New UI makes watching live TV difficult

[ERamseth]

If I have a recording in progress and want to watch whatever’s being recorded from live, I now have to go from live view and scroll the channel list.

Previously I could go into discover, click into the show that is recording, go left off the list, and go directly to the show playing at live position by tuning into the channel it’s recording from.

This is something I particularly would do for live sporting events.

Now, if you go into discover, click into a show… you get the new episodes UI. I do like the new UI, but there doesn’t seem to be a way to jump to live on a channel something is actively being recorded from.

This is a step backwards in functionality, despite a step forward in aesthetics.

Can you work in a way to go directly to live position on an actively recording program by tuning in live to the channel it’s recording from.

Note that this should be in the live tv viewer, not the recorded playback UI, as tuning live to a show should allow access to the guide and slice, not simply the playback controls.

[nickk]

If a show is being recorded it shows in the episode list and says "Recording in progress" for the record date.

You can play the recording in progress like any other recording by clicking on that recording.

[ERamseth]

This starts playback at beginning of recording though. And does not take you to live TV view (which would include guide and slice)

[ERamseth]

Basically there are a lot of times I will have a baseball game, football game, soccer game, hockey game, basketball game, or round of golf recording…

I know the event is on but I don’t know what channel.

I see the tile for the recording on the recording screen.

I go to discover and the tile for the recording is at the top, which is expected and good.

I click on the tile.

In the old UI:

I see a list of current and future baseball games (for example).

I scroll to the one I want to watch which is currently also being recorded (easily identifiable by the red dot).

I can see which channel it’s on.

I can also move left to get a little button that allows me to watch it live by tuning into the live feed (whether this is technically being played directly or off the tail end of the recording on disk makes no real difference to me as a user).

When I click this button it goes to the channel in the typical live view UI (with slice and guide available).

This is about as good as it gets from a ux perspective. The only gripe I’ve ever had with this is that when there are a lot of baseball games on or basketball or football… the list of games loads up slowly.

In the new UI

The current event or game (or show or whatever) is the main feature in the layout. This is fine.

If I click it and it’s currently being recorded it starts playback from the beginning of the recording (or perhaps where I left off watching, but that’s a rare scenario for a live sporting event… if you’re trying to catch up to live while speeding through the action, you’re probably not backing out unless you’re switching devices)

I cannot immediately see what channel it’s on. If I click right I get a menu that tells me what channels.

In the right-pop out menu if I click where it says “Now - Ch 584” for example, I expect that would get me directly to the live feed of that channel. Instead it brings up the recording settings. <— I think this might not be the intended behavior.

Note that when I do all of the above on an episode or event that is NOT currently being recording, the “Now - Ch XXX” option in the pop out menu in fact does take me to the live feed of that channel in the live tv viewing UI.

Instead I have to back out to the main screen, click on live tab, and scroll to the channel that I saw on the other screen (not super great to have to remember the channel number).


I don’t want to sound super overly critical. The new episodes UI looks great and it’s very nice to have things grouped by episode or event (for instance, the same event may be on multiple channels… SD, HD, or 4k… different languages). Previous UI had them all listed individually which was not great.

If you can look at the item I flagged for possibly unintended behavior I think that addresses the original issue I brought up.

An improvement might be to have the channel name next to channel number in the right click pop out menu. I know off the top of my head for instance that 84 is SD and 584 is HD and 1496 is 4k. Or that 593 is the early golf channel coverage while 504 is the NBC coverage later in the day. But this is not a great thing for the casual user to have to memorize.

I have other edge cases to discuss but I will save for another thread.

[nickk]

In the right-pop out menu if I click where it says “Now - Ch 584” for example, I expect that would get me directly to the live feed of that channel. Instead it brings up the recording settings. <— I think this might not be the intended behavior.

Problem reproduced - it should go to Live TV but it incorrectly brings up the rule editor if there is a recording in progress. It will be fixed on Monday.

[ERamseth]

In the right-pop out menu if I click where it says “Now - Ch 584” for example, I expect that would get me directly to the live feed of that channel. Instead it brings up the recording settings. <— I think this might not be the intended behavior.

Problem reproduced - it should go to Live TV but it incorrectly brings up the rule editor if there is a recording in progress. It will be fixed on Monday.

Awesome. Thanks for looking into this.

[ERamseth]

Did this get rolled back? It’s back to not showing “Now - Channel ***” on the pop out (right arrow) menu.

[nickk]

Did this get rolled back? It’s back to not showing “Now - Channel ***” on the pop out (right arrow) menu.

It is working for me.

Note that the recommended episode may be a recording (if you have DVR recordings) and not live.

[ERamseth]

I’m not seeing it working at all.

It will say something like “now recording on channel 577” but the pop out menu will not have an option to jump to that channel.

[NedS]

It looks like we don't show the option in the right-hand menu when there is only a single channel showing that program. In that case, selecting the episode (without going into the right menu) will switch to the live TV channel.

[ERamseth]

If it’s recording it starts from the beginning… and it starts from recorded playback view, not live view.

[NedS]

Live and recording, gotcha. I will let the devs know.