Record live TV on Windows

Recordings are files on this PC, and only on this PC. They are never uploaded, never listed in the web console and never visible to us; that boundary is deliberate, and architecture and privacy explains it.

1. Schedule from the guide

Pick a program in the guide and choose to record it. The recording starts and ends by the guide’s own times, with an automatic margin on both sides (between one and five minutes, proportional to the program’s length), so a broadcast that runs slightly over is not cut off.

If the PC was off or the app closed at the scheduled start, what happens depends on the clock: a program still airing starts late and is marked as partial, so a short file reads as started-late rather than broken; a program already over is marked missed, and you are told, rather than the app recording whatever now occupies that channel under the booked title.

2. Or record what is playing

Recording the current channel captures the stream as it is received, without re-encoding, so the file keeps the original quality and the work costs very little CPU.

3. Find the recording

Finished recordings appear in the app with a thumbnail taken from the recording itself, and are ordinary video files in the folder chosen under Settings, in the recordings and storage section. That folder can be anywhere this PC can write to, including a network folder. Because they are ordinary files, they survive uninstalling the app and can be played by anything.

What recording cannot do yet

One program at a time: recording every episode of a series with one rule is not available yet. Recording on the Xbox app is not possible at all, and the reasons are on what this app can’t do.