from the contextual menu. EyeTV will record as much of the current show as is present in the live television buffer.

Using the context menu to record the buffer (Current Show or Next Show) will not work in Canada, or other countries that don’t have a Program Guide built into EyeTV.

Once the recording has finished, EyeTV automatically assembles the recording from the pieces of the live buffer by compacting them together into one recording.

There are some factors to keep in mind when you want to record from the Live TV Buffer.

If you have been channel surfing, the live television buffer contains data from different channels. In some cases, newly created recordings can contain video from different channels. Playing recordings in EyeTV or exporting to formats such as iPod should work without any issues. Exports of mixed-channel recordings to MPEG Program Stream, DivX, and Windows Media may fail or contain audio artifacts. To work around these issues, individually export the different channel sections within the recording.

Recording within the Live TV Buffer will not work if you have set the live TV buffer in RAM. To change this, go to EyeTV’s Recording Preferencesand click the Change button under Live TV Buffer. Uncheck Keep in RAM and click OK.

If you decide to stop recording before the recording catches up to where you had been watching in Live TV, your recording will be longer than you expect.

For example, you’re watching a program and 10 minutes into the program, you decide you want to record it. You set the recording to start from the beginning of the program. Then you decide you only want the first six minutes, so you stop the recording. However, the recording duration will be 10 minutes, not six minutes. This is to ensure that you don’t lose any footage that you may be interested in, since the Live TV Buffer will be erased after you record it.

You can trim off any unwanted footage in the Editor – the place where you stopped recording will be marked. Drag the marker to the end, or mark the section you wish to keep and export the clip.

Recording from the Live TV Buffer is not supported with the original EyeTV USB.