Record live TV
Debrify has a DVR. Record whatever is on now, set one from the programme guide, or schedule a channel and time yourself — then play it back in the app.
What it does
The Recordings page is the DVR in one screen, in three zones:
SCHEDULED — what is queued, counting down
LIBRARY — what is finished, ready to play
There are three ways in: the Record button while watching, a Record chip on a programme in the guide, or the Schedule button here for a channel and time you choose.
Record what you are watching
The quickest route. Play a live channel, bring up the controls, and press Record — the button becomes Stop while it captures.
Debrify confirms with “Recording in background — keeps going if you zap or leave.” That is the important part: the capture has its own connection, so you can change channel, close the player or leave the app and it carries on. Stop it from the player, the notification, or the Recordings page.
Stopping saves what has been captured and tells you the size. Nothing is discarded because you cut it short.
Schedule one by hand
- Open Settings › Live TV & DVR › Recordings and choose Schedule.
- Pick the channel — the list holds your starred and saved channels.
- Choose the date, then the start time.
- Choose how long: 30 minutes, 1, 2 or 3 hours, or Pick end time…. A 5 minute option exists for testing.
Debrify confirms, or says plainly why not — the time has passed, that slot is already scheduled, or it would exceed your simultaneous-recordings limit.
How many at once
Simultaneous recordings defaults to 2 and goes up to 4, under Settings › Live TV & DVR › IPTV Playlists. It governs live and scheduled recordings together, and exceeding it is blocked when you schedule rather than dropped quietly later. Raising it means more simultaneous connections to your provider.
Watching what you recorded
- Finished recordings appear under LIBRARY. Press OK or tap to play in the app.
- Delete with the bin icon; it asks first.
- On a computer, Show in folder opens the recordings directory.
Which devices can record
The DVR is not available everywhere. Debrify hides the Record buttons rather than showing ones that fail, so an absent button is the answer, not a bug.
- Android and Android TV — the full DVR. Recordings run even with the app closed, and schedules fire on their own. Android 9 and older work too, but ask for storage permission the first time you press Record.
- Windows, macOS and Linux — recordings run while Debrify is open and the computer is awake. A schedule only fires if the app is running.
- iPhone, iPad and Apple TV — not available. Apple does not let apps capture streams in the background or wake on a schedule, so a DVR cannot be built there.
If you want a DVR that runs unattended, an Android TV box is the device that does it.
Which channels
Recording now is permissive — the player works out the format itself, so most live channels qualify. Scheduling is stricter: at the appointed time nobody is watching and there is nothing to probe, so it needs a stream Debrify knows in advance is a direct TS or Xtream feed. Anything else can still be recorded by hand while you watch it.
If a recording stops early
- “A recording stopped early.” The phone put Debrify to sleep mid-capture. The banner offers the fix — exclude Debrify from battery optimisation. It appears only when a recording was actually cut short, not as a general nag.
- “Exact alarms are off.” Scheduled recordings need permission to fire at an exact time; the banner links to the setting.
An interrupted capture still keeps whatever it managed to record.
Good to know
- Recordings are ordinary files in
Downloads/Debrify/Recordings— copy them off with a file manager whenever you like. - A recording over six hours is queried before it is accepted, since that is usually a mis-set end time.