# The Editing Thread



## Samsara

Below are some of the previous threads on this subject, but if you have something to add, please use this thread.

In-TiVo editing
Edit what has been recorded
add simple editing


----------



## JP Honeywell

This concept should not be a subscription charge. It's a software upgrade.


----------



## curtistaylor

My idea (at least I believe it is my idea) would be to allow setting multiple stop and start filters while viewing a recording. When playback is stopped an option would be presented asking if the filter should be saved. Behind the scenes the filter would then be associated with the recording until the recording is deleted or "delete filter" was selected on the recording's now playing information screen. The next time the show is played or "saved to VCR" the filter would be applied and the space between each stop and start mark would be skipped during playback.

This wouldn't save space on the Tivo but it would allow Tivo to defend in court that they are not modifying the copyrighted material. 

Plus I can't imagine this type of filtering would add near the complexity of any true editing ability.


----------



## SuperRob

Personally, I'd settle for a "Delete From Here" feature while watching a program. Whereever the program is in the timeline, everything after is deleted.

Not only would this be a GREAT recording space saver, but would help immensely with programs like Saturday Night Live which absolutely SUCK after the "Weekend Update" segment. 

Seriously, there are a lot of programs that have a few minutes of dead time after the real program is over. End credits not worth watching, shows on the Cartoon Network that end early, and they show "shorts" to fill time ... things like that.

I have no need for advance editing features (but I wouldn't MIND them), but this, I think, would be very useful for people with smaller drives.


----------



## MrGadget

The Filter Idea is what I had in mind also.

I would like to be able to spend a few minutes in advance to FF through the recorded program and set the out/in markers so that I could then watch/SaveToTape the program without the seqments I don't care to see.

It would not bother me if a banner screen with a message like "4 minutes and 20 seconds of original program being skipped" displayed for a few seconds. I'm sure a lot of people would be outraged by it though.


I know I am speaking out of place here, but I honestly think that TiVo would be doing better if they would concentrate on doing some of these FREQUENTLY asked for things. Things like this suggestion and the ability to select more than 1 item at a time from now playing for playback. These things would be relativly simple to implement and make a HUGE improvement to TiVo. Instead they come out with Series II which best I can tell is some upgraded hardware that didn't need to be upgraded and a degenerated version of the software. In short, the new box won't even perform as well as the old box! 

Sorry about the off topic rant.


----------



## wdave

> _Originally posted by curtistaylor _
> *{Filtering} wouldn't save space on the Tivo but it would allow Tivo to defend in court that they are not modifying the copyrighted material.*


Is that what they're concerned about?

Just give me the ability to cut a recording into two parts, making what was one entry in Now Showing now be two entries. Then I can delete whichever one I don't want, then repeat the process on the remaining segment if I want to trim the other end too.

Is dividing a recording into two parts considered modifying copyrighted material?


----------



## JP Honeywell

> _Originally posted by David Bolling _
> *Is dividing a recording into two parts considered modifying copyrighted material? *


I could see how it might be. Thing is, we want to eliminate commercials but what if someone wanted to eliminate "objectionable material" from the "content"?

But even then it's not modifying copyrighted material IMHO unless you _distribute_ it. The whole thing about copyright is that it protects the ability of the holder to make money from the intellectual property. If you're not distributing "your copy" then you're not affecting the holders ability to distribute or make money.

Perhaps a good analogy is if you buy a copy of a magazine and you tear a page out of your copy. You haven't affect the publishers ability to distribute their property.


----------



## Scalia

I've been playing with my new tivo for a few days and was just getting ready to post this same idea. Glad I looked around first. Now, admittedly, I don't know much about how Tivo "works", but it seems like you could accomplish this with a two-step edit mode. First, you could have the user input custom tick marks to a program (also allowing them to erase standard tick marks). Next, the user would mark what they wanted to save by clicking on an area, toggling it either green for save or red for erase. This way, they could save as many bits of a program as they like, and the interface would be easy enough for anyone to use with the remote control. This would be a great feature, because sometimes shows like "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" have a great skit near the beginning of the show, that I'd like to keep, but it isn't worth taking up an hour of space for. I would really like to see this feature implemented.


----------



## Scalia

I thought this was obvious about my last post, but just in case it isn't I'll clear something up. The custom tick marks would be able to range anywhere from 30sec to maybe half an hour. Clicking on an area between two tick marks would mark that entire area (between two ticks) for either erasing or saving. After all of the program had been marked, the user would click on a "make changes now" button. This would minimize the accidental erase factor. I was originally thinking that the enter button could toggle the save/delete option, but now that I think about it, the "Thumbs up" and "Thumbs down" buttons are already perfect for selecting what you want and don't want, so that's what I would use for user input. Unselected areas would probably be grey until chosen.


----------



## wdave

Scalia, all that is needed to save and delete segments of a program is to have a feature that allows you to split a program into two pieces at the currently paused location, creating two entries in Now Playing. Delete the one you don't want. Repeat as necessary.


----------



## Scalia

Yeah, but couldn't save different pieces of one recording. For instance, if you are editing commercials out of a few episodes of Seinfeld or something. The ability to divide a show in half isn't quite enough for this application, because deleting either of two Now Playing entries would erase the last 2/3 of the show instead of the first 4 minute commercial break. You'd need to be able to split the program into at least 3 pieces to do something like that.


----------



## Hunter Green

You need to be able to split the program into two at any point -- like where you're now paused -- and then to be able to rejoin them. Then you can simply split out the bits you don't want and reassemble the bits you do. Tedious, but simple interface with lots of power.


----------



## tagosti

This is an absolute MUST have. I would pay a nominal one time fee (($15-$25) for it.

My need is greater for the "delete from beginning to here" and "delete from here to end" not necessarily for commercial removal.

Case in point: the recent change in schedule for a World Cup games, which TiVo could not push down into our schedules in time, necessitated recording a block of time rather than a program. In order to make sure I did not miss any extra time and penalty kicks, I set it to record 90 minutes beyond the normal game end time. Now all of this overage is useless, and I would very much like to trim it off.


----------



## phone1

Not gonna' happen folks - TiVo is marketed to the masses as a VCR replacement, not a fancy-schmancy video editing tool. 

AFA editing out commercials? Don't even go there!


----------



## Spinball

I use TiVo primarily to record educational kids programmes for my children. Some of these programmes are only a few minutes long and are shown maybe 2 or 3 times a day. It means that when they get home from school there are a few worthwhile favourite programmes for them to watch if they want.
The problem is that programmes start up to a couple of minutes either side of the scheduled time so I have to have TiVo start 2 minutes early and stop 2 minutes longer. I get programmes in their entirity but a significant portion of my space is taken up with material I don't want.
Therefore a 'crop from start to here' and 'crop from here to end' functions would be VERY valuable.
I'm surprised these functions aren't already available.
Also since there are 30 episodes of Bananas in Pyjamas on the machine, it would be great to have it play them all back to back. Or maybe just play everything in the order it was recorded until you do something else.
Again, I'm surprised these 'simple to program' features aren't employed already.


----------



## grmcyguy

This is my first post, so go easy on me.... this may have already been suggested and I can see how some of the other (very complex) ideas would accomplish the same thing.

My suggestion is to have an option to save only unwatched portions of a movie or program. Sometimes it takes me weeks to get through a movie but want to conserve disk space at the same time. (I'm sure this will be the case with all of the 9/11 programming I'm recording).


----------



## BBQ Chicken

Have they even considered this? why are we getting MP3 and other mostly useless features when things like this could be done? I didn't want to start a new thread on this, but add me to the list that would really want to see it.


----------



## atreyu

Tivo would do well to emulate features Minidisc recorders have had for the past decade!

MD recorders provide incredible versatility through 3 simple functions: Delete, Divide (split one track into two at current location) and Combine (append the next track to this track).

Tivo already provides Delete, but simple Divide and Combine functions would represent a quantum leap in Tivo's usefulness with (I believe) a minimum of engineering hours, compared to "tick-mark filters" and other complex suggestions previously posted.

On a Tivo these might work as follows:

Divide - activated by a keypress or menu select while paused... say you're watching "Friends - Thu - 9/8" and pause it at 12:00 minutes in. Doing a divide would cause you to now be watching "Friends (2) - Thu - 9/8" at 0:00, while "Friends - Thu - 9/8" would now be a seperate segment, 11:59 long.

Combine - activated when playing a program (ex. "Friends (2) - Thu - 9/8" from the last example) when a higher-numbered version of that title also exists (ex. "Friends (3) - Thu - 9/8"). It would simply absorb the next higher-numbered segment into the current segment... i.e. in this example there would be no "Friends (3)" -- instead, "Friends (2)" would include the contents of "(2)" and "(3)".

Example use: a long, drawn-out Superbowl halftime show hogging Tivo drive space could be snipped out as follows...
1) FF or skip to the start of the halftime show, press "pause."
2) Divide. You're now at 0:00 of "Superbowl (2)."
3) FF or skip to the end of the halftime show, press "pause."
4) Divide. You're now at 0:00 of "Superbowl (3)."
5) Delete "Superbowl (2)."
6) Play "Superbowl," perform a Combine to absorb "Superbowl (3)" (the next-highest numbered segment still existing).

Voila!

This would also work for trimming an unneeded 1hr pad off a game, etc. 

Re: copyright issues, Minidisc has let you do this kind of stuff with copyrighted tracks for 10 years... what's the difference? I've often used this feature to chop off the ends of songs that repetitiously drag on for 2 or 3 minutes after they *should* have finished, or to nix lame stand-up topics in the middle of an otherwise-good routine.

- Atreyu


----------



## pigonthewing

I just saw the greatest edited commercial on HBO perhaps ever. It is a series of movie clips strung together with a musical score in the background, and it is just _wonderful_, but I'm not going to save the entire gosh-darn movie so I can keep it around. That's crazy talk.

And now, because this feature doesn't exist, I may have to go grab a .. uhm, whatchamacallit .. VHS cassette to save it. Blech.


----------



## sam1148

My favorite video tapes are my 'scrapbook' tapes. I'd keep one loaded in the VCR and quickly hit record to catch a funny commercial, a music video, or a news story. 

A scrapbook model which allows you to copy a bit from the buffer on live TV or recorded programs and paste it in a scrapbook folder would solve both the editing and batch recording/playlist issues. 

Add features like labeling the clip, multiple scrapbooks with labels, how much total time your scrapbook holds and I'd pay extra for the feature. 

Everyone should be familiar with "Copy and Paste" so the learning curve of adding this feature shouldn't be confusing. 

If they adopted this model with multiple scrapbook folders you'd get a batch recording feature for free. Just copy the program, keep the original label/title, and paste into a scrapbook folder. Then play the scrapbook to tape. 

BTW: For those that want to edit out commercials, you'll find in 20 years you'll enjoy the old commercials as much the show you recorded. I was watching an old Simpsons and saw the Grace Jones, Adam Ant Honda commercial where she bites his cheek; funny stuff. 

-hey? can I change my vote to "Yes, I'd pay a one time charge for this feature"


----------



## Radio

The idea's I'm reading here are very interesting, however, one thing keeps coming to mind. One of the best features (I think) of TIVO is it's ease of use. Your average 7 year old can operate the device with about 5 minutes of practice. All of these new features would be great, but you'd be complicating the interface to a point well beyond the level that many people would want to get involved with.

An alternate solution that could provide the "power user" with all these techie features, would be to write and sell an "advanced users" software package that would allow those interested to connect their PC/MAC up to the TIVO and access all these neat little features and seriously customize their box.

Call it "TIVO Commander" or something. A Window driven user interface, with massive customization possibilities.

Having worked with industrial controls and PLC's for many years, I can envision the ability to customize your menu options, customize your recording options, use different screen graphics at boot up, store multiple configurations, reset the box to factory defaults, the limits are the TIVO's own operating system abilities. Of course, TIVO would want to limit access to propritary information and minimize the possibility that the interface could be used for something illegitimate regarding the service agreement, however, I'd bet money that the TIVO engineers are already using something of this nature to test their lab box's anyway. Clean it up and mass market it.

I find it interesting that TIVO has all of these secret "backdoor" codes you can enter via your remote control which allow the "techies" to dink with their TIVO box in a limited way. One reason I picked the TIVO over the Replay TV box was the outstanding and simple user interface, but also the fact that there were secret things you could do to dink with it, mostly benign, but still, that little code that lets you skip commercials was great. Probably kept TIVO from getting the negative focus that Replay got over the commercial skip feature, but still, they provided it to the user in a more subtile way.

Forget all the secret codes, write a computer interface that the home Computer Wizard can hook up through a laptop pc and really dazzle the rest of the neighborhood with their brilliance. This would keep the regular Jill/Joe from having to worry that they are going to goof up their box and let the computer wiz have his fun and impress the local mob of couch potato's.

I'd buy it if they released it.

Just another mindless opinion from someone as old as Radio.


----------



## Goddess_Isis

I am new to the Tivo forum. One thing I would love to do is create a customized Tivo "file" of my favorite clips (comedy, music, commercials, etc). 

At this point, I don't do etiding. What I envision is the ability to define start/stop points and fine tune as desired.

This would totally rock!

Isis


----------



## kman007

I recently bought a DVD Recorder with out a hard drive recorder built-in and I am kicking myself now. The hard drive recorders in DVD-R units like the HS-2 from Panasonic have the ability to edit out commercials before burning, so why should a Tivo be so different? If Tivo would implement some editing features, it would be great for recording DVD's!


----------



## mll

I would even pay extra for a supported 30/sec, n/min skip. Even though it would be nice to have this free, I understand that the Content providers want to have some way to pay for their content and that I benefit from not seeing their commertials (est: 3 viewing hour/day * 1/4 hour/viewing hour * $1.00/hour * 360 days/year --> $275/year)


----------



## robtoy

After reading this thread, I realized that there is one way available to do some simple limited editing on the Tivo. You need to have more than one Tivo and a home network with them hooked to it with the home media option available to transfer programs from one Tivo to another. You can transfer a program from a paused location and then stop the transfer after you get the portion that you want to save. This won't allow you to do any splicing, but you can save a portion then delete the original clearing up disk space. This will also maintain the quality since the data is sent as data and not converted to video first.


----------



## spb

While Editing out Commercials would be Nice. The Basic Feature would be to Change the Start & Stop time of the recorded piece. (Cut off the front or the End) Or the Split a show in half at a paused segment. A Join to other recorded shows would then give you all you need.


----------



## marlond

I am new to the Tivo forum, but not new to computers. I am expecting my first Tivo unit this holiday and can't wait to start trying out all the features (hidden and otherwise).

Of course I headed right to the requested features section to see what the big complaints are. I have to say not much to complain about really. 

The editing feature was the first one that I felt strongly enough about to register, join and post about.

Here's my two cents. I don't think editing features are requested enough by the general public nor would they be used or understood. Can you imagine the orders of magnitude of problem-solving they would have to add to the help hotline? As it stands right now, your show is either going to be there or it's not. Imagine accidentally divided shows, kids joining all the shows together, etc.

Also, I don't think the Tivo would deal very well with file fragmentation. As it stands now, the typical Tivo users drive would be virtually fragmentation free. Editing introduces the problem of lots of tiny file fragments, lots of skipping around on the drive and ultimately a loss of playback speed.

It also wouldn't sit well with the MPAA.


----------



## dadonnelly1961

I believe that much of this functionality could (more) easily implemented in the TiVoToGo software that is being release shortly. The downside is that, as with the ability to use Broadband connections to the Internet rather than being forced into relying on the internal modem for activation, configuration, and the 'daily calls' (e.g., keeping pace with current technology - something that TiVo does fairly well in general but that DirecTV refuses to keep such pace in _their_ implementation of TiVo.) If you are not familiar with T2Go then you should visit TiVoToGo Transfers or, go to the top level of the Official Tivo Website . To get a better idea of what all TiVo and other home theater component manufacturers have in store in the coming year visit the _ Virtual Pavillion _ at the _2005 CES Show_.

As for implementing the solution within the box and in a manner that should be consistent with any commercial agreements, I think that there should be a 2 part enhancement:

 It seems that one aspect of the common goal in this thread is the ability to place _User Defined Markers_. There would be at least one kind of marker and, at most, three types:
The simplest would be a type of binary marker (call it a *Skip marker*), where the first one encountered is an 'In' point (start skipping) and the next one it encounters is an 'out' (stop skipping). Or, this type of marker could be used just to identify commercial breaks, scenes that you might deem offensive or unsuitable for your kids, etc.
 Assuming that a skip marker is used to "cut out" some of the playback, then there still might be a need for two other types of markers. The first would be used to indicate a scene from which to begin playing the recorded material, an "*In marker*", in effect "cutting" the preceeding material.
 The compliment to this would be a marker that would suppress the remainder of the output. This would be an "*Out marker*" that would have the effect of "trimming off" the remainder of the output.

 Additionally, and this has been suggested in at least one other thread in this forum, would be a *Batch Output* or *Archive Show(s)* function, wherein the user could specify which show or shows were to be output, serially, to a VCR, recordable DVD (or, perhaps with T2Go, to the PC), or even to watch. The latter might even allow for looped output and/or random output, which would be a tremendous benefit for children's viewing.
I believe that what makes all of these workable, in some form or other, is that they are relatively simple to code, as they rely on the user placing the markers, and that they would appear to meet contractual obligations, because someone has to watch the whole show in order to know where they would like to place the markers. And, given the ability to Archive the shows off of the recorder frees up space to use the TiVo more effectively.

BTW: Your TiVo disk would become fragmented even if you started with a virgin box and never deleted a show: TiVo is constantly putting new data and removing old data from your system, i.e., Suggestions, Showcase, etc. It does eventually degrade performance (to wit, my 3 year old Sony SAT-T60) so that you encounter all sorts of odd behaviour. I would love to have the ability to force a defrag on these boxes. But, I guess that's for another thread.
DAD


----------



## chuckforeman

atreyu said:


> Example use: a long, drawn-out Superbowl halftime show hogging Tivo drive space could be snipped out as follows...


Funny! I came here to see if there was a way to delete the 4+ hours of the game and save the halftime show.


----------



## saberman

I have a TiVo with a DVD burner. In order to capture entire programs from some networks I have to start the recording two minutes early and end two minutes late. I would like to be able to trim the unneed recorded material as part of the burn to DVD process. An option during the program selection process that would allow a start and stop marker to be set in the program would be great.


----------



## evilipoo

Looks like this thread has been inactive for quite a while... but I'm with saberman on this. 2 30 minutes episodes of a show recorded at best quality with 1 minute of padding on the beginning and end of the show has now kicked what should fit on 1 DVD to 2 DVDs. Sure, the ability to edit commercials would be nice... but trimming the padding is my personal wish


----------



## mergebow

I would love the ability to edit out portions of recording that I don't want! 

I like to record music bands playing on shows like David Letterman, Jay Leno, Conan, etc. To get around having to record the whole hour, I have noticed that the music in the shows is 99% of the time in the last 10 minutes of the show (sometimes the last 5 minutes). So what I do is a manual record for the channel, date and time for only the last 10-15 minutes of the show. This records more than I need or want , but it pays to be on the safe side, and it saves a lot of time and space. Of course this may not work for most people, but for anyone who's like me, you might want to try it. 

John


----------



## kcir

Ok this thread has been abandoned for a while. I'd like to see the ability to edit commercials or any portion of the show. After all, with a VCR you can do this with ease and the MPAA isn't getting upset over that. Once you record the program you should be free to do what you want with it. What is the difference if you delete it, or just FF over it??


----------



## drcos

SuperRob said:


> Personally, I'd settle for a "Delete From Here" feature while watching a program. Whereever the program is in the timeline, everything after is deleted.


I'd settle for this, especially on the S3, I could record movies on Universal HD and get rid of the 20-30 minutes of commercials at the end


----------



## jasdjensen

So did this topic die?

This is something I really want. All the time my wife saves a 3 hour talk show just to show me a 3 minute snippet. It would be great to trim the before and after and just save 3 minutes of it.

Especially on my HD Tivo which really has limited recording time.

Jason


----------



## heidismiles

I think the "reverse padding" feature would be an important first step toward getting the content we want. If we can schedule our Season Passes to start late or end early, that takes care of many of the complaints here.


----------

