How to pause live television on your Roku TV system
When using an antenna or connecting cable TV without a set-top box, add a 16GB USB flash drive to your Roku TV™ system and pause live digital broadcast television for up to 90 minutes using Live TV Pause. If you forget to pause and miss an important scene, Roku Live TV Pause allows you to rewind and catch up.
- Note: Roku Live TV Pause is only available when watching "over-the-air" broadcast TV from the Live TV input. It is not available when watching live streaming TV from The Roku Channel.
How does Live TV Pause work?
Live TV Pause is only available on the Live TV input of your Roku TV system. A dedicated USB 2.0 compatible flash drive with at least 16GB of storage is required for your Roku device to record live TV. As soon as you tune to a digital channel, Live TV Pause begins recording up to 90 minutes of live television.
To pause the program, press Play/Pause 
on your Roku remote. Even if you do not pause live TV, you can press Rewind 
at any time to rewind the current channel up to 90 minutes, or to the point where you first tuned to that channel. When you tune to another channel, leave the Live TV input, or power off the TV, the place where you paused the program will be lost.
After being paused for 90 minutes, playback begins automatically.
USB Flash Drive Requirements
Live TV Pause requires a USB 2.0 compatible flash drive with at least 16GB of storage. 16GB is the minimum size required to hold 90 minutes of paused TV. USB drives larger than 16GB will not increase the amount of pause time. The USB drive is used only to pause live digital broadcast television and cannot be used to store recorded programs for future use, or for transferring to another device.
- Warning: Live TV Pause will reformat the USB drive and everything on the drive will be erased. Later, if you wish to use the drive for something other than Live TV Pause it will need to be reformatted. During reformatting the drive will be tested to ensure that it can read and write fast enough to support live video recording
How to set up Live TV Pause
Follow the steps below to connect a flash drive and enable Live TV pause on your Roku TV system.
Connect a USB flash drive to your TV
Plug the USB drive into a USB port on the back or side of your Roku TV system.
- If your TV has a single USB port, then you will need to alternate USB drives to use Live TV Pause and play personal media (photos, music, and video).
- If your TV has multiple USB ports, only one USB port can be used for Live TV Pause. When formatting, only the USB drive for Live TV Pause should be connected to any of USB ports. After formatting completes, you can insert a different USB drive into another USB port for playing personal media.
After the USB drive is inserted, you will be prompted to reformat it. A message may prompt you to launch a media player, select Don’t launch.
How to enable Live TV Pause
Before you can enable Live TV Pause you need to first set up the Live TV input on your TV. After Live TV is set up, you will be prompted to set up Live TV pause.
If you have already added the Live TV input to your TV, use the following instructions to enable Live TV Pause.
- Press Home
on your Roku remote - Highlight the Live TV input and press Star
to open the Options menu - Select Set up Live TV Pause
- Follow the on-screen instructions to complete setup
How to disable Live TV Pause
Unplugging the USB drive will automatically disable Live TV Pause.
How to fix issues with Live TV Pause
You can get help if the video is blocky or blacks out when using Live TV Pause or the paused video is lost after the screensaver appears.