# Do you delete "Tivo Suggestions"?



## Stuxnet (Feb 9, 2011)

I recently activated "Tivo Suggestions"... and since it's just learning my viewing habits the results are mixed. I was curious how others interact with this feature...

Do you vote on each "suggested" program, or do you simply vote on those you watch?

Do you bother to delete the shows in the "Tivo Suggestions" folder, knowing that they will be deleted automatically when hard drive space is required by WLs, SPs, or manual recordings...

...just curious


----------



## HomieG (Feb 17, 2003)

I just delete suggestions that I know are HD so that there is more space left for other potential suggestions to record, whether they be SD or HD. I don't think (but don't know for sure) if my Series 3 can manage suggestions based on them being SD or HD, so I basically force that to happen. I did upgrade to a 1TB drive, but still want as much space available for possible suggestions to record.


----------



## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

In the 10+ years I've owned Tivos I've never turned on Tivo suggestions, except by accident. I found it to be more of an annoyance than a help. I already have more season passes and movies than I'll ever have time to watch so I never saw the point. If you really need your Tivo to pick programs for you then you might want to check out forums that discuss TV shows to see what others with the same tastes are watching.


----------



## jay_man2 (Sep 15, 2003)

I turned suggestions off.


----------



## dianebrat (Jul 6, 2002)

I love my suggestions, and I'll go through and thumbs up and thumbs down a batch every now and then to teach it what I want.

Thanks to that behavior over time on average 50% of the items in my suggestions are things I would consider watching at some point in time.


----------



## TolloNodre (Nov 3, 2007)

I use suggestions and find it a great feature. It's found many (new to me) movies that I like. I tend to 'prune' (and thumb down) suggestions I know I'll never watch. Otherwise I leave it alone and let it do it's thing...


----------



## HiDefGator (Oct 12, 2004)

It's the first thing I turn off.


----------



## LoREvanescence (Jun 19, 2007)

no, I don't delete them. As the drive fills up they will be the first thing to be over written anyways.

My suggestions folder is almost empty though since my premiere is full. Need to buy a new expander drive. My old one died


----------



## steve614 (May 1, 2006)

I let my Tivo record 20 -30 suggestions and then turn them off.
The reason for this is to have a "buffer" of shows that I don't really care about.
I keep an eye on my RD folder and if it reaches (0), I can then decide if I need to start moving shows I definitely want to watch to my computer for safe keeping. Having that buffer of suggestions gives me time to do that if I need to.
I like enough shows that I usually have more than I can watch anyways, so I don't think I'd ever get around to watching a suggestion.
I do occasionally visit the suggestions list to see what Tivo comes up with and rate shows manually at that time.


----------



## czazzara (Jan 29, 2011)

I turned it off as soon as I saw what it was going to do... namely fill my drive and database with things I could sort out for myself. I'm just an OTA users and it just didn't work for me.

CZ


----------



## jbernardis (Oct 22, 2003)

I turn my suggestions off - I don't see why I would ever want them. I tried turning them on and I started getting local news and mid-season episodes of serialized programs that I would NEVER watch even though I have a season pass to the series - because I like to watch them in serial order and suggestions just cant solve that problem. I found myself thumbs-downling everything just to prevent them from being recorded. I don't think the designers ever intended for it to be as much work as I found it becoming, so I just turned if back off.

I never understood why suggestions would EVER record the news. In my mind, suggestions are suposed to be "background" recordings that you could watch when you had nothing in your primary NPL. Why would I ever want to watch a news program that aired 2 or 3 (or more) weeks ago. It just made no sense.

I know it works for some, but me and suggestions just never connected.


----------



## LoadStar (Jul 24, 2001)

I have them turned off, because some interaction between the TiVo, tuning adapter, and SDV means that suggestions are almost completely non-functional anyway.


----------



## cwerdna (Feb 22, 2001)

TolloNodre said:


> I use suggestions and find it a great feature. It's found many (new to me) movies that I like. I tend to 'prune' (and thumb down) suggestions I know I'll never watch. Otherwise I leave it alone and let it do it's thing...


Ditto. I spend almost no time pruning my suggestions (maybe once every few days or weeks, if not months) but I sometimes delete really obvious shows that I KNOW I don't like or that are reruns of shows or movies I've seen that I don't need. At least that makes way for some other potentially good suggestions.


jbernardis said:


> I never understood why suggestions would EVER record the news. In my mind, suggestions are suposed to be "background" recordings that you could watch when you had nothing in your primary NPL. Why would I ever want to watch a news program that aired 2 or 3 (or more) weeks ago. It just made no sense.
> 
> I know it works for some, but me and suggestions just never connected.


Most news suggestions I ignore too, but there have been a small % of cases, where it was good that suggestions picked up a particular ep of news. I have many SPs for local and national news but don't/can't record them all due to some guide data wonkiness and an insufficient # of tuners.


----------



## rifleman69 (Jan 6, 2005)

dianebrat said:


> I love my suggestions, and I'll go through and thumbs up and thumbs down a batch every now and then to teach it what I want.
> 
> Thanks to that behavior over time on average 50% of the items in my suggestions are things I would consider watching at some point in time.


That's 50% less than what's in my now playing list. Whatever floats your boat I guess.


----------



## orangeboy (Apr 19, 2004)

jbernardis said:


> I never understood why suggestions would EVER record the news...


It could be Season Passes to news type programs like 20/20 or Dateline influencing the Suggestions.


----------



## dianebrat (Jul 6, 2002)

rifleman69 said:


> That's 50% less than what's in my now playing list. Whatever floats your boat I guess.


Apples and oranges.
My Now Playing list is items I have explicitly asked for in one way or another, Suggestions are gems that I didn't know where there.


----------



## brettatk (Oct 11, 2002)

I don't use suggestions. I've tried them a couple of times over the years and they never recorded anything that I was interested in or that I didn't already watch at some point.


----------



## classicsat (Feb 18, 2004)

I leave suggestions on, and don't delete them. I may go through them to pick something to watch right away or keep until later.


----------



## belunos (Sep 19, 2002)

I really only ever delete HD movies out of there to get more suggestions. I love suggestions though, it's turned me on to tons of stuff I wouldn't have searched for on my own. I also use it to keep a few episodes of stuff I don't want to have a season pass for, but would like to keep some handy, like The Simpsons


----------



## Dawghows (May 17, 2001)

Once every week or two I go through my suggestions. I give a thumbs down to anything I know for sure I don't like, and I look for movies that it may have recorded that I don't know anything about. It rarely (never?) finds TV series that I don't already know about, but it often finds interesting movies that I never heard of.

I never give a thumbs up to anything in suggestions, because I remember long ago reading something here on the boards that said the best way to "teach" it was to give one thumbs down to anything you don't like and let the rest go. At least I _believe_ that's what I read, and it seems to work well.


----------



## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

Love suggestions.

I delete items I know I would not want to view, but as I don't follow any media for new shows that may be of interest, it works well for me for new items or a random show I like, but not enough to keep as a low priority season pass.


----------



## reneg (Jun 19, 2002)

Tried Suggestions once 10.5 years ago, never enabled them again.


----------



## Stuxnet (Feb 9, 2011)

One thing I've noticed is that many of the late night suggestions seem to involve programming changes... instead of recording a scheduled movie, I end up with 2 hours of infomercials, lol.


----------



## steve614 (May 1, 2006)

Dawghows said:


> I never give a thumbs up to anything in suggestions, because I remember long ago reading something here on the boards that said the best way to "teach" it was to give one thumbs down to anything you don't like and let the rest go. At least I _believe_ that's what I read, and it seems to work well.


That makes sense because the Tivo automatically gives a thumbs up to recordings you request.


----------



## timckelley (Oct 15, 2002)

I rarely watch suggestions, but I have them turned on, in case I run out of requested shows I'm interested in, and want to find something to watch. Why not let TiVo record suggestions? No harm in it that I can think of.

If I watch a suggestion, I delete it right after watching it, but other than that, I let TiVo handle things automatically.


----------



## aindik (Jan 23, 2002)

The function Suggestions used to perform for me could now be performed by the Recently Deleted folder. That function being to tell me how much free space I have. That said, for some reason I still have suggestions on. I guess occasionally (very occasionally) I'll find something to watch in there. My TiVo is nearly full, but it's mostly stuff my wife and I watch together. When one or the other of us is in front of the TV by ourselves, there's not much on there to watch and suggestions help.

I delete suggestions only if it's something recorded from an HD channel that isn't in HD. Otherwise I let them sit there.


----------



## TIVO_GUY_HERE (Jul 10, 2000)

I love the suggestions. It has caught many of things I wish I recorded, but didn't. Also it turned me on to lots of BBC shows that I would not of caught. Ya most of them are nothing I would watch, but for a few gems, I'm glad it's there.


----------



## Series3Sub (Mar 14, 2010)

Suggestions are on, and I do rate them often, but I have to say that over the years it has only made 2 suggestions that I ever wanted to record. I find it a pretty useless feature for me, but I keep trying to give it a chance and review the suggestions. I should clarify, that while suggestions are on, I have it set to NOT record TiVo suggestions, as when I did allow it to record, it was all JUNK! Now, I know some people love the TiVo suggestions, and I am happy for them.


----------



## sakura panda (Apr 6, 2004)

Sometimes I delete them, but usually I just leave them. They are nice for when I want to have background noise but not actually actively watch on of my recorded shows. And they often catch movies that I end up glad I watched! I actively go through the lists of both the suggestions that are recorded or not recorded to rate them, although I tend to rate very few of them.


----------



## HerronScott (Jan 1, 2002)

Suggestions are on here and primarily used as free space indicator but on occassion I do find something in them that I want to watch. I've never deleted them (going on 11 years with TiVo!).

Scott


----------



## timckelley (Oct 15, 2002)

I guess the reason I delete a suggestion right after watching it is because that's the first one I'd want deleted, seeing as I haven't yet seen the other ones. (not that I was going to watch them, but you never know.)


----------



## donnoh (Mar 7, 2008)

With 2 TB of disk space I don't delete suggestions, it's a indicator of free disk space for me and I actually watch an occasional show.


----------



## wtkflhn (May 12, 2006)

mr.unnatural said:


> In the 10+ years I've owned Tivos I've never turned on Tivo suggestions, except by accident. I found it to be more of an annoyance than a help. I already have more season passes and movies than I'll ever have time to watch so I never saw the point. If you really need your Tivo to pick programs for you then you might want to check out forums that discuss TV shows to see what others with the same tastes are watching.


+1.

Don H


----------



## timckelley (Oct 15, 2002)

Sometimes it's less work to let the TiVo suggest things than to do that kind of research.


----------

