Why doesn't Tivo tell you if a show has already been recorded?

I'm not sure if it records that data beyond the 28 day rule. I suppose there is no reason it couldn't keep that data.

 

Could you elaborate? How and where would it tell you, and what would it do?

I've always wondered why they don't keep more info/data available to us, especially once hard drives started growing. For example, have a db of every movie made, or at least the more popular ones of the last few years. Then when you want to record one that is not in the guide, instead of setting a WL, you could just tag it in the db as "record next time it shows". Same thing with older series, or even episodes. With TB-sized drives, who cares if you give up a couple MB for a db?

 

I'm sure the 28 limit has more to do with cpu power and physical memory limits and a desire to keep database lookups speedy. Disk size was most likely not a factor in that design decision.

The more days you store, the bigger the database and the longer it takes to look up "Hey, did I record this already"?

 

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Did you set up a Season Pass and tell it to record first-runs and repeats? That's the only way I see it recording the same episode.

 

I think that's a good idea but judging by how slow the Tivo is just to reorganize the season pass list when doing it on the box, I don't know if we will ever see it. They seem to hate background processes. Didn't there used to be a connection status called "Housekeeping" when it was dialing in? I remember it from dial up days.

 

I've been saying it for a decade, but I'd pay extra (a one time fee), if I could have the Tivo keep track of EVERY episode I have seen.. (and yes, there would have to be some way to optionally eventually purge it, after I've seen every episode of a cancelled show.)

At the delete screen, just have another options menu
"add to my seen list"
or something like that. You wouldn't always add to that, because of guide errors.

 

Do you have Suggestions turned on?

I think Suggestions are kept independant from user recordings. You may have selected a program to record that was also set to record via Suggestions. That might explain how you ended up with duplicate programs in the MS list.

 

I think that's a good suggestion. TiVo can't know for sure that two shows with the same name are the same show, but it COULD say "we think this might be a show you've already recorded, here is the show we think it matches. Do you want to record it anyways?"

 

I've actually seen it do what you suggested. That is, if I already have a movie in My Shows, and ask to record the same one, somewhere on the record screen it asks if I want to record it again. However, I'm not sure that was ever consistent, and I'm also not sure whether or not recent updates might have removed that functionality. (Also, I am pretty sure that the TiVo would consider the SD and HD versions to be two different movies.)

However, what does still work (unless it's been removed from the latest Premiere update, which did considerably change the Guide functionality): While scrolling through a list of movies in the guide, if I've ever recorded a movie, even if it's been deleted, and even if it's been more than 28 days, the green thumbs-up icon will display in the guide. I don't ever thumbs-up or down anything, since I don't use TiVo suggestions anyway, so that may not work for you if you do. My assumption is that the movie is given an automatic thumb-up when I record it. Note that this method won't work for series, since the entire series would be thumbed-up, not individual episodes.

 

There are times I'll record a Movie on HBO or Starz that I already (I forgot) have in Now Playing, are you saying it would be nice if Tivo searched your hard drive before recording the same movie a 2nd time?

that would be nice...

 

FWIW it's not that the thumb is multitasking, but the fact that when you record something it is given a thumbs up by default.

 

Even if it did keep track, as soon as your hard drive crashes, you would lose all that data anyway Same if you swap boxes for any reason or upgrade boxes.

I have said for years that TiVo needs to put all user preferences, settings, channel preferences, program ratings, season passes, etc on a removable flash card that can be popped into a new machine. Of course, today's equivalent would be to store it "in the cloud." I would be happy with EITHER solution, but would still prefer local storage under my control.

 

Well, I could deal with that.. or just put it in the cloud and let me "manage" it on tivo.com, or even simply download a raw text file as a 'backup'.

Even if I lost it after a hard drive failure, I would rather have some sort of it available. I'm much more annoyed losing the TB of shows (which I have).