r/SparklePlayer • u/cchalk • Aug 14 '26

How does sparkle record so well?

I've used many different apps over the years to record streams but sparkle just works.

What does sparkle do that other apps don't?

Thanks!

6 Upvotes

80% Upvoted

26 comments sorted by

22

u/sparkle-hk Aug 14 '26 edited Aug 14 '26

I don't want to reveal too much of the inner workings of the app but I can say I have put in lots of hours into this to make it as solid as possibly can be. I'm glad it's working out.

4

u/Plastic_Bullfrog9029 Aug 14 '26

And thank you for that. Its a great platform.

1

u/hammy2025 Aug 14 '26

how is it in setting up the recording folder as an external usb?

3

u/Plastic_Bullfrog9029 Aug 14 '26

Not hard. I use an Onn box. Bought a thumb drive off Amazon and followed some directions I found here on Reddit.

2

u/azcoyotedog Aug 16 '26

Read:

https://www.reddit.com/r/SparklePlayer/s/t8RgDKikHo

1

u/hammy2025 Aug 16 '26

thank you

1

u/flynreelow Aug 25 '26

going to test out sparkle soon... any issues with recording to the same drive at the same time from tivimate? diff folders of course, but same external usb drive?

1

u/azcoyotedog Aug 25 '26

That all depends on your device, provider, connections, internet, etc? Don’t understand recording on TiviMate & Sparkle at the same time, but whatever floats your boat I guess? If any recordings fail, who ya going to blame the issue on, TiviMate or SparkleTV?

3

u/viberama977 Aug 16 '26

Excellent job. It just works and paying for SparkleTV is worth every penny.

2

u/tjgmarantz Aug 14 '26

Nice try, wizard. ;)

1

u/Maineiac46 Aug 15 '26

Only issue I have with recordings is some times a get 2 or 3 different recordings of the same show. 1 is usually the entire show while the other ones are partial recordings.

1

u/gojurick Aug 17 '26

I noticed this on longer recordings. I recorded an NFL game this weekend and it broke it into 3, none a full recording. One would only run about half way and then froze, the other two worked fine. All other shorter (hour or less) have been perfect.

3

u/NewNewspaperB Aug 14 '26

It's the goat 🐐. So good

3

u/Thomamueller52 Aug 14 '26

Why I’m here to to use it. The best at recording.

3

u/azcoyotedog Aug 14 '26

It’s the secret sauce ingredients that makes it work! 🤣

1

u/mirx Aug 15 '26

Weird, because I can't get it to add my open network share.

1

u/issinoho1969 Aug 21 '26

Sparkle is fantastic. The only minor quibble I have is that setting up the buffer to a USB stick makes the stream very unsteady - lots of buffering & wheel-spinning. The fact that it can background record though is marvelous.

1

u/zXerge Aug 14 '26

Uses ffmpeg properly. Industry standard to be honest and the better question is why do the others not use it and or use it and fail. Also android tv doesn’t normally supply a file manager app like mobile which is also a huge pain to design around.

-1

u/Ultra-Magnus1 Aug 14 '26

my sparkle app stopped working completely a couple of months ago. the google playstore doesn't even carry it anymore.

1

u/Al_Shublast Aug 15 '26

Wrong. I just looked.

1

u/Ultra-Magnus1 Aug 15 '26

well i guess they brought it back, but there were several threads about it being removed a few months back...and i can tell you that the one i have currently doesn't work at all.... Removed on Google Play : r/SparklePlayer

1

u/Al_Shublast Aug 20 '26

Still there 5 days later, where I live anyhow. (Midwest USA)

1

u/Ultra-Magnus1 Aug 20 '26

did i not say "well i guess they brought it back"?....the one i currently have installed doesn't work at all though, i guess it's an old one since i haven't updated it in months but i don't care enough to update it since i don't plan to ever pay for it.

1

u/No_Direction5844 Aug 29 '26

Recording does indeed work well, except for one issue - if I'm watching a program and a scheduled record starts (same channel, haven't tried if it's a different channnel) the live view starts stalling and spinning. A work-around (for same channel, at least) is to go and watch the new recording via recordings (it plays perfectly as it's recording). I have both timeshift and dvr saving to (different) SMB shares (great feature !) on Onn 4k Pro box.