This is the English version of the German homepage for the VDR plugin Permashift, implementing permanent timeshift.
Permashift is a plugin for the Video Disc Recorder (VDR) by Klaus Schmidinger. It is recording the current video channel to a ring buffer in RAM, so the user can rewind any time when watching live TV or create an instant recording containing the part already been watched. In both cases the video stored in RAM is saved to hard disc.
The current version of Permashift is 1.0.4.
Caution
Permashift can be configured to use more RAM than most VDR machines probably have got, up to 6 GB. If VDR or any other programs run instable or choppy with Permashift, RAM usage should be lowered in the options. Preconfigured is 100 MB which should not be a problem for most of all machines.
Additionally, Permashift uses hard disc thrice at once when rewinding from live TV: the buffer must be written to disc faster than rewinding needs it, rewind reads data and of course, live TV must be saved as well. This did not create problems for me, but if direct rewinding doesn’t work well due to slow hardware, saving on-the-fly can be disabled in the options.
Prerequisites
The plugin needs a patch to VDR main code. Contained in the plugin package are patch sets for VDR 2.0, 2.2, 2.4 and 2.6.
Download
The plugin can be downloaded at Github: https://github.com/eikesauer/Permashift/releases. It has to be compiled by the user.
Usage
Permashift doesn’t need any user attention to work. In the options you can set the maximum amount of RAM used, if saving is done on-the-fly and you can disable the plugin. Permashift has been translated to English, German, Russian, Finnish and Dutch.
With active Permashift, you can directly rewind from live TV. Doing so switches VDR to replay mode, so remote key meanings change accordingly. How far rewinding goes depends on the size of the buffer (and how long you’ve been watching the programme, obviously).
When you are starting an instant recording, the already watched programme will be included in your recording as well. It will be extended to the usual lenght of instant recordings, counted from the time you’re initiating the recording. If such recordings are deleted automatically is subject to the VDRs settings (Recording => Delete timeshift recording).
Translations
Would you like to see Permashift in your own language? Easy! There is only a handful of texts to translate. Just write your translation as a comment at this page or send an e-mail to eike sitting at ein-eike.de.
Here the texts…
* „Permashift out of memory!“
* „Press key to continue permanent timeshift“
* „Auto-buffer live TV“ (Description)
* „Enable plugin“ (Option)
* „Memory buffer size“ (Option)
* „Saving buffer blocks rewinding“ (Option)
(This means that pressing rewind results first in saving of the whole buffer and rewinding has to wait for that time. To be honest, I found that hard to express that short even in my mother language…)
* „Maximum recording length (hours)“ (Option)
Optimally, to fit on SD TV screens as well, the options and the decsription should be below 35 characters if possible.
Comments?
I do like getting comments. No matter if it worked or not, please let me know. Suggestions are welcome as well, though I do not promise anything.
I get almost constant permashift out of memory message. I have assigned 2GB memory to permashift on a 4GB box. It is especially annoying when I rewind and then after stopping recording changing the channel. In this situation permashift never gets enough memory
You might check free memory without Permashift running with „free -h“ on the console. If only VDR is running on your box, 2 GB sounds reasonable. Nevertheless, on „out of memory“ messages, _always_ try turning down memory usage settings. If 2 GB doesn’t work, try 1, if 1 GB doesn’t work, try 500 MB. You might also check if disabling saving on-the-fly helps. And you should have a look into the system’s log files for suspicious messages.
This said, Permashift works fine here with a 5 GB buffer filled to the max (several hours of SD TV) and saved on-the-fly on my 8 GB (developing) box.