Of course instead of cutting out the previous/current program, permanent timeshift could as well buffer into seperate files for each program, but still obeying the pre- and post-recording times, resulting in overlapping recordings. This could also work around the audio gap problem by opening this || that recording for the overlapping time, depending on the direction of FFWD/RWND used to get to this point:
PAUSE/UNPAUSE within the overlapping time should always switch to the later recording.
This could be potentially dangerous and definitely very often limiting. At the end of each event it would need to do 2 recordings at once and thus consuming twice as much resources. In case current events are short and pre- and post- times long enough, you can end up by even more than 2 recordings at the same time.
It was just a suggestion and is potentially easier to accomplish than "on-the-fly" cutting.
However, it's the result that matters and that should be the possibility to create proper recordings of programs that have already started or even ended from timeshift.
Proper means, the recordings must still have the pre- and post-recording times obeyed as you would hardly ever get a complete program without them.
However, the first step would still be a working timeshift. PTS cannot be considered working due to the audio gaps in between programs, because they do not really occur in between programs as they are actually broadcasted but at the time they should have ended and the next program should have started, which never ever matches that exactly.
It works somewhat for movies when the end credits are fully broadcasted and/or a commercial break follows (audio gap occurs within the commercial break or during the end credits), but is useless for programs ending rather "hard" with the next one following instantly (audio gap within the program).
As German private stations tend to
- remove end credits
and
- have no or just a very short commercial break between programs (They would make it easier to zap away, so they put the breaks inside the program instead)
the likeliness is near 100% you will have the audio gap at some annoying place.
I stopped using PTS when I had to get a whole movie elsewhere, just to be able to listen to the last sentence that I missed on TV due to PTS silencing it.