WMC resume recorded show

[GryWolf]

Hello everyone - great forum - a ton of good information. I've just recently started using WMC on my PC that is running Win 7 pro with a HD homerun dual OTA tuner. So far I'm pretty impressed with how well it works. I do have two questions I have been unable to find the answers to, either here by searching or by searching other forums. If I stop watching a recorded show and do something else in WMC, like watch live tv, and then come back to the recorded show, I see the "resume" option for the show and it picks up where I left off. If I close WMC and then restart it and click on the same show the "resume" option is gone replaced by "play." Is media center unable to remember where I left off at if I close the program? My other question is similar. It would be regarding using XBOX 360's as extenders. If I watch part of a show on an extender and then go to watch the remainder on the HTPC or on another extender I only have the "play" option no "resume" option. Is resuming from an extender not supported in WMC? Any help or information would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

 

[dsperber]

If you start playing a recorded show on an extender (or the HTPC), and then stop it and move to another location (either another extender, or to the HTPC from an extender, etc.), and then select that same recorded show you were previously watching and stopped, you will see "resume". That's because when watching a recording when you stop it a "bookmark" is created for where you last were when you were viewing that recording and interrupted it.

So this is "record once, watch anywhere, and continue watching anywhere". You're offered "resume" or "start" (i.e. begin from the beginning again).

This is obviously not the same thing if you're just watching a "live" program on any of your possible display locations, selecting that program from the Guide or just "live TV" and browsing through channels. When you stop watching live and move to another location, it's just brand new watching "live" TV again. There's obviously nothing to be "resumed".

But if you're asking about recorded programming, then the answer is that you SHOULD be able to resume watching from where you left off, at any location in your house supported by the HTPC or an extender. And closing WMC and then re-opening should have nothing at all to do with this capability, no matter whether you were watching on the HTPC and then stopped it and closed WMC and re-opened WMC on the HTPC and selected that program you'd interrupted, or whether you just move to an extender location and select that program you'd interrupted. The "bookmark" is universal and you should ALWAYS see the "resume" option if you interrupt watching a recorded program and the re-select that program later.

Your described behavior, both from WMC on the HTPC and WMC on the extender, is NOT how WMC normally performs. Interrupting playback of a previously started recording should ALWAYS set a bookmark, and re-selecting that recorded program from anywhere should ALWAYS present "resume" as one of the playback options, no matter where this is initiated from and where it was previously being watched.

 

[GryWolf]

I didn't know the term was bookmark, but what your describing is exactly how I expected WMC to behave. So it would seem for some reason if I close WMC out the bookmark is deleting. If I leave WMC open and do other things, watch a different recorded show, watch live tv, etc. I am able to resume. So it seem to be at least creating the bookmark at first. But every other time, like when I close and re-open WMC, resume does not present as an option, only play does. So I'll do some searching to see if there is a solution for WMC not saving book marks. I hope I find the fix, I really really want to dump TiVo and buy a cable card tuner. But to keep the "wife approval factor" I'm gonna need to figure out the resume issue. Thanks for you reply, being new to WMC I wasn't sure if I was experiencing an issue with WMC or if I just misunderstood how it was supposed to work.

 

[dsperber]

I didn't know the term was bookmark

To be honest, I'm not sure that's an official term. I kind of made it up myself for use in this context, because "bookmark" used in other contexts to convey this functionality is very common. So even if it's just a generic term applied here to what WMC is doing, I think we will all understand each other if we use that term as regards the "resume" feature behavior. And that's really what is important.

but what your describing is exactly how I expected WMC to behave. So it would seem for some reason if I close WMC out the bookmark is deleting. If I leave WMC open and do other things, watch a different recorded show, watch live tv, etc. I am able to resume. So it seem to be at least creating the bookmark at first. But every other time, like when I close and re-open WMC, resume does not present as an option, only play does. So I'll do some searching to see if there is a solution for WMC not saving book marks. I hope I find the fix, I really really want to dump TiVo and buy a cable card tuner. But to keep the "wife approval factor" I'm gonna need to figure out the resume issue. Thanks for you reply, being new to WMC I wasn't sure if I was experiencing an issue with WMC or if I just misunderstood how it was supposed to work.

My nephew just two weeks ago acquired an HD Homerun for OTA use, in anticipation of completing a larger HTPC build to incorporate a Ceton 4-tuner card, cablecard enabled.

He, too, wanted to do a "proof of concept" in order to prove he could satisfy his "customer" (aka wife and kids) before just throwing out his current U-Verse setup. If WAF reaches the minimum acceptable level he plans to then subscribe to Comcast and use the Ceton tuners for Comcast-provided programming and the HD Homerun for OTA use.

Anyway, since he actually has the same device you have and for the same purpose, I will ask him specifically if he sees the same unexpected "resume behavior/failure" on interrupted recording viewing depending on whether WMC is left open or not. He also has four xBox extenders, so this should all be very similar to what you've got in your setup.

I'll let you know what he says.

 

[GryWolf]

Thank you for the help, but I've had an odd development. While searching for a solution I found the world of plugins for WMC. Wow there are some really great ones. So I found a plugin that shows recorded shows with nice DVD cover art for each show. I won't mention the name of it, because it's a paid app and I don't wanted to advertise for it.

Anyway I installed this plug in so I'd have a nice album cover view for my recorded shows......and yeah resume started working??? I played a show for 5 minutes, closed WMC and re-started and resumed worked. I restarted the PC.......and resume worked. I went and watched the show on a Xbox 360 extender......and resume worked. I'm guessing this plug in reset something in WMC that enabled bookmarking?! Heck I don't know what fixed it, but it works fine now.

 

[dsperber]

Fascinating.

I can only attribute your experience to the use of HD Homerun as your outboard OTA tuner, which I myself have no experience with.

I don't need any addon/plugin to see thumbnails of my recorded programs. I have a pure WMC setup with internal (a) ATI TV Wonder 650 PCI 1-tuner card, for OTA/ATSC, and (b) Ceton 4-tuner cablecard-enabled tuner card, for TWC/LA cable programming.

And my WMC setup (with no 3rd-party plugins, aside from MyChannelLogos which adds logos to the Guide as well as increasing the number of rows shown in the Guide to 10) does exactly what I want (I have my recordings sorted by <TITLE> and then "view list" (rather than "view large").

This give me an alphabetical "folder view" by program name, with a major "folder" for each recorded program that contains all recordings of that program inside that "folder", sorted into reverse recording date sequence with the newest one presented first.

Again, no 3rd-party plugin required to present thumbnails. It's automatic from the program data provided to Microsoft by Zap2it and then out to my WMC system from Microsoft twice a day.

(1) Highest-level folder view, alphabetical by program name:

(2) internal within a folder, reverse chronological sequence (newest first):

Nevertheless, if your implementation of that 3rd-party plugin gave you thumbnails for your recordings that you never had before, excellent.

More importantly if something associated with its install kick-started your "resume" behavior to now work as it clearly should have been working before, even more excellent!!


Regarding that 3rd-party plugin, are you describing an additional "album art" cover that appears in the deep-down "synopsis" information screen when you push the "i' (information) button on the remote? I do see that for movies I've recorded it's just a generic icon of a disc in a case, perhaps implying this was a "movie". But for sure it's not a meaningful picture associated with that movie.

For TV recorded programs, that "program details" shows a canned photo that looks like a promo shot for that show.

But for movies it's just the generic disc-in-case icon.

Is that what this plugin provides? An "album art" cover for movies? You can give its name here, don't worry.

So you do or do not have the same high-level program thumbnails in "Recorded TV" that I do, through your HD Homerun setup?

 

[GryWolf]

Actually the plug in gives you a new option from the main menu in WMC. It says recorded hd tv. When you click it you see all your recorded shows as if they were digital pictures of DVD cases with the covers you'd see as if they were retail DVDs. When you click on the DVD case it shows you the details of each episode, but the background changes to a full blown fan art of the show. Kind of like XBMC does, if your familiar with that application. I do agree, the important thing is that it fixed whatever the issue was.