# Suggestions On or Off?



## GoodSpike (Dec 17, 2001)

I left Suggestions on for the first 30 days, but finally turned them off, in part hoping that might somehow impact the times that the fan runs loudly (I doubt it will), and in part because there has been very little of interest recorded.

One benefit that is quickly appearing is recently deleted includes a lot more relevant shows to un-delete.


----------



## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

I never turn on suggestions. In the old days, you could look at the suggestions as a list so you could see if you liked something but I don't see that on the Bolt.


----------



## GoodSpike (Dec 17, 2001)

TonyD79 said:


> I never turn on suggestions. In the old days, you could look at the suggestions as a list so you could see if you liked something but I don't see that on the Bolt.


I had the list, but it was seldom something I liked.

I don't remember what suggestions was like on my old DTivo, but I remember it being better somehow. Maybe because there were fewer suggestions--quality over quantity.


----------



## phox_mulder (Feb 23, 2006)

After never using them on any previous TiVo (S2, S3, HD, etc) I left them on when I got my first Roamio, mainly because I had plenty of hard drive space.

After about a month, I gave up and turned them off.
It got to the point where they were recording pretty much everything I already had Season Passes for on my S3 and HD, and not much else I'd ever be interested in.

2nd and 3rd Roamio, I turned them off as soon as I could.

Edit to add, I've only ever had TiVo's connected to antenna, never cable, except my 2 old DirecTV TiVos, so there wasn't a lot of content to pick from.


phox


----------



## PSU_Sudzi (Jun 4, 2015)

Off.


----------



## waynomo (Nov 9, 2002)

Like others, on for a few days/weeks after installing TiVo and then permanently off.


----------



## ej42137 (Feb 16, 2014)

I had it on for some years, carefully training it to pick up interesting stuff. After I became more deliberate in my viewing choices I still left it on so that I could estimate my available recording space from the number of suggestions remaining. When I got a premiere it had a free space indicator so never turned it on for that one. Finally, when I got kmttg I could get free space from it so my Series 3s got suggestions turned off. I don't miss it, I'd much rather be able to recover deleted recordings.


----------



## kdmorse (Jan 29, 2001)

While I'm vastly outnumbered, and always have been - I like em, and leave em on. Even when I never look at them, they in no way bother me. And when I do look at them (which means I've watched everything else recorded that interests me), there's often a rerun of something in there or an old movie I might watch.

I've had them turned on for 15 years, across 10 Tivos, and never felt the urge to turn them off.


----------



## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

I don't have enough time to watch the stuff I record on purpose.

In the old days I used it as a quasi free space indicator, but I've never really watched Suggestions. And as soon as they added Recently Deleted that was no longer necessary.


----------



## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

On. 

One of my favorite features. It is trained to know what I like, and is vastly superior to surfing for finding new content.


----------



## ScottFL (Dec 14, 2015)

I have mine on at the moment but I am new to TIVO and still figuring things out. I have peeked at the list a few times. I actually did find a couple of shows I was interested in but most of them I have no interest in.


----------



## kisby (Mar 31, 2002)

Are the suggestions filling up my hard drive? If so, do I have to delete them all manually one at a time? How do I delete them all?


----------



## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

kisby said:


> Are the suggestions filling up my hard drive? If so, do I have to delete them all manually one at a time? How do I delete them all?


They do but as you use the drive for your recordings, they self delete.


----------



## series5orpremier (Jul 6, 2013)

Off. Creates too much clutter to sort through with more misses than hits. Besides, I'm to the point of pushing my hard drive capacities and not enough time to watch it just with the stuff I find on my own.


----------



## HomeUser (Jan 12, 2003)

I have suggestions turned on. Occasionally suggestions will capture something of interest and in more then one instant capture the overrun of a delayed show by recording the show in next time slot (CBS Sunday).


----------



## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

kisby said:


> Are the suggestions filling up my hard drive? If so, do I have to delete them all manually one at a time? How do I delete them all?


Suggestions are the first thing deleted to make room for actual recordings. You do not ever need to worry about deleting them manually.


----------



## GoodSpike (Dec 17, 2001)

kisby said:


> Are the suggestions filling up my hard drive? If so, do I have to delete them all manually one at a time? How do I delete them all?


They are filling up your hard drive, but not at the expense of things you actually want recorded.

I'm not sure if there's a way to delete them all with one click, but you can delete them manually if you wish.


----------



## GoodSpike (Dec 17, 2001)

Thanks all! I'm surprised by the ratio of off to on. I'm even a bit surprised it's more off than on.


----------



## TIVO_GUY_HERE (Jul 10, 2000)

I have them on, till it gets too full, and my deleted shows stop being saved, then I go through and delete all of them


----------



## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

GoodSpike said:


> Thanks all! I'm surprised by the ratio of off to on. I'm even a bit surprised it's more off than on.


I'm not. They really aren't that good for all the reasons listed (records stuff you already record, clutter, etc). Most people had them on when TiVo users convinced themselves they didn't need a free space indicator and they used them as an ad hoc one


----------



## NickTheGreat (Aug 31, 2015)

I think I have a better command of my TV watching than TiVo does. And I have more shows than time as it is! :


----------



## aspexil (Oct 16, 2015)

Our Bolt is the only Tivo in the house and OTA only. We left suggestions on and I like it. Old reruns of TV shows from the 50s/60s/70s/80s that I haven't seen in a very long time. So while we don't dip into the suggestions often we do it enough that it is useful. We only have around 40 OTA stations here and a lot of the channels we don't watch at all.


----------



## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

I only turn suggestions on for the first week or two of a TiVos life(or new hard drive). To help fill up the hard drive. Then I turn suggestions off.


----------



## Jonathan_S (Oct 23, 2001)

Dan203 said:


> Suggestions are the first thing deleted to make room for actual recordings. You do not ever need to worry about deleting them manually.


Arguably they're the 2nd thing deleted - though that might get into semantics. The first thing that gets removed is items from the Deleted Items folder; even new suggestions push those out.
Then any scheduled or manual recording displaces suggestions.

But having suggestions on means you often have very limited time to realize you deleted something prematurely and recover it before it disappears entirely.

I turned them off partly due to that, and partly due to the way they'd mess with the folders of shows I had to watch. (Suggestions won't create show folders, but if you have at least 2 episodes saved, or unwatched, so the TiVo's already created the folder then new suggestions will both change the recording count number for that folder and bump the folder to the top of the Now Playing list.
I found the minor annoyance of that outweighed the benefit of suggestions for me.


----------



## slice1900 (Dec 2, 2005)

Like others, when I got my first Tivo I left it on for a month, decided it sucked, and turned it off. I admit I'm pretty surprised at how many people have it off. Since it is touted as some sort of great feature of the Tivo I figured it would be like 90% having it on. I guess it is pretty overrated if even a self-selected group of Tivo fans (because who is going to read/post in these forums if they aren't) believe it is a useless feature by a 3:1 ratio.


----------



## MScottC (Sep 11, 2004)

I had Suggestions on years ago, but soon turned it off. 2 sub-features would make it more bearable. First, the option to force the suggestions into a folder in the "Now Playing List" so it doesn't add to your normal scroll through that list, till you go into the "suggestions folder." Second, based on some statements here, the ability to set the percentage of Deleted vs Suggestions kept as the disk fills up, i.e. keep 50% suggestions, 50% deletions, or 20/80 or whatever you decide is the right proportion.


----------

