Interruptions by Tivo Suggestion recordings

How does TiVo know when you're watching? In my experience, my DT S2s do a pretty good job of staying in the background (using the *other* tuner if it's not in use), but an STS2 has no choice but to ask. You can always turn off auto-recording of suggestions and do them manually.

 

Tivo knows if you use the remote at all including changing the volume, pausing, back 8 secs., etc. It should also stop suggesting shows if I've told it 'no' once during a long show.

 

Not really, volume changes aren't received by the TiVo (the TiVo "talks" in the language of the TV's remote when changing volume). As far as TiVo commands are concerned, relying on the usage of the remote to gate "Suggestions" is at best, "iffy". One could say it IS an indicator of remote accessibility .

 

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I'm pretty sure the TiVo knows when you use the remote for anything. On my Series 3, an LED flashes any time I use the remote, even if all I want to do is turn the TV off. I thought I read in another thread that the TiVo locks out this "feature" for 30 minutes if you use the remote. Since most people skip commercials while watching a show, this might work for 95% of the people.

I have seen this message as well, and I had no idea about the lockout, so I can't say if it is needed or not. It does seem as if the usual solution for most of these types of issues is to just record the show and delete it as soon as it is over. That's the ONLY way to guarantee you get what you want.

 

TiVo has no way of knowing if you change the volume. As to the rest, I vote, "No". If you don't want to be interrupted during a non-scheduled recording, press <Rec>.

 

Unless you specifically change the channel on the tuner to a channel you don't receive, then every tuner on the Tivo is recording continuously, whether you have scheduled a recording or not and whether suggestions are on or not. There is no such thing as "in the background".

 

Nope.

Yep. It also flashes if you use your DVD remote, or your TV remote, or...

The indicator LED blinks whenever it decodes an IR signal. In order to act on it, the TiVo must understand the code, however. Otherwise it must assume you might be using some other remote to do something else. What's more, I for one don't want the TiVo to fail to record something - even a suggestion - just because I've switched the AV receiver to music, turned down its volume, and turned off the TV monitor, all of which I can do with the TiVo remote BTW.

Not to my knowledge, but since I have never seen the message displayed for a Suggestion, I really can't say for certain.

That's right. It's also the best way to eliminate commercials.

 

I'm not advocating use of the remote as a way of blocking suggestions, it seems less than ideal, but I'm not sure I agree that TiVO has no way of knowing if you change the volume. It doesn't DO anything when you hit the volume button, but the orange "I'm receiving a remote command" LED does light up, so clearly the box is aware that a button on the remote has been pressed.

 

Yes, but it does that for ANY command from ANY IR source - the TV remote, the remote for an audio system, or a kid's toy, ... in addition to TV commands originating from the TiVo remote.

In order to "fool" the TV into "thinking" commands from the TiVo remote were actually from the TV's own remote, the commands sent by TiVo's remote have to be identical to those from the TV remote. As a result, TiVo has no way of knowing the volume adjustment commands were from its remote, nor even any way of knowing what any of the non-TiVo commands it "sees" mean, nor for whom they are intended. The light on TiVo's panel simply indicates that it saw something that looked like a command for someone.

IMO The definitive "solution" to this and a few other "problems" is the "Record" button.

 

This has been discussed many MANY times.

The way TiVo USED to work-
Suggestion would record on idle tuner. The idle tuner is the tuner you are not actively watching on your set. So yes, TiVo knows that one tuner is being displayed on your TV set (regardless of if it knows you are actually watching it) and one tuner is buffering the last channel your tuned. It would choose the tuner buffering in the background (that is not being displayed on your set) to record suggestions assuming nothing else was being recorded.

The way TiVo works now-
At some point, recently, TiVo CHANGED the behavior of recordings to ALTERNATE. So your first suggestion does not interrupt live TV, records on Tuner 2. SECOND suggestion pops up a warning that it need to change live TV to record a suggestion. If you miss the pop-up, (if you're out of the room for example) it changes your active tuner to record a suggestion, clearing your buffer. If you are faced with the warning, you can cancel it. If you WANT it to record the suggestion (but are pissed off that it is insisting on doing so on the active tuner), you must allow it to change the channel, switch over to the OTHER tuner, and re-tune to the station you were watching.

Many people here are going to tell you that you are an idiot for watching live TV in the first place, so we might as well get that out of the way... Regardless of the fact that suggestions are not supposed to intrude on any of your TiVo habits, and never have in the past.

 

No it doesn't. My Tivos blink their power-on LED when I use my tivo remote to control tv functions (pwr,volume,chan up/dn,), but if I use my TV's actual, original remote, the tivo led does not do anything. That would seem to indicate that the tivo's IR receiver is capable of monitoring TV IR commands from the tivo remote.

My observations were with a Series2 DTivo, and an R10 DTivo. Series2 SA and Series3 hardware may very well exhibit different behavior, but I just wanted to offer my observations, which suggest it would be technically possible.

 

At best, using commands from the TiVo remote, even if TV commands from the TiVo remote can be included, to gate suggestions is a very unreliable determinant. On the other hand, using "Record" button is a very reliable work-around and solves other "problems" as well.

A show-long channel lock might be a worthwhile enhancement, but I would consider it very low priority given the available work-around. I'd rather have the developers spend their time working on other things.

 

My personal wish on this topic would just be a "user adjustable" suggestions timer, ie.. be able to say start recording suggestions after x minutes of inactiity 30,60,90, etc...

As far as the remote comands go, I'm farily certain even TV volume commands sent via the peanut will reset the timer. If I'm working on the laptop late at night, I'll usually just put something on the TV to have in the background, something I'm not worried about watching intently. If I'm using the space heater, I'm often turning volume up and down to compensate. I've gone for hours without a suggestion popup like that.

 

Same for my Series3. I tested every remote I had and the TiVo remote was the ONLY one that blinked the LED on the TiVo box.

 

FYI. My RS-TX20 the LED blinks only with the TiVo remote. I tried every other remote in the room and the LED only blinks when using the peanut.