Any Cons to TiVo Suggestions?

[Eptiger]

Are there any drawbacks to having TiVo Suggestions enabled?

I'm just wondering if having them on means that my hard drives are likely to degrade sooner. Has that been happening anecdotally? Does anyone know? Theoretically, hard drives have moving parts so they're likely to wear out the more they spin, but does TiVo Suggestions really do enough to make them spin more than normal?

I currently keep my TiVo in Standby during the day, but I'm considering turning off suggestions or not putting it in Standby to reduce the number of suggestions recorded. Overall, I think it's a neat feature, and I sometimes look at the suggestions though and keep them on in the background when I'm doing other stuff, but usually I already have plenty to watch. Am I concerned over nothing?

Sorry if this has been asked before - couldn't find any discussion on it.

Thanks,

Elton

[newskilz]

My response to that would be no, it normally does not make any difference whether they are on or not-concerning the hard drive. However, in your case where you actually put it into stand-by all the time (I would think that would get old after a while), IIRC, it doesn't actually do anything but stop sending a signal to the tv, it will still record any scheduled recordings, be it season passes, suggestions, etc. So in that light, I would think the hard drive is still on and spinning. Again, that's just what I recall. Others probably know better as to whether the hard drive actually stops or not while in standby, or another way to put it is whether or not it stops recording the 30 minute buffer?

So I guess I'm not really answering the question... sorry. But I personally feel that it won't make any difference. My S1 has been going strong since I got it in June 2002, never off, never in stand by. I'm sure many others have had theirs on longer than that, without going into standby, etc. and are having no problems, even with original equipment. On the other hand, so suppose your hard drive goes out say, 6 months before it would have assuming it actually spun down and stopped using power during stand by mode. Would the features being used keeping it up be worth it? How about the cost of the hard drive replacement? bigger hard drives for cheaper every day.. so when you need one, you can most likely get a larger hard drive than you had for a very cheap price. You will in most usual instances want to upgrade your box before the hard drive goes out based on the HDD life span of 5 years or more. My two cents, sorry I'm usually long winded. :)

[jsmeeker]

It might suggest that you are gay.

:)

[porieux]

If the TiVo is on, it is recording so it makes no difference, as far as I know.

[wmcbrine]

If it's not recording a suggestion, it's recording the live buffer, so it shouldn't make much difference. (This was different on a DirecTivo, which stopped buffering in Standby.)

[Eptiger]

If it's not recording a suggestion, it's recording the live buffer, so it shouldn't make much difference. (This was different on a DirecTivo, which stopped buffering in Standby.)

Yeah, I guess I didn't quite think of it that way. I figured I was probably missing something obvious :)

Leaving it in Standby supposedly means that it'll record more suggestions because it knows you're not watching, that's why I mentioned that. It sounds to be true: days when I leave it in standby fill up the suggestions folder much faster than when I don't.

I'm being paranoid mainly because I'm a software engineer :) I imagine it's like being a nutritionist and it ruining your love of food that's terrible for you. Practically, I understand that despite the moving parts in a hard drive it's likely to last at least 3 or 4 years as long as it's not overheating. However, the reviews I read of the myDVR expander claim that it only lasts like 13 months, which kind of sucks but I don't really want to crack it open and save a few bucks on an internal, and I'm not concerned that 660 GB is too little.

Well, I think I'll stop putting it in standby because it doesn't make a whole lot of sense and I'll leave suggestions on. Good to hear that there are still S1s going strong :) If my TiVo HD and myDVR expander last me 3 years, I'll be satisfied with the value I got for my money.

Thanks,

Elton

[argicida]

It might suggest that you are gay.

:)

But apparently you can counter that by recording a bunch of war movies...

[boywaja]

Cons to suggestions, well based on threads here, when the suggestions stop working you mght get really upset.

Ever since I put a 1 Gb external drive on the TiVo it filled the drive with suggestions and now rarely records any new ones. Even stuff I've deleted hangs around in deleted items.

[DAccardi]

Yes, if you don't watch at least 1 tivo suggestion, following month it will only suggest shows from LOGO.

[Eptiger]

Yes, if you don't watch at least 1 tivo suggestion, following month it will only suggest shows from LOGO.

I'm sorry, from whom? What is "LOGO"? Or do you mean from the logo of one particular network?

Well, I've been picking up one suggestion every couple of weeks, so hopefully mine will stick around. It can be cool to have reruns of shows I like, like Futurama, just randomly recorded.

Elton

[DAccardi]

I'm sorry, from whom? What is "LOGO"? Or do you mean from the logo of one particular network?

Well, I've been picking up one suggestion every couple of weeks, so hopefully mine will stick around. It can be cool to have reruns of shows I like, like Futurama, just randomly recorded.

Elton


I'm sorry I was kidding around, LOGO is a tv network for the gay and lesbian community. Ever hear "my TiVo thinks I'm gay!"

[janry]

The downside is the suggestions clutter up your NPL. In about 6 or so years of TiVo ownership, I have never found the suggestions to be worthwhile.

[allan]

The downside is the suggestions clutter up your NPL. In about 6 or so years of TiVo ownership, I have never found the suggestions to be worthwhile.

IMO, 90-99% of suggestions are crap. However, the remaining 1-10% is good enough for me to keep them turned on.

[lew]

Won't suggestions reduce (or eliminate) the number of show that are in the recently deleted (able to restore) folder?

I never bothered watching suggestions. I find wishlists to be more useful. Pick an actor, topic or even specific program (movie) you're interested in and tivo will find and record it for you.

[lrhorer]

The downside is the suggestions clutter up your NPL. In about 6 or so years of TiVo ownership, I have never found the suggestions to be worthwhile.
Unless you have groups turned off, Suggestions don't show up in the root of the NPL.

As to being worthwhile, I consider Suggestions to be one of the best features of the TiVo. Easily 30% of the programs I watch are recorded via Suggestions; more if one excludes movies. Certainly I do not set up a season pass for any cancelled TV series, yet I frequently enjoy watching episodes of Wings, Frasier, Golden Girls, M*A*S*H, Night Court, etc. I also enjoy Modern Marvels, Antiques Roadshow, Dirty Jobs, This Old House, and other such things, but I don't particularly want - or in any case have time - to watch every episode, and I definitely don't want any of these to overwrite one of my scheduled recordings, so I allow any and all programs of this nature to be recored via Suggestions. The result? I always have plenty of enjoyable "second string" content avaialble whenever the mood strikes me to add a bit of variety to my viewing., without having to be concerned that any of these types of programs might accidentally overwrite one of the programs I specifically want to watch.

It maximizes the variety of my TV viewing pallette while minimizing the amount of time and trouble for me to manage the programming.

[DrewTivo]

No physical drawbacks.

In addition to those mentioned, another drawback is that if you're watching live tv (or slightly buffered) through the tivo, the tivo will sometimes want to switch the tuner to a station to record a suggested program. If you're there to cancel that's fine, but if not, you may get the channel switched.

I know you can workaround this by recording the show you're watching live, but you may forget, or not want to record it fully, etc.

(in a variation on this, you may turn on your tv to watch tivo, and both tuners willbe in use recording suggestions. You then have to go through the extra button presses to cancel those recordings so you can switch stations).

[lrhorer]

Won't suggestions reduce (or eliminate) the number of show that are in the recently deleted (able to restore) folder?
Yes, it will reduce the amount of time any program remains in the Recently Deleted Folder. That's because the RDF is taken to be a repository for programs that, except for rare exceptions, are no longer wanted. No matter what, programs in the RDF are always assumed to be those most eligible to be removed to make space for additional programs.

I never bothered watching suggestions. I find wishlists to be more useful. Pick an actor, topic or even specific program (movie) you're interested in and tivo will find and record it for you.
True, but there are some important differences.

1. A Wishlist recording is considerd to be scheduled. If necessary, it will overwrite any expired recording, and even an unexpired one if it is not KUID. It is much higher priroty than a Suggestion.

2. A Wishlist requires a higher level of manual intervention and management on the part of the user. While not anywhere nearly as specific as a Season Pass or a manually selected recording, it is not as automatic as Suggestions.

3. The Wishlst casts a much smaller, more localized net than Suggestions. The relationships encompassed by wishlists are very specific, while those encompassed by Suggestions are much more generalized.

Note I am not belittling Wishlists. Quite to the contrary, Wishlists are a fabulous feature. None of the points above are either "good" or "bad". They simply have different applications and result in a different set of programs that are handled differently from a mangement perspective. The point is both are extremely useful.

[janry]

Unless you have groups turned off, Suggestions don't show up in the root of the NPL.

As to being worthwhile, I consider Suggestions to be one of the best features of the TiVo....[snip for brevity]


I do have groups turned off. We like to watch our programming in the order they were recorded so groups are rarely used.

I prefer auto-record wishlist to suggestions for the type of programs you list. That way I can pad them, limit the number recorded and set their priority. I understand your viewpoints in response to lew. Our viewing habits are definately different. As you state, suggestions make up 30% of your viewing. That type of programming would probably take up less than 5% of my viewing.

I certainly think the OP should try suggestions. I've tried it on various occassions. The OP may like it as you and many others do. But, everyone's mileage may vary.

[mattack]

I do have groups turned off. We like to watch our programming in the order they were recorded so groups are rarely used.

Do you mean you watch the oldest recording *regardless* of what show it is?

Within groups, shows are sorted by date.. (I essentially always have groups sorted by date.. Once in a rare while, I will sort by name temporarily to find something faster.. and even rarer, I turn off groups for a few seconds to find the OLDEST show that may be deleted when the Tivo gets full..)


For the original questioner -- this was sort of mentioned, but here's it more specifically: The one possible drawback is that you won't necessarily always have a half hour of live buffer... and if for example you want it left on CNN or something, you won't have CNN buffered up all the time you come back to the Tivo.

[jrm01]

: The one possible drawback is that you won't necessarily always have a half hour of live buffer...

Of course you will always have the half-hour live buffer. It's just that the buffer will be of the station that the Suggestion is recording from.:p