[wjasonh]

I am a long time user of a S1 and though I was very familiar with how TIVO works. I recently replaced the S1 due to hardware failure and have setup season passes and ratings on my new S2DT 180hr. Now on to the problem. On my S1 I was accustomed to the S1 deleting TIVO suggestions prior to deleting my recordings if capacity was an issue. With my S2DT 180hr I find that many of my recordings are deleted mearly 1 or 2 days after being recorded even though there are many, many, many TIVO suggestions still available. Is there a new feature or option that needs to be set to maintain a recommended priority? I would rather not disable TIVO suggestions.

Thank you,

 

[ZikZak]

Tivo never, ever deletes requested recordings to make room for suggestions.

It will, however, delete recordings if your Season Pass has reached its "Keep at Most" limit, which is set to 5 by default.

Look in Recording History to find why tivo deleted any specific recording.

 

[wjasonh]

Tivo never, ever deletes requested recordings to make room for suggestions.

It will, however, delete recordings if your Season Pass has reached its "Keep at Most" limit, which is set to 5 by default.

Look in Recording History to find why tivo deleted any specific recording.

I am going to have to devise a method to determine exactly what is happening. Because, some of the shows do not have a season pass. I occassionally will just press "record" when I have to leave suddenly. After about 1 day the show will have a yellow circle next to it, then the next day it will have the yellow circle with the exclamation point. Shortly thereafter it is deleted with plenty of Tivo suggestions still recorded. I would think that if I were to not delete any shows I manually recorded then they would remain until there was not enough space and subsequently all TIVO suggestions would be gone.

 

[ZikZak]

I am going to have to devise a method to determine exactly what is happening. Because, some of the shows do not have a season pass. I occassionally will just press "record" when I have to leave suddenly. After about 1 day the show will have a yellow circle next to it, then the next day it will have the yellow circle with the exclamation point. Shortly thereafter it is deleted with plenty of Tivo suggestions still recorded. I would think that if I were to not delete any shows I manually recorded then they would remain until there was not enough space and subsequently all TIVO suggestions would be gone.

I will reiterate. Look in Recording History for reasons that tivo deleted shows.

 

[fluffie]

A different but related problem - my TivoHD, capable of recording 2 shows at the same time, asked if I wanted to change channels or cancel the upcoming scheduled recording. It wasn't recording anything else except a Tivo suggestion. Once I canceled the suggestion I could record the scheduled show and watch the baseball game at the same time. Does this make any sense?

 

[fluffie]

Now i have found another thread dealing with this issue but it still doesn't make sense to me that tivo would not cancel the suggestion in order to record a show i requested.

 

[fredct]

A different but related problem - my TivoHD, capable of recording 2 shows at the same time, asked if I wanted to change channels or cancel the upcoming scheduled recording. It wasn't recording anything else except a Tivo suggestion. Once I canceled the suggestion I could record the scheduled show and watch the baseball game at the same time. Does this make any sense?

It kinda makes sense to me if its in the middle of recording something. You might know it was recording, want it, and be annoyed if it was canceled without asking.

But I'd need more information, like, was the new thing something you'd just manually requested? Or was it previously scheduled. If the latter, I'd be surprised it started recording the suggestion in the first place, so I'd assume its the former, yes?

 

[fluffie]

The new thing was something I had previously scheduled. I had a season pass for Curb Your Enthusiasm. I was watching the World Series live (don't usually watch live tv but...). While I was watching the baseball game I got the message that Tivo needed to change the channel because it was recording a suggestion (football which I never watch) in order to record Curb.

So by the time I weent and cancelled the football suggestion I missed the first couple of minutes of Curb. No big deal but it seemed to make no sense to me.

 

[ZikZak]

The new thing was something I had previously scheduled. I had a season pass for Curb Your Enthusiasm. I was watching the World Series live (don't usually watch live tv but...). While I was watching the baseball game I got the message that Tivo needed to change the channel because it was recording a suggestion (football which I never watch) in order to record Curb.

So by the time I weent and cancelled the football suggestion I missed the first couple of minutes of Curb. No big deal but it seemed to make no sense to me.

Yeah, they should change that.

 

[fredct]

The new thing was something I had previously scheduled. I had a season pass for Curb Your Enthusiasm. I was watching the World Series live (don't usually watch live tv but...). While I was watching the baseball game I got the message that Tivo needed to change the channel because it was recording a suggestion (football which I never watch) in order to record Curb.

So by the time I went and cancelled the football suggestion I missed the first couple of minutes of Curb. No big deal but it seemed to make no sense to me.

While I understand your perspective from your situation entirely, this is kinda a 'rock and a hard place' situation. The behavior may be good or bad depending on details that TiVo isn't aware of.

Say you were watching something that you weren't all that big a fan of - or, you weren't watching tv at all (remember, TiVo doesn't really know that you are). And TiVo stops recording a suggestion of a show that it knows you really really like to record a season pass. Later you're watching that suggestion and are really annoyed when it stops half way through for no reason!

Thats one of the problems that the inverse behavior could result in. Stopping a program from recording when, as far as the TiVo is concerned, there's a free tuner.

At least this way you knew what was going on and could correct for it.

It *would* be nice to add a new option so your choices were "okay change", "keep here and don't record", or "cancel recording ____ on other tuner instead". But that has the problem that its not very 'newbie' friendly. We have had people on here who, understandably, needed some help with the difference between different channels and different tuners. Imagine the people who aren't even smart enough to find there way here to ask!

Lastly, there is a third option. Unless you have HD, and if the wires are hooked up right, you could have told TiVo to record Curb on that tuner and then gone to the analog tuner on your TV to continue watching Fox.

If your TiVo uses the RF/coax input in the TV then you could do this by putting the TiVo on standby to use the RF-passthrough, otherwise a splitter would allow you to send the analog channels to your TV tuner separately.

 

[dianebrat]

The new thing was something I had previously scheduled. I had a season pass for Curb Your Enthusiasm. I was watching the World Series live (don't usually watch live tv but...). While I was watching the baseball game I got the message that Tivo needed to change the channel because it was recording a suggestion (football which I never watch) in order to record Curb.

So by the time I weent and cancelled the football suggestion I missed the first couple of minutes of Curb. No big deal but it seemed to make no sense to me.

I've started seeing the same behavior, (maybe I'm watching too much live tv) but I'll be watching an event, with buffering, and it kicks the *other* tuner to record a long suggestion usually a movie.

Then it comes time to record a scheduled event, and insists on my "currently live tv being watched but not recorded" buffer for the new item as opposed to killing the suggestion. I'm not given the option of "would you like to kill the suggestion on the other tuner?" which is really the missing option.

Diane

 

[fluffie]

Not to belabor the point, and fredct's explanation now makes sense to me,

"Say you were watching something that you weren't all that big a fan of - or, you weren't watching tv at all (remember, TiVo doesn't really know that you are). And TiVo stops recording a suggestion of a show that it knows you really really like to record a season pass. Later you're watching that suggestion and are really annoyed when it stops half way through for no reason!"

but (there is always a but )

when Tivo reassures us over and over that it will NEVER delete a scheduled program to make room for a suggestion, the human brain (my human brain) extrapolates that to mean that suggestions are always second class citizens and will never interfere with scheduled programming.

There should be some other option besides turning off suggestions entirely. Lots of times I have come across good stuff under suggestions. Maybe a third option, "Cancel suggestion if scheduled program wants to start recording" ? At least then you would be responsible for your cut off suggested recording. Or to get even more convoluted, how about "Cancel suggestion if Tivo activation is new enough that suggestions do not yet accurately match viewers tastes and scheduled program wants to start recording".

No more live TV for me! well at least until next year when the sox are in the world series again.

 

[RoyK]

...
Say you were watching something that you weren't all that big a fan of - or, you weren't watching tv at all (remember, TiVo doesn't really know that you are). And TiVo stops recording a suggestion of a show that it knows you really really like to record a season pass. Later you're watching that suggestion and are really annoyed when it stops half way through for no reason!

If it aborts recording the suggestion it could then delete it. That wouldn't be different from not recording it in the first place if the box was busy.

.....

It *would* be nice to add a new option so your choices were "okay change", "keep here and don't record", or "cancel recording ____ on other tuner instead". But that has the problem that its not very 'newbie' friendly. We have had people on here who, understandably, needed some help with the difference between different channels and different tuners. Imagine the people who aren't even smart enough to find there way here to ask!

I'd give more credit to the user than you do.

Lastly, there is a third option. Unless you have HD, and if the wires are hooked up right, you could have told TiVo to record Curb on that tuner and then gone to the analog tuner on your TV to continue watching Fox.

If your TiVo uses the RF/coax input in the TV then you could do this by putting the TiVo on standby to use the RF-passthrough, otherwise a splitter would allow you to send the analog channels to your TV tuner separately.

And you think giving another menu option would be confusing?

 

[fluffie]

Royk said:
"If it aborts recording the suggestion it could then delete it. That wouldn't be different from not recording it in the first place if the box was busy."

Good point!

Quote:
Originally Posted by fredct
Lastly, there is a third option. Unless you have HD, and if the wires are hooked up right, you could have told TiVo to record Curb on that tuner and then gone to the analog tuner on your TV to continue watching Fox.

If your TiVo uses the RF/coax input in the TV then you could do this by putting the TiVo on standby to use the RF-passthrough, otherwise a splitter would allow you to send the analog channels to your TV tuner separately.

And you think giving another menu option would be confusing?


I didn't even begin to try to understand what that meant!!

 

[fredct]

If it aborts recording the suggestion it could then delete it. That wouldn't be different from not recording it in the first place if the box was busy.

There's still a problem. You may have seen the suggestion recording and thought 'cool, id like to watch that later', then turned off the TV and couldn't find it later, because it was deleted when it was canceled. That may be a bit better, but is still problematic. Especially if you had since turned off the tv and really weren't watching anything on the second tuner anyway!

New people on this board don't very often need an excuse to grandstand, about how the latest 'bug' (and no doubt people would assume this is a bug) sucks or TiVo should be 'ashamed' of something that's actually totally out of their control.

I'd give more credit to the user than you do.

I've worked in tech support (both for pay and 'for' my family)

I'd give enough credit to 90-95% of users, but there's always that 5-10%. Since one of TiVo's main goals and selling points is easy of use and intuitiveness, I'm sure they try to keep everything as streamlined as possible. Starting to add extra menu options here and there could be a slippery slope that loses them that hard earned reputation. At least, I'd understand if they don't want to risk it.

And you think giving another menu option would be confusing?

Yes, my suggestion was more confusing . But it was aimed at the technical users on here and not at the general public.

Basically, with analog cable and a 2 tuner TiVo, there's no reason you can't record 2 things on the TiVo and watch another directly through the TV.

I have a single tuner and a dual tuner S2, with digital cable (half of the channels are analog). That means I can record 3 things (up to 2 digital), and we can each still be watching something else entirely (so long as its analog). 5 things!

 

[Ben_Jamin75]

Maybe someone can explain this one to me.

Tonight I was watching live tv on my DT, cable box channel 200-something.

I got a popup, asking to change the channel at 8:00 pm to record "back to you" on basic channel 12. I ok'ed the change channel, because I thought tivo would only ask if both tuners were needed.

I didn't think i had two season passes for Wednesday at 8:00pm, so I went to my To Do List, and only one show was listed at 8:00 pm "Back to You".

I checked live tv, one tuner was recording "back to you" on basic 12, and the other was recording "pushing daisies" on basic 8.

I checked the To Do List again, and the season pass manager, and the suggestions screen, none had "pushing daisies". I finally found it in the suggestions folder of the now playing list.

Why would tivo ask me to change for the season pass instead of the suggestion?
Shouldn't it have used the unused tuner for the season pass, and if it wasn't sure if i was watching (even though i was skipping commercials in the buffer) ask if it could record the suggestion?

 

[fredct]

Why would tivo ask me to change for the season pass instead of the suggestion?
Shouldn't it have used the unused tuner for the season pass, and if it wasn't sure if i was watching (even though i was skipping commercials in the buffer) ask if it could record the suggestion?

This sounds like the exact same scenario that's already discussed at length in this thread.

Go back and read the discussion. While you're indeed correct that it would make sense in your case, there are other scenarios where you'd rather it work the other way (i.e. you're not at the tv at all, or not watching anything interesting).

Its a bit of a 'darned if you do, darned if you dont' situation for TiVo. Either choice and someone's gonna not like how it works sometimes.