Tivo suggestions: Good and Bad

[Lupus]

Well, I just got my Tivo today, and set up some wishlists and season passes.

That led to some suggestions. Some of them are bad, because I love House, Tivo suggests a crap load of medical documentaries. If it was other medical dramas like ER, I would understand (but still wouldn't watch them)...but a medical documentary is way out of my viewing range. Well, unless they had Dr House and Dr Cameron in them.

This led me to think that I might end up turning off suggestions. But then, it goes and finds shows and movies that I really wanted to watch, but never would have known to schedule. I had no idea 7 days reruns were back on.

I guess I will be leaving them on. :)

Though the one thing I do wonder, is over time to they really get better (ie: yes I watch Jon Stewart and Jay Leno, but I don't want to see every single talk show on TV). Also, as it gets better does the volume of shows drop? I do like some of the suggestions, but wading through the large number that it suggests can be a bit much.

I don't expect it to do well right away (it is doing well enough already that I am keeping it on)...I'm just wondering if it really does get good at learning over time...and how its volume of shows changes.

[maki]

Congrats on your TiVo! Suggestions are an interesting thing that people tend to put a lot of focus on when they're actually not too big of a deal, and eventually you won't put much thought into them.

The first thing I'd like to address is the way you have your Now Playing List sorted. To keep suggestions out of the way of your programs, and not to mention to keep your programs organized, I like to have programs sorted into groups (directory/folder style). You can change these settings by hitting enter while you're in the list. That'll put all your suggestions in their own folder at the bottom of the list.

I couldn't really tell you whether the suggestions will get better. I personally get quite a few suggestions I like, sometimes turn them into season passes. Of course, there are always shows I find absolutely repulsive (sometimes shows I like and such suggestions are related in a broad way, like "sitcom"). Give it a thumbs down out of rage and hopefully it'll get the point.

As for the volume it really depends on your disk space. When I first got my new 80hr DT I had nearly 50 suggestions for a couple of weeks. Once my season passes started piling up, the suggestions came down to a minimum.

In general I'd say leave them on. If you group your programs suggestions are out of the way, and it's always nice to have an "alternative" show now and then, and maybe it'll pick up something you'd like to see but hadn't thought to record. :)

[etemple]

Yeah, I agree with Maki.
I leave them on, but they are annoying until you have gotten enough thumbs up or down in. First thing I did on my new DT was go through and triple thumbs down paid programming on like four channels so I don't have to worry about that one coming up.

Once the fall rolls round, and regular series start back up again, I almost never have room for any suggestions anyway, but it's still nice to find something different every once in a while.

One thing that it will sometimes do is pick up shows on my wishlists that I didn't program, and that can be cool.

[bidger]

TiVo Suggestions are off on all my TiVos. I can find more than enough stuff on my own to record. Even though I used "Thumbs Up/Down", one unit wanted to record "Rugrats" because I had a SP for "Futurama". Sorry TiVo, "Rugrats" and "Futurama" are both animated series, but that's all they have in common.

[jsmeeker]

TiVo picks up some good stuff for me. I watch it. If I am not interested, I don't watch. Pretty simple. Works nicely. It's a "win-win" situation.

[Werd2406]

Why not just leave tivo suggestions off, but periodically check it every now and then?

[ZeoTiVo]

because I love House, Tivo suggests a crap load of medical documentaries. If it was other medical dramas like ER, I would understand (but still wouldn't watch them)...but a medical documentary is way out of my viewing range. Well, unless they had Dr House and Dr Cameron in them.


this points out something about suggestions that makes it hard to get them accurate. LIke me you record House because of the characters 0 the cynical, sarcastic Dr. House really makes the show along with a good supporting cast.
BUT - you can not tell the TiVo DVR you record House because of the actors/characters so it has to assume it may be several things. So medical shows is assumed as one of those reasons naturally.

one of the things I do is thumb up any suggestion I like (just one, maybe two if I really really like it)
and also thumb down suggestions I do not want.

In your case perhaps 1 thumb down on ER and on some medical documentaries but be careful on use of thumbs down - you want to block shows with it but it might have other consequences. What if the actor who plays House Hosts a Medical Documentary and you thumb it down - now the actor whom you like is on the "bad" list along with the medical documentary.

I aslo use thumbs up - I two thumbs up the Daily Show and now I get that and the colbert report in suggestions. Love the show but the guide data is wacked on it so having it show up in suggestions works for me. Now I have to go thumbs down Carson Daily's late night show though.

It is all a matter of really looking at what a show contains as you thumb them

[pdhenry]

I've never had to give a program more then one thumb down for it never to appear as an auto-recorded suggestion again. A gentle touch probably has fewer side effects. But by all means give your TiVo feedback on what it finds for you. Auto-recording suggestions is one of the best features, IMO.

[classicX]

Why not just leave tivo suggestions off, but periodically check it every now and then?

How would you check it if it's off?