This issue is also visible when recording a block of shows back-to-back. For example, if one wanted to keep/record 10 episodes of Frasier and set it to record on Cozi TV, the evening blocks of multiple episodes back to back will repeatedly kick the viewer out to the guide as each recording ends. In this case the test was using Safari under macOS Mojave.
My spousal-approver has been reporting this issue and I saw it happen yesterday. She is watching a show via whatever menu she likes, and at the end of the show the video stops and a “show has ended” popup happens, and she has to click ‘dismiss’ and go back to grid guide and reselect the channel/next-show-on-channel. Possibly this is due to watching initially by clicking something other than the channel number so I will inform her of this possibility.
I’ve seen similar behavior on Roku using Philo streaming service. If watching a CHANNEL, there are few, if any, interruptions. If watching an episode of a SHOW, there are odd (but brief) stoppages here and there. Not buffering. Like it’s treating each SHOW as a separate recording (which they are) and one has to stop and the next has to start. Or we get kicked out to the guide and have to start another show when the EXPECTED behavior is for it to just play the next show on the channel.
Also saw the same type of behavior, though manifested a little differently during a one month trial of YouTube TV.
The conclusion I’ve come to is that only live TV is live TV. I mean… Live TV as provided by a antenna-direct-to-the-TV connection. Anything coming off of a streaming service or device is still streaming. Which means processing in some fashion has to happen in order to deliver the content.
And NONE of them … at least none of the ones I’ve tried, and I’ve tried several… is completely continuous and seamless like direct-from-antenna live TV.