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Ability to Schedule/Delay Downloads for Off-Peak Hours

For those of us who have severe data caps, but have "free time" during off-peak hours, having the ability to add recordings to the queue and delay the downloads until "off-peak" hours (such as midnight to 5:00 am) would be AWESOME.  This option would also be advantageous for households with several users on a network, as it would not bog down bandwidth during the day.

There were several mentions of this on the forum, with some people choosing not to purchase PlayLater due to this feature not being available.  Your product has a LOT of potential - adding an option to have items in the queue record during off-peak hours would be a MAJOR plus for those of us who have limited internet and this option would without a doubt increase your customer base!

21 comments

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    Cowboy77

    Sounds like an excellent request

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    Stephanie Jane Hudson

    Please incorporate this!

     

    Can you let us know if it is on the backlog for the future and how far out it may be?

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    Kobus Engelbrecht

    If we can have this by Monday morning, thanx :-)

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    Sim E Hogan

    +10

    Would use this feature yesterday, and could talk several friends into using playlater if this scheduled download faeture is added.

    please make it so

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    Zack Sargent

    Planned is great, but ... this month? This year? Someday? A rough timeframe would be awesome.

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    MG
    Yes x 1000!
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    Jeff Richmond

    Yes, please!

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    Wesley

    Any chance that we will get an ETA? I would love to see this feature in the very near future. 

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    Sheila Robinson

    Looks like this has been "in the works" for quite some time.  Can you let us know what is holding up the implementation?  Seems there are quite a few folks that would buy your product if only this were available.

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    Bill

    440 days and counting

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    Mark Monnin

    Come on! There's no way this is that hard!  You can't afford one more programmer to work on your "Planned" features which would really REALLY make this software awesome?

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    Hubert Wortham

    Is there an estimated time for a Beta release?

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    Linda Hannah

    I also live out in the boonies and have to use Exede internet service, with a 10GB cap, so being able to schedule downloads within the free zone (midnight-5am) would be ideal.  I actually purchased this software before I moved to the country.  Now I can't use it at all since I can't schedule when to download.  PLEASE implement this asap.  This purchase was a complete waste for me, unfortunately.  I have to use Bittorent instead, since they offer a built in scheduler.

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    David Gronceski

    It's been a while, so maybe lets try a different method like a time fence window as to when downloading can or cannot occur, your choice.

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    Jennifer Muha

    I downloaded a freeware called Mouse Recorder Pro 2. It comes with a calendar feature.
    I started PlayLater and set six videos to record. I then canceled them one at a time (which left the restart and delete buttons)


    I then recorded my mouse clicks 'restarting' each video with the Mouse Recorder. I saved the recorder file and scheduled it with the calendar for midnight.
    Before bed, I choose up to six (I modified the six show file to be a five, four, three, two, and one show file with the Mouse Recorder Pro's Advanced Editor) shows and make PlayLater full screen, schedule the mouse clicks for 11:59 pm and leave my computer awake, with the screen off. Full screen ensures the buttons are always in the same place for the mouse clicks.


    I took about an hour to make the click files perfect, and it sometimes messes up show #6, but it works pretty well.
    I set up Windows Task Scheduler to force shutdown my computer at 5 am, preventing recordings from happening into my 'not free' time.
    It seems a little long and complicated, but it wasn't that hard, it just took a few tries to get it right. Now it takes just a few minutes each night and we are getting quite the collections of shows we've been wanting to watch.

    This method is a bit round-about, but seems to be working for now.

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    James Wilson

    I just bought it and will probably request my $ back due to lack of this feature.  This could not be hard to add!

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    core

    If I had known this feature was missing, I never would have purchased the software.  I'm considering requesting a refund now.

    This has been in the works for TWO YEARS?  Come on, it's not that hard.  This software is useless to me without a schedule feature.

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    Korey Freeman

    We also are using satellite for internet access and our off-peak allocation doesn't begin until 2am.  Considering this software is marketed as a DVR product, after purchasing it I was very disappointed to learn that there is currently no scheduling component.

    In my opinion, this a gaping hole in the product.  How can we "Record the future" without scheduled recordings?

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    Cassdalton73

    I'm very interested in this feature.  I also have not purchased PlayLater because it doesn't have this feature.

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    Preston Davenport

    PlayOn is missing a huge market for the RV crowd.  Many many RVr's are at campgrounds and RV parks that has wifi that is overwhelmed during early evening hours... you can sometimes barely get an email out.  

    So by having PlayOn scheduling for late evening/early morning like our Exede brethren who have data caps the RV folks can record with PlayOn in those wee hours when the park's wifi is not so taxed or burdened and then watch later.

    Also the RV crowd do something called Boondock for a week or so at a time, which means they are out in the wilderness in locations or it can be in an area where there is no infrastucture for any sort of data transmission even cellular data, so when they are at a location where they can record late  at night and then go out into the wilds or "boonies" they can have their PlayOn recordings available for them. I hae been telling my RV friends about PlayOn but they really need this scheduled recording time to be in place in order to leverage non-peak wifi hours in the campgrounds and parks.

    Big big market here...

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    Preston Davenport

    Just got email notice advising this feature  has been implemented:

    Version 4.0.13.13150
    Released 6 Nov 2015
    Fixes, Features and Changes
    - Added Off Peak Queue feature to set time based recording windows

    Just look for the crescent moon when setting up recording... you can then pick your off peak hours

    Thanks Playon!

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