quicker way to select keep until I delete?

No, but really you should be very careful setting that option, especially on season passes and wishlists. It can lead to TiVo looking ahead to see future upcoming recordings and identifying that you've now exceeded your available space before that actually happens. TiVo makes no assumptions about you watching and deleting material, which is what happens in real life. Keep Until I Delete means TiVo will count is as being kept forever. Too many of those and TiVo thinks you have no free space available when you really do.

 

Also, tivo won't delete programs even after their time has passed unless it actually really needs the disk space for another of your recordings. Use KUID sparingly.

 

I appreciate that information though because my tivo yesterday and today started giving me a note when I ask to save things or to record things that by saving it or recording it, that will cause another program to be deleted ahead of time to make room.

And if I have been using the keep until I delete program, how can I get it out of tivos head now? Should I reboot or something? Or just stop using it now altogether? We were using it becuase we were losing shows before we got to watch them. I have just tonight learned how to extend the date before something gets deleted.

 

The important items to change are your season passes and wishlists where you've used that option. If you truly want something kept forever once it's recorded, then it can safely be changed individually after the fact (and generally it's safe to use that option with one-time recordings too).

If you find you're accumulating a lot of programming before you watch it, maybe you really need to look at adding another disk or replacing the one that's there with a larger one. There will be a point, based on how much you record and how fast you watch, where with enough disk space, you'll never lose anything you want to watch before you watch it, all without worrying about expiration dates.

 

6 extra button presses, oh my god ! how awful ! Let's start a class action lawsuit !

 

So, on a newish unit with relatively little recorded (i.e. I know I have a ton of free space) why does it tell me a movie I just recorded may be deleted in just a few days to make room for other programming? Does the Tivo software say this without taking into account how much free/total space the unit actually has?

 

It only protects a recording for 2 days (unless you change that) but a program that has expired can stay on a TiVo for years if it doesn't fill up with newer stuff.

 

Unless this message only appears on standalone units I don't believe I've ever seen it. Or if it's there, it must always be displayed and I just ignore it.

TiVo looks ahead at scheduled recordings in the To Do list to determine how much recording space is needed. If there was a future need for recording space that couldn't be met based on that looking ahead (such as Keep Until I Delete items existing or scheduled for recording before the program being evaluated for space), then it'd have to warn you.

One thing it never accounts for is your natural pace of consuming recordings -- where you delete them after watching them, but before the recording would otherwise expire. The unit doesn't estimate that in the equation at all.