TiVo recording strategy

Posted by: tanstaafl.

TiVo recording strategy - 10/10/2004 05:26

I had an epiphany the other day about getting my TiVo to do what I want it to do when recording wish-list programs.

First, a bit of background.

My top priority in my "Season Pass" section is a wish-list for "Auto Racing". TiVo will record any sort of motor race activity ahead of anything else. This is what I want it to do.

However, since virtually every live motorsports event takes longer than the network thinks it will take, I have had to set the season pass options to record the specified program length plus an additional hour. All this works just fine, except...

There is a half-hour kids animated cartoon called "F1 Grand Prix" or some silly thing that is classified as "motor racing" and is thus picked up by my wish list. No big deal, except that sometimes it starts less than an hour and a half before a "real" motor racing program. (half an hour for the show, and the extra hour for the season pass option...) When this happens, it pre-empts the show I want to see.

A similar thing occurs with NBC's "Countdown to Green" show, a 30-minute pre-race show that goes right into the race itself. Because I have the extra hour set in the season pass option, Countdown to Green then pre-empts the motor race itself. I don't particularly want to watch the Countdown show.

So, here's what I did:

I set up specific season passes for "Countdown to Green" and the cartoon show. Not wish lists, but season passes, pointing to the specific show and TV channel. Then, I made certain that those two passes were set to the very bottom of the season pass priority list. Now, since they are seperated from the wish list motor sports recordings, they no longer share the high priority of the wish list, and the wish list recordings trump them.

It would be so much easier if TiVo just had a "negative wish list" function, so I could tell it to never record certain things...

tanstaafl.
Posted by: Cris

Re: TiVo recording strategy - 10/10/2004 06:15

I agree!

For some strange reason m Tivo records The Hoobs on C4 (UK) every morning. It's a kids show not unlike the Teletubbies. I don't watch kids TV, never have on this Tivo, it has 3 thumbs down etc... but it still records it, a feature where I could tell Tivo to never ever record this program would be great.

I have a S1 box being in the UK, so I'm not sure if this has been fixed in the next software or not, but another annoying thing about season passes is that if you have2 season passes boked for show that run back to back sometimes on the same channel, but you have set it to record an extra 5 mins after the show, it doesn't record the second show because it sees it as an overlap. This would be cool if the TV complany keeps the same timetable, but it would even cooler if Tivo was Smart enough to work out the 2 shows are on the same channel.

Cheer

Cris.
Posted by: David

Re: TiVo recording strategy - 10/10/2004 07:01

Have you heard of EndPad? Basically it allows you to set the end padding for all recordings as far as you want, but it does it on-the-fly, so if the padding would interfere with another scheduled recording, it won't do it.

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=136658

I've been running it for six months now and it has proved to be reliable and very useful.
Posted by: tfabris

Re: TiVo recording strategy - 10/10/2004 09:06

Quote:
but another annoying thing about season passes is that if you have2 season passes boked for show that run back to back sometimes on the same channel, but you have set it to record an extra 5 mins after the show, it doesn't record the second show because it sees it as an overlap.

Yeah, agreed on that one. BIG bug on Tivo's part. Having a DirecTivo sometimes mitigates this because it's got two tuners, but I've still run into that problem. I've seen it skip a Deadwood because Sopranos always ran long and I told it to do an extra two minutes after Sopranos. Grrrr.
Posted by: hybrid8

Re: TiVo recording strategy - 10/10/2004 13:49

Marking a specific show with 3 Thumbs-Downs won't cause TiVo to skip it in a wish list? Negative wishlists would be great, but I think it would definitely confuse some users. The Thumbs-down feature seems like it's perfect for extending for a number of these negative cases. Of course it's by specific program ID. A full negative wish list could be made to work by keywords and themes as well.

Bruno
Posted by: tfabris

Re: TiVo recording strategy - 10/10/2004 14:21

Quote:
Marking a specific show with 3 Thumbs-Downs won't cause TiVo to skip it in a wish list?


Correct. Tivo has three categories of recordings:

- Individual shows or series you specifically told it to record.
- Wish list items.
- Tivo suggestions (thing it records all by itself without being ordered to).

Wish lists are in the format of "I want it to always record shows with this actor", or "...director", or "...genre", or "...<keywords>", etc. The thumbs up/down feature only affects the Tivo suggestions, not wish lists.

I agree, this didn't seem to make sense to me at first, until I understood the above. For example, I had a wish-list to record the genre "Science Fiction", but it kept filling the hard disk with Anime, despite my having thumbs-downed every Anime program and thumbs-upped every live action sci-fi program possible.

After removing the wish list, now it seems to know that I like live-action sci fi but not Anime, and puts those shows correctly into the suggestions.

Anyway, I think Doug's work-around is very clever. If I ever run into that situation, I'll remember it.
Posted by: bootsy

Re: TiVo recording strategy - 10/10/2004 16:16

That's a pretty clever trick. I will have to try it...

I have TiVo set to record anything with Ray Charles in it. Unfortunately it insists on recording "The Nanny" as Ray had a recurring part. No number of thumbs down could kill that Zombie.

Plus it records "The Blues Brothers" at least once a week... ugh.

Thanks for the trick!
Posted by: wfaulk

Re: TiVo recording strategy - 10/10/2004 17:03

Quote:
"The Blues Brothers" ... ugh.

Sacrilege!
Posted by: bootsy

Re: TiVo recording strategy - 10/10/2004 17:49

Quote:
Sacrilege!


Heh... Not that there is anything wrong with the Blues Brothers movie. Heck, it even has James Brown in it. I only really need to see it once every five years or so... not every five days!
Posted by: hybrid8

Re: TiVo recording strategy - 11/10/2004 12:35

Tony, it wouldn't be the first thing the TiVo guys got wrong. And, in my educated (especially in this subject mattter) opinion, it's definitely done wrong on the TiVo. Or at least not done as well as it could be done.

The suggestions are "neat" but I turned them off because that's not how I wanted to use the box. This of course made the whole program ranking system (using thumbs) completely useless. Having a wish system without allowing exceptions is dangerous if not wasteful as has been mentioned already.

Anyway this thread pointed out a few things for me which I'll take notice of for a project I'm working on (at work).

Bruno
Posted by: wfaulk

Re: TiVo recording strategy - 11/10/2004 14:14

A friend of mine also disabled the suggestions and I still don't understand why anyone would ever want to do that. They are set so low in priority and retension that they are essentially free space. There's the chance, however slight, that it might record something you're interested in, which seems to me would be good. I've yet to see any drawback.
Posted by: tfabris

Re: TiVo recording strategy - 11/10/2004 14:49

Yeah, I use the suggestions as sort of a live free-space-meter. If there are a bunch of suggestions on my list, that shows me how much free space I've got. If there are hardly any on the list compared to the yellow and green icons, then I know I need to start thinking about cleaning up my list.
Posted by: drakino

Re: TiVo recording strategy - 11/10/2004 14:57

Quote:
Yeah, I use the suggestions as sort of a live free-space-meter.

Does the TiVo not just say "14 hours of recording time left" or similar?

The Replay guide always has this information on the upper right, and when space gets low, shows that will be automaticially deleted first start turning grey.
Posted by: mschrag

Re: TiVo recording strategy - 11/10/2004 15:14

Tony -- do you flag a lot of shows as "keep until..." or something? I never find that I need to explicitly clean up things. It seems to do a pretty good job of that on its own. I don't think I've ever missed recording anything because I had a lot of shows on there, but maybe it's just my viewing habits that keep the list small naturally?
Posted by: robricc

Re: TiVo recording strategy - 11/10/2004 15:44

Quote:
Does the TiVo not just say "14 hours of recording time left" or similar?

No, it doesn't which is extremely stupid.
Posted by: drakino

Re: TiVo recording strategy - 11/10/2004 16:02

Quote:
I never find that I need to explicitly clean up things. It seems to do a pretty good job of that on its own.

I manage my Replay manually quite a bit. If I watch a show, I delete it soon after. If I let the auto delete take care of things, I'd likely miss shows. I tend to let several episodes build up before watching them all. For example, I was recording all of the Stargate Atlantis shows, but only got around to watching them over a weekend about two weeks back. Had I let them sit, the first few would have been deleted for being one of the oldest shows on my unit.

If it could be told to delete based on if I had watched them or not, then age, I'd let it manage things on its own.
Posted by: mschrag

Re: TiVo recording strategy - 11/10/2004 16:05

Yeah I think I wasn't clear enough in my comment .. I should say that I DO manage my shows in that I delete them when I'm done watching, but I don't think I've ever gone in explicitly to remove unwatched shows. Maybe I AM missing a bunch of stuff and don't realize it, but I think it would only be suggestions that I would be missing, since TiVo generally tells you when it's not going to be able to record something you want. I suppose it's possible there are cases where it told me it wouldn't be able to record somethin,g but then by having the extra clear space it is then able to.
Posted by: tfabris

Re: TiVo recording strategy - 11/10/2004 16:23

Quote:
Tony -- do you flag a lot of shows as "keep until..." or something?

Yes.

Quote:
I never find that I need to explicitly clean up things.

Well, I don't need to, but unless I do, stuff that isn't explicitly saved ends up scrolling off before I get to watch it. Keep in mind that I share a Tivo with a kid who likes to save a lot of things. 30 hours goes quick when your copies of Mythbusters and Duckman are competing with her copies of SpongeBob and Kim Possible.
Posted by: tonyc

Re: TiVo recording strategy - 11/10/2004 16:32

Quote:
If it could be told to delete based on if I had watched them or not, then age, I'd let it manage things on its own.

Hmm... I wonder if DVArchive might have a way of telling if you've watched a show yet, and might be able to help out in this regard...
Posted by: Dignan

Re: TiVo recording strategy - 11/10/2004 17:48

Quote:
Anyway this thread pointed out a few things for me which I'll take notice of for a project I'm working on (at work).

Ooooo... I'm hoping for a replacement for the terrible GuidePlus! software.
Posted by: tanstaafl.

Re: TiVo recording strategy - 11/10/2004 23:00

There's the chance, however slight, that it might record something you're interested in,

In my experience, at least 80% of what my TiVo records "on spec" for me is stuff I'm interested in watching.

That probably just proves I am not very discriminatory in my viewing habits.

tanstaafl.
Posted by: wfaulk

Re: TiVo recording strategy - 11/10/2004 23:13

Unfortunately, when you watch a lot of sitcoms and animated stuff, the hit rate goes way down. It decides that I'm interested in any sitcom or animated program. Even ones in Spanish. I've given every Spanish program it records three thumbs down and it just won't clue in. (And, yes, I know I could tell it that I don't get the Spanish channels, but I like to look at the pretty ladies on occasion.)
Posted by: hybrid8

Re: TiVo recording strategy - 11/10/2004 23:31

TiVo doesn't offer any type of management for the Now Playing list. Therefore, any recording that I didn't ask for is adding clutter and confusion when trying to browse the already growing list. Plus I didn't have the patience to delete recordings for a couple of weeks or months before I stopped picking up crap. Even then, a lot of the stuff I watch might make it go out and record a bunch of other stuff I really don't like. I've had a look at the Tribune data they use (and documentation) and I'm pretty sure what the basis is for their suggestions.

Bruno
Posted by: hybrid8

Re: TiVo recording strategy - 11/10/2004 23:36

I don't have a kid... And even I have a 200GB drive in my TiVo. Another thing TiVo doesn't do is multiple profiles for different viewing habits of different household members. You need multiple units, and with SAT that means multiple LNBs and more than likely a multiswitch (since it's nice to have two connections to each box).

Bruno
Posted by: Dignan

Re: TiVo recording strategy - 12/10/2004 00:32

Quote:
TiVo doesn't offer any type of management for the Now Playing list.

The standalone Tivos do have a few ways of managing the recorded shows, but it's limited to grouping. I'm pretty sure there's a way to order recordings alphabetically, too, but that would drive me nuts with a lot of recording space.

So technically, yeah, you're right. It would probably be better if wishlist shows were grouped inbetween requested recordings and suggestions.
Posted by: wfaulk

Re: TiVo recording strategy - 12/10/2004 12:11

Quote:
TiVo doesn't offer any type of management for the Now Playing list.

Well, it does a little. I can alphabetize the list, but...

Quote:
any recording that I didn't ask for is adding clutter and confusion when trying to browse the already growing list

Huh? It sounds like you had a TiVo at one point, and you should know that all the "suggestion" recordings are at the very bottom of the list, after everything that's been explicitly recorded.
Posted by: Dignan

Re: TiVo recording strategy - 12/10/2004 12:24

Quote:
Huh? It sounds like you had a TiVo at one point, and you should know that all the "suggestion" recordings are at the very bottom of the list, after everything that's been explicitly recorded.

I was ready to post this exact same reply, then remembered that he might be talking only about wishlist items, which I believe get grouped with the normal recordings.
Posted by: wfaulk

Re: TiVo recording strategy - 12/10/2004 13:22

The "any recording that I didn't ask for" phrase would seem to negate that assumption, but I understand.
Posted by: Dignan

Re: TiVo recording strategy - 12/10/2004 15:44

Yeah, that sort of includes both, but I though he may have been talking about just one type of recording you don't ask for
Posted by: Daria

Re: TiVo recording strategy - 12/10/2004 17:15

Wishing is a form of asking, right?

Like, boy I wish I had enough money laying around that I could buy an electric van this weekend.
Posted by: lectric

Re: TiVo recording strategy - 13/10/2004 11:08

Ya'll REALLY need the new software. If for nothing else than groups. All programs from eash wishlist get stuck in a group. All season passes go in a group. All suggestions are in a group (at the bottom). You get the idea.

As for showing a meter of how much time you have left, that depends entirely on what quality you record at, unless it's a DTivo.
Posted by: Dylan

Re: TiVo recording strategy - 13/10/2004 14:41

Quote:
A friend of mine also disabled the suggestions and I still don't understand why anyone would ever want to do that.


I turn off the suggestions because it changes the channel when I don't want it to. I like to leave the music channels on as background and then suddently it will be blaring some obnoxious commercial. Another time the suggestions get in the way is when I'm watching football on Sundays. Normally, I'll delay sporting events and use the time to skip through commercials. But I have the NFL Sunday Ticket and I like to flip around between the multiple games live. It's annoying to go to the other tuner and find my buffer gone and something stupid being recorded.

I used to wade through the menus to constantly turn on/off the suggestions. But this got annoying and the suggestions so rarely found something I wanted that I leave them off now.
Posted by: wfaulk

Re: TiVo recording strategy - 13/10/2004 14:53

Well, that's fair.
Posted by: Daria

Re: TiVo recording strategy - 13/10/2004 14:59

That's a good reason. It doesn't fit many (I won't even go as far as most) people's usage patterns, though. I must admit I'm sort of tempted to set up on TiVo that way and use it for live TV, but I almost never watch live TV anymore.
Posted by: hybrid8

Re: TiVo recording strategy - 15/10/2004 14:04

The problem is likely that I've only ever run software older than the versions being run by people here. First 2.5 and then 3.0/3.1 I believe. Remember that I'm in Canada, so I don't have the luxury of being abl to update to the latest versions if I still want to be able to use this box.

When I first turned off suggested recordings, they were being inserted along with other recordings in chronoligical order in the Now Playing list. There was no way to alter that list, including re-ordering it in any way. Nor were there any features provided for searching local content which is a necessity if you have a lot of programming on a 200GB+ drive (or 400 or 600GB as some people can/do now).

I'm in NYC right now working at the DigitalLife consumer show. At this moment I'm actually in my hotel room getting ready (or not I suppose) to work an afternoon shift at our booth. Dish Network has a small little booth right next to us and TiVo has a small little pod toward the back of the hall somewhere. I'll pass by to take a look, but I doubt I'll bring anything up. I'm sure they've heard the Canadian plea a few million times.

Bruno
Posted by: wfaulk

Re: TiVo recording strategy - 15/10/2004 14:21

I've had a TiVo since version 1.1.3 (or something like that) and I've never seen it place suggestions anywhere besides the very bottom of the "Now Playing" list. (That is, until they implemented the alpha sort, and that was recently.)