# New 2 TiVo, features I'm surprised they don't have



## 2njl (Jan 23, 2006)

I've had my "tcd5400300" (tcd540040 immediately upgraded by swapping the 40 for a 300) about two weeks and here are two features I'm kind of surprised TiVo hasn't done.

As I suspected, we're going a little TiVo-crazy, recording most of the programs we watch and a few we didn't normally watch, but that I thought we might if we could watch them any time. I was curious how much of the 300GB drive has been used, but the TiVo interface doesn't seem to report this anywhere. I found that I could only determine this using the "unsupported" https interface and wrote a little script to parse the output and add up all the MB|GB numbers...and found that I've used about 120GB in 2 weeks. 

Part of whats eating up the space is lots of kids programming. Wouldn't it be nice if you could create playlists and have the TiVo play several separately recorded shows back to back without having to "work the remote" between each show?

I can't be the first person to have thought of these...why haven't these things been done already?


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## Tivogre (Jul 12, 2002)

2njl said:


> I've had my "tcd5400300" (tcd540040 immediately upgraded by swapping the 40 for a 300) about two weeks and here are two features I'm kind of surprised TiVo hasn't done.
> 
> As I suspected, we're going a little TiVo-crazy, recording most of the programs we watch and a few we didn't normally watch, but that I thought we might if we could watch them any time. I was curious how much of the 300GB drive has been used, but the TiVo interface doesn't seem to report this anywhere. I found that I could only determine this using the "unsupported" https interface and wrote a little script to parse the output and add up all the MB|GB numbers...and found that I've used about 120GB in 2 weeks.
> 
> ...


Both of these can be accomplished through TivoWebPlus.

The first is on the Info screen.

The second is called "Merge" from the interface.


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## 2njl (Jan 23, 2006)

Tivogre said:


> Both of these can be accomplished through TivoWebPlus.
> 
> The first is on the Info screen.
> 
> The second is called "Merge" from the interface.


On an "unmodified" TCD5400XX? The instructions talk about installing things on the TiVo. AFAIK, I can't even get shell on my TiVo without cutting and soldering on the motherboard, which I'm not about to do having just started up lifetime service on it.

Besides, TivoWebPlus isn't TiVo features...they're 3rd party hacks for hacked/hackable TiVos. Both these features should be trivial for TiVo to add to their existing GUI interface.


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## Tivogre (Jul 12, 2002)

2njl said:


> On an "unmodified" TCD5400XX? The instructions talk about installing things on the TiVo. AFAIK, I can't even get shell on my TiVo without cutting and soldering on the motherboard, which I'm not about to do having just started up lifetime service on it.
> 
> Besides, TivoWebPlus isn't TiVo features...they're 3rd party hacks for hacked/hackable TiVos. Both these features should be trivial for TiVo to add to their existing GUI interface.


Agreed that they would be trivial to add. However, since they wont / haven't.... that's what hacking is all about!


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

2njl said:


> On an "unmodified" TCD5400XX? The instructions talk about installing things on the TiVo. AFAIK, I can't even get shell on my TiVo without cutting and soldering on the motherboard, which I'm not about to do having just started up lifetime service on it.
> 
> Besides, TivoWebPlus isn't TiVo features...they're 3rd party hacks for hacked/hackable TiVos. Both these features should be trivial for TiVo to add to their existing GUI interface.


yes, both have been requested for years now. Do a search on the forum for FSI (Free Space Indicator) The play shows back to back has also been requested for a batch save to VCR.

aside from the hack route, which does require replacing a ROM chip on the motherboard for the 540. 
there is - turn on suggestions as a poor substitute for FSI - hours of suggestions = hours of free space. 
There is the open source galleon HME app you may want to check out as well- it has the same trick of adding up the shows and showing Free space along with many other things.

if it is a matter of not wanting your kids to have the remote and accidentally doing something they shouldn't - google around for weemote - it can be programmed for a TiVo and has just the functions needed for kids to use a TiVo


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## dgh (Jul 24, 2000)

2njl said:


> Both these features should be trivial for TiVo to add to their existing GUI interface.


Right, they just don't want to. So if you want yours to be different, well...

Apparently, TiVo did focus group test some sort of FSI but it didn't test well so it never made it into the product.

For your use, a little use of the "Keep at most" is probably all you need to keep your TiVo under control. My TiVo got along fine with a 30GB disk for years. Sometime later I put a 120GB in it. Now with the 120GB disk, I crank the "Keep at mosts" tighter when I notice that there is a ridiculous number of shows including weekly shows from three weeks back. With that much storage it's more a question of ever being able to catch up rather than disk space.


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## timckelley (Oct 15, 2002)

I like your idea of a playlist. This feature could be used to mass archive a bunch of shows to VCR without having to man the VCR or TiVo while it's doing it (i.e. could be done overnight onto a 6 hour tape.) I'd love that feature.


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## MickeS (Dec 26, 2002)

Yeah, the playlist is something I have been wanting too.

I don't really care about the FSI, but many do the workaround in Galleon. I use the Suggestions as a rough indicator.

The thing with a FSI is that it's always gonna be inaccurate, so there's not really a point to it. Unless you start setting up date filters and different recording scenarios to use in the equation, but I think that'd be too much trouble.


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## Crrink (Sep 3, 2002)

dgh said:


> ...snip...
> Apparently, TiVo did focus group test some sort of FSI but it didn't test well so it never made it into the product.
> ...snip...


I've heard that around here quite a few times, but I don't think I've ever heard it from an actual TiVo employee. I always wonder if it's more of a forum legend if you will. 
Every other DVR I've ever heard of has a FSI except TiVo and Moxi (ironically the two I use for 99% of my time shifting), and I've never once read about anybody being confused, angered, or negatively affected by having one.
FSI's are very useful things. I wish TiVo had a real one rather than leaving us to use Suggestions.


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## 2njl (Jan 23, 2006)

What's the relationship between Suggestions and FSI? Does the TiVo start recording less random stuff (or cease doing it altogether) when space is running low?


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## tewcewl (Dec 18, 2004)

2njl said:


> What's the relationship between Suggestions and FSI? Does the TiVo start recording less random stuff (or cease doing it altogether) when space is running low?


Yes.


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## mick66 (Oct 15, 2004)

2njl said:


> What's the relationship between Suggestions and FSI? Does the TiVo start recording less random stuff (or cease doing it altogether) when space is running low?


As long as there is space available, Tivo will record suggestions. When the available space runs out, Tivo will start deleting suggestions to make room for the recordings that you've scheduled.


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## timckelley (Oct 15, 2002)

Also, once space is run out, but suggestions still exist, and nothing is in the To Do List, I'm wondering if TiVo will occasionally recycle suggestions; i.e. delete Suggestions to record new Suggestions.


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## dgh (Jul 24, 2000)

Crrink said:


> I've heard that around here quite a few times, but I don't think I've ever heard it from an actual TiVo employee. I always wonder if it's more of a forum legend if you will.


I do know that one was developed (or at least designed) around 2000 from what TiVolutionary said. It used input from a >10 page FSI thread and he seemed convinced that everyone in the thread was going to be happy with it. That was a pretty sophisticated and thoughtful thread with several members creating graphical representations of various FSI ideas and taking input from others and revising them. Some of the results actually looked like they could be useful even though I'm kind of an FSI agnostic.

I don't have any evidence of how far it went after that.



Crrink said:


> I wish TiVo had a real one rather than leaving us to use Suggestions.


I don't think anyone at TiVo considers suggestions to be an FSI. I think they're just a forum kludge. I don't use them for that but it's an easy forum answer if someone really wants one.


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## timckelley (Oct 15, 2002)

I personally am not that worried about FSI, because if I glance at the Suggestions list, and it's several screens long, I know I've got lots of space left. I don't know how much space, but that's fine, because all I really care about is: do I have lots of space or not, and the answer in that case would be 'yes'.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

2njl said:


> What's the relationship between Suggestions and FSI? Does the TiVo start recording less random stuff (or cease doing it altogether) when space is running low?


like others have said -
if you have 10 hours of suggestions then no need to worry (unless you have 8 hours of Olympic coverage about to be recorded  )
if you have 1 hour of suggestions - then start watching something as you are running out of room

at 300GiG this should not be much of an issue for you.
read the manual on season pass options and things like Keep At Most.

-I have a Tier of shows
first run I wnat to see in order
Keep Until I delete and Keep at most ALL

-shows I have interest in but order not so important 
(Law and Order, CSI as examples)
Keep Until Space needed and Keep at Most 5 (you might go 10 if you really like the show)
this means you will only ever take up 5 or 10 shows worth of room and the oldest ones will drift off if space needed for other shows

- shows I like but only need the last couple of 
(SNL or The tonight show or Good Morning America as examples)
Keep until Space Needed and Keep at Most 2

and then if the show has a nother showing - Like The tonight show has some random reshowing at 2:30am - then either do a manual recording or else do a blocking manual recording at 2:30am for 10 minutes and set it to Keep until space Needed and Keep at Most 1


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

timckelley said:


> Also, once space is run out, but suggestions still exist, and nothing is in the To Do List, I'm wondering if TiVo will occasionally recycle suggestions; i.e. delete Suggestions to record new Suggestions.


Yes, it does this. (Which kind of bugs me, since it makes the suggestions-as-lame-FSI-workaround a bit less reliable, since sometimes it nukes a 2 hour movie to record a 30 min show, for example.. so you now have a less accurate indicator of free space.)


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## timckelley (Oct 15, 2002)

mattack said:


> Yes, it does this. (Which kind of bugs me, since it makes the suggestions-as-lame-FSI-workaround a bit less reliable, since sometimes it nukes a 2 hour movie to record a 30 min show, for example.. so you now have a less accurate indicator of free space.)


Actually I kind of like this because I can get fresh new suggestions all the time to choose from. Then again, I suppose I could always review what I've got and delete any suggestions I think are bad, to force a refresh of suggestions, so maybe it doesn't matter much to me which way they do it.


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## tai-pan (Feb 9, 2006)

ZeoTiVo said:


> if it is a matter of not wanting your kids to have the remote and accidentally doing something they shouldn't - google around for weemote - it can be programmed for a TiVo and has just the functions needed for kids to use a TiVo


Why google? just http://www.weemote.com/


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## rainwater (Sep 21, 2004)

It's pretty obvious why there's no FSI. Since there are several recording qualities you can use and setup for each season pass and recording, it's impossible to really tell the user, "You have x hours free." Normal user aren't going to understand if you say you have 15GB of space remaining. Perhaps when there is a TiVo that is all digital they will be able to create a clean interface for this. But for now, it's not going to happen.


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## HDTiVo (Nov 27, 2002)

rainwater said:


> it's impossible to really tell the user, "You have x hours free."


Like it's impossible to tell the buyer 'this model records up to X hours.'


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## 2njl (Jan 23, 2006)

rainwater said:


> It's pretty obvious why there's no FSI. Since there are several recording qualities you can use and setup for each season pass and recording, it's impossible to really tell the user, "You have x hours free." Normal user aren't going to understand if you say you have 15GB of space remaining. Perhaps when there is a TiVo that is all digital they will be able to create a clean interface for this. But for now, it's not going to happen.


Assuming the various qualities are relatvely constant bit rates, wouldn't it be trivial for the software to see you have 15GB free and then translate that into:

"You have X/Y/Z hours free at High/Best/Basic quality."


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## timckelley (Oct 15, 2002)

Exactly. The screen that says you have x/y/z hours capability at high/best/basic, could just as easily say you have a/b/c hours remaining on that same screen.


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## JimSpence (Sep 19, 2001)

I think an underlying reason for not including a free space indicator is that this could cause more phone calls that CSRs can't answer. For example: "my TiVo says I have x hours of available space, but it didn't record".


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## NotVeryWitty (Oct 3, 2003)

rainwater said:


> It's pretty obvious why there's no FSI. Since there are several recording qualities you can use and setup for each season pass and recording, it's impossible to really tell the user, "You have x hours free." Normal user aren't going to understand if you say you have 15GB of space remaining. Perhaps when there is a TiVo that is all digital they will be able to create a clean interface for this. But for now, it's not going to happen.


Yep, just like it's obvious why they don't put gas gauges in cars, since it's impossible to really tell the driver "You have x miles to go before you run out of gas". Normal drivers aren't going to understand if you say you have 1.5 gallons remaining. And obviously nobody except maybe rocket scientists could ever figure out that if a needle points to an "E" on a gauge that maybe they need to fill up soon.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

JimSpence said:


> I think an underlying reason for not including a free space indicator is that this could cause more phone calls that CSRs can't answer. For example: "my TiVo says I have x hours of available space, but it didn't record".


exactly that problem - how many have seen the following shows will not record if you change this to Keep Until I delete. It happens becasue of upcoming shows that are also ste at Keep Until I delete. the TiVo assumes they will take up room and has no idea when you will delete them so assumes you never will.

Kind of exactly why they do not put "miles remaining" on a gas gauge. It would have to know about the three red lights and on ramp coming up.

people would have to understand the whole Keep Until I delete or Keep at most or marathon coming up they did not see coming etc... That is awhat made the simple gas gauge approach fail in focus groups. They still missed shows recording while thinking they had just enough room


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## dgh (Jul 24, 2000)

ZeoTiVo said:


> Kind of exactly why they do not put "miles remaining" on a gas gauge. It would have to know about the three red lights and on ramp coming up.


Some cars do (and yes - it's not always correct). Some brands have been including this indicator on some models for more than 20 years. Some don't have it today.

So with cars and PVRs, you need to pick the one that seems most logical to you.


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## MickeS (Dec 26, 2002)

The car analogy with miles is flawed, since "miles remaining" will be fairly accurate, if it uses the average gas consumption over the life of the vehicle, something that doesn't vary enormously.

If you want to make a comparison, imagine a car that had "days remaining until tank is empty". How accurate would that be? And more importantly, how useful?

A FSI with just a number attached is useless, which is why TiVo doesn't put one in.

Unless, you start offering different scenarios, based on upcoming recordings, how many are set to "keep until I delete", and quality of recordings, both those in "to do" list, and any manual recordings you would do but haven't set up, maybe based on default recording quality. You'd also have to set up a way for the user to choose an "as of" date for the FSI, since checking available space "today" doesn't say much about available space, say, 2 days from now, if you need perfect accuracy.

In short, the Suggestions list combined with TiVo's warnings about available space when you're scheduling recordings, is about as accurate as you're gonna get.

I guess they could please everyone who have been asking about this by making it really simple, and just add up the number of hours available at the moment, using default recording capacity. But then you're inevitably gonna have a lot of people saying "it said I had 2 hours available when I checked last night, but now it tells me it deleted a show!?!?" because they didn't take into account that there were 4 hours of material in the "to do" list.


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## Crrink (Sep 3, 2002)

rainwater said:


> It's pretty obvious why there's no FSI. Since there are several recording qualities you can use and setup for each season pass and recording, it's impossible to really tell the user, "You have x hours free." Normal user aren't going to understand if you say you have 15GB of space remaining. Perhaps when there is a TiVo that is all digital they will be able to create a clean interface for this. But for now, it's not going to happen.


LOL, so obvious, yet somehow the people who designed my ReplayTV missed it and included a FSI!
Boy, what a bunch of dopes.


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## MickeS (Dec 26, 2002)

> LOL, so obvious, yet somehow the people who designed my ReplayTV missed it and included a FSI!
> Boy, what a bunch of dopes.


Maybe not the best example in a TiVo forum. 

But I hope TiVo does include one of those useless number-only FSI's so people here can finally stop complaining about it.


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## gonzotek (Sep 24, 2004)

NotVeryWitty said:


> Yep, just like it's obvious why they don't put gas gauges in cars, since it's impossible to really tell the driver "You have x miles to go before you run out of gas". Normal drivers aren't going to understand if you say you have 1.5 gallons remaining. And obviously nobody except maybe rocket scientists could ever figure out that if a needle points to an "E" on a gauge that maybe they need to fill up soon.


/edit: MickeS put it better.


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## Crrink (Sep 3, 2002)

MickeS said:


> ...snip...
> I guess they could please everyone who have been asking about this by making it really simple, and just add up the number of hours available at the moment, using default recording capacity. But then you're inevitably gonna have a lot of people saying "it said I had 2 hours available when I checked last night, but now it tells me it deleted a show!?!?" because they didn't take into account that there were 4 hours of material in the "to do" list.


And yet, this is what RTV does, but I've never once heard of anybody confused by the scenario you imagine. Explain that.


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## gonzotek (Sep 24, 2004)

Crrink said:


> And yet, this is what RTV does, but I've never once heard of anybody confused by the scenario you imagine. Explain that.


Do you have RTV's support call logs?


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## rainwater (Sep 21, 2004)

2njl said:


> Assuming the various qualities are relatvely constant bit rates, wouldn't it be trivial for the software to see you have 15GB free and then translate that into:
> 
> "You have X/Y/Z hours free at High/Best/Basic quality."


But if you have upcoming recordings using different qualities, those numbers don't mean much at all. Say you have 15/20/25 hours free depending on quality. Tell me what that means if you have 2 recordings at best, 3 at high, etc upcoming. There's no way to accurately depict that. I'm not saying TiVo couldn't say the disk is x% full. But, TiVo tends to try to keep the interface simple and I'm sure they have their other reasons.


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## timckelley (Oct 15, 2002)

NotVeryWitty said:


> Yep, just like it's obvious why they don't put gas gauges in cars, since it's impossible to really tell the driver "You have x miles to go before you run out of gas". Normal drivers aren't going to understand if you say you have 1.5 gallons remaining. And obviously nobody except maybe rocket scientists could ever figure out that if a needle points to an "E" on a gauge that maybe they need to fill up soon.


Quite eloquantly put. :up:



MickeS said:


> But I hope TiVo does include one of those useless number-only FSI's so people here can finally stop complaining about it.


But a gas gauge in a car that tells you how many gallons you have left (as opposed to miles) is not useless. I think what a lot of people will find useful is some rough idea if they're getting low.

In fact to continue the car analogy, over time I get to know my car... that is, when the indicator starts saying I'm low, I figure I have about 20 to 40 miles left. I know this from experience. Similarly, over time, people will get used to knowing that when their FSI says that they have 1 gig left, that they can get (just throwing arbitrary numbers out here for illustrative purposes) about an hour or hour and a half left on their TiVo. We're not asking for a scientifically accurate estimate of free space anymore than you're asking for a gas guage that tells you exactly how many miles you've got left. But the mere existence of a gas gauge is significantly better than no gas gauge.


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## timckelley (Oct 15, 2002)

rainwater said:


> But if you have upcoming recordings using different qualities, those numbers don't mean much at all. Say you have 15/20/25 hours free depending on quality. Tell me what that means if you have 2 recordings at best, 3 at high, etc upcoming. There's no way to accurately depict that. I'm not saying TiVo couldn't say the disk is x% full. But, TiVo tends to try to keep the interface simple and I'm sure they have their other reasons.


We don't need a scientifically accurate gauge, so gigabytes or a percentage will do fine. We'll get an idea from experience how many hours we get. But if really want to know more accurately, it can be done.

If we know the machine holds x/y/z hours at Best/Very Good/Medium (which we do, because this info is published on the machine), then we must also know that the machine will record a/b/c GB per hour GB at Best/Very Good/Medium

Therefore, if we have g GB left on the machine, per FSI, and we want to record j/k/m more hours at Best/Very Good/Medium, then we just need to calculate a*j + b*k + c*m, and if this number is less than g, then there's enough space.


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## Stormspace (Apr 13, 2004)

NotVeryWitty said:


> Yep, just like it's obvious why they don't put gas gauges in cars, since it's impossible to really tell the driver "You have x miles to go before you run out of gas". Normal drivers aren't going to understand if you say you have 1.5 gallons remaining. And obviously nobody except maybe rocket scientists could ever figure out that if a needle points to an "E" on a gauge that maybe they need to fill up soon.


One of my cars actually tells me how many miles I have left and it's fairly accurate.


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## MickeS (Dec 26, 2002)

Just put Terabyte HDs in all TiVos and the question will be moot. If you fill that up, you won't even notice when it deletes shows. 



> And yet, this is what RTV does, but I've never once heard of anybody confused by the scenario you imagine. Explain that.


Well, I'm not sure it would be confusing, but I am sure that there would be people who experienced exactly what I said, if they expected the number to be accurate down to the hour.

And if it's not accurate down to the hour, what's the point? That's when you need it the most!

I guess that's what bugs me the most about all the requests for a FSI: it's more about the principle than about the usability. TiVo already have non-hack, fairly accurate ways of giving the information a FSI would give, yet people insist that they should provide one, that would not be much more accurate, "just because".


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## Crrink (Sep 3, 2002)

gonzotek said:


> Do you have RTV's support call logs?


Yes. Yes I do.

OK, no, not really , but lots and lots of searching at the RTV forum and on the Internet failed to turn up a single complaint, whereas complaints about TiVo not having a FSI spring up here every few months.

I know we're not representative of the general population, but I disagree that the issue is confusing enough to make including a better FSI than Suggestions a bad idea.

If you have any real world examples, I'd love to hear them. Barring that I'll take the silence over the FSI at the RTV forum and the noise about the lack of FSI over here and keep believing that TiVo should have one....just like every other DVR does.


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## dgh (Jul 24, 2000)

Crrink said:


> And yet, this is what RTV does, but I've never once heard of anybody confused by the scenario you imagine. Explain that.


Maybe that's why ReplayTV has gone bankrupt twice already. All that time on the phone with confused customers. Explain that.


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## Crrink (Sep 3, 2002)

MickeS said:


> ...snip....
> 
> And if it's not accurate down to the hour, what's the point? That's when you need it the most!
> 
> I guess that's what bugs me the most about all the requests for a FSI: it's more about the principle than about the usability. TiVo already have non-hack, fairly accurate ways of giving the information a FSI would give, yet people insist that they should provide one, that would not be much more accurate, "just because".


My requests are not about principle alone. The real world example I always use is going on vacation. Sitting down, counting up Suggestions, noting which Suggestions are longer or shorter than 1 hour, and counting up shows in the To Do List is both tedious and irritating.

At the very least TiVo could do the counting for us. A seemingly simple solution would be to state free space at default recording level or as a percentage of disk space - those are the two methods I've seen on other DVR's (every DVR except TiVo, in fact), and like I said, I have yet to run into anyone or read something on the Internet about someone being confused, befuddled, angry and distraught over their FSI not being accurate down to the minute. Not one account!

In contrast, my real life experiences mirror this forum pretty well - nearly everyone I know who has gotten a TiVo calls me within the first month of ownership and asks how the hell you tell how much space is left.
I feel like a dope explaining TiVo's "solution" to them, and unlike this forum I have yet to meet a person who says, "Oh, yeah, I can see that, those boys at TiVo are pretty smart. Thank God they saved me from the idiocy of thinking I wanted to know how much space is left on my DVR." D)

Maybe you're right and non-technical people would be confused by this - but maybe the non-technical people pick a single recording quality and stick with it - which would make an RTV style FSI very, very accurate.


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## dgh (Jul 24, 2000)

Crrink said:


> In contrast, my real life experiences mirror this forum pretty well - nearly everyone I know who has gotten a TiVo calls me within the first month of ownership and asks how the hell you tell how much space is left.
> I feel like a dope explaining TiVo's "solution" to them, and unlike this forum I have yet to meet a person who says, "Oh, yeah, I can see that, those boys at TiVo are pretty smart. Thank God they saved me from the idiocy of thinking I wanted to know how much space is left on my DVR." D)


I think you're giving them the wrong explanation. About a third to half of the people I've convinced to buy a TiVo ask me about this, and I explain how you can set up Keep At Mosts so that you never have to worry about what gets deleted, and you really need to think of TiVo as a buffer. If you're not able to keep up before a vacation, it's probably doing you a big favor by deleting things while you're on vacation. If it didn't, you'd really have a mess to deal with when you got back. How many shows do you *really* need to have piled up for you after a vacation? For me it's between 1 and 3 per season and I KAM those high. Everything else is fluff. (When I had a VCR, I pretty much had a maximum of one show that could be kept anyway, and it wasn't that great a loss. If you have even two important shows in a season, that's a pretty good season in my experience.)

If they're not quite grasping that (and admittedly they often don't at first) then I tell them about suggestions but only as a short-term crutch. Eventually they start applying KAMS and stop worrying about it. At least that's the way among this group.


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## MickeS (Dec 26, 2002)

dgh is on the right track.



Crrink said:


> nearly everyone I know who has gotten a TiVo calls me within the first month of ownership and asks how the hell you tell how much space is left.


Nearly everyone who gets a TiVo (using it with cable box) starts asking about channel-surfing, and how they can speed up channel-changing. That's because they don't yet understand that once they have used it for a while, the speed of channel-changing becomes inconsequential.

IMO, it's the same with a FSI - it's only important if you are not properly using the available tools that TiVo already provides.

I can understand the need for a FSI initially, but once someone has used TiVo for a while, they'll realize either that the system works as designed and they just aren't watching enough of what they record - or that they need a bigger hard drive. 



Crrink said:


> The real world example I always use is going on vacation. Sitting down, counting up Suggestions, noting which Suggestions are longer or shorter than 1 hour, and counting up shows in the To Do List is both tedious and irritating.


So, tell me how a FSI would help if you went on vacation for say a week, and it showed "17 hours of recording time available" the day before you leave. How does that help what you'll be recording the 5th day, unless you go through and check the ToDo list?


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## timckelley (Oct 15, 2002)

He would check the To Do List, and if it's more than 17 hours worth, he'd delete some of the less important stuff from it.


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## rainwater (Sep 21, 2004)

timckelley said:


> He would check the To Do List, and if it's more than 17 hours worth, he'd delete some of the less important stuff from it.


Then when one of his SP records in Best quality and uses more than 17 hours, he will be calling TiVo and complaining.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

dgh said:


> I think you're giving them the wrong explanation. About a third to half of the people I've convinced to buy a TiVo ask me about this, and I explain how you can set up Keep At Mosts so that you never have to worry about what gets deleted, and you really need to think of TiVo as a buffer.


(yet another cycle of this unending discussion from many other threads.)

But those of us who want a FSI don't WANT to think of Tivo as a buffer.

I intend (and do, via the lame workaround of Suggestions) to watch what I record, and not miss anything.

I can't realistically set everything to keep until I delete and keep all episodes, because then I'll get nags up the wazoo because Tivo obviously doesn't know that I am going to watch something in the next day if it's marked as save until I delete. Plus, if it's "full" of keep until I delete shows and I delete one at 7:58, the To Do list isn't going to be instantly repopulated for it to record something at 8.

So I have to live on the edge, constantly watching the suggestions (and paging UP and DOWN the list is tedious) and usually checking my To Do list every day before I go to work, nuking some shows if I think they're too much to fit or I just want to not record that episode or something.. (I already have expanded hard drives, btw.)

I have none of this on my otherwise much less reliable hard drive/DVD recorder I use along with my Tivos.. I simply hit the appropriate button on the remote, and it tells me I have 23 hours left at the current recording setting.. When I want to record a music show (with LPCM audio for example), I change the setting to that, and see how much space I have left now. It's very easy to use.

BTW, an earlier message talks about a FSI in 2000.. But wasn't it MUCH more recent than that that people were seeing some sort of FSI in the System Information screen on a particular pre-release? That was inconvenient, since it should show up in To Do or maybe Now Playing.. but at least it was a start.


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## Crrink (Sep 3, 2002)

rainwater said:


> Then when one of his SP records in Best quality and uses more than 17 hours, he will be calling TiVo and complaining.


No, actually, I wouldn't.
Perhaps others would. I personally doubt that they would do so in significant numbers and since don't have any better information than you have, I guess we'll just agree to disagree.
I wonder how many people call TiVo now asking how to find out how much space they have left on their box?
I wonder why every other DVR manufacturer decided to include a FSI in their software? Oh wait, I know the answer to that one


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## timckelley (Oct 15, 2002)

rainwater said:


> Then when one of his SP records in Best quality and uses more than 17 hours, he will be calling TiVo and complaining.


But then he would have known, if the FSI said 17 hours left at Basic quality, 17-x hours left at medium, 17-y left at Best.

Or alternatively, and still acceptable to many, don't have the FSI report in units of 'hours left', but instead in percentage left, or in GB left. And leave it up to us users to convert that hours left. That way, if we convert wrong, we won't blame TiVo, inc - we'll just blame ourselves for not converting correctly. But at least, we'll have automated the task of adding up the suggestions.


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## Crrink (Sep 3, 2002)

dgh said:


> I think you're giving them the wrong explanation. About a third to half of the people I've convinced to buy a TiVo ask me about this, and I explain how you can set up Keep At Mosts so that you never have to worry about what gets deleted, and you really need to think of TiVo as a buffer.


 That's not how I, or anyone I know personally, use TiVo. I use TiVo to record shows I want to see and hold them until I'm ready to watch them. When my time to watch shows is smaller than my TiVo's capacity to hold shows, I make decisions as to what is and isn't important. I would like to be able to predict these times with greater acuraccy than TiVo's software currently allows. 


> If you're not able to keep up before a vacation, it's probably doing you a big favor by deleting things while you're on vacation. If it didn't, you'd really have a mess to deal with when you got back.


That's silly. The number of shows I choose to record is up to me regardless of whether you happen to think I can handle it or not. But thanks for the concern 


> How many shows do you *really* need to have piled up for you after a vacation?


*Really need?* That would be zero, but what we really need isn't the point at all. I purchased X amount of space and I would like the freedom to utilize that space as effectively as possible. TiVo's refusal to include a FSI hinders that freedom and since I've never been presented with a single good reason to not have one it irritates me.


> For me it's between 1 and 3 per season and I KAM those high. Everything else is fluff. (When I had a VCR, I pretty much had a maximum of one show that could be kept anyway, and it wasn't that great a loss. If you have even two important shows in a season, that's a pretty good season in my experience.)


I'm glad TiVo's solution is adequate for you - I really am. It isn't adequate for me, for any of my friends, nor for many, many members of this forum. We'd like a tool that is included in every other DVR's software package because, as much as I love my TiVo, all the other DVR's allow you to manage space better.


> If they're not quite grasping that (and admittedly they often don't at first) then I tell them about suggestions but only as a short-term crutch. Eventually they start applying KAMS and stop worrying about it. At least that's the way among this group.


Again, glad it's working out for you, it isn't working for me.

As to having too many TV shows, my wife and I like to record lots and lots of stuff during the regular season. We keep up with the shows we really like pretty well. We have a list of 'B' shows that we usually watch during re-run periods of the normal season, and we have a list of 'C' shows that we save all year long to watch during the summer when there is very little new programming on. Before I put big drives in two of my TiVo's this was a VERY difficult thing to manage. It's less so now, but I'd still like the ability, and I still don't see any valid reason for TiVo to not include one. I've never seen any of our TiVo employees comment in the FSI threads and that's always seemed a little odd to me. I don't know, maybe TiVo does have a reason to not include a FSI, but if they do, I hope it's better than the usual ones that I read in these threads because so far none of these make enough sense. Yes, you can get by without a FSI, but a FSI can only make things easier in my opinion, so why not have one?


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## Crrink (Sep 3, 2002)

MickeS said:


> ...snip...
> So, tell me how a FSI would help if you went on vacation for say a week, and it showed "17 hours of recording time available" the day before you leave. How does that help what you'll be recording the 5th day, unless you go through and check the ToDo list?


Well, obviously you'd look at the To Do list to get as close an approximation as you'd need to decide if you have enough free space or not.
Right now that involves counting up Suggestions which is needlessly tedious.


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## dgh (Jul 24, 2000)

Crrink said:


> I'm glad TiVo's solution is adequate for you - I really am. It isn't adequate for me, for any of my friends, nor for many, many members of this forum. We'd like a tool that is included in every other DVR's software package because, as much as I love my TiVo, all the other DVR's allow you to manage space better.


Adequate is the wrong term. (Most likely chosen to spread that irratation around but I'm not biting) What we have now is much better than an FSI for me and the people I know. I wouldn't complain if they added an FSI, but I wouldn't use it either. I just don't have that much time to fuss with it. Most TiVo users I know are busy people.



Crrink said:


> That's silly.


I could have sworn someone named Crrink once complained about how FSI threads went recently. I remember FSI threads in years past that were quite productive but I don't think we'll be seeing another one soon. You can be irritated your inadequate TiVo, and I'll enjoy my superior one.

If any one else is irritated, just try the tools that are in there for awhile. You might be surprised while you wait the next 5 years for an FSI. By the time it gets here, you might forget what you wanted it for.


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## Crrink (Sep 3, 2002)

dgh said:


> Adequate is the wrong term. An FSI might be adequate. What we have now is much better for me and the people I know. I wouldn't complain if they added an FSI, but I wouldn't use it either. I just don't have that much time to fuss with it. Most TiVo users I know are busy people.


I'm busy too, and the tools TiVo currently provides are not adequate for me. I didn't mean to imply that a FSI would be better for you because I think that you are probably a better judge of that than me. I was being sincere when I said I'm glad TiVo's software is performing well for the way you use your TiVo. It isn't for me - that's the part I'm complaining about. 


> I could have sworn someone named Crrink once complained about how FSI threads went recently. I remember FSI threads in years past that were quite productive but I don't think we'll be seeing another one soon. You can be irritated your inadequate TiVo, and I'll enjoy my superior one.


It wasn't FSI threads specifically, but threads criticizing TiVo in general. And I didn't think I was being overly mean to you, but come on, it's not up to you to decide how much TV I should watch, it's up to me. It is silly for you to say that if I can't go on vacation without losing a show that TiVo would be doing me a favor by deleting something. 


> If any one else is irritated, just try the tools that are in there for awhile. You might be surprised while you wait the next 5 years for an FSI. By the time it gets here, you might forget what you wanted it for.


I use the tools we have, and I find them lacking - why does that bother you so much? I couldn't care less how you use your TiVo, and I sincerely hope that if TiVo ever adds a FSI that it doesn't impact the way you use your TiVo in a negative way. Your way just doesn't work for me. If I were asking for some bizarre or difficult thing I would be understanding, but I'm only asking for a feature that is a part of *every other DVR* I've ever seen or used. Come on, now, it's not some weird coincidence that every DVR except TiVo has a FSI.


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## dgh (Jul 24, 2000)

Crrink said:


> I use the tools we have, and I find them lacking - why does that bother you so much?


See? This is so typical.


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## astrohip (Jan 7, 2003)

This really doesn't have to be so complicated. In addition to my TiVo, I have a TWiVo (Time Warner's DVR - I love toys!).

(Aside: TWiVo is so painful to use, it's . . . painful :down:. Worst UI known to man)

The TWiVo has a single button you can press that shows you the percentage of your capacity used. That's it. No hours remaining, or X/Y/Z based on quality, or nothing nada. Just a plain bar, with a red line representing % used. I press it every couple of days, just to check in. Tonight it was at 39% (and the red bar was a little over 1/3 of the way across the total bar. WOW! Amazing how simple it works.)

In keeping with the TWiVo's indecipherable UI, the button is known as "preferences". 

The TWiVo is just plain terrible; if a TiVo is an 8/10, a TWiVo is about a 4/10. So please don't misunderstand this post, I am no advocate for TWiVo's. My point is, this really shouldn't be a problem. Don't interpret the data for us, just give us a % used. 99.5% of users will understand it.

And it does serve a purpose. Without belaboring the point, if I know my space is running low, I watch a few shows now, rather than risk losing them. I tend to only record shows I intend to watch, not a bunch of "maybe if I have time" shows. So losing a show is painful for me. I have a bunch of shows, with different quality settings. LOST & Survivor at high, Jeopardy at std, etc. So it's not easy to guess how much space is left. I end up adding times in my head, and if I think I'm getting tight, I'll watch a few now that maybe I could have waited for the weekend.

I truly don't understand why TPTB don't give us this.


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## dgh (Jul 24, 2000)

mattack said:


> But those of us who want a FSI don't WANT to think of Tivo as a buffer.


Well, TiVo does allow you to mark some shows as Keep Until I Delete but...



mattack said:


> I can't realistically set everything to keep until I delete and keep all episodes, because then I'll get nags up the wazoo because Tivo...


...is a buffer. 

For librarying, something like a DVD recorder - anything with unlimited offline storage - is what you want. With a small (compared to video) fixed disk, TiVo is either a buffer or an extremely small library subject to loss (crash) at any time. Until disks get much bigger and have much longer lives, it's basically a buffer. Eventually disks (or flash, or holograms on potato skins) are going to catch up with our desires to keep lots of big stuff forever but they're not there yet for most people which is why you got those nags. Some other DVRs (maybe "every other DVR") make this less obvious at the UI level but they still have the hardware limitations.


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## matthewwhite (Dec 27, 2003)

FSI is requested by new tivo owners, they don't realize it's irrelevant.

once you have the tivo for a couple of months then the tivo has no empty space on it anymore -- the FSI number is zero.

each new recording either replaces a suggestion or an item from now playing.

DVD units can batch save to their built in dvd and I can batch send files from my tivo to my PC. I would like to see a batch save -- maybe even something like a playlist that could loop and be locked.


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## Crrink (Sep 3, 2002)

dgh said:


> See? This is so typical.


I'm afraid I don't understand your point.


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## astrohip (Jan 7, 2003)

matthewwhite said:


> FSI is requested by new tivo owners, they don't realize it's irrelevant.
> 
> once you have the tivo for a couple of months then the tivo has no empty space on it anymore -- the FSI number is zero.
> 
> each new recording either replaces a suggestion or an item from now playing.


Sorry, I disagree. I've had a TiVo for three years and two months. I would use an FSI daily. I am still amazed it doesn't have one. I don't use nor do I want suggestions on my unit. And I definitely don't want my recordings scrolling off before I watch them.

Here's something that also is strange about FSI threads. If someone wants a feature, and I don't, it's really no big deal to me. I pretty much stay away from that thread. After all, why should I care? It's not a bad idea, or irrelevant, just not important *to me.*. For example, I have never understood the desire for batch recordings, but since I don't use playlists or record to VCR, I figured it just wasn't _my thing_.

But start a thread on FSI, and dozens of people will jump on the "you don't need it, we don't need it, TiVo doesn't need it" bandwagon. Why do they care? If it happens, those that want it will be thrilled, and the rest shouldn't really care. Why does *anyone* care if TiVo adds a feature you may not want?

Just wondering . . .


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## MickeS (Dec 26, 2002)

> I don't use nor do I want suggestions on my unit.


So instead of using the currently available method, which pretty much can be used as a FSI but a little less accurate, and at absolutely zero inconvenience to you (really - you have to do NOTHING with the suggestions, other than see the number in parenthetis next to the word suggestions), you choose to go without it?

I don't understand this mentality.



> Just wondering . . .


To me it comes down to "can I already do this on my TiVo?" Since the "keep until" function and the warnings when setting recordings already do more to help me decide which shows to watch, manually delete or auto-delete than a FSI would, and suggestions work as a rough FSI, and I just don't see the need for it.

There is no workaround for batch transfer to VCR, for example, so I see that as something they should work on before a FSI.


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## MickeS (Dec 26, 2002)

Crrink said:


> Well, obviously you'd look at the To Do list to get as close an approximation as you'd need to decide if you have enough free space or not.
> Right now that involves counting up Suggestions which is needlessly tedious.


I never have to count up any suggestions...? It just displays the number of suggestions next to the Suggestions folder.

I have a large enough HD now that I don't worry about free space, but before that I just took the number of suggestions and divided it in two to get the remaining number of hours. It's a rough estimate, on the side of caution, and just like a FSI, it's not very accurateor useful without looking at To Do lists and Now Playing info.


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## JS2003 (Jan 10, 2004)

Every person (not most, every) that I know who has a Tivo has asked why there is not free space indicator. Such an indicator is almost universal now on electronic devices that have any kind of storage. My PDA has it. My computer operating system includes it as one of the basic recording mechanism. People realize that current space will be consumed with future recordings. That isn't hard to understand. Make it an option that must be turned on before it shows up. Make it simple (even a %age figure would help, but X/Y/Z hours of recording would be better). 

There may be kludges and hacks that let you approximate how much space you have left, but I thought the point of these kinds of devices was to simplify our lives, not to drive us to concoct work-arounds.


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## HDTiVo (Nov 27, 2002)

Soon we won't need an FSI because all we have to do is total up our yellow exclamations, suggestions folder (if any,) *and the undelete folder.*


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## JS2003 (Jan 10, 2004)

Maybe a calculator should be included as part of the basic Tivo interface!


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## astrohip (Jan 7, 2003)

MickeS said:


> So instead of using the currently available method, which pretty much can be used as a FSI but a little less accurate, and at absolutely zero inconvenience to you (really - you have to do NOTHING with the suggestions, other than see the number in parenthetis next to the word suggestions), you choose to go without it?
> 
> I don't understand this mentality.


Nor do I understand yours. I don't *want* to count suggestions, add hours, or do something that _"pretty much"_ works. I want a simple FSI.

One day they will add it, and this debate will be over


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## Crrink (Sep 3, 2002)

HDTiVo said:


> Soon we won't need an FSI because all we have to do is total up our yellow exclamations, suggestions folder (if any,) *and the undelete folder.*


I'm curious about the upcoming undelete folder. If I turn Suggestions off and if it won't remove shows from the undelete folder until it needs space, then this will be a MUCH better solution than using Suggestions (though still far less useful than an actual FSI). 
Since deleted shows would move immediately to the undelete folder it would be realtime as opposed to Suggestions which record whenever.

Edit: According to this post the undelete folder won't work this way 
It will be nice for recovering from a mistake, but won't do anything to help with the FSI issue.
It seems to me that TiVo wants users to keep Suggestions on (if TiVo had a FSI nobody that I know would use suggestions), but I haven't been able to come up with a good reason TiVo would care.


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## dgh (Jul 24, 2000)

Crrink said:


> I'm afraid I don't understand your point.





Crrink said:


> tedious





Crrink said:


> irritating





Crrink said:


> silly





Crrink said:


> I feel like a dope





Crrink said:


> hinders that freedom





Crrink said:


> irritates me





Crrink said:


> why does that bother *you* so much?


Look up the psychological term: Projection. 

(And the above was in response to my suggestion of what _other people_ might try while waiting an indefinite time for an FSI. Just in case _anyone else_ is irritated and wants to try something else.)


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## Crrink (Sep 3, 2002)

dgh said:


> Look up the psychological term: Projection.
> 
> (And the above was in response to my suggestion of what _other people_ might try while waiting an indefinite time for an FSI. Just in case _anyone else_ is irritated and wants to try something else.)


I apologize then, I misunderstood you. I thought you were trying to convince me that I didn't need a FSI.


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## dgh (Jul 24, 2000)

Crrink said:


> I apologize then, I misunderstood you. I thought you were trying to convince me that I didn't need a FSI.


OK, No problem.

I was only trying to convince other people. I've been around the block with you on this enough to know that I'm not going to convince you. For you, I would think one of those "every other DVRs" might be appropriate, if this is a big deal, but I'll let you decide that. I'm not going to try to convince you one way or another.

TiVo's methods really work extremely well for me and my friends, (I suppose this is because of the differences in the way you and I explain these things to them - the fact that you feel like a dope while explaining suggestions as "the answer" can't be helping your presentation), but with TiVo's forum rant-based customer support/discount plan and this new PTC attachment, I have no idea at this time whether there will be any more TiVos in my future so it doesn't matter to me which way you go on that.


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## HDTiVo (Nov 27, 2002)

HDTiVo said:


> Soon we won't need an FSI because all we have to do is total up our yellow exclamations, suggestions folder (if any,) *and the undelete folder.*


I forgot that a couple more months down the road we'll also have to repeat the calculations in the KidZone.


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## MickeS (Dec 26, 2002)

astrohip said:


> Nor do I understand yours. I don't *want* to count suggestions, add hours, or do something that _"pretty much"_ works. I want a simple FSI.
> 
> One day they will add it, and this debate will be over


When they add it, as suggested, you'll still have to do all the math in your head, and look at the ToDo list. Just like today. Oh well.


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## MickeS (Dec 26, 2002)

I'll say it again - you guys are either recording too much that you don't watch, or your hard drive is too small. That's the primary problem here.


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## astrohip (Jan 7, 2003)

MickeS said:


> When they add it, as suggested, you'll still have to do all the math in your head, and look at the ToDo list. Just like today. Oh well.


Here's an idea. Try another DVR that has a FSI. Then see what it's like. It could be monstrously painful to use, requiring one to add hours & shows together, calculate percents, and do math (eek) just to understand.

OR . . . it could be intuitively easy to grasp, and a simple look-see at the % may tell you all you really need to know 

I have one with an FSI, and one without. So I know of what I speak. It just simply an easy concept that takes .08 seconds to understand. I will guess you don't have a DVR with an FSI, because you wouldn't even *discuss* this point if you did. It's that easy, that intuitive.

The TiVo is still miles ahead though . . .


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## astrohip (Jan 7, 2003)

MickeS said:


> I'll say it again - you guys are either recording too much that you don't watch, or your hard drive is too small. That's the primary problem here.


I bought the largest HD TiVo sells. I think it was an 80 hour unit.

Let me try to explain (no sarcasm this time) when & why an FSI can help. Let's say I got a bunch of shows stored up, and I have no idea how close I am to capacity. It's late, the dog needs walking, and my wife wants to watch Leno instead of something on TiVo  .

So I can't watch any shows tonight :down:. Now the problem: is the TiVo about to scroll away a show or two in order to record the next show on the To-Do List? Should I start looking at how many suggestions are left, what's on the To-Do list, what's scheduled to record, etc?

Or could I simply look at an FSI, see it says 61%, think to myself, "Wow, I have more left than I thought", and realize I don't even have a worry mate.

It can be that simple 

I do this all the time on my TWiVo. On the TiVo, I have to do the math


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## HDTiVo (Nov 27, 2002)

astrohip said:


> The TiVo is still miles ahead though . . .


This gives me an idea...

The FSI should be a measure of the distance between TiVo and other DVR competitors. That's what I want more than the other FSI.


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## dgh (Jul 24, 2000)

HDTiVo said:


> The FSI should be a measure of the distance between TiVo and other DVR competitors. That's what I want more than the other FSI.


Here's a proposal for what that might look like:


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## timckelley (Oct 15, 2002)

A suggestion could be 30 minutes or 2 hours, so just looking at the number in parenthesis is not much of a workaround. I like the Time Warner simple percentage strategy. (Time Warner, btw, doesn't have suggestions, but TiVo does, so I recommend counting suggestions as free space when displaying this percentage.)


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## timckelley (Oct 15, 2002)

Also, btw, I agree that batch save/playlist is needed more than FSI, but I still think FSI is worth having.


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## Crrink (Sep 3, 2002)

dgh said:


> OK, No problem.
> 
> I was only trying to convince other people. I've been around the block with you on this enough to know that I'm not going to convince you. For you, I would think one of those "every other DVRs" might be appropriate, if this is a big deal, but I'll let you decide that. I'm not going to try to convince you one way or another.
> 
> TiVo's methods really work extremely well for me and my friends, (I suppose this is because of the differences in the way you and I explain these things to them - the fact that you feel like a dope while explaining suggestions as "the answer" can't be helping your presentation), but with TiVo's forum rant-based customer support/discount plan and this new PTC attachment, I have no idea at this time whether there will be any more TiVos in my future so it doesn't matter to me which way you go on that.


I have both a ReplayTV and a Moxi from my cable company. I like the RTV a lot, actually, but I use the TiVo's a lot more because they're networked together, and in the past have been more reliable at recording shows than either the RTV or the Moxi. Both the RTV and Moxi have become more reliable, but I still TiVo everything as a safety net.

And even without a FSI, TiVo is still my #1 choice for DVR's. I will very likely buy a S3 and get rid of the Moxi even if it doesn't have a FSI - the FSI issue doesn't trump TiVo's other features IMO, but it's a particularly vexing issue for these reasons: 
-Commonality of the feature on other DVR's 
-Relative simplicity of implementing the feature 
-Imprecise workarounds available 
-The oft expressed contention by some here that those of us wanting a FSI are either misguided, stupid, watching too much television, or some combination of the three (not referring to you specifically, but to the vehemently anti-FSI crowd in general)

And I do disagree with you that the problem my friends have is my inability to properly explain the TiVo method of space management. Everybody I know is like me - they want to record shows, and they don't want those shows to be deleted before they are able to watch them. If they do run short of space they would like a head's up so that they can choose what to watch now, what to delete now, and what to cancel in the future. That's difficult to do with any sort of regularity in my and my friend's opinion. A FSI would greatly simplify this task for us. So I hope TiVo does add one at some point.


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## Crrink (Sep 3, 2002)

MickeS said:


> I'll say it again - you guys are either recording too much that you don't watch, or your hard drive is too small. That's the primary problem here.


Thank you for your opinion, but you don't get to decide how much television is appropriate for me to watch.
As I explained earlier, I like to save shows for viewing several weeks to several months later. I have enough capacity on my TiVo's to do this currently, but managing that capacity is more difficult than it would be if I had access to a simple FSI.

Upgrading the disks in my TiVo's did go a long way toward alleviating the problem, but it's not a total solution for me, the main reason being that I duplicate a lot of recording on multiple TiVo's. I do this so that if I ever have a disk failure on one TiVo my losses are minimized. That does necessitate going around to the other TiVo's from time to time and deleting shows we've already watched, and sometimes I fall behind in doing that and I start to run out of space. Having a FSI would make it a lot easier to determine how soon I will have to worry about deleting shows, and that would be a nice thing to have.

In any event, not everyone has the time, money and technical ability to do a disk upgrade, so I still think a FSI would be a better solution.


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## timckelley (Oct 15, 2002)

Crrink said:


> In any event, not everyone has the time, money and technical ability to do a disk upgrade, so I still think a FSI would be a better solution.


I agree that from an economic standpoint, it makes more sense to implement the FSI than fork out for another hard drive. How hard can that be, if other DVRs are doing it? Even Microsoft Windows does it. It doesn't seem like it should be a big deal to implement.

It actually seems like it would take less work to implement than the batch save to VCR requested feature, though I admit the latter feature is more important to me.


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## dgh (Jul 24, 2000)

Crrink said:


> Everybody I know is like me - they want to record shows, and they don't want those shows to be deleted before they are able to watch them. If they do run short of space they would like a head's up so that they can choose what to watch now, what to delete now, and what to cancel in the future.


Well two of your solutions to getting to close to the end of your disk are deleting which you just said they don't want to do, and canceling which seems about the same to me, or watching now which requires you to be interrupt-driven by your TiVo. No one I know really wants to be interrupt-driven by their TiVo (they all bought TiVos to NOT be interrupt driven by TV) so that leaves deleting which can be controlled in advance and canceling which is just another way of saying: don't record more than you can watch. It's not a matter of "you watch too much TV" just a question of whether you can buffer as much stuff for as long as you want on a disk as large as you have and whether you want to make that determination up front or more frequently. I think it's better to do it once per season, but if you want to spread it out, that's OK too. I used to mess with it more in my earlier days with my TiVo too but then I believe I saw the light. Oddly enough, I started to "get it" while I was on the pro side of an FSI thread around late 2000 or early 2001.


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## dgh (Jul 24, 2000)

timckelley said:


> It actually seems like it would take less work to implement than the batch save to VCR requested feature, though I admit the latter feature is more important to me.


I think they could make heavy use of the DVD recording UI. It shouldn't be hard to repurpose for VCRs if they wanted to.


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## timckelley (Oct 15, 2002)

dgh said:


> No one I know really wants to be interrupt-driven by their TiVo (they all bought TiVos to NOT be interrupt driven by TV)


Some people, maybe are in a temporary position of being almost out of space and will willingly enter into an 'interupt-driven' mode until they regain control by deleting space. (My wife is such an example.) Having a TiVo is still worth having, for many reasons, despite this temporary reversion into 'interupt' mode.



Crrink said:


> (if TiVo had a FSI nobody that I know would use suggestions)


I would. When I run out of stuff to watch, very often my suggestions contain worthy material for me to watch. This is because I must have done a good job with my thumbs, because my suggestions find decent stuff. (Most is not, but a certain percentage of it is.)

Of course, the fact that I have a fairly deep suggestions folder means I'm not almost out of space, so FSI would not be all that useful to me. But it would to my wife, on her TiVo.


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## dgh (Jul 24, 2000)

timckelley said:


> Some people, maybe are in a temporary position of being almost out of space and will willingly enter into an 'interupt-driven' mode until they regain control be deleting space. (My wife is such an example.) Having a TiVo is still worth having, for many reasons, despite this temporary reversion into 'interupt' mode.


It sounds like this is not the preferred mode of operation though, so I would agree with that. I did it a number of times in my first several months and started having questions of whether the TiVo had fundamentally changed anything for me. ie was replacing a 9PM Tuesday interrupt a big change from OH NO! I've got to watch 9 shows just to get the next couple of days recorded!  ?

So I thought I should adjust my ways to achieve more TiVo zen-nes. Besides, even though TiVolutionary said that an FSI was coming after the big FSI thread of 2000, I figured it was at least 6 months before I would actually have it.

That turned out to be a pretty good prediction if you emphasize the "at least" part.


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## Crrink (Sep 3, 2002)

dgh said:


> Well two of your solutions to getting to close to the end of your disk are deleting which you just said they don't want to do, and canceling which seems about the same to me, or watching now which requires you to be interrupt-driven by your TiVo. No one I know really wants to be interrupt-driven by their TiVo (they all bought TiVos to NOT be interrupt driven by TV) so that leaves deleting which can be controlled in advance and canceling which is just another way of saying: don't record more than you can watch. It's not a matter of "you watch too much TV" just a question of whether you can buffer as much stuff for as long as you want on a disk as large as you have and whether you want to make that determination up front or more frequently. I think it's better to do it once per season, but if you want to spread it out, that's OK too. I used to mess with it more in my earlier days with my TiVo too but then I believe I saw the light. Oddly enough, I started to "get it" while I was on the pro side of an FSI thread around late 2000 or early 2001.


The problem with making these determinations ahead of time is that if your 
preferences change throughout the season you have to go and adjust your season passes. With a FSI you can let TiVo accumulate everything, watch whatever you feel like whenever you feel like and get a head's up if you decide to go on vacation, if life gets temporarily too busy for the number of shows you like to keep up with, etc.

Perhaps your tastes don't change very much from season to season, but mine do. CSI used to be a must watch show for my wife and I. Now we have the whole season piled up - combination of that show being less interesting to us for whatever reason, and a few new shows being more interesting.

Another benefit is that I typically have a space crunch in the first few months of TV season. I make a SP for any show that sounds remotely interesting or gets good critical buzz. I let most of these shows spool up on my TiVo and wait for word of mouth, unexpected free time, or cancellations, which happen fast these days, but not always that fast. Anyway, that way I can keep a show that I think I will have zero interest in (My Name is Earl and Arrested Development would be two good examples) and wait to see what other people think. If the show tanks and/or gets cancelled, then I can delete them - no need to waste time. If a lot of people say the show is great, they're there waiting for me on my TiVo, no temptation to use Bittorrent to violate Copyright laws.

Anyway, we may get around to watching CSI during the summer, or we may not. If I had a big space crunch right now, it might well get deleted, but so far I have enough space...I'm pretty sure...


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## davezatz (Apr 18, 2002)

I think FSI would be a nice enhancement. Obviously it's not _necessary_ since we function without it and have some methods of making space estimates such as calculating Suggestions. But I still think it would be nice to have.

I read some of the rationale for not having it is that it's hard to calculate, though I think you could specify by quality it's not so difficult. I also see some arguments that it might confuse some subscribers, so I suggest burying it where only the motivated/interested would find it.

Here's my quickie mockup based on my TiVo burner's Recording Quality screen...



















PS, I'm not trying to convince anyone FSI is good or bad. Just stating my preference to have it available. You're welcome to your own preferences.


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## dgh (Jul 24, 2000)

Crrink said:


> Perhaps your tastes don't change very much from season to season, but mine do. CSI used to be a must watch show for my wife and I. Now we have the whole season piled up - combination of that show being less interesting to us for whatever reason, and a few new shows being more interesting.


Oddly enough, me too, except that I stopped recording it too. If I change my mind in the summer rerun season, I could recreate a season pass at that time, or pick it up in syndication, but I don't remember ever going back to a show after getting tired of it. I used to have a huge collection of video tapes that I never watched either and then when I got my TiVo it started suggesting a bunch of those shows. (Within the first 12 hours - I wasn't sure whether to be impressed or scared by the suggestions engine) They where still floating around - just at strange hours. I've been dumping tapes ever since.

I've never thought of the waiting and seeing what other people think angle. I wouldn't select shows that way, but I think setting KAMS for a few episodes each based on how much space you have wouldn't really be any different. Most of these arguments sound like arguments for a very big TiVo more than an FSI but then maybe if TiVos get super big they get harder to manage than I can imagine.


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## timckelley (Oct 15, 2002)

dgh said:


> It sounds like this is not the preferred mode of operation though


IMO, you're 100% right about that - I would hate to be in that mode of operation (fortunately I never am on my TiVo, but wife often is on hers)

TiVo solved several problems for us besides being able to timeshift though. In the before-TiVo time, we used to timeshift with VCRs. We had to remember which tapes needed to be in the VCRs on which days (or even which times of days, when we had multiple "SP's" that occured on the same day). And sometimes we didn't realize there wasn't enough space left on the tape, and the tape would hit the end before the ep ended, and we'd lose part of the ep. Also, my wife, being an archiver, wants things in a certain order on the tape, but with a VCR, you're stuck with chronological order, but not so with the 'Save to VCR' feature of TiVo. Also, we had to coordinate who's watched which eps and decide when it's okay to reclaim space on a VCR tape. This still needs to be done on TiVo, but it's simpler.

So to tell the truth, when I think of it, getting to watch shows when we want isn't really a problem TiVo solved, because we had this already solved via VCRs. Therefore, when TiVo gets low in space, forcing my wife into 'interrupt mode' (the phrase that you coined), this is actually a new problem she didn't have in the before-TiVo time. VCRs are actually are better than TiVos in one regard, as they don't have this problem. But the other advantages of TiVo (not having to change tapes, not having remember when to change tapes, not worrying about a tape hitting the end during an ep, better picture quality, etc.) really are worth it to my wife despite her newfound 'interupt' mode.

However, I thankfully don't deal with that because I won't let my TiVo get that full. If it were to start to get full, I'd ask myself an honest question: "Is this temporary - i.e. am I watching less TV than normal now because of something that's come up, but that will soon change - or, is this a long term thing - i.e. my TiVo is goign to record faster than I can watch, longterm?" If it's the latter, than I will realize I have too many SPs, and I'd face facts that I'm not going to see it all and then decide which SP I'm going to delete. Because in the long run, I don't want to fight the battle of the full TiVo. But that's me, and other people aren't like me.


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## dgh (Jul 24, 2000)

You might want to add a TiVo with DVD recorder to satisfy your wife's archiving desire with smaller interrupts. (High speed transfers and you can watch something else while archiving.)


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## timckelley (Oct 15, 2002)

She'd probably love the batch save feature it's got, but she has balked at this because of the cost. But I remember they used to be $600-$800, maybe they're a lot cheaper now.


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## MickeS (Dec 26, 2002)

astrohip said:


> I bought the largest HD TiVo sells. I think it was an 80 hour unit.
> 
> Let me try to explain (no sarcasm this time) when & why an FSI can help. Let's say I got a bunch of shows stored up, and I have no idea how close I am to capacity. It's late, the dog needs walking, and my wife wants to watch Leno instead of something on TiVo  .
> 
> ...


Here's what you do: set the shows you want to keep to "Keep Until I Delete". That way it will delete only shows that you yourself would have wanted to delete. Problem solved.


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## MickeS (Dec 26, 2002)

timckelley said:


> However, I thankfully don't deal with that because I won't let my TiVo get that full. If it were to start to get full, I'd ask myself an honest question: "Is this temporary - i.e. am I watching less TV than normal now because of something that's come up, but that will soon change - or, is this a long term thing - i.e. my TiVo is goign to record faster than I can watch, longterm?" If it's the latter, than I will realize I have too many SPs, and I'd face facts that I'm not going to see it all and then decide which SP I'm going to delete. Because in the long run, I don't want to fight the battle of the full TiVo. But that's me, and other people aren't like me.


That's what I was trying to say when I wrote "you guys are either recording too much that you don't watch, or your hard drive is too small. That's the primary problem here", but you put it more eloquently.


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## timckelley (Oct 15, 2002)

MickeS said:


> Here's what you do: set the shows you want to keep to "Keep Until I Delete". That way it will delete only shows that you yourself would have wanted to delete. Problem solved.


There's a problem with that, which my wife has run into, but she has an interesting solution.

When most of the machine is KUID, and most of the To Do List is KUID, the TiVo stops allowing you to put more stuff on the To Do List. It tells you it won't do it because it projects there won't be enough space at the time of airing to fit the new ep on your NP. But what the TiVo doesn't know is that my wife intends to watch and delete stuff between now and the airing date, so really there's room and the TiVo really ought to put her stuff onto the To Do List.

So what my wife does is she sets all her SP's as KUSN, and once they show up in NP, she changes it all to KUID. Now TiVo agrees to schedule stuff in the To Do List because it projects space will be there because of the other KUSN stuff that's already in the To Do List.

BTW, my wife thought up this solution on her own, which I thought was intelligent of her.


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## dgh (Jul 24, 2000)

timckelley said:


> She'd probably love the batch save feature it's got, but she has balked at this because of the cost. But I remember they used to be $600-$800, maybe they're a lot cheaper now.


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## MickeS (Dec 26, 2002)

Crrink said:


> Thank you for your opinion, but you don't get to decide how much television is appropriate for me to watch.


Would you not agree that if you are running out of HD space, that you have either recorded more TV than you can watch before it records again, or that your HD is too small?

Every time I read about the demands for FSI, it seems like what people really want is to be forced to manage their recordings - that they can't delete season passes or shows that they never watch, unless they run out of space. And they want to know how much longer they can keep those recordings without watching them before they have to delete them.

By the way, I use Suggestions not primarily as a FSI, but as a way of getting stuff recorded that I enjoy, but not care enough about to set SP for. Syndicated sitcoms, mostly.

timckelley, didn't think of that! But that's a decent solution... I don't think the TiVo could be set up to handle it any other way, since it doesn't know when they'll be watched. I still maintain that KUID is the way to go for Crrink for example, who records shows that he does not want to delete, but intends to watch later in the season. And that a FSI is not very important if you manage your recordings in a manner consistent with your viewing preferences.


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## timckelley (Oct 15, 2002)

Okay, here's one line of thought that to me, justifies a need for FSI.

Some people don't typically watch their TV at a uniform rate - they may go x days without watching TV, and then spend y days catching up on their backlog. It's these fluctuations in their schedule that cause the need for a HD to hold the buffer. The bigger the fluctiations, the bigger HD is needed for that person. I personally don't go very long without watching my stuff, so I could probably get away with a small HD.

Now, the values for x and y can vary from month to month, and it's hard to predict how big x might ever get. If, say, an 80 hour TiVo will take care of 95% of the fluctuations, then some might say that's a reasonable size TiVo to own, and the 5% of the time where the HD space runs out, an FSI would be a handy tool to have to alert the user than some stuff is going to be lost. This useful alert will give the owner some control over which stuff is going to be lost, or, maybe spur him to find more time to watch his stuff. Once he recovers from his backlog, he can go back to the happy days of the 95% period.

That being said, I think my wife runs against her space problems a lot more than 5% of the time, so you could make a legitimate argument that she needs a bigger hard drive. But that won't work for her. If she had a bigger hard drive, she'd see all that new free space, and psychologically, she would yield to the temptation to find more stuff to record, and eventually fill it up. I know it doesn't sound logical, but the human mind is not always logical, and for such minds, and FSI could be useful.


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## Crrink (Sep 3, 2002)

MickeS said:


> Would you not agree that if you are running out of HD space, that you have either recorded more TV than you can watch before it records again, or that your HD is too small?


Well, not necessarily. If you've read any of my posts, you ought to understand by now. I happen to record a lot of stuff that I don't *have* to watch, but that I'd *like* to have the option of watching. I have no idea, right now, in March, what my viewing time/patterns/preferences are going to be next July. Maybe I'll be through this season's CSI, maybe I won't. Maybe I'll have watched everything of any interest and will be turning to CSI:New York for entertainment (Dear God, let's hope not!) And maybe I'll still have a few episodes of Lost and 24 to catch up on (two must see shows in my house). Anyway, I *do* have enough space to manage all of this, but I *do not* have the proper tools to do it easily. That vexes me. And yes, I know I've gone off on a tangent and become a special case (now that you all know about the particular ways I use my TiVo's), but the main arguments for a FSI do still stand. 


> Every time I read about the demands for FSI, it seems like what people really want is to be forced to manage their recordings - that they can't delete season passes or shows that they never watch, unless they run out of space. And they want to know how much longer they can keep those recordings without watching them before they have to delete them.


It's not that we want to be forced to manage our space, it's that we want to delay the necessity to make those decisions as long as possible. Half way into a season I know much better what is entertaining me than I do at the beginning. We want to delay making decisions about what to sacrifice as long as we can in order to make sure we sacrifice the least worthy shows.


> By the way, I use Suggestions not primarily as a FSI, but as a way of getting stuff recorded that I enjoy, but not care enough about to set SP for. Syndicated sitcoms, mostly.


That's great, but for me Suggestions mostly records a lot of NYPD Blue and Law and Order reruns that I have no interest in watching. The engine doesn't work so well for me, so it's of less value to me.


> timckelley, didn't think of that! But that's a decent solution... I don't think the TiVo could be set up to handle it any other way, since it doesn't know when they'll be watched. I still maintain that KUID is the way to go for Crrink for example, who records shows that he does not want to delete, but intends to watch later in the season. And that a FSI is not very important if you manage your recordings in a manner consistent with your viewing preferences.


See above explanations for why I disagree with your assessment of my situation.


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## astrohip (Jan 7, 2003)

You know, it's funny how MickeS keeps coming up with reasons why I think I need an FSI (but really don't). I can't manage my recordings, or my HD is too small, or I record too much, or I don't use KUID enough. Whatever 

My point is, it doesn't matter why *I* want it, because I do. I want it because it would be helpful for me, and I want it. Case closed (for me). You can't win me over, because I want it.

How important is it? It's so far down the list, I can't see it . But I still want it.

I'm not happy, sad, upset or anything that you don't want it, because *it doesn't matter to me* how you feel about it. That's what puzzles me--why you spend so much time trying to convince a group of us that something we want is not really wanted.


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## thelastvoice (Feb 14, 2004)

> That's great, but for me Suggestions mostly records a lot of NYPD Blue and Law and Order reruns that I have no interest in watching. The engine doesn't work so well for me, so it's of less value to me.


That's what the thumb ratings are for. Give 3 thumbs down to suggestions you don't ever want to see and 3 thumbs up to the ones you do want. I have season passes for all of the L&O shows, but have also given those shows 3 thumbs down and the reruns never record as suggestions. It works suprisingly well. It only took a few days training and now my TiVo Suggestions *only* records shows that have been given 3 thumbs up.

Rob


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## Fraser+Dief (Nov 18, 2005)

dgh said:


> TiVo's methods really work extremely well for me and my friends


And adding a FSI would change that? Of course not. It'd still do its job exactly the same as it has been doing for you and your friends for years. You'd never see the FSI, because you have no need for it.

The only difference is that now it would work well for you, your friends, *and* the tens of thousands who want an FSI.


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## HDTiVo (Nov 27, 2002)

Seeing as there's not much posted here in TCF this morning, I come across some guy in another thread that doesn't like the Yahoo Weather thing all that much. Seems it took him more than 13 seconds to get the weather from bed because he ran all over the house 3 times to get his Yahoo username and password instead of putting in this thing we have where I live called a zip code.

'Now hold on' you say, what does this have to do with FSI?

Well, seems to me you don't need no damn weather. Look out the window. _If_ you are going outside, put on some clothes. You find you are too hot, well take off a layer. Too cold, well you're mostly getting about in the car anyway, so just park near the entrance. Raining - just sit in the car until it lets up a little. Don't have a car, well you _need to_ buy one.

I don't know, maybe this is just off topic, but somehow it just came to mind.


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## astrohip (Jan 7, 2003)

Here's another feature I'm surprised TiVo doesn't have.

When you are using the guide, it doesn't show you if a show is scheduled to record. The TWiVo's guide (which may be the single most user-unfriendly guide ever created) at least tells you when you have scheduled a show to record by showing it in red.

Sometimes with the TiVo, I pick a show to record, and it tells me I have already selected it, do I want to cancel?

Always wondered about this one too . . .


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

i'd add a suggestion but this thread is too full already


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## davezatz (Apr 18, 2002)

ZeoTiVo said:


> i'd add a suggestion but this thread is too full already


That reminds me... how come my TiVo doesn't filter TCF threads?


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

davezatz said:


> That reminds me... how come my TiVo doesn't filter TCF threads?


becasue TiVo is not affiliated with TCF


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## MickeS (Dec 26, 2002)

HDTivo, haha I actually have never understood these weather applications... at least those that don't show forecasts, but only current weather. They seem incredibly pointless to me.

So if TiVo had to choose between having a FSI or a weather application... yeah, I'd have to say the FSI makes slightly more sense. 



astrohip said:


> That's what puzzles me--why you spend so much time trying to convince a group of us that something we want is not really wanted.


Well, I do firmly believe that if you need a FSI, what would be even more helpful is a bigger HD OR better recording habits (use KUID for example).

Plus I like arguing.  Also I'm hoping it could eventually bring down the number of FSI requests. 



Crrink said:


> If you've read any of my posts, you ought to understand by now. I happen to record a lot of stuff that I don't *have* to watch, but that I'd *like* to have the option of watching. I have no idea, right now, in March, what my viewing time/patterns/preferences are going to be next July. Maybe I'll be through this season's CSI, maybe I won't. Maybe I'll have watched everything of any interest and will be turning to CSI:New York for entertainment (Dear God, let's hope not!) And maybe I'll still have a few episodes of Lost and 24 to catch up on (two must see shows in my house). Anyway, I *do* have enough space to manage all of this, but I *do not* have the proper tools to do it easily. That vexes me. And yes, I know I've gone off on a tangent and become a special case (now that you all know about the particular ways I use my TiVo's), but the main arguments for a FSI do still stand.


Hmm.... how does a FSI that shows percentage available in, say, March help you make any decisions what to watch when July comes?

I don't understand where the FSI would be helpful in the above examples.

Not that the FSI *couldn't* be helpful, but even if you had it wouldn't it be easier to set everything you want to save to KUID and everything you don't *have* to watch but would *like* to watch would be deleted as KUID recordings appear?



Crrink said:


> We want to delay making decisions about what to sacrifice as long as we can in order to make sure we sacrifice the least worthy shows.


How does a FSI help you with this? I don't make the connection (honestly). It doesn't say anything about the quality of the shows, and it tells you nothing about how much space will be available after, say, 6 weeks of recording this show and everything else.

I don't think of myself as stupid but maybe I am, because I just do not understand how a FSI helps in these cases, other than on some untangible level, where it feels better to just make the decision later (manually keep deleting newly recorded shows in order to keep older ones when there is not enough space) rather than sooner (manually setting shows you want to keep to KUID, so newer shows are not recorded if there is not enough space).

EDIT: I did think of one situation where a FSI could be useful, which is when you're not watching any of your recordings until you're forced to do so. Although the To Do list will tell you exactly the same info (showing that no new recordings will be made), I could see the usability of a FSI for those who do it that way.



thelastvoice said:


> It works suprisingly well. It only took a few days training and now my TiVo Suggestions only records shows that have been given 3 thumbs up.


Same here.


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## HDTiVo (Nov 27, 2002)

davezatz said:


> That reminds me... how come my TiVo doesn't filter TCF threads?





> becasue TiVo is not affiliated with TCF


In other words, TiVo is not CONNECTED to TCF.


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## HDTiVo (Nov 27, 2002)

ZeoTiVo said:


> i'd add a suggestion but this thread is too full already


But just tell us the suggestion without adding it.


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## NewYorkLaw (Dec 9, 2005)

I have "Real TV" in my wish list, and EVERY DAY I get a show called "Real Faith TV" which I do not want. I have given Real Faith TV three thumbs down but it keeps showing up!

How do I fix this?
Pete


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## Crrink (Sep 3, 2002)

MickeS said:


> ....snip.....
> Hmm.... how does a FSI that shows percentage available in, say, March help you make any decisions what to watch when July comes?
> 
> I don't understand where the FSI would be helpful in the above examples.
> ...


Sorry, I don't think my example was clear enough. Basically, I do have enough space to do what I want - I know that because I've been able to achieve my goals using the crude Suggestions FSI rather than a real one. Having a real FSI would be really nice because it would make it a lot easier to manage the space I do have. 
My example was meant to demonstrate the difficulty in knowing today what I'll have viewed next month - that's what setting your SP's KUID asks you to do - make decisions today about what is important in the future. Having a better FSI would make it easier to record more today and pare down tomorrow if, and only if, necessary. 
The problems with "overusing" KUID are well known - TiVo can't predict if/when you'll watch something, so it reserves KUID space once data enters the guide. Leading to nag screens for a show TiVo is worried it won't be able to record 9 days from now, but one that you know will record because you plan on watching 4 hours of recorded shows between now and then. 
I don't care for nag screens that can be avoided, and a better FSI would help me avoid them. 


> How does a FSI help you with this? I don't make the connection (honestly). It doesn't say anything about the quality of the shows, and it tells you nothing about how much space will be available after, say, 6 weeks of recording this show and everything else.


My example was meant to show how a better FSI would allow you to postpone the date when you had to make choices about what programming to keep and what to delete - the longer you get, the better you know what shows you do and don't like.


> I don't think of myself as stupid but maybe I am, because I just do not understand how a FSI helps in these cases, other than on some untangible level, where it feels better to just make the decision later (manually keep deleting newly recorded shows in order to keep older ones when there is not enough space) rather than sooner (manually setting shows you want to keep to KUID, so newer shows are not recorded if there is not enough space).


It's not an untangible pleasure, it's a more accurate decision later in the season.


> EDIT: I did think of one situation where a FSI could be useful, which is when you're not watching any of your recordings until you're forced to do so. Although the To Do list will tell you exactly the same info (showing that no new recordings will be made), I could see the usability of a FSI for those who do it that way.
> ...snip...


That's what I'm guarding against - times I won't be able to watch the normal amount of TV I watch. I'd like to weather those times without losing shows if possible, and if not possible, I'd like a heads up so I can choose carefully what I lose and what I keep.


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## TiVoStephen (Jun 27, 2000)

NewYorkLaw said:


> I have "Real TV" in my wish list, and EVERY DAY I get a show called "Real Faith TV" which I do not want. I have given Real Faith TV three thumbs down but it keeps showing up!
> 
> How do I fix this?
> Pete


Two possible solutions, pick the one you prefer:

1. In your wishlist, put quotes around "Real TV" (using the Pause button) so it treats it as a single string. That will exclude any show (such as Real Faith TV) that has other words in the way.

2. If the channel that Real Faith TV appears on is not a channel you care about and there are no other shows on that channel that you would ever want to record, you can deselect it in Channels You Receive.

Hope that helps!

Best regards,
Stephen


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## timckelley (Oct 15, 2002)

I didn't know about the quotes. Thanks for that tip. :up:


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## HDTiVo (Nov 27, 2002)

TiVoOpsMgr said:


> 1. In your wishlist, put quotes around "Real TV" (using the Pause button) so it treats it as a single string. That will exclude any show (such as Real Faith TV) that has other words in the way.


Cool. 

Could an asterisk be used inside or outside the quotes as well? Say I want to use "NFL FOOT*" to get "NFL FOOTBALL" without getting "NFL PRESEASON FOOTBALL" ?


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## TiVoStephen (Jun 27, 2000)

HDTiVo said:


> Could an asterisk be used inside or outside the quotes as well? Say I want to use "NFL FOOT*" to get "NFL FOOTBALL" without getting "NFL PRESEASON FOOTBALL" ?


I'm going to have to test that one... ccwf, where are you?


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## thelastvoice (Feb 14, 2004)

NewYorkLaw said:


> I have "Real TV" in my wish list, and EVERY DAY I get a show called "Real Faith TV" which I do not want. I have given Real Faith TV three thumbs down but it keeps showing up!
> 
> How do I fix this?
> Pete


Thumbs up/down only work for Suggestions. They have no effect on Wishlists or Season Passes.

Rob


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