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Have changes been made to TiVo's statistical analysis softwear?
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Posted by: Kandy477

TiVo used to record reasonable suggestions based on my viewing choices but for the last week or so it's been recording really off the wall, bizzare stuff. The TiVo suggestions were my favorite part of owning a TiVo. Every day I'd come home to a Now Playing screen full of Craker Jack toy surprises. Now I come home to crap like "CMT Smash Hits of Country". Why, TiVo, why?

Posted by: Chippy

I was about to ask the exact same question. My Tivo's suggestions have been really wacky lately -- not recording anything I like AT ALL. And it used to know me so well! I'm pretty bummed. :(

Posted by: NPBeacher

Ditto here... my bedroom Tivo has suddenly developed a penchant for recording children's programming which I never watch (Sponge Bob Squarepants, ugh!) and my living room TiVo seems to have taken to recording various music-choice channels when it has nothing to do.

Oh well... lot's thumbs-downs should get them straight again.

:)

Tony

Posted by: lajohn27

I posted a message on the 'official' TiVo Support forums at TiVo.com about this. They insist that suggestions tend to go in cycles and that this reaction is normal.

My internal 'truthmeter' tells me that is not the answer. To suggest that everyone's suggestions go in 'cycles' is fine.. but at precisely the same time? I doubt it. Very much so.

What I do know, is that there was an update to the TIVO's genre classifications (categories for shows) early in 2004. That genre classification is the very heart and soul of TiVo suggestions, it's the hamster that spins the suggestions wheel (so to speak). My bet is something isn't right with that update.

One thought that occurred to me today, is that some of the genres suggestions that 'everyone' seems to be getting (music choice channels, music video programs, Iraqi war programming and certain kinds of childrens programs etc) may be newly created 'sub genres' within the TiVo genre classification system..

As such, they would need to be 'trained' from ground zero; that could explain the wonkiness we've all been seeing.

I reposted on the 'official' support forums today suggesting TiVOBill pls look into that.

TiVo -so far- is admitting no fault and not really the least concerned about this bizarre problem. I'm disappointed cause really, this sounds like a problem with that update and they're not admitting it; nor doing much to look at the reason why.

John

Posted by: MichaelK

the grassy knoll, the grassy knoll

Posted by: ZeoTiVo

at some point the suggestions will retrain themselves and this will be a moot problem.

Posted by: lajohn27

quote:
Originally posted by ZeoTiVo
at some point the suggestions will retrain themselves and this will be a moot problem.

For some people yes.. the TiVo recovers.. for others it's been an ongoing problem for almost 2 months.. where suggestions are just plain wrong.. continually.. despite repeated thumbs to correct it..

Posted by: ericr74

Ok, add me to the list. In the last month or more, my TiVo's suggestions have been WAY off. I'm not even getting the shows that I've given three thumbs up any more. Something DEFINITELY changed about a month ago, because some of the TiVo suggestions were very dependable and regular, and now I'm not getting those shows at all. Some of the shows recorded now are the most random things I've ever heard of.

TIVO - what's going on ?!?

Posted by: VinceA

This is a shot in the dark but maybe someone moved into your area and their likes/dislikes are skewing suggestions into the ridiculous...

Posted by: JoshNJ

All I know is that lately I have been getting way more suggested recordings then i used to and they have been very accurate lately.

Posted by: dgh

quote:
Originally posted by lajohn27
My internal 'truthmeter' tells me that is not the answer. To suggest that everyone's suggestions go in 'cycles' is fine.. but at precisely the same time? I doubt it. Very much so.

But from this thread we can only see that about 0.0005% of TiVo subscriber's suggestions have cycled at the same time. That seems kind of possible to me.

Posted by: devdogaz

Mine have gotten so wacky over the last few weeks that I finally just turned them off. The final straw was when I paused one of the NCAA basketball games with about 5 minutes left and wanted to let it get behind a little so I could FF through all the timeouts they have at the end of the game. Watched something else off the NP list for a bit and went back about 25 minutes later. When I went back, it had just started recording a John Wayne movie as a Suggestion and had obviously dumped my buffer so I didn't get to see the end of the B-Ball game. I've never recorded any John Wayne movies or any Westerns. I don't know where it got the idea that I wanted to see this.

Posted by: bfulks

quote:
Originally posted by Kandy477
TiVo used to record reasonable suggestions based on my viewing choices but for the last week or so it's been recording really off the wall, bizzare stuff. The TiVo suggestions were my favorite part of owning a TiVo. Every day I'd come home to a Now Playing screen full of Craker Jack toy surprises. Now I come home to crap like "CMT Smash Hits of Country". Why, TiVo, why?

Same problem with me. Really off the wall suggestions...

Posted by: ccwf

I wonder if this is related to the issue of TiVos sometimes forgetting thumbs on shows. For example, on two occasions I've found that TiVo has forgotten that Buffy is my favorite show with :up::up::up:. Obviously, until I notice and fix it, my suggestions go slightly out of whack.

Note: If anyone else is currently experiencing the problem with TiVo forgetting thumb ratings, particularly Series2 models, TiVoBill has asked that you PM him, including the info in this post.

Posted by: lajohn27

quote:
Originally posted by dgh
But from this thread we can only see that about 0.0005% of TiVo subscriber's suggestions have cycled at the same time. That seems kind of possible to me.

Then check out the 14 other threads about this same problem.. with everyone getting the *same* kinds of suggestions...

Too much *sameness* to be a coincidence.. more like the kind of sameness you see when an update screws something up.

J

Posted by: dgh

quote:
Originally posted by lajohn27
Then check out the 14 other threads about this same problem.. with everyone getting the *same* kinds of suggestions...

Are you talking about current threads or old ones? It seems like there are always some threads like this on the forum and as I recall it's been that way since I joined. I've only noticed about 3 in the last few days.

Posted by: lajohn27

Ok.. I'm really not into getting into an argument about this.. apparently you are [ or maybe I'm reading too much into the glib comments?] :)

But since you asked.. besides this thread.. Here are four others about the same problem in the last 10 days..

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-v...threadid=167829

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-v...threadid=166519

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-v...threadid=165708 [26 responses in this thread]

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-v...threadid=166277

Going back 30 days I'm extremely confident there are more. This has been a problem of note for users since Jan/Feb. I take it you're not having this problem - count yourself lucky.. because others are..

John

Posted by: dgh

quote:
Originally posted by lajohn27
Ok.. I'm really not into getting into an argument about this.. apparently you are [ or maybe I'm reading too much into the glib comments?] :)

Ah, that's probably it. If by "everyone" you mean some non-zero number of people, then I was misreading you. And I see you saying all is well with your TiVo in one of those threads two weeks ago so "precisely the same" time wasn't as precise as I interpreted it either ;)

I don't doubt that some people have wacky suggestions though.

Posted by: lajohn27

You'll forgive me if I point out that your interjections in this thread are not in any way helpful or constructive... or useful.

Reading your .sig I'd say you don't have wait ANY more years. You've arrived.

J

Posted by: dgh

Well John, I don't think I did or said anything to deserve that but you're forgiven.

Posted by: hutchca

Same problem here...
I used the reset menu to remove all thumbs data and then gave thumbs to my season pass shows and wishlists etc.
It seemed to be ok at first, a few bad suggestions but I gave them some thumbs down.
After a week it's again recording way out suggestions that it would never record before.

The bad suggestions so far are bad movies and animal planet shows.
The only explaination for this it that I have a lot of thumbs in Sci-Fi and Nature/National Geographic type shows.
I'm guessing it's broadened it's suggestion engine so it will actually suggest shows you've never specifically given a thumbs up to.

I don't really see how the engine could equate "The Planets Funniest Animals" with National Geographic Explorer though. Nor is "Universal Soldier" even close to "Star Trek"

Oh well..., I'll keep training with thumbs down and if it doesn't get better I'll just turn off suggestions since it's not recording anything I'll watch anyway.

Posted by: VinceA

My suggestions have always included things that I haven't specifically thumbed. I think it makes the suggestions more interesting since the programs are typically things I haven't ever heard of.

Posted by: Zathrus

My suggestions have also gone insane, although I can at least justify some of the insanity -- if HMO transferred programs affect suggestions. See this thread for more info:
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-v...threadid=166991

Frankly, the number of people having problems means that TiVo should spend some time looking at their suggestion algorithm. The mere fact that it does go wacky cyclicly (and in what seems like a universally bad way) shows that there's something fundamentally broken.

I used to think that people having bad suggestions were just misusing their thumbs... but I certainly haven't, and my suggestions are now worthless.

Posted by: Brenda

For the past 3 days Tivo is recording whatever with disregard to my Season Passes and suggestions. I am now getting religious shows, foreign language shows, shopping, etc. I do not look at these shows or request recordings. I can not watch a TV show without Tivo switching to change channels to record something I have no interest in. I definitely knew something was amiss when I change Tivo to NOT record any suggestions and it continued recording whatever any way.

Posted by: ZeoTiVo

quote:
Originally posted by Brenda
For the past 3 days Tivo is recording whatever with disregard to my Season Passes and suggestions. I am now getting religious shows, foreign language shows, shopping, etc. I do not look at these shows or request recordings. I can not watch a TV show without Tivo switching to change channels to record something I have no interest in. I definitely knew something was amiss when I change Tivo to NOT record any suggestions and it continued recording whatever any way.

make sure it is not a channel lineup change or else that your TiVo has incorrectly changed what lineup it should be using

Posted by: dgh

quote:
Originally posted by Brenda
I definitely knew something was amiss when I change Tivo to NOT record any suggestions and it continued recording whatever any way.

This sounds like a different problem. Check the lineup as suggested and if that doesn't work, try rebooting (power cycling.)

Posted by: MaryT

I think I managed to fix my suggestion problem. I was about to erase all thumbs & start over when I was down to 4 suggestions of religious programs with an empty 80 hr Tivo (that was it - 4 suggestions).

I went into each season pass and temporarily changed the recording quality to force Tivo to process it. I also did this for my ARWLs. I didn't actually change the recording quality, I just arrowed up or down one quality & then back. That was enough to get processing. I also unthumbed and re-thumbed programs I would like to see every now & then.

The next day I had pages and pages of GOOD suggestions. Still, some of my manually thumbed items keep on disappearing. For example, my husband like the Odd Couple, so we manually thumbed it. After it records it disappears from the suggestion list & never reappears unless I do the unthumb & rethumb process. The same happens for almost all of the manually thumbed programs.

While the suggestion list seems to be much better now, something is still up with it. I'm happy that it it stopped recording religious programs.

Try my method before you go through the mess of resetting your thumbs. It just may work for you.

Mary

Posted by: lajohn27

Mary..

There's another thread about missing thumbs..

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-v...=missing+thumbs

And this was reported last summer.. the last time the genres updated on the TiVo. (Oddly enough by you in fact..)

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-v...=missing+thumbs

I smell a trend. TiVo is aggressively looking at the missing thumbs situation and maybe it's tied into the suggestions thing and possibly the genre updates.

It sure would explain a lot.

I'm going to look at my thumbs settings and see what I can find.

J

Posted by: dcorsi

as a Tivo user since 2001 i can for sure say that in the last month suggestions went nuts with totally off the wall stuff when before it happely taped mostly shows with lots of thumb ups. something changed... and it isn't good.

Posted by: heidi

You can add me to the list, too.... I am suddenly getting foreign programming! French news? German sitcoms? Spanish soap operas, game shows, and dramas!

Heeeelpppppp, I only speak one language!!

Posted by: ccwf

If the Spanish soaps are on channels you never watch, remove those channels from TiVo's list of channels you receive. That will stop TiVo from recording suggestions and wishlists from those channels.

Posted by: terminus303

I think I remember a thread on another boar where Tivo had filed a document reserving the right to sell placement in suggestions but had to give one of their partners (maybe NBC) first choice... Is anybody seeing extra suggestions from a particular content provider?

Posted by: terminus303

I can't find the old thread but a search turned up this

"7. Preference Engine Software. TiVo has no plans or intent to, now or in the
--------------------------
future, provide favorable treatment to any programmer or programmers via its
preference engine software or any other technology incorporated within the TiVo
Service. However, if at any time TiVo implements a commercial program to favor
certain programmers or content producers via the TiVo Service, then TiVo shall
promptly offer any advantages provided to any other programmer or content
producer to NBC without additional compensation."

http://contracts.onecle.com/tivo/nb...999.04.16.shtml

Posted by: Brenda

The problem was somehow on my wishlist all categories was checked from the interest categories. Prior to my discovery, Tivo was recording everything including 4 hours of TV Guide. I unchecked all categories and voila, I no longer get unwanted recordings. No one in my home checked the all categories. Tivo's updates must have changed it.

Thank you to all who made me search for the problem/solution.

Posted by: ericr74

My problem is definitely not caused by loss of thumbs. I verified that a bunch of the shows I like still have two or three thumbs up by manually recording them. I've given more thumbs down the past few weeks than ever before, and things aren't getting any better.

Posted by: Rich Peterson

quote:
I think I remember a thread on another boar where Tivo had filed a document reserving the right to sell placement in suggestions but had to give one of their partners (maybe NBC) first choice... Is anybody seeing extra suggestions from a particular content provider?

I think you are on to something here. My suggestions are totally whacked all of a sudden, too, and last night I noticed we are getting many suggestions from Animal Planet. Aren't they one of Tivo's partners?