# Alert user of recording conflicts with message to self



## mikeyts (Jul 10, 2004)

When two higher priority Season Pass requests overlap a third, instead of silently dropping the third it would be nice if TiVo would place a notification in the Messages list.

This week my TiVo didn't record the season premiere of _Boston Legal_ because I was recording two other things. (It was due to unusual scheduling on other channels and won't happen regularly). No big, and I could have seen it if I thought to keep an eye on Recording History, but it would have been nice to get a heads up and the "New Message" alert on TiVo Central would have made me take a look.

An alternative would be a new "Recording Conflict" alert on TiVo Central, which, when clicked, would take you to the relevant "will not record" Recording History item. Multiple conflicts would be easier to deal with with messages, though.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

This would indeed be a cool feature


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## Brainiac 5 (Aug 25, 2003)

I agree, that would be great.


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## Videodrome (Jun 20, 2008)

I kinda wish it would attempt another time automaticly.


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## mikeyts (Jul 10, 2004)

Videodrome said:


> I kinda wish it would attempt another time automaticly.


Actually, it does. If the same episode is on at a later time when there are no conflicts, it will record it then. (I'm not sure if that works if you use "First Run Only"--I never use it because I don't trust the guide data to be accurate). Unfortunately 99% of national network serials like _Boston Legal_ only air once each week.


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## WhiskeyTango (Sep 20, 2006)

This would be a nice feature if you only have one or two other shows that won't be recorded but I imagine this could get very cumbersome if you have a lot of season passes, where every rerun or alternate airing that won't be recorded triggers a notice.


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## jbernardis (Oct 22, 2003)

I don't think we need a message due to the 28 day rule or other such reasons, but a message when a third program is not being recorded because of conflicts with two higher priority SPs would be helpful. I think this is a great idea.


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## Brainiac 5 (Aug 25, 2003)

WhiskeyTango - I'd think that reruns or alternate airings that would not have been recorded anyway because of the 28-day rule wouldn't count as conflicts. Or do you mean a situation in which show A is shown twice, and the first showing conflicts with a higher priority show B? So, show B is recorded first, then the alternate airing of A is recorded. I do have some season passes like that.

In that case, perhaps the TiVo could recognize that both shows will eventually be recorded, and not notify you of the conflict.


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## mikeyts (Jul 10, 2004)

WhiskeyTango said:


> This would be a nice feature if you only have one or two other shows that won't be recorded but I imagine this could get very cumbersome if you have a lot of season passes, where every rerun or alternate airing that won't be recorded triggers a notice.


I'm not talking about reruns and alternate airings. I'm specifically talking about a notice for when a broadcast of program C won't be recorded because it's overlapped by broadcasts of programs A and B, which have higher priority season passes. The myriad reruns and alternate airings all appear in the Recording History marked identically as just "Won't Record", making it all the more difficult to identify this particular situation--you have to scan the list and recognize "Won't Record" entries whose day and time are when the program normally first airs.


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## WhiskeyTango (Sep 20, 2006)

Brainiac 5 said:


> WhiskeyTango - I'd think that reruns or alternate airings that would not have been recorded anyway because of the 28-day rule wouldn't count as conflicts. Or do you mean a situation in which show A is shown twice, and the first showing conflicts with a higher priority show B? So, show B is recorded first, then the alternate airing of A is recorded. I do have some season passes like that.
> 
> In that case, perhaps the TiVo could recognize that both shows will eventually be recorded, and not notify you of the conflict.


My line of thinking was this...

Lost is being replayed on SciFi from 7-11pm on Monday nights. My Mondays are full of recordings. I would get a message for each episode of Losts' seasons past that wont' be recorded. Or Stargate: SG-1 airs at 6pm. Also at that time is replays of past seasons of Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares on BBCA. I have a SP for RKN to catch the new episodes but I would receive a conflict message every weekday because SG-1 is ranked higher. SG-1 also tends to have 8 hour marathons once in a while. Any shows during the day that would not be recorded would generate a conflict message. That is a lot of unnecessary messages for shows I never intended to record in the first place.



mikeyts said:


> I'm not talking about reruns and alternate airings. I'm specifically talking about a notice for when a broadcast of program C won't be recorded because it's overlapped by broadcasts of programs A and B, which have higher priority season passes. The myriad reruns and alternate airings all appear in the Recording History marked identically as just "Won't Record", making it all the more difficult to identify this particular situation--you have to scan the list and recognize "Won't Record" entries whose day and time are when the program normally first airs.


If shows that had alternate airings were to be recorded at other times and could be ruled out of this equation, that's great. If not, there would be conflict messages for a lot of shows that are unneccesary. There are nights when my Tivo will record Terminator: SCC and Chuck at 8pm leaving Gossip Girl unrecorded. This may generate a conflict message even though the repeat on Sunday evenings will catch GG. The same may occur for shows like The Shield. New episodes are on Tuesdays but FX replays past seasons which could cause conflicts where those past seasons won't be recorded, thereby generating unneeded conflict messages. I'm not sure how you could filter out all of those types of shows and still have the effectiveness to ensure you record all of your primetime shows. It's a good idea like I said before, it just doesn't seem practical. Maybe I'm missing something from your hypothetical situation.


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## CrashHD (Nov 10, 2006)

"Won't Record" needs to be subdivided.

"Won't Record" due to conflict/tuner inavailability is one kind.

"Won't Record" due to already in the NPL or todo list, or was in NPL/todo withing the 28 day rule, is more accurately described as "isn't supposed to record".

I try to check the recording schedule for those (odd that you look at the recording future through the recording history menu...), but I have a hard time finding every "won't record" buried in the sea of "isn't supposed to records". 

It would be nice if they stood out.


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## mikeyts (Jul 10, 2004)

WhiskeyTango said:


> There are nights when my Tivo will record Terminator: SCC and Chuck at 8pm leaving Gossip Girl unrecorded. This may generate a conflict message even though the repeat on Sunday evenings will catch GG.


You may be right--it shouldn't place a message there if it can record the episode at an alternate time. In many situations like the one that you detail, it'd end up generating a message every week for that show. If the user wants to know why the program wasn't recorded, he or she can refer to the Recording History (where a new "recording at alternate time" entry should be added--maybe "Will Record on [day-of-week]".


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## whitenack (Aug 26, 2008)

mikeyts said:


> Actually, it does. If the same episode is on at a later time when there are no conflicts, it will record it then. (I'm not sure if that works if you use "First Run Only"--I never use it because I don't trust the guide data to be accurate). ...


Using "First Run Only" will not affect this. It will still record later if possible.

FYI


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## Jonathan_S (Oct 23, 2001)

mikeyts said:


> Actually, it does. If the same episode is on at a later time when there are no conflicts, it will record it then. (I'm not sure if that works if you use "First Run Only"--I never use it because I don't trust the guide data to be accurate).


It does automatically retry (for up to 28 days [yep, another 28 day rule ])


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## Jonathan_S (Oct 23, 2001)

mikeyts said:


> You may be right--it shouldn't place a message there if it can record the episode at an alternate time. In many situations like the one that you detail, it'd end up generating a message every week for that show.


That the issue I have with this suggestion. I'd get about 3 or 4 notices a week when my TiVo was acting normally because I've got several cable shows which _always _ get pre-empted out of their first timeslot and get recorded during their overnight repeat.

Unfortuantly, even your modified suggestion is likely to run into problems.

In the example the previous poster gave the his show was getting conflicted on Tuesday, and a repeat was getting recording on Sunday.

When the TiVo sees the conflict on Tuesday it won't yet have guide data for Sunday, so it won't be able to tell that there's a later showing, so it will still generate the unneccessary warning message.

I suppose this could be mostly mitigated by delaying the warming until 7 days before the scheduled recording, instead of generating it as soon as the conflict is seen. That would allow time for guide data to fill in and the TiVo to figure out it it would be able to record a later showing at following week.


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## mikeyts (Jul 10, 2004)

Jonathan_S said:


> Unfortuantly, even your modified suggestion is likely to run into problems.
> 
> In the example the previous poster gave the his show was getting conflicted on Tuesday, and a repeat was getting recording on Sunday.
> 
> When the TiVo sees the conflict on Tuesday it won't yet have guide data for Sunday, so it won't be able to tell that there's a later showing, so it will still generate the unneccessary warning message.


What--are you talking about it seeing a conflict at the end of the 12 days of guide data? It definitely shouldn't deliver a warning until it has data for the full week after the conflict. If it can schedule recording of the same episode at some other time this week, it doesn't need to warn me, but I want a note about it in Recording History (and instead of marking it "Not Recorded", I'd like something like "Will Record Later"). So, the longest conflict warning it should give is 6 days in advance (on Monday, you'd get a warning about conflicts on Saturday). Maybe it should be 5 days, since there are some series which show last week's episode just before this week's.


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## Jonathan_S (Oct 23, 2001)

mikeyts said:


> What--are you talking about it seeing a conflict at the end of the 12 days of guide data? It definitely shouldn't deliver a warning until it has data for the full week after the conflict. If it can schedule recording of the same episode at some other time this week, it doesn't need to warn me, but I want a note about it in Recording History (and instead of marking it "Not Recorded", I'd like something like "Will Record Later"). So, the longest conflict warning it should give is 6 days in advance (on Monday, you'd get a warning about conflicts on Saturday). Maybe it should be 5 days, since there are some series which show last week's episode just before this week's.


That would help a lot to cut down on unnecessary warnings.

Yeah, it if worked like that I'd love this feature.


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## Markell (May 14, 2006)

I'm not doing something right--I know to put Bravo shows as my lowest priority, because there are so many reruns that, even though they're my highest priority to watch, I know that I'll get them.

Unfortunately sometimes I have a high-priority show that trumps a low-priority show, even though the high-pri show is rerun later in the week. I wish it would just tape it later and give me both shows without my having to fix it manually. Any advice on that?


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## CrashHD (Nov 10, 2006)

I'm familiar with the problem, but I've never seen a solution short of manual intervention, or increasing the number of tuners in your tivo network.


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## mikeyts (Jul 10, 2004)

Markell said:


> I'm not doing something right--I know to put Bravo shows as my lowest priority, because there are so many reruns that, even though they're my highest priority to watch, I know that I'll get them.
> 
> Unfortunately sometimes I have a high-priority show that trumps a low-priority show, even though the high-pri show is rerun later in the week. I wish it would just tape it later and give me both shows without my having to fix it manually. Any advice on that?


You could always lower the priority of the program that has a second showing (or elevate the priority of the program that's getting preempted).


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## keltraine (Oct 9, 2008)

Ahh, mikeyts pointed out in my thread ToDo List Improvements that you guys had this discussion going on--my bad b/c I hadn't modified the default forum options to show threads older than 10 days (that's fixed now so I can actually see this thread! ).

Anyway, I give a pretty comprehensive/detailed list of the conditions that can cause recording conflicts there, so feel free to check it out if it'll help the discussion here. I hadn't considered any sort of alerts; that would be the next step to what I'd proposed...

In any case, too bad they don't respond or consider the suggestions as it would make a pretty great product just that much better!


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## mikeyts (Jul 10, 2004)

keltraine said:


> In any case, too bad they don't respond or consider the suggestions as it would make a pretty great product just that much better!


Though they're very careful about what they respond to here and how they respond to it (what TiVo employees say here can have legal ramifications), I'm certain that they review and consider every suggestion that we make. I'd imagine that they have long list of possible improvements to implement as suggested by us and dreamed up internally.


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