How are TiVo Suggestions made?

Everything you specifically schedule to record except for manual recordings gets an automatic thumbs up.

 

Suggestions only take up whatever free space you have available. If you fill the HD with recordings you actually asked for, there won't be room for any suggestions. And if there are suggestions and you schedule recordings, the suggestions get erased. So don't worry that you need to have a massive hard drive to accommodate the suggestions. They're just empty space filler, nothing more.

Frankly, I hate suggestions and I turn them off the second I set up my TiVos, but that's your call.

 

If you record suggestions you won't be able to recover programs you delete except before the next program records. I myself prefer to record things on purpose only, but lots of people like TiVo to discover stuff for them.

 

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As others have said, anything you record gets an automatic single thumbs up.
However you'll get far better results if you take some time and every now and then give the suggestion system more input with multiple thumbs up and some thumbs down. The suggestions engine views its mission as to fill the drive with things you want to watch, if you don't help it, it will never know what's right and what's wrong.

My personal example is that I was able to get the suggestions engine to only record NASCAR Sprint and Xfinity items and have it not record Trucks or other motorsports, the suggestions logic gets better the more you train it.

 

I'm one who loves suggestions. It's like targeted surfing. Plus, I don't follow entertainment news and new shows, so for me it's often the first time I see new content my TiVo knows I may find interesting.

 

I am giving suggestions a try so this topic is of interest to me. Normally I would just want to record what I select but this is a supposed TiVo advantage so I'll give it a chance. So far about half of the suggestions are way off base and I am trying to be diligent in giving them 3 thumbs down before I delete them in the hopes they will improve.

To my knowledge the thumbs ratings are specific to each TiVo and not shared across TiVos on a home network. However, there are suggestions getting recorded on my kids TiVo that are the same as the suggestions recorded on my TiVo . We don't have the same onepasses and I reset the thumbs/suggestions from the help menu after I moved the kids recordings over. This has not a big deal for the most part, except when it recorded the comedy central roast of James Franco on my kids TiVo. Thankfully I have parental controls on for them. But my wife was not happy about that one.

 

Suggestions get better over time. Starting with a variety of things, and they get narrowed down as more thumbs in each direction are made. Now, giving three is going to not just skip that show, but also similar content. I tend to only give three down to things I will hate hate hate, like infomercials, but only one down to a sitcom I do not enjoy.

You can review thumbs as well. This can be helpful if you record something, get the auto thumbs up, and find you hate it or love it later on.

 

If you record suggestions and leave the tivo to manage itself...

 

Well, yeah. It stretched my imagination too far to assume someone would spend their time pruning the suggestions folder. But I suppose it's possible.

 

Suggestions don't know HD vs SD, if it bothers you, you can do what most folks do very early on, take a refreshing beverage and deselect the SD channels from the "My Channels" list with the Guide in Grid Guide mode you can sort by channel name and then use the clear button to make quick work of the extra channels.