Can I change the "Download Content" Channel or time?

megory · 12-22-2010, 03:47 AM

TiVo changes the channel to a major infomercial channel at 4 am. Can I change it to a channel of my choice, so I can be forced to watch news or weather? Or, can I choose the day?

What is it about this lengthy download and why doesn't my daily update take care of it?

ggieseke · 12-22-2010, 05:42 AM

There's no way to change the time or day. Whenever TiVo wants to make updates to the gold star ads that appear at the bottom of some of the screens they book a block of time on one of your channels and tell your TiVo to record it. The recordings are then broken up into the ads so they don't show up on your regular Now Playing List.

In my area it's usually around 2-3am. If your TiVo is scheduled to record something else the Teleworld Paid Programming won't record. The only way to really block it altogether is to set up a daily manual recording of something like a news or weather channel. If you have a dual tuner be sure to schedule two different shows.

It isn't done through your daily update because it would be too much information. At best, video takes about 1GB/hour and HD video is several times that.

megory · 12-22-2010, 06:08 AM

Okay, no time or day change (I'd like it to do this while I'm at work). But what about station? Can I choose another channel?

I remember setting up channels, there's something about "do you see this?" I forget where that was, but I wondered if it was relevant to the station they "hijack?" If I were to do a re-setup, could that help?

LifeIsABeach · 12-22-2010, 06:33 AM

The information TiVo needs is actually being broadcast as part of the show on the channel being recorded so it must be that channel at that time. However, it should never interfere with what you want to watch. If you are watching the tv at the time you should be able to tell TiVo not to switch channels on you or if it does switch channels you can switch it right back. Sounds like your problem may be what mine was though. When I wake up I like TiVo to have a buffer full of the latest news. I set the channel before I go to bed, but sometimes the channel has changed over night (due to something I recorded or something TiVo wanted to record). So what I did was set up a repeating manual recording wth Keep at Most set to 1 for the channel I want the tv to be on when I wake up. Now every weekday at 5:30 it switches to the correct channel and it doesn't take up much space on the hard drive (I make my recording last a half hour, but it can be as short as 5 minutes if you like). Hope this helps.

megory · 12-23-2010, 02:52 AM

Often I have the TV recording. Also, before we go to sleep, I change the stations to non-broadcasting channels, so if I forget to set the "sleep off" timer, when whatever we're playing back switches to TV (I hate that) it goes to a silent, darkened channel. (Tivo doesn't permit me to record a non-receivable channel which would solve the problem for me.)

This morning, the gong went off announcing (in print) "we're going to change the channel that you're NOT watching to record Tivo stuff."

So, I have TWO questions:

1. I let it go full length yesterday so it would be done with it. So, why does it need TWO days of stuff?

2. Why does TiVo need to tell me it's going to change channels on something I'm not watching? This was irksome because it penetrated the silence, and it's annoying when we're watching something and it asks permission to change channels on the channel not watched.

Thanks.

Dan203 · 12-23-2010, 05:02 PM

You can actually setup manual recordings for non-receivable channels. When you have the channel selected in the setup screen just type in the channel on your remote.

Dan

megory · 12-23-2010, 05:47 PM

Hah! I never thought of trying that. What a great idea! Thanks Dan.

mattack · 12-26-2010, 01:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by megory

2. Why does TiVo need to tell me it's going to change channels on something I'm not watching? This was irksome because it penetrated the silence, and it's annoying when we're watching something and it asks permission to change channels on the channel not watched.

Because, if it didn't, people who use the dual buffers in live TV mode (without actually recording) would WHINE and be POed that the channel was being changed on them.

AFAIR, people often use dual buffers for things like football games on different channels... so they can switch between them and FF commercials.

(Why they don't just record both eludes me... I use the live TV buffer late nights on CNN as background noise as I'm going to sleep -- if I remember, I let it buffer up a bit so I can still skip over commercials if I'm still awake enough.. But unless I'm REALLY out of disk space, which hasn't happened this bad in a while, I just record anything I intend to watch.)

megory · 12-26-2010, 08:51 AM

Good insight. I guess we are likely to whine/complain when TiVo doesn't work to our personal specs. I tend to hit record all the time, or I lose content and it sounds as if you and I use TiVo similarly in this area.

Good to understand others' perspectives!

megory · 01-10-2011, 04:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dan203

You can actually setup manual recordings for non-receivable channels. When you have the channel selected in the setup screen just type in the channel on your remote. Dan

Dan, As suggested, I've set up manual recording those non-receivable channels. The setup is fine, but TiVo simply does NOT record.

Further, the other night, I switched to a non-receivable channel, was recording on another channel, and selected some programs to transfer to this TV.

When I checked to see WHY my transfer didn't take place, I was told something to wit, that it wasn't transferred because one of the channels was a non-receiving channel!

I thought that was pretty weird, considering if I am recording on two-channels and watching one, transfers still occur.

TiVo's Multi-Room-Viewing isn't very realistic and not much of a value added. It's quite primitive.