A season pass question

[Denise_Z]

About a month ago I set up a season pass to record only first run episodes of Monk. This seemed to work fine, then yesterday I noticed that the TiVo was scheduled to record ALOT of episodes this weekend. It seems that USA is running a marathon or something this weekend and the TiVo was was planning on recording almost all of them. The only one I could see that it wasn't scheduled to record was also the only episode that contained an actual description. The other episodes contained no information as to what episode was going to show. I deleted the entire season pass because there were too many shows to delete one at a time and I didn't know what else to do.

First, why was it going to record all the episodes, and second, what could I have done differently?

[litzdog911]

This happened because the Guide Data's program information was incomplete, so Tivo erred on the side of wanting to record those programs. Rather than delete your Season Pass, you could have deleted those unwanted recordings in the "To Do List". Also, sometimes the Guide Data is fixed before the shows actually broadcast, and then your Tivo will do the right thing on its own.

[mike3775]

Also if its still a relativally new season pass, Tivo will think its a new episode even if its not.

When I set my season passes on my new dual tuner Tivo, it tried to record every single Simpsons episode on Fox in my area, because to Tivo, its a new episode and never been recorded before

[mick66]

Also if its still a relativally new season pass, Tivo will think its a new episode even if its not.

When I set my season passes on my new dual tuner Tivo, it tried to record every single Simpsons episode on Fox in my area, because to Tivo, its a new episode and never been recorded before

Rotfl!
That is not how it works.

If the guide data has no information regarding whether or not an episode is first run or not, Tivo will record it just in case it is new. This happens a lot with older shows that are in syndication. It also happens with current shows, 'The Daily Show' on Comedy Central is notorious for not having this information in the guide data.

[Ruth]

Also if its still a relativally new season pass, Tivo will think its a new episode even if its not.

When I set my season passes on my new dual tuner Tivo, it tried to record every single Simpsons episode on Fox in my area, because to Tivo, its a new episode and never been recorded before

Yeah, wow, that's completely wrong. Normally, the guide data has a code field for Original Air Date (OAD). The TiVo considers an episode to be "new" if the OAD is recent, I think within 7 days. So if you have a "first run only" SP, it will nab all eps that aired for the first time within the last week.

What happened to the OP is that there wasn't any specific guide data for the episode. Instead, generic guide data was substituted. For example, if the show is Friends, the generic episode description might be "Six friends live busy lives in NYC." It fits every episode -- if they don't know what they are playing, that's what they slap on. This guide data has no OAD at all. It could be the pilot, or it could be this week's brand new episode. Your TiVo isn't sure, so it records it just in case. There is nothing you can do differently to avoid this, although it does sometimes get fixed before the shows air as a poster mentioned. Your best bet is deleting the eps from your ToDo list.

How old your SP is has *nothing* to do with it.

[wscannell]

Also if its still a relativally new season pass, Tivo will think its a new episode even if its not.

When I set my season passes on my new dual tuner Tivo, it tried to record every single Simpsons episode on Fox in my area, because to Tivo, its a new episode and never been recorded before

I think you may be talking about the 28 day rule. When you set a season pass to record only new episodes, it looks at the guide data to determine if the show is a rerun (as said above). In addition, TiVo has a 28 day rule for season passes where it will not record an episode if that episode was in the Now Playing List within the last 28 days. This also only can be determined if there is adequate guide data to determine what episode is to be recorded.

[rainwater]

Welcome to the great USA Network. This happens all the time and I wouldn't expect the data to be udpated before that time. I already deleted those Monk episodes myself. They have the same issues with all their programs.

[megazone]

Yeah, I used to have an ARWL for any new episodes of "Law Order" to catch all of the series in one go.

Then USA started not having guide data on their reruns, flooding my ARWL - so I switched to 3 SPs on NBC.

[arc6th]

I deleted the entire season pass because there were too many shows to delete one at a time and I didn't know what else to do.Wow. Too much work to delete all those shows? How 'bout changing the SP to KAM=1, then change it back to whatever number you normally prefer after the marathon? Let the DVR record the shows. If there's nothing else scheduled, who cares?

Now you have to go back and re-enter the SP & then position it correctly in the SP Mgr. How long will that take?

[Denise_Z]

Wow. Too much work to delete all those shows? How 'bout changing the SP to KAM=1, then change it back to whatever number you normally prefer after the marathon? Let the DVR record the shows. If there's nothing else scheduled, who cares?

Now you have to go back and re-enter the SP & then position it correctly in the SP Mgr. How long will that take?

Thanks for the great tip, I never thought of that. However, there's no reason for the attitude, I'm fairly new at this, only having the machine for several months. Monk was also only the second season pass I ever set up. Also, since there won't be any new episodes of Monk until January, I didn't think deleting the SP was that all that important at that particular moment.

[OLdDog]

To take it a step further set the SP at KAM 1 AND Save until I delete. That would mean that after it recorded one aditional show it would record no more until that show was deleted or the SP options changed.

[Stanley Rohner]

Also if its still a relativally new season pass, Tivo will think its a new episode even if its not.

When I set my season passes on my new dual tuner Tivo, it tried to record every single Simpsons episode on Fox in my area, because to Tivo, its a new episode and never been recorded before

Yeah, totally, completely wrong. I just thought one more person needed to say that.

[mattack]

I deleted the entire season pass because there were too many shows to delete one at a time and I didn't know what else to do.

You can just hit the clear key on each item in the To do list, or slightly faster (since the to do list doesn't have to refresh each time) view upcoming episodes on one of the monk episodes, and use the clear key there..

I missed at least one of the eps this season, so I'm probably going to record all of them (possibly manually spread across my tivos for space reasons) and nuke the ones I've seen already.