# Missed "first run only" season pass - Will TiVo record a repeat to cover missed pgm?



## Cartrivision (Feb 17, 2005)

If you set up a "first run only" season pass, and a higher priority season pass prevents the first one from being recorded, but there are one or more "repeats" of the same program on in the same week, will Tivo record one of the repeats to cover the missed recording of the first run episode... even though the season pass is set up to record first runs only?

What about if the repeat is on a different channel, such as CNBC repeats of The Apprentice a few days after they appear on NBC?


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## balboa dave (Jan 19, 2004)

Yes.

No. A SP is for one channel only. You need to set up as a Wishlist for a show on different channels.


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## Cartrivision (Feb 17, 2005)

balboa dave said:


> A SP is for one channel only. You need to set up as a Wishlist for a show on different channels.


That's really bad operating logic on TiVo's part. So if I set up a season pass on the DirecTV east coast feed of HBO and there is a conflict that prevents it from being recorded, TiVo won't catch it on the west coast HBO (or one of the other 5 or so HBO channels I get).

There should be an "any channel option" for season passes to enable recording the season pass on any channel that the program can be found on.


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## balboa dave (Jan 19, 2004)

That would be a good suggestion.


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## David Platt (Dec 13, 2001)

Cartrivision said:


> There should be an "any channel option" for season passes to enable recording the season pass on any channel that the program can be found on.


There is-- it's called an Auto-Recording WishList. SPs are channel-specific; WLs are not. The limitations on the SP are there for a reason-- if SPs recorded from any channel, can you imagine how quickly you hard drive would fill up, for instance, if you had a SP set to record First Runs & Repeats of Law & Order? Instead of just grabbing the episodes from this season on NBC, it would grabe the multiple daily showings on cable channels as well.


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## NotVeryWitty (Oct 3, 2003)

David Platt said:


> There is-- it's called an Auto-Recording WishList. SPs are channel-specific; WLs are not. The limitations on the SP are there for a reason-- if SPs recorded from any channel, can you imagine how quickly you hard drive would fill up, for instance, if you had a SP set to record First Runs & Repeats of Law & Order? Instead of just grabbing the episodes from this season on NBC, it would grabe the multiple daily showings on cable channels as well.


You *can* use Season Passes to do what the OP is asking for. Simply set up two Season Passes for The Apprentice, one on NBC and one on CNBC. If you set them both up for first-run only, Tivo is smart enough to recognize that the same episode is airing on both channels, and will only record one of them.

I have SP's for a number of PBS programs. Since the Boston area has two PBS stations, which usually air the same shows at different (and multiple) times, I set up the SP's twice, once for each station.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

I use a combo of Season pass and wishlist. Law & Order is a good example

I have my season pass for specific ones I want like Criminal Intent set for first run only and keep until I delete and keep at most 3 . That way first runs show up as green balls and I know they will not be deleted until I watch them.

Below that in the prioroity list I have a wishlist for just "Law & order" and keep at most 10 and Keep until space needed - this way I get repeats and the occasional conflict repeat of new ones. I can watch these or not and just keep getting a fresh supply of shows that were not recorded already in the past 28 days.

with the wishlist seperate I can tone down the law & orders to 5 if I want some space for other things like when Christmas specials roll around.


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## tgibbs (Sep 22, 2002)

Cartrivision said:


> If you set up a "first run only" season pass, and a higher priority season pass prevents the first one from being recorded, but there are one or more "repeats" of the same program on in the same week, will Tivo record one of the repeats to cover the missed recording of the first run episode... even though the season pass is set up to record first runs only?
> 
> What about if the repeat is on a different channel, such as CNBC repeats of The Apprentice a few days after they appear on NBC?


In general, repeats of a show the same week are not flagged in the Program Guide as Reruns, so a "first run only" SP will pick them up, but only if they are on the same channel. If the rerun is on a different channel, you will need to special-case it or create a WishList. You can check to see whether the TiVo will pick up a repeat by looking at the "Upcoming Episodes" list for that show and seeing if any of the repeats are checked. You can also force the recording of an upcoming repeat from this screen.


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## aindik (Jan 23, 2002)

I think another part of the OPs question is what "first run" means (i.e. is the rerun on CNBC later in the week still "first run"). It means within x number of days after the Original Air Date. Anyone know what x is?


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## aindik (Jan 23, 2002)

Cartrivision said:


> That's really bad operating logic on TiVo's part. So if I set up a season pass on the DirecTV east coast feed of HBO and there is a conflict that prevents it from being recorded, TiVo won't catch it on the west coast HBO (or one of the other 5 or so HBO channels I get).
> 
> There should be an "any channel option" for season passes to enable recording the season pass on any channel that the program can be found on.


You should always use a wishlist when recording HBO series. A new episode of the Sopranos will air on something like four different channels (HBO and HBO2, east and west) during the week. You want to make sure your TiVo catches it if it misses the first airing on Sunday nights (when everything else is on).


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## murgatroyd (Jan 6, 2002)

tgibbs said:


> In general, repeats of a show the same week are not flagged in the Program Guide as Reruns


Whether a show is listed as a 'repeat' or not in the Program Guide has nothing to do with whether a show is treated as a repeat by TiVo. As others have mentioned, it's an algorithm based on the Original Air Date which is (mostly) listed on the details screen for each show (hit display/enter button on your remote to get there).

I don't know how the algorithm works, but I do remember one season where Stargate SG-1's Guide Data was showing up with the OAD for the UK first airings, which were sufficiently ahead of the broadcast date in the US to cause our FRO SPs and WLs to miss it.

I agree with your later remarks that it's a good idea to look at the Upcoming Episodes to pick up a repeat manually if you have to.

I also think it's helpful to look at the To Do List and see what TiVo has scheduled to record for you, especially the Recording History where it will show what isn't going to record. Sometimes you'll get surprised and a recording will be missed, but it's better to catch it in the To Do List rather than come home and find your show isn't in the Now Playing as you wanted.

Jan


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## Cartrivision (Feb 17, 2005)

aindik said:


> You should always use a wishlist when recording HBO series. A new episode of the Sopranos will air on something like four different channels (HBO and HBO2, east and west) during the week. You want to make sure your TiVo catches it if it misses the first airing on Sunday nights (when everything else is on).


That's fine if your program has a unique enough name that it can set up as a wishlist, but if the title of the program that you want to catch on any channel has a one word title that's commonly found in many other program titles, a wishlist isn't a good option. That's why there should be an "any channel" option for season passes.


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## Cartrivision (Feb 17, 2005)

balboa dave said:


> Cartrivision said:
> 
> 
> > There should be an "any channel option" for season passes to enable recording the season pass on any channel that the program can be found on.
> ...


Obviously I'm not the first one to think of it. It's one of the suggestions that TiVo is asking their users to vote for on their suggestion form here:

http://research.tivo.com/suggestions/

(it's the 8th one down on the check-list)


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

Cartrivision said:


> Obviously I'm not the first one to think of it. It's one of the suggestions that TiVo is asking their users to vote for on their suggestion form here:
> 
> http://research.tivo.com/suggestions/
> 
> (it's the 8th one down on the check-list)


actually I had the case recently of Andromeda switching networks. I missed some shows in my season pass and did not have a wishlist for it.


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## tgibbs (Sep 22, 2002)

I do wish TiVo had an "Any channel" option for Season Passes. Some non-TiVo DVRs have this option. This is becoming increasingly useful now that some channels have partner channels that get the same show later in the week.


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## NotVeryWitty (Oct 3, 2003)

tgibbs said:


> I do wish TiVo had an "Any channel" option for Season Passes. Some non-TiVo DVRs have this option. This is becoming increasingly useful now that some channels have partner channels that get the same show later in the week.


While I agree it would be nice if Tivo had an "any channel" option on Season Passes, you can still get things to work correctly if you just set up a Season Pass for each of the "partner channels" (see my previous message above). This really works, everyone! There's no need to resort to wishlists.


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## Cartrivision (Feb 17, 2005)

NotVeryWitty said:


> While I agree it would be nice if Tivo had an "any channel" option on Season Passes, you can still get things to work correctly if you just set up a Season Pass for each of the "partner channels" (see my previous message above). This really works, everyone! There's no need to resort to wishlists.


Sure that works, but I have 7 HBO channels and I don't want to have to set up 7 season passes to cover all the broadcast possibilities.

Also that does no good if you don't know that a "partner channel" rebroadcasts first run programming a few days later. For instance, I never knew that CNBC did this for "The Apprentice" until I saw it accidentally, so I would never have even known to set up the same season pass on both NBC and CNBC.

Sure, wishlists are a partial workaround, but hardly a perfect solution. For instance a wishlist for the HBO program "Oz", would potentially match one of the close to 100 other titles listed in the IMDB with the word "Oz" in the title.


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## OLdDog (Dec 15, 2001)

This is where you get a little creative with the WLs and the problem is solved.

While a title wish list for Oz has matches that are not wanted a key word wl for OZ Actor name, where actor name is one of the actors listed in every episode, will get the shows you want.

There seems to always be something unique in the description that allows a key word WL to focus down to the level desired.


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## dgh (Jul 24, 2000)

Also, while there may be a hundred matches in IMDB, a wishlist for OZ (with no other restrictions like actors or categories) in my two hundred-channel line-up produced no matches in the next two weeks. So it's probably not as bad in practice as it sounds.


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## Cartrivision (Feb 17, 2005)

dgh said:


> Also, while there may be a hundred matches in IMDB, a wishlist for OZ (with no other restrictions like actors or categories) in my two hundred-channel line-up produced no matches in the next two weeks. So it's probably not as bad in practice as it sounds.


You and OLdDog are missing the point. I know that there are creative wishlist definitions that can solve the problem *MOST* (but not all) of the time, but the point was that adding an "any channel" option to season passes was the better and more elegant solution.


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## OLdDog (Dec 15, 2001)

I did not miss the point at all. An extra option for SPs like you suggest is, to me, a MUCH lees elegant solution.

SPs, are designed to be on ch only and WLs are designed to allow mult chs and trying to make SP be more WL like only adds needless complexities to the SP manager's function and would require reworking that logic. 

While that might be a good thing it is not something that I would want to see TiVo do at this time as it would require a reworking of a fairly stable part of the code and recent history shows that TiVo's debugging ability has faired badly in the last several releases and even the fixes have had to be fixed several times.

If it ain't broke; Don't fix it.


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## dgh (Jul 24, 2000)

Nope I didn't miss it either. I wouldn't be against an "any channel" option, but there's another 20-50 things I'd rank higher, so, I was just pointing out that while we wait for that feature to get implemented - or not - it's not that bad.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

dgh said:


> Nope I didn't miss it either. I wouldn't be against an "any channel" option, but there's another 20-50 things I'd rank higher, so, I was just pointing out that while we wait for that feature to get implemented - or not - it's not that bad.


I think a better way of doing it would be a one step way of converting a SP into an ARWL. e.g. for the example given, a "The Apprentice" SP could be turned into a "The Apprentice" title-based wishlist with autorecording turned on with the same recording options as the original SP by default.

But I too think this is relatively low on the priority scale. Making ARWLs for a bunch of PBS shows (since we have several PBS stations here) wasn't too big of a deal..

(MUCH higher priority: multiple tuners and/or cooperative scheduling, FSI, soft padding, editing recordings before burning to DVD (or even just on the hard drive if you've watched half of a movie for example)... and a zillion other things. But I'd upgrade hardware for multiple tuners, and would pay extra money for the rest of the features even though I already have lifetime subscriptions.)


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## Cartrivision (Feb 17, 2005)

OLdDog said:


> I did not miss the point at all. An extra option for SPs like you suggest is, to me, a MUCH lees elegant solution.
> 
> SPs, are designed to be on ch only and WLs are designed to allow mult chs and trying to make SP be more WL like only adds needless complexities to the SP manager's function and would require reworking that logic.
> 
> ...


Actually it is broke.

Season passes are meant for recording recurring episodes of *one show*. The logic using a season pass has nothing to do with *one* channel only. There is nothing _less_ elegant about adding an "any channel" option to a season pass instead of forcing the user to try to figure out a wishlist combination that will implement a season pass. The simplicity of adding an "any channel" option to season passes over using a wishlist is what makes it way more elegant. Simplicity equals elegance.

The fact is that there are now more than a hundred channels, with many shared by a common program provider, so even first run progams air on multiple channels. HBO is not one channel, it is multiple channels, as are many other networks. The season pass logic *is* broken. That's why TiVo has it on their list of possible improvements for it's customers to rank (http://research.tivo.com/suggestions/). The days of "one program-one channel" ended years ago. Hopefully TiVo will update their software to reflect that fact.


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## Stylin (Dec 31, 2004)

NotVeryWitty said:


> You *can* use Season Passes to do what the OP is asking for. Simply set up two Season Passes for The Apprentice, one on NBC and one on CNBC. If you set them both up for first-run only, Tivo is smart enough to recognize that the same episode is airing on both channels, and will only record one of them.
> 
> I have SP's for a number of PBS programs. Since the Boston area has two PBS stations, which usually air the same shows at different (and multiple) times, I set up the SP's twice, once for each station.


Worked! I was having a problem with WL recording duplicates of Oprah & Tyra, as they repeat all day on different channels. I just set up as per your instructions, and it will grab 1 ep per day from any channel. Thanks for the tip!


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## Stylin (Dec 31, 2004)

I was having a problem with WL recording 3 duplicates of Oprah & Tyra, as they repeat all day on different channels. I just set up as per instructions below, and 'To Do" shows it will grab 1 ep per day from any channel. Thanks for the tip!

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=3931204#post3931204


NotVeryWitty said:


> You *can* use Season Passes to do what the OP is asking for. Simply set up two Season Passes for The Apprentice, one on NBC and one on CNBC. If you set them both up for first-run only, Tivo is smart enough to recognize that the same episode is airing on both channels, and will only record one of them.
> 
> I have SP's for a number of PBS programs. Since the Boston area has two PBS stations, which usually air the same shows at different (and multiple) times, I set up the SP's twice, once for each station.


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## Sirshagg (Dec 27, 2001)

At first glance I thought SP across multiple channels would be bad. But after reading through this entire thread i would support it. Just because the feature is there doe not mean you have to use it. Leave the default s this channel, but allow changing it to any channel. I really don't see a down side. - other then the resources necessary to code it.


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## mikebridge (Sep 18, 2000)

Cartrivision said:


> Obviously I'm not the first one to think of it. It's one of the suggestions that TiVo is asking their users to vote for on their suggestion form here:
> 
> http://research.tivo.com/suggestions/
> 
> (it's the 8th one down on the check-list)


that survey is out of date, we have some of the features listed on it already.


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## tazzftw (Mar 26, 2005)

You people anger me

Isn't the point of a Season Pass to record every airing of a show? Obviously, that is not the case.

I'm constantly taking my TiVo to different area codes. Several of the shows I record are on local affiliates that the Wishlists won't record. And I DO NOT want to set up Wishlishes for all these shows. Isn't the point of a TiVo to make watching shows easier? Setting up several extra season passes or having to create weird inaccurate wishlistes is NOT easier.

This is a great OPTION to have available and I don't see one good reason why they shouldn't add it. And don't tell me bugs, because by that logic the TiVo should never upgrade.

Now, I won't abandon TiVo if they don't do it. I'm just saying it's a great idea and a big "wag of a finger" to those who don't even want it as an option.


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## Leon WIlkinson (Feb 13, 2000)

Cartrivision said:


> Actually it is broke.
> 
> Season passes are meant for recording recurring episodes of *one show*. The logic using a season pass has nothing to do with *one* channel only. There is nothing _less_ elegant about adding an "any channel" option to a season pass instead of forcing the user to try to figure out a wishlist combination that will implement a season pass. The simplicity of adding an "any channel" option to season passes over using a wishlist is what makes it way more elegant. Simplicity equals elegance.
> 
> The fact is that there are now more than a hundred channels, with many shared by a common program provider, so even first run progams air on multiple channels. HBO is not one channel, it is multiple channels, as are many other networks. The season pass logic *is* broken. That's why TiVo has it on their list of possible improvements for it's customers to rank (http://research.tivo.com/suggestions/). The days of "one program-one channel" ended years ago. Hopefully TiVo will update their software to reflect that fact.


I think the limiting factor is that you have 2 option on season passes(1 or Last). If the season pass option could include all channels with this show, then build multiple season passes which could be structured internally.

If you could rank your conflicts, in order the most wanted, Then the TiVo would chew on that then setup the season passes to best achieve all the shows. If it can't be totally resolved you would get a msg of the conflict


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## Adam1115 (Dec 15, 2003)

tazzftw said:


> You people anger me
> 
> Isn't the point of a Season Pass to record every airing of a show? Obviously, that is not the case.
> 
> ...


Well, I'd say, no, obviously it is only designed to record a season of a show on one channel.

But I agree with you that it should change with the times. One thing I don't like about the season passes, is that I have an HD-TiVo and record the same show OTA and also via Satellite. I prefer OTA because it is far better quality, yet sometimes I get breakups of have problems with the OTA feed. So I set up TWO season passes, one for each channel. I have the opposite problem as it decides not to record the later satellite version because it already recorded.

So while it is 'per channel', it really isn't because they aren't completely independent. There should be a setting to lock it down to one channel, or look for the first run on any channel. I'm with you that it's a good idea..


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## tazzftw (Mar 26, 2005)

Sure it was designed for one channel, but to a person who hears Season Pass for the first time, they wouldn't think one channel.

I also want to say that my anger came about because so many people didn't even want it as an option, and that's just mind boggling.


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

The disadvantage of multiple SPs as opposed to one WL is that with multiple SPs, you have less control over WHEN the show will be recorded. It will first take the first channel, and get the earliest possible airing on that channel. If none of the showings are available, it will go to the second channel, and so on. So if you have, e.g.:

Channel 1: 7:00 Sunday
Channel 2: 10:00 Sunday
Channel 1: 7:00 Friday

with a conflict at 7:00 Sunday, your SPs will next go for the 7:00 Friday showing. A WL would go next to the 10:00 Sunday showing, and only if that were another conflict would it go to 7:00 Friday.

I'm fine with the way it is. I find that if there are too many hits with a WL, I can always monkey with the Show Type to narrow it down so that I almost always only get what I want. Having an "any channel" option would be nice but almost completely unnecessary for me.


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## cwerdna (Feb 22, 2001)

Cartrivision said:


> Actually it is broke.
> 
> Season passes are meant for recording recurring episodes of *one show*. The logic using a season pass has nothing to do with *one* channel only. There is nothing _less_ elegant about adding an "any channel" option to a season pass instead of forcing the user to try to figure out a wishlist combination that will implement a season pass. The simplicity of adding an "any channel" option to season passes over using a wishlist is what makes it way more elegant. Simplicity equals elegance.


The problem about adding an "any channel" option to SPs is that you can have conflicts within that SP. Given the current model of season pass manager, how would you work out priorities?

To me, it's GOOD that SPs are on a per channel basis. Go look up Law & Order: Criminal Intent (not that I watch the show). For me, it airs on SF11, USA and Bravo. Looking at the guide data, there would be numerous conflicts for single tuner units. How would I resolve them? What about the soft padding (overlap protection) that got added in ~7.x software for standalone units? If you had padding set in your SP, what determines which one wins?

The easy workaround it to use title keyword WLs and/or setup SPs for all the shows and channels you care about then prioritize as needed.

BTW, I never use First Run Only. I'm too worried about bad guide data (namely OAD) causing me to miss something. I don't recommend anyone else doing so either for critical shows.


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## Jonathan_S (Oct 23, 2001)

aindik said:


> I think another part of the OPs question is what "first run" means (i.e. is the rerun on CNBC later in the week still "first run"). It means within x number of days after the Original Air Date. Anyone know what x is?


x is 28 days.

A Show that is aired within 28 days of the Original Air Date (as listed in its guide data) is First Run.*
If it has already been recorded once, then all the other showings within 28 days of that are Duplicates. (A First Run Only season pass won't record duplicates, which it why it doesn't normally record a new episode multiple times).

*Or if the show is missing it guide data, and the TiVo can't determine which episode it is. This usually manifests itself as "generic guide data" where the description is just a general description of the entire show, not any specific episode. To err on the side of caution, the TiVo records those in case they might be first run.


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## aindik (Jan 23, 2002)

Jonathan_S said:


> x is 28 days.
> 
> A Show that is aired within 28 days of the Original Air Date (as listed in its guide data) is First Run.*
> If it has already been recorded once, then all the other showings within 28 days of that are Duplicates. (A First Run Only season pass won't record duplicates, which it why it doesn't normally record a new episode multiple times).
> ...


Are you sure about that? I thought it was a number much lower than 28. Like 5 or 7.

28 is the number of days TiVo keeps track of what was recorded and deleted, for the purposes of not recording duplicates. "Duplicate or Not Duplicate" is separate from "First Run or Repeat."


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

I seem to recall something close to but not quite 14..? I know that when A&E or USA were doing L&O reruns around ten days after the original showing, my wishlist would pick it up if it missed the first one.


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## Puppy76 (Oct 7, 2004)

I have to agree that it's a good idea to add an "any channel" option to Season Passes. I didn't realize until recently that it didn't already work that way. Keeping that as an option would be good though, for situations where we know that a show is on syndication on a different network, and maybe you only want those shows, or only want the new/er ones.

One reason this may get REALLY important really fast is OTA ATSC. My understanding is that networks can at any time use as many sub-channels as they want within their bandwidth. Presumably that means for example, a new Law and Order might air on 25.1 one week, and 25.4 another week-I don't know exactly what the channels would look like, but I think that basic idea could and will happen.

In that situation Tivo will be counting each of those sub channels as a seperate channel, and thus you'd have to set up a Season Pass for each sub channel, right? This could be totally broken as ATSC takes over...


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## Jonathan_S (Oct 23, 2001)

aindik said:


> Are you sure about that? I thought it was a number much lower than 28. Like 5 or 7.
> 
> 28 is the number of days TiVo keeps track of what was recorded and deleted, for the purposes of not recording duplicates. "Duplicate or Not Duplicate" is separate from "First Run or Repeat."


I sat down and tested it one time. 
Picked a show with numerous showing (Kim Possible on the Disney Channel), and kept creating conflicts with each showing of a new episode to see how far out the First Run Only season pass would reschedule it.

It scheduled it at OAD + 27 days, but not at OAD + 29 days. (There wasn't a showing on OAD + 28 days).


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## tazzftw (Mar 26, 2005)

cwerdna said:


> The problem about adding an "any channel" option to SPs is that you can have conflicts within that SP. Given the current model of season pass manager, how would you work out priorities?
> 
> To me, it's GOOD that SPs are on a per channel basis. Go look up Law & Order: Criminal Intent (not that I watch the show). For me, it airs on SF11, USA and Bravo. Looking at the guide data, there would be numerous conflicts for single tuner units. How would I resolve them? What about the soft padding (overlap protection) that got added in ~7.x software for standalone units? If you had padding set in your SP, what determines which one wins?
> 
> ...


That's why our suggestion is for an OPTION!


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