TiVo Community Forums Archives - Suggestions: Confused

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Suggestions: Confused
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Posted by: obiwobble

Ok I _know_ that Tivo does not always record suggestions, and might have good reasons to not do so. But can anyone explain to me why my Tivo would choose not to record the 9pm showing of Ally McBeal, when it was listed at the top of Tivo's suggestions, the unit had been in standby for about 20 hours and only had about 5 hours of now playing material (in medium quality) stored? Luckily I got in in time to ask for the repeat showing.

Also, do you think the EPG people might improve the program categories at any point? I record a lot of comedy shows, but now I keep ending up with dozens of bad old "comedy" movies. Even slapping a thumbs down on these doesn't stop it!! I reckon
more useful EPG data could help stop this. e.g. I don't like most "comedies" made before 1950, I'd like Tivo to pick up on this.
(I don't like frank sinatra either, and it hasn't picked up on this )

Really, the quality of the suggestions I'm getting (and I do get several a day) varies from day to day, but the volume of really crap choices does seem to be on an upwards trend. How can I stop this. I get this feeling that Tivo's suggestion mechanism is "dumbed-down" a bit too much. I certainly would like the option to exert finer control.

If I could just give Tivo a definate yay or nay to its suggestions before it records them, that would be a good step. i.e. I go to Tivos suggestions page and have a quick scan, if I see anything drastically uncool i press a button that says "Don't record this!" but without actually giving an thumbs opinion?

Sorry if this seems like a minor rant, I do love me Tivo, and now find it hard to consider "normal" TV as an option.

R.
Obiwobble.

[This message has been edited by obiwobble (edited 01-23-2001).]

[This message has been edited by obiwobble (edited 01-23-2001).]

Posted by: Automan

Hi,
I just checked my TiVo's Suggestions and it only has 120 items it thinks I might like to record.
Only snag is a lot of them are re-runs of thing's I've already watched.
However, some are of interest.

P.S.
My TiVo's been learning my habits since early October.

Automan.

Posted by: kmusgrave

quote:
Originally posted by obiwobble:

Really, the quality of the suggestions I'm getting (and I do get several a day) varies from day to day, but the volume of really crap choices does seem to be on an upwards trend. How can I stop this. I get this feeling that Tivo's suggestion mechanism is "dumbed-down" a bit too much. I certainly would like the option to excert finer control.

Very few of Tivo's suggestions are what I would choose - out of the list of over 100 there may be 2 or 3 programmes I would like. It doesn't seem to be getting any better (I've had my box since mid-October).

It also seems to record a suggestion then as soon as its finished delete it and record someting else. This is just stupid - surely it knows how much space is available?

Kevin

Posted by: gswhite

quote:
Originally posted by kmusgrave:
Very few of Tivo's suggestions are what I would choose - out of the list of over 100 there may be 2 or 3 programmes I would like. It doesn't seem to be getting any better (I've had my box since mid-October).

It also seems to record a suggestion then as soon as its finished delete it and record someting else. This is just stupid - surely it knows how much space is available?

Kevin

If TiVO is recording it's own suggestions then they are very low priority and will only be kept for a short period. If Disk space is required for your own recordings, or it has run out of space for other recordings it will delete these first. Anything recorded and denoted by a TiVO icon is one of these recordings. If you want to keep something TiVO has recorded than change its status to either keep longer or save until you delete.

I too have owned TiVO since October, and although a lot of 'TiVO Suggestions' are films, all of my other programmes are also there aswell. I would say it was 85% accurate on what I like and watch at present. I don't allow TiVO to record it's own suggestions as my Children watch television and wouldn't understand if the television changed channels at will. I prefer to use the suggestion list but record my own programmes in a more controlled fashion. Just what I like to do really. You still get all the intelligence of TiVO with Season Passes etc except it won't change channels all the time to record a possible programme I like.

I presume you use the Thumbs up and Down buttons to inform TiVO of what you like and don't like? How many Thumbs up do you usually use?

Let me know..

Gary

Posted by: obiwobble

As suggested previously on this board, I use a scheme
something like this (and I've been sticking to it)

3 thumbs up = Must Have. If I haven't recorded it, Tivo definately should
2 thumbs up - Do want to see this rather a lot
1 thumbs up - Quite Interested
0 thumbs - Indifferent
1 thumbs down - Big Dislike, don't record.
2 thumbs down - [unused]
3 thumbs down - reserved for soap operas

Am I being too generous, too mean? Is it purely because the EPG is a bit lame at the mo?

R.
Ob.

[This message has been edited by obiwobble (edited 01-23-2001).]

Posted by: kmusgrave

I know the suggestions are low priority but for me it might as well not bother - it seems to be suggesting mainly junk!

What I was getting at re: not keeping them for long was it kept it for less than 1 minute after it had finished recording, therefore it didn't give me a chance to watch it or decide to keep it. (It didn't matter of course as it wasn't something I would choose to record myself http://www.avsforum.com/ubbtivo/smile.gif

Kevin

Posted by: richard plumb

I get confused when TiVo has a suggestion that is something I've already set to record. Eg, Stargate SG1. I have a season pass on Sky One and C4. But it showed up in the first page of suggestions recently. I thought it might have been a different showing, but when I looked at it, it was marked "you have a season pass for this program. This episode will be recorded." So why was it in suggestions?

Posted by: obiwobble

I've seen this too, though for me this happens for programs I have set on a Manual recording rather than a season pass.

On an _possibly_ related point, why oh why or why do I always get multiple identical lines when using the "browse by time" menus e.g.

9.00pm 27 SomethingDull
39 SemiCrapImportedComedy
39 SemiCrapImportedComedy
39 SemiCrapImportedComedy
43 SomethingElse
39 SemiCrapImportedComedy
39 SemiCrapImportedComedy
9.30pm 12 Yadd Yadda Yadda

Is the Tivo Databse stuffed full of redundant records? And if so why doesn't this screen filter them out?

It drastically reduces the usefulness of this screen by requiring a Page up/down 3-4 times as often as it should!

R.
Obiwobble

[This message has been edited by obiwobble (edited 01-23-2001).]

Posted by: TiVo_Ted

I hesitate to reply to this, because suggestions are really more of an art than a science. You are correct that the quality of the suggestions is heavily dependent on the quality of the guide data. If some of our efforts on the guide data front pay off, hopefully the suggestions will start looking better.

I can give you my personal rule-of-thumb after using TiVo for 2+ years. Use 1 thumb up liberally. Surf the guide and give single thumbs to lots of shows that look good to you. Use two-thumbs up for shows you really like, but use them rather sparingly. Only use three thumbs up to shows that you would like a "fuzzy" season pass to. By this I mean a program that you would really like to be recorded when there is space, but you don't want a hard-wired season pass for. I use this for movies I love that I wouldn't mind watching again if they are on at some later date.

As far as thumbs-down goes, be careful. I have found that using thumbs-down can really screw things up. Only thumbs-down programs that you hate everything about (genre, actor, etc.). If you are a comedy buff, avoid using thumbs-down on comedies you don't like. It might downgrade the genre. If you recorded it but didn't like it, just remove the automatic thumb so that it is neutral.

This has worked pretty well for me. These are my personal input, not official documentation from TiVo.

Posted by: obiwobble

Hi Ted, thanks for the input.

This is more or less what I have been doing. Only thumbing down stuff that makes me bilious e.g. soap operas & diy shows http://www.avsforum.com/ubbtivo/smile.gif

Do you have any suggestions regarding the first part of my question:

quote:
Ok I _know_ that Tivo does not always record suggestions, and might have good reasons to not do so. But can anyone explain to me why my Tivo would choose not to record the 9pm showing of Ally McBeal, when it was listed at the top of Tivo's suggestions, the unit had been in standby for about 20 hours and only had about 5 hours of now playing material (in medium quality) stored? Luckily I got in in time to ask for the repeat showing.

This is the real mystery.......

Posted by: bignoise

quote:
Originally posted by TiVo_Ted:
Only thumbs-down programs that you hate everything about (genre, actor, etc.). If you are a comedy buff, avoid using thumbs-down on comedies you don't like. It might downgrade the genre.

This is the mistake I made when I first got TiVo, which was to rank nearly every suggestion and thumbs down almost anything that I wasn't interested in. These days, I use thumbs down much more sparingly.

Thing is, I had to use it the other day, as I just can't stop my TiVo from recording "Cheers" every night! :-)

Posted by: ColinM

While we are on the topic of suggestions, can anybody tell me what the TiVo will delete in order to record a suggestion? Will it delete an older suggestion it has recorded or go even further and delete a recorded programme with a yellow ! mark next to it?

Cheers

Colin

Posted by: GarySargent

TiVo NEVER records over a programme you specifically asked it to record, even ones with a yellow exclamation-mark.

I'm not sure about it recording over its own suggestions but I would have thought it would.

Posted by: chimaera

quote:
Originally posted by GarySargent:
TiVo NEVER records over a programme you specifically asked it to record, even ones with a yellow exclamation-mark.

I'm not sure about it recording over its own suggestions but I would have thought it would.

I'm not so sure about that. If you don't delete any specific or suggested recordings for a while, then it seems to stop recording suggestions, implying that when the box is full it doesn't delete anything at all to make space for a new suggestion.

Posted by: jennykins

Yes, I've noticed that too.

It recorded a Lana Turner movie this morning, but had deleted it to record another movie called "The Men" which started almost immediately afterwards, yet there are suggestions in now playing dating from the beginning of the month.

Another feature improvement required?

A user selectable/definable "Delete suggestions that are x many days old" ?

Posted by: kmusgrave

It definitely records over old suggestions on my box

Kevin

Posted by: topbanana

quote:
Originally posted by kmusgrave:
I know the suggestions are low priority but for me it might as well not bother - it seems to be suggesting mainly junk!
Kevin

Ah, but if it manages to automagically record even one programme that you like but didn't ask it to it has won. It has done so without interfering with the work you've asked it to do. Even a very marginal success rate is 'pure win', having no cost to you.

As an abolute percentage (hours watched/hours automagically recorded) my TiVo manages about a 10% rate. However, it normally around 15 hours to play with and grabs perhaps 3 hours per day, meaning that I get a half hour of something I wanted to watch but would have missed b.t. (before TiVo) every 2 days or so. As a factor of how much recorded TV I watch (~60 mins a day), this is really a 25% benefit.

Not, of course factoring in all the things it records that prompt me to book season passes, all the things I would have forgotten to record, all the time saved zooming past adverts, all the time saved looking for blank tapes etc etc etc http://www.avsforum.com/ubbtivo/wink.gif

------------------
Top Banana

Posted by: jennykins

Just realised that those suggestions it hasnt deleted all have at least one thumbs up.