TV Recording
You can record digital TV programs with a USB DTV dongle (sold separately) plugged into your DiskStation. Before proceeding to record your favorite TV programs, please make sure you have plugged in a dongle compatible with your DiskStation and performed a thorough channel scan.
For the complete list of supported DTV dongles, please visit Synology's website.
Note:
- Only DSM admin or users belonging to the administrators group can set up a TV recording task. Other users have no access to this function.
- The maximum number of tuners that can be connected to DiskStation is eight. Please note the number of tuners supported by each individual dongle varies. To confirm, please consult the User's Guide that comes with your DTV dongle.
Channel Scan
You as DSM admin or users belonging to the administrators group must perform a complete channel scan before starting to record TV programs.
To perform a channel scan:
- Go to the TV Recording tab, and click Channel Scan.
- In the window that appears, set up the following settings. Once finished, click Scan to start.
- Tuner: Depending on the model of DTV dongle, the number of supported tuners varies. Select the tuner you want for channel scan. Note that channels available for the selected tuner may be different from one to another. Every time you veiw TV program guide, record programs, set up the recording schedule, or select channels for live streaming, you need to select a tuner from the Schedule drop-down menu first, so that you can manage options corresponding to the selected tuner.
- Country/Region: Select your country and region (if applicable). You cannot scan channels for a place where you are not located.
- Signal type: This option is only available for the HDHomeRun tuners. Select a TV signal type available in your location.
- A progress bar will appear in the middle of the window indicating the percentage of completion of the scan. It may take a while for the scan to finish.
TV Programs
Once the channel scan is complete, you can choose to stream or record channels available on the channel list on the left panel at Schedule > [Dongle name] > Program Guide according to your preference.
Programs of different modes are indicated by the following icons/colors:
- Blue: Programs highlighted in blue have been scheduled to be recorded but the recording has not started yet.
- Red: Programs with a red circular icon are being recorded now.
- Green: Programs with a green play icon are being streamed and watched.
- Gray: Programs grayed out have stopped being broadcast and cannot be selected to stream or record.
To record programs:
- Click the TV Recording tab, and go to Schedule > [Dongle name] > Program Guide.
- Select a channel from the channel list on the left panel, and scroll down or up in the main area to browse through available programs of the selected channel. You can click the forward/backward arrow to view other programs of the selected channel broadcast on other dates. Programs aired before today are not available for selection. You may click Refresh to refresh the onscreen listing of upcoming programs. However, this action cannot be performed if any TV program of the selected tuner is being recorded or streamed by other user.
- Select the program(s) you want to record, and do either of the following:
- Click Record > Record. Press and hold Ctrl or Shift for multiple selections. The selected programs will appear under the Recording Schedule tab.
- Click Record > Set up repeat schedule. In the window that appears, tailor the repetitive recording schedule for the program to your needs.
- Click OK to apply your settings.
Note: A program whose broadcast time conflicts with another cannot be selected for recording. Only one program can be scheduled for recording during a time slot.
To manage recording tasks:
- Click the TV Recording tab, and go to Schedule > [Dongle name] > Recording Schedule. Programs which have been selected to be recorded can be managed here.
- Do either of the following:
- If you want to cancel a recording task which is now being recorded or has not started, select the task from the list and click Cancel Recording.
- If you want to remove multiple recording tasks in the past, whether complete or incomplete, click Clear to remove all past tasks from the list.
Recording Settings
Recording settings can be configured with the option to enable or disable priority of TV program recording over live streaming. You can also specify how long you want to capture prior to/after record start/end.
To manage recording settings:
- Click the TV Recording tab, and go to Settings > TV Recording.
- In the Recording Setting section, do either of the following
- If you want to record and live stream the same digital TV program at the same time, whether Make TV recording take priority over live streaming is ticked or not makes no difference, because recording and streaming can be performed concurrently when it comes to the same TV program.
- If you want to record one TV program and live stream another, do either of the following:
- If you want to stop streaming a program when recording schedule of another program starts, tick the checkbox.
- If you do not want the streaming of a program to be interrupted by another program when its recording schedule starts, do not tick the checkbox.
- Specify how long you want to record before and/or after the recording of the program starts and/or ends in the fields.
- Click OK.
Note:
- If you scan channels again after the first scan is completed, the streaming service, existing channel list, and all recording schedules, both ongoing and to-come, will be canceled. Please proceed with caution.
- If one of the users with administrative privileges is scanning channels, you are not allowed to stream or record any programs. Please wait until the scan process is finished.
- Live streaming and recording can be done simultaneously only on the same channel if only one DVB-T stick has been plugged into the DiskStation. For more information about the streaming service, please see Streaming Service.