Overlap Protection?

[rdlaub]

I received a Tivo newsletter in my email yesterday which had this section:

New TiVo® service feature!
Get 'em both with Overlap Protection™: In the past, if two of your favorite shows overlapped by a minute or two, you could only record one or the other. Now, with Overlap Protection™, your TiVo® box can record both shows back-to-back by clipping just enough from the end of the first show or the beginning of the second show, based on which has the higher Season Pass priority in Season Pass Manager.

Has anyone else seen this? How does this work. I don't seem to have this ability on my Tivo.

[Chapper1]

I was wondering the same thing

[janry]

I got the same newsletter. Since I have a series 1, I figure I'll get left out.

[MissLynn]

I recently bought a Series2 Tivo. My Tivo upgraded the software to 7.2 earlier this week. I have the overlap protection and I tried using it yesterday. It worked for me. Some of the programs I often record run over several minutes so this is a great feature.

[Slicker]

If you don't have the feature yet, you will soon. When you get the latest software upgrade, Tivo will show you a message that you have received an upgrade, and tell you about the overlap protection.

It uses the priority list to decide which show is clipped, and which is recorded in full. If you don't like the one it chooses, go to Season Pass Manager, and reorder them, giving the show you want in full a higher priority

[juanian]

If you don't have the feature yet, you will soon. When you get the latest software upgrade, Tivo will show you a message that you have received an upgrade, and tell you about the overlap protection.

It uses the priority list to decide which show is clipped, and which is recorded in full. If you don't like the one it chooses, go to Season Pass Manager, and reorder them, giving the show you want in full a higher priorityFor anyone that has the feature, is there any notation somewhere (like in the History) that a show is being clipped?

[TiVoJerry]

If you want to make sure you get this feature sooner, you can now sign up to get 7.2.1 using our priority list at http://research.tivo.com/72.1priority/.

[juanian]

Hopefully, somewhere, there will be a better description of exactly how the new clipping feature works. Is it only for shows that normally run a minute or two (or three or five) over, and/or does it apply to manually padded start and stop times? Also, is this a feature that has a setting to enable (or disable) it?

Here's an example: I like to watch Punk'd, but the start/stop times on MTV are horrible, so I pad extra time on my season pass. Since the shows are broadcast many, many times, I have the season pass set to a low priority, and eventually a showing of a specific episode will be recorded with the padded times. Will this new feature cause a problem with this (recording one of the earler showings of this low-priority season pass and removing the padding)?

I know that this overlap problem has been causing heartache ever since networks have been juggling times. Hopefully this new feature has been well thought out and will make nearly everybody happy. (Drat -- shoulda been on that beta team!)

[TivoGeezer]

I just got this update on one of my TiVos. I had not even heard about it but this is one of the most requested features since I first started following the forum. This is excellent news! I'm giving TiVoPony a big kiss tonight when I see him for dinner! :D

[juanian]

Hopefully, somewhere, there will be a better description of exactly how the new clipping feature works. Is it only for shows that normally run a minute or two (or three or five) over, and/or does it apply to manually padded start and stop times? Also, is this a feature that has a setting to enable (or disable) it?

Here's an example: I like to watch Punk'd, but the start/stop times on MTV are horrible, so I pad extra time on my season pass. Since the shows are broadcast many, many times, I have the season pass set to a low priority, and eventually a showing of a specific episode will be recorded with the padded times. Will this new feature cause a problem with this (recording one of the earler showings of this low-priority season pass and removing the padding)?

I know that this overlap problem has been causing heartache ever since networks have been juggling times. Hopefully this new feature has been well thought out and will make nearly everybody happy. (Drat -- shoulda been on that beta team!)Just got the update last night. Yes, the overlap protection also covers padded programs. Plus, if a show overlaps, the 'clipped' show shows with an asterisk in the To Do List. Unfortunately, not all clipped shows get tagged with an asterisk.

After the upgrade, I checked my To Do List, and found an overlap (Punk'd was overlapping a show, and the other show was being clipped.) So, I changed the Season Pass of Punk'd to the end of the list, waited a while, then checked my To Do List. Unfortunately, it is clipping the padding of that episode of Punk'd and worse: Punk'd is not listed with an asterisk in the To Do List. My TiVo has scheduled that episode of Punk'd, and has changed my "Start Recording" padding to "On-time", with no notification to me.

So, now I can't quickly check my To Do List for an asterisk to see if I have an overlap -- I must check every episode of Punk'd (and every other show that I have purposefully added start/end padding to) to see if it has had its padding time changed.

A possible solution is to change my padding time to be outside of the maximum overlap that will be clipped. Unfortunately, this is 5 minutes (and not changeable by the user). So, I would need to add 10 minutes of padding at the beginning and end of my Season Pass (making these 30 minute episodes 50 minutes). Quite a waste! :mad:

I also have a block of Punk'd episodes that are being shown, and (one of my problems in the past) is that every other show would record, and not every show (which would be fine, since I could watch the end of one show which would be recorded at the beginning of the next show). Unfortunately, Overlap Protection™ doesn't clip for same priority shows, only lesser priority shows (oh well).

OK, now for the part of Overlap Protection™ that I like (hey, I'm not normally a sourpuss!) -- when scheduling an individual recording, you can now schedule a recording that will overlap other recordings. Now, I think I have seen some posts in some threads complaining about which show is being clipped, but if the show being clipped is not the desired show, it is (fairly) easy to go to the show being clipped and force it to be fully recorded (which will make that show not be clipped). The only disadvantage to that is if the show changes (ie. is removed from the program guide, is rescheduled to a different time, or has the episode changed), TiVo will not reflect that change (which will screw up recording the proper episode).

So, will I leave Overlap Protection™ turned on on my TiVo -- no, not in its current form. But I will use the ability to force overlapping programs to both be recorded on occasion. Now all I need to do is fix all the shows that were supposed to be padded that had padding removed (not extremely difficult, but a minor pain nonetheless).

EDIT - After a short while, the padded shows that were clipped did get removed from my To Do List - no additional effort needed on my part.

[Resist]

So basically the overlapping feature is an automated version of manually adding a few minutes to your shows, for network time adjustments.

[bedelman]

So basically the overlapping feature is an automated version of manually adding a few minutes to your shows, for network time adjustments.Actually, it clips from a lower priority conflicting show -- it does not add any minutes at all

Previously, there was no way to have a show start later or end sooner than its scheduled time. (Well, there still isn't a way to do this with the Recording Options, but Overlap Protection can result in a show starting later or ending sooner)

[Resist]

I guess I'm just all confused about what it does then. Okay so overlap protection has nothing to do helping record shows when the networks change the start and stop times by a few minutes. I get so sick of missing the ending of some shows by them doing this.

[pdhenry]

I guess I'm just all confused about what it does then. Okay so overlap protection has nothing to do helping record shows when the networks change the start and stop times by a few minutes. I get so sick of missing the ending of some shows by them doing this.Overlap protection helps in the following instance.

Assume that program A is in the 8-9 timeslot and program B is in the 9-10 timeslot. You have a seasons pass for both program A and program B. Now assume that the execs decide that program A will now run from 8:00 PM to 9:01 PM (probably they add a minute of commercials somewhere since maybe it's a higher rated show than the show that follows). It used to be that TiVo would see the one-minute overlap in the guide data and decide that it couldn't record both shows (they're scheduled to be on "at the same time"). Now TiVo is smart enough to see that the overlap is only for a couple of minutes and so it adjusts to catch both programs (or as much of both as it can).

I'd prefer to also have an option to always clip from the beginning of the second show or always cut off the first show, since having to tweak your SP priority list every week could become a hassle.

As an aside, I've read around here that once TiVo decides to clip an episode, it will remain clipped even though you adjust or remove the conflicting show from your ToDo list. This may be why some clipped shows don't always shw an astersk in the list.

[billyacc]

So does this work with Tivo Basic?

[Raech]

Thanks for the link. One of my tivos upgraded to it today the other did not. I forced a call and still no beans. So I signed it up so I have the new software on both soon. Cos I don't like having the feature on just one. Grrrrrrrrrrrr..... :rolleyes:

[viperfin]

Program A runs on channel 1 from 8:00 to 9:01. Program B runs on channel 2 from 9:00 to 10:00. Program A is set to a higher priority. Neither Season Pass involves padding.

Result is that Program A records for full 61 minutes. Program B records for 59 minutes (the 1st minute was "clipped"). So far so good (I think).

Here's my questions.
--If Program B (same episode) airs on channel 2 an hour (or day or any other inteval) later that doesn't conflict with another (higher priority) Season Pass item, will the tivo record the re-airing (because it can now include the coveted 1st minute)? Or only if Record All With Duplicates is enabled because, perhaps, the clipped episode is considered to be a full episode for tivo's scheduling purposes?
--If the subsequent re-airing is recorded, is the initial recording deleted from Now Playing because it is redundant? Does it matter whether whether the Season Pass is set up to KUID or KUSN? Or perhaps only the 1st minute of the re-airing recorded?
--If the 59 and 60 minute airings of the same episode are both recorded, do they both count toward the Keep at Most limit?

I really like the concept of the Overlap Protection feature, particularly as it relates to a sporting event set to a lower priority; I'd rather be able to watch bits and pieces (even if not contiguous) of a game than to not have it record at all just because there is a half-hour program with higher priority that overlaps it.

[Slicker]

For anyone that has the feature, is there any notation somewhere (like in the History) that a show is being clipped?


shows that will clip have a * in the ToDo list

[Resist]

Why doesn't Tivo just put another tuner in the stand alone units so this isn't even an issue?

[spelcheker]

Maybe someday we'll even be able to end shows early or start them late.


Nahhhhhh.

[Mike20878]

Why don't they ever introduce stuff like this for Series 1? Aren't there enough of them out there to justify continued support?

[mick66]

Why don't they ever introduce stuff like this for Series 1?

Because thay are done with series 1 machines and have been for several years.

Aren't there enough of them out there to justify continued support?
They seem to think not.

[casey2_10003]

Can anyone help with this clip problem?
I have a seasom pass of "Lost" - on the top of my priority list. Tonight it ends at 10:02. I set Tivo to also record "Law & Order" which starts at 10:00, I don't have a season pass of "Law & Order."

Why does my Tivo show that it's going to clip "Lost?" a show that I have a high priority season pass for? I'd prefer it to clip the first 2 minutes of "Law & Order". I can't seem to adjust this.

Any suggestions?? Thanks.

[pdhenry]

One-time recordings are higher priority than Season's Passes. The lower priority show is the one that gets clipped.

If you don't want to clip Lost you can manually record Law & Order by time & channel to start at 10:02.

Probably you can also set up a Season's Pass for Law & Order and place it at a lower priority than Lost. This would cause Lost to clip L&O.

[casey2_10003]

ah.... one-time is higher than a SP show. I thought it would be reverse. I would do the manual record option for L&O but Tivo doesn't allow me to start at 10:02 - but rather 10:05. Annoying...
So to save all of Lost, and just miss the first 2 minutes of L&O - I'll set up a SP for L&O. Seems like a lot of extra work for a show (L&O) I didn't necessarily want a season pass for,
thank you for your reply!

[Jonathan_S]

ah.... one-time is higher than a SP show. I thought it would be reverse. I would do the manual record option for L&O but Tivo doesn't allow me to start at 10:02 - but rather 10:05. Annoying... You should be able to add padding to the beginning of the 10:05 episode to get it to 10:02 (or at least closer to 10:02 - I don't remember if 3 minutes earlier is an option).

But that is still a bit of a pain.

[GBL]

You can get TiVo start recording at 10:02 by setting it to start at 10:05 and then to start 3 min early.


PS: what Jonathan_S said (faster than me).

[casey2_10003]

genius! thanks... i just set L&O for manual start at 10:05 plus 3 min early!

but in the todo list... Lost still has the * next to it. it just might not have gone away yet. thanks!

[juanian]

And in the "better late than never" category . . .

I think that if, after you have "manually" scheduled L&O (not by using "Manually Record Time/Channel" but just by telling the TiVo to record, just like you had done), then go to the To Do recording of Lost, then going to Record as Planned=>Options, then choosing "Record episode with these options" (effectively making this episode a manual recording), you should now find that that episode of Lost will now cause that episode of L&O to be clipped.