# How to get Tivo to stop switching channels for tivo suggestions



## macgyver58 (Sep 30, 2010)

I don't mind having Tivo record suggestions but its really annoying when it interrupts something I am watching to ask if it can switch the channel to record a suggestion. Who the heck programmed the unit that way. Seriously do they think Tivo has a better idea of what I want to watch than I do?? Is there some way to change the settings so it doesn't do that anymore without turning off suggestions altogether?


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## rainwater (Sep 21, 2004)

Settings & Messages/Settings/Recording/TiVo Suggestions.


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## pdhenry (Feb 28, 2005)

Not sure what behavioral alternative you're looking for. Sure you expect it to ask before changing the channel on the tuner being displayed.

If it's asking to change the channel you're watching, that means that something else is already going to record on the other tuner (it will use the non-displayed tuner if possible. In fact, if you've been flipping back and forth between tuners recently it will even ask before changing the channel on the tuner you're not cuirrently watching). So it will have used the other tuner if it could and may or may not ask before doing that.

What would you prefer? You've already said you're looking for an alternative to just not recording suggestions...


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## macgyver58 (Sep 30, 2010)

pdhenry said:


> Not sure what behavioral alternative you're looking for. Sure you expect it to ask before changing the channel on the tuner being displayed.
> 
> If it's asking to change the channel you're watching, that means that something else is already going to record on the other tuner (it will use the non-displayed tuner if possible. In fact, if you've been flipping back and forth between tuners recently it will even ask before changing the channel on the tuner you're not cuirrently watching). So it will have used the other tuner if it could and may or may not ask before doing that.
> 
> What would you prefer? You've already said you're looking for an alternative to just not recording suggestions...


I guess what I'm looking for is a way for the unit to know that the tuner is on that channel because I am watching something and to not bother me at all. There should be a simple way for the unit to know the tuner is not just idle. For example if someone has used the remote in the past hour or so then just leave them alone. Most suggestions are completely unimportant or very low priority to most users so if it errs on the side of not recording something that wouldnt be a tragedy.


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

Well, that's just it - what value do you set the idle timer for?


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## macgyver58 (Sep 30, 2010)

slowbiscuit said:


> Well, that's just it - what value do you set the idle timer for?


There's an idle timer??? Perhaps thats the answer i was looking for. How do I get to that in the menu?


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## aristoBrat (Dec 30, 2002)

macgyver58 said:


> There's an idle timer??? Perhaps thats the answer i was looking for. How do I get to that in the menu?


That was a rhetorical question, there is no such timer that you can change.


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## macgyver58 (Sep 30, 2010)

aristoBrat said:


> That was a rhetorical question, there is no such timer that you can change.


 But thats the answer to the problem. A couple of lines of code would resolve the issue


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## ronaldheft (Aug 18, 2011)

I disagree a couple of lines of code would be the solution. If you add any timer, even as low as 5 minutes, you run the risk of missing a recording when the TV is actually idle. I think TiVo has the best solution here. While annoying, the confirmation ensures the suggestion gets recorded if idle or ignored if something is being watched. If you miss something on your live program due to the confirmation, just rewind it back a bit.


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## rainwater (Sep 21, 2004)

All TiVos have a idle checker to determine if the user is watching tv. Any button press (even when controlling the tv like with volume) is sent to the TiVo so it knows you are watching live tv. If you leave your TiVo on a channel for several hours without hitting the remote it will eventually determine you aren't watching it. You should always get a prompt when it goes to change channels. If you often watch hours of the same channel, it is probably a good idea to turn off suggestions.


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## macgyver58 (Sep 30, 2010)

ronaldheft said:


> I disagree a couple of lines of code would be the solution. If you add any timer, even as low as 5 minutes, you run the risk of missing a recording when the TV is actually idle. I think TiVo has the best solution here. While annoying, the confirmation ensures the suggestion gets recorded if idle or ignored if something is being watched. If you miss something on your live program due to the confirmation, just rewind it back a bit.


I don't see how that would be a problem. All you would miss is a TiVo suggestion that I didnt ask it to record in the first place. Of course it might be something you might be interested in but I would venture to guess that most people never look at them or delete the majority of them anyway. Besides it wouldn't be that hard to give the viewer the option of disabling that function.

It would be a reasonable option between not using suggestions at all and having it butt in to your TV viewing every time it wants to record a show you most likely have no interest in.


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## aristoBrat (Dec 30, 2002)

macgyver58 said:


> But thats the answer to the problem. A couple of lines of code would resolve the issue


Have you seen TiVoMargret on the forums here? She's the VP of Design at TiVo, and she's fairly active on the forum here. Tell her that it's just a couple of lines of code that need to be changed, and ask her when she can get it done for you. :up:


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## Grakthis (Oct 4, 2006)

What if you're watching TV and the TiVo has a suggestion that is actually better than what you're watching?

But now it doesn't notify you of its suggestion because you used the remote in the last hour. Ooops.


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## macgyver58 (Sep 30, 2010)

Grakthis said:


> What if you're watching TV and the TiVo has a suggestion that is actually better than what you're watching?
> 
> But now it doesn't notify you of its suggestion because you used the remote in the last hour. Ooops.


 There's a cost to everything. You can't go through life worrying what you might have missed. You only have 2 ( or 4 if you have an elite) tuners. Think of all the things your missing on the hundreds of channels you're not recording. Maybe TiVo suggestions missed something you would really like. We would have to have dozens of Tivo's and do nothing but watch TV all day if we're going to worry about that.

Putting that aside, it would be easy to give the Tivo owner the option of shutting off this feature if they didn't want it. All I'm saying is the Suggestions feature has its uses but they are limited in our household. Right now I have only two options. Deal with its constant interruptions or turn the feature off. I think a lot of people would appreciate a third option.


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## macgyver58 (Sep 30, 2010)

aristoBrat said:


> Have you seen TiVoMargret on the forums here? She's the VP of Design at TiVo, and she's fairly active on the forum here. Tell her that it's just a couple of lines of code that need to be changed, and ask her when she can get it done for you. :up:


 Cool. Thanks for the info. I'll do that  Hopefully she wont have to take time away from all the earth shattering, life changing upgrades that everyone else on this board wants


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## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

NOTE: Cross posting in progress.

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=478371


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## macgyver58 (Sep 30, 2010)

jrtroo said:


> NOTE: Cross posting in progress.
> 
> http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=478371


 Sorry. It wasn't my intent. I started this post and then came across that old post and added a comment to it


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## gonzotek (Sep 24, 2004)

There's also an alternative to waiting for TiVo to implement any changes in their code:

If you are watching something live (or within the 30 minute buffer) and have any remote interest in it whatsoever, just press the Record button on your remote. This starts a process that lets TiVo know you'd prefer not to be interrupted by suggestions, and has the bonus effect of storing the program for later, in case you're interrupted while it is still airing.

I know this post might come across as snarky, but consider trying it anyway, you might be satisfied with the result.


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## macgyver58 (Sep 30, 2010)

gonzotek said:


> There's also an alternative to waiting for TiVo to implement any changes in their code:
> 
> If you are watching something live (or within the 30 minute buffer) and have any remote interest in it whatsoever, just press the Record button on your remote. This starts a process that lets TiVo know you'd prefer not to be interrupted by suggestions, and has the bonus effect of storing the program for later, in case you're interrupted while it is still airing.
> 
> I know this post might come across as snarky, but consider trying it anyway, you might be satisfied with the result.


Thanks. It wasn't snarky at all. It's the most useful response anyone has actually posted in this thread. It sounds like a reasonable work around for now


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## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

Note, that exact suggestion is already on the other thread. It is a good one!


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## pdhenry (Feb 28, 2005)

Should have thought to mention that. We have an AM news show on every morning so we just set a Season Pass with Keep At Most = 1 so it's not interrupted by suggestions or other SPs.


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## crxssi (Apr 5, 2010)

macgyver58 said:


> I don't mind having Tivo record suggestions but its really annoying when it interrupts something I am watching to ask if it can switch the channel to record a suggestion. Who the heck programmed the unit that way. Seriously do they think Tivo has a better idea of what I want to watch than I do?? Is there some way to change the settings so it doesn't do that anymore without turning off suggestions altogether?


The TiVo cannot know for sure if there is a person watching live TV. Even with an idle timer, that means nothing, because while watching "live" TV, there is rarely any reason to press a remote button. Why do you think this is bad programming?

The behavior of asking the user if it is OK to take a tuner to record a suggestion, or WARN that it WILL be taken to record a scheduled recording, is perfectly logical and rational programming and makes sense. The most one would ever be interrupted would be once during a 1/2 hour time slot, and usually far less than that. If you don't want to be interrupted, ever, then press RECORD and then watch it.

I don't know about you, but I almost never watch "live" TV, that is why I bought a DVR in the first place, so I wouldn't have to..... so it is hard to imagine this could really be that much of an issue, especially since you can just RECORD what you are watching with one button press to avert the one button press potential interruption.

There is currently no setting for limiting suggestions recording to just the "background" tuner, or based on supposed "idle" time. You can turn off suggestions, but that will cripple a very useful feature.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

macgyver58 said:


> I guess what I'm looking for is a way for the unit to know that the tuner is on that channel because I am watching something and to not bother me at all. There should be a simple way for the unit to know the tuner is not just idle. For example if someone has used the remote in the past hour or so then just leave them alone. Most suggestions are completely unimportant or very low priority to most users so if it errs on the side of not recording something that wouldn't be a tragedy.


Hit record. If it's something I'm watching I always hit record. You never know if you will be interrupted or even hit a key on the remote by accident, changing the channel. And if it's recording it will not be changing the channel to record a suggestion.

I've been doing this for ten years and it avoids problems by just hitting the record button anytime you are watching something. You can always delete it later or let the TiVo deal with it for deletion.


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## 9300170 (Feb 21, 2003)

This is another one of those threads that shows that different people use TiVo in very different ways. I can't remember the last time that I've ever seen that notice and I do have suggestions turned on. Of course, I don't really watch live TV...don't get why you'd want to...but to each his own, right? Others have said it, but considering that different folks want different functionality, TiVo seems to have come up with a pretty good solution for this one. Even the news shows that I watch, I record...why would you want to watch commercials? Just don't get it.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

crxssi said:


> The TiVo cannot know for sure if there is a person watching live TV. Even with an idle timer, that means nothing, because while watching "live" TV, there is rarely any reason to press a remote button. Why do you think this is bad programming?


I actually agree with you mostly, but even if I'm watching "live" TV, it's almost always really buffered, and I'm back in the past, so I can FF through commercials.. Usually I eventually catch up, then start watching something recorded, to buffer up some more. (CNN is about the only thing I semi-regularly use the buffer for.. as going-to-sleep noise/semi-pay-attention.. If I could instead turn OFF live TV recording and have it save lots of power, I'd do that.. just like I do on my XS32)


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## crxssi (Apr 5, 2010)

mattack said:


> I actually agree with you mostly, but even if I'm watching "live" TV, it's almost always really buffered, and I'm back in the past, so I can FF through commercials..


Right- in which case you are not really watching "live", anyway.... so just press the record button  Then it will also have the advantage of not accidentally going past your view point and dropping video if you accidentally pause too long. But I do know what you mean.



> If I could instead turn OFF live TV recording and have it save lots of power, I'd do that.. just like I do on my XS32)


Depending on how much stuff you want want recorded, it might save very little power, and, instead, put lots of additional wear on the unit (power up/down, spin up/down, etc). The Premiere doesn't use much power, thankfully. Big TV's? They use a LOT more.... even the efficient ones.


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

9300170 said:


> This is another one of those threads that shows that different people use TiVo in very different ways. I can't remember the last time that I've ever seen that notice and I do have suggestions turned on. Of course, I don't really watch live TV...don't get why you'd want to...but to each his own, right?


Background noise, basically, where you don't care about what's on. Weather Channel, local news, just something that's on while you're surfing, doing some light reading, etc.

Of course I could just turn the TV off, but then the wife would leave the room. Hey ...


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## scandia101 (Oct 20, 2007)

crxssi said:


> The TiVo cannot know for sure if there is a person watching live TV. Even with an idle timer, that means nothing, *because while watching "live" TV, there is rarely any reason to press a remote button.* Why do you think this is bad programming?


This is the most ridiculous thing I've read in a long time.


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## shamilian (Mar 27, 2003)

crxssi said:


> The TiVo cannot know for sure if there is a person watching live TV. Even with an idle timer, that means nothing, because while watching "live" TV, there is rarely any reason to press a remote button. Why do you think this is bad programming?
> 
> There is currently no setting for limiting suggestions recording to just the "background" tuner, or based on supposed "idle" time. You can turn off suggestions, but that will cripple a very useful feature.


If the premier is using an HDMI cable, then the Tivo already knows when the TV is on and it already knows what is currently displaying. It can use this information to not bother the user with a suggestions request. When there is no HDMI/HDCP signal the Tivo can default to the current behavior.


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## rainwater (Sep 21, 2004)

shamilian said:


> If the premier is using an HDMI cable, then the Tivo already knows when the TV is on and it already knows what is currently displaying. It can use this information to not bother the user with a suggestions request. When there is no HDMI/HDCP signal the Tivo can default to the current behavior.


The TV being on doesn't indicate it is being watched. In general, TiVo uses remote presses to determine idle. There's no much more they can use.


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## crxssi (Apr 5, 2010)

shamilian said:


> If the premier is using an HDMI cable, then the Tivo already knows when the TV is on and it already knows what is currently displaying. It can use this information to not bother the user with a suggestions request. When there is no HDMI/HDCP signal the Tivo can default to the current behavior.


And if you are not using HDMI?
And what if you are using an HDMI switcher or amp? (Both can present a phantom connection)

Again, I am not saying there are no ways it can't GUESS there MIGHT be someone watching, but what difference does it make? Press "record" if you can't be bothered by a possible, single question interruption, at most once every 1/2 hour (but in reality, usually far less).


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## tomhorsley (Jul 22, 2010)

pdhenry said:


> What would you prefer? You've already said you're looking for an alternative to just not recording suggestions...


If it had a furshlugginer OFF switch, it would know if I was watching or not, and it could save energy by not generating the output TV signal. Instead what it has is standby which is 15 levels deep in the menus and also disables suggesting recording.


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## tomhorsley (Jul 22, 2010)

9300170 said:


> I can't remember the last time that I've ever seen that notice and I do have suggestions turned on.


I never remember seeing it till I got 14.9, and it has continued with 20.2, yet I haven't been watching TV any differently. Something changed to make it much more incessant and obvious than it used to be (maybe the mythical timer is a lot shorter now - I always channel surf when commercials come on, so I'm usually hitting the remote fairly frequently).


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## crxssi (Apr 5, 2010)

tomhorsley said:


> I never remember seeing it till I got 14.9, and it has continued with 20.2, yet I haven't been watching TV any differently. Something changed to make it much more incessant and obvious than it used to be (maybe the mythical timer is a lot shorter now - I always channel surf when commercials come on, so I'm usually hitting the remote fairly frequently).


I don't think it is necessarily any updates changed it- it is probably just chance. I notice that my Premiere goes through periods of recording lots of suggestions and periods of very few. Has always been that way. The more suggestions it records, the higher the odds you will see the message when watching "live" TV.


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## Grakthis (Oct 4, 2006)

macgyver58 said:


> There's a cost to everything. You can't go through life worrying what you might have missed. You only have 2 ( or 4 if you have an elite) tuners. Think of all the things your missing on the hundreds of channels you're not recording. Maybe TiVo suggestions missed something you would really like. We would have to have dozens of Tivo's and do nothing but watch TV all day if we're going to worry about that.
> 
> Putting that aside, it would be easy to give the Tivo owner the option of shutting off this feature if they didn't want it. All I'm saying is the Suggestions feature has its uses but they are limited in our household. Right now I have only two options. Deal with its constant interruptions or turn the feature off. I think a lot of people would appreciate a third option.


Right. There's a cost to everything. The cost to using tivo suggestions is that sometimes the tivo will ask you if you want to change channels in the middle of watching something.

They aren't going to make everything infinitely configurable so you can turn on and off different ways of being polled by tivo suggestions. That's a support nightmare and has a tiny marginal benefit for the work that goes into it. For every one guy who's happy there will be 5 angry people who can't figure out how to make it work the way they want it to work.

Either you want tivo suggestions and you don't mind TiVo asking you periodically if you might want to watch one of its suggestions instead, OR you turn them off and watch what you want to watch.


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## pdhenry (Feb 28, 2005)

I thought we arrived at the best approach a couple of days ago - if you don't want to be bothered by a request, just record the show you're watching. Otherwise it will ask about recording a show since it thinks you might want to watch it (eventually or instead).


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## macgyver58 (Sep 30, 2010)

pdhenry said:


> I thought we arrived at the best approach a couple of days ago - if you don't want to be bothered by a request, just record the show you're watching. Otherwise it will ask about recording a show since it thinks you might want to watch it (eventually or instead).


We did Henry and I thank you for that suggestion. Its actually was the most helpful suggestion anyone made. If it had been the first response this thread would have ended a long time ago. For good or bad though the thread has gotten a life of its own. Largely because there are people who are insanely offended that i even suggested Tivo might make a tweak to resolve this minor problem and there are others who live in a cave and can't believe anyone might want to use Tivo differently than they do ( ie. why would some idiot want to ever watch live TV). So I've stuck around just for fun. I know its wrong, but I find it entertaining to argue with narrow minded people who take things way too seriously.

Bad Mac....


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## greggt007 (Dec 9, 2005)

pdhenry said:


> I thought we arrived at the best approach a couple of days ago - if you don't want to be bothered by a request, just record the show you're watching. Otherwise it will ask about recording a show since it thinks you might want to watch it (eventually or instead).


pressing record is a great way to do this, as well as a great way to lose what you were watching. since if there is overlap between two programs and you're watching the older one 'live', tivo will guess you want to record the new one and you lose the old show. pressing record is very risky.


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## crxssi (Apr 5, 2010)

greggt007 said:


> pressing record is a great way to do this, as well as a great way to lose what you were watching. since if there is overlap between two programs and you're watching the older one 'live', tivo will guess you want to record the new one and you lose the old show. pressing record is very risky.


That is a very good point. We have all assumed the person really was watching "live", though, and not a re-wound buffer. Even so, I believe if another tuner is available, it might use the non-live one to perform the record, leaving the previous buffer in-tact. But I am just not sure.

In any case, MOST of the time, people watching "live" TV are doing just that- watching "live". And in those cases, another program has not begun yet, so it is safe to press record. Also- had they changed the channel at any point in this "live" TV viewing, it would have wiped the buffer.


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## pdhenry (Feb 28, 2005)

If you're watching in the buffer and it has ended and a different show is airing at that moment, you don't need to do anything to keep a suggestion from breaking into the show you're watching.


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