# Season Passes retained?



## jfh3 (Apr 15, 2004)

I just upgraded the harddrive in a DT, got 7.3 again and noticed something really strange - the season passes I had set on the old hard drive showed up on the new one not too long after I connected to the Tivo service.

I wasn't really paying attention until I was setting them up again and noticed that one of the ones I needed to do was already done. I knew this because I had a number of SP where the quality setting was at Basic before the upgrade and I was going to increase it.

I hope someone else has seen this and I'm not losing my mind (yes, I made sure I had installed the upgraded hard drive in the box!)

The Tivo also "remembered" my GuruGuide, Product Watch and Yahoo signin info selections, but that didn't surprise me, since I figured those were downloaded during the service connection.

Has anyone else seen this? People have been wanting a way to save/move SPs - maybe we already have it and don't know.

I feel like I'm in the Twilight Zone ...


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## windracer (Jan 3, 2003)

How did you make the backup image you used to put on the new drive? When you upgraded the drive, did you use the -f 9999 flag for mfstools? That would save all of your configuration information (SPs, WLs, etc.) in the backup image, which would then be restored to the new drive.

Having that online backup would be cool though ...


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## jfh3 (Apr 15, 2004)

windracer said:


> How did you make the backup image you used to put on the new drive? When you upgraded the drive, did you use the -f 9999 flag for mfstools? That would save all of your configuration information (SPs, WLs, etc.) in the backup image, which would then be restored to the new drive.
> 
> Having that online backup would be cool though ...


There was no backup.

The drive was formatted by someone else with a 7.2.5 image on it - no backup from my original drive! (And no way he would've had the EXACT same season pass info, since he's a few states away).


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## rsnaider (Apr 25, 2002)

If this drive did not come from you box will need to run Clear and Delete Everything or you will have recording issues.


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## jfh3 (Apr 15, 2004)

rsnaider said:


> If this drive did not come from you box will need to run Clear and Delete Everything or you will have recording issues.


How so? The drive was formatted for a clean install, much like pvrupgrade or weaknees would do. After the drive was installed, I had to go through setup again.


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## TiVoPony (May 12, 2002)

jfh3 said:


> I just upgraded the harddrive in a DT, got 7.3 again and noticed something really strange - the season passes I had set on the old hard drive showed up on the new one not too long after I connected to the Tivo service.
> 
> I wasn't really paying attention until I was setting them up again and noticed that one of the ones I needed to do was already done. I knew this because I had a number of SP where the quality setting was at Basic before the upgrade and I was going to increase it.
> 
> ...


Wow, that didn't take long.

No 'Twilight Zone', just a bit of TiVo Magic. 

Both Guru Guides and the new KidZone Guides feature in KidZone require that you modify your account settings to allow the service to have access to what is scheduled on your DVR (that's how we can resolve conflicts, place priority, etc automatically with the new Guides).

If you replace the hard drive on your box...well, the service sees that things are out of sync and automagically fixes that. All of the missing Season Passes, Wishlists, and Guru/KidZone Guides are automatically repopulated.

It's not a documented feature, nor a supported feature. So don't call Customer Support about it. They won't be able to help you. It's just a side benefit of having signed up for the new Guru/KidZone Guide Features.

Note that it's all tied to your TSN...so if you RMA a box, this likely won't have any benefit for you (the replacement would have a different TSN).

But if you're the adventurous type that likes to tinker with things (and I can't endorse opening the box)...it's a perk.

Selling your box? If you Clear and Delete Everything the TiVo Service will know it shouldn't sync the old stuff to the new drive. 

Enjoy!

Pony


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## Jonathan_S (Oct 23, 2001)

TiVoPony said:


> Wow, that didn't take long.
> 
> No 'Twilight Zone', just a bit of TiVo Magic.
> 
> ...


That's pretty cool.

(Oh, and thanks for letting the original poster (and us) what was actually happening before everyone here started trying to explain that it was impossible and he must be mistaken )

Edit: I wonder how long until this generates a new round of misleading / incorrect "TiVo spies on you" articles.


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## jfh3 (Apr 15, 2004)

TiVoPony said:


> Wow, that didn't take long.
> 
> No 'Twilight Zone', just a bit of TiVo Magic.


Very, very cool ! :up: :up: :up:

Glad to hear it was Tivo Magic! When I finally realized what was going on, it was kind of a spooky feeling ... 

(And the Tivo Tour videos came with the image too!)

Just out of curiousity - what happens if you opt out on the privacy stuff? Would the new GuruGuide and/or KidZone guides not work?


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## jfh3 (Apr 15, 2004)

Jonathan_S said:


> That's pretty cool.
> 
> (Oh, and thanks for letting the original poster (and us) what was actually happening before everyone here started trying to explain that it was impossible and he must be mistaken )
> 
> Edit: I wonder how long until this generates a new round of misleading / incorrect "TiVo spies on you" articles.


Hey, I knew it was "impossible" - that's why I almost didn't post. 

I was thinking that the Tivo really was "TV my way" and that it had learned to read my mind ...


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## TiVoPony (May 12, 2002)

jfh3 said:


> Very, very cool ! :up: :up: :up:
> 
> Glad to hear it was Tivo Magic! When I finally realized what was going on, it was kind of a spooky feeling ...
> 
> ...


If you change your privacy setting back you won't be able to use Guru Guides or the KidZone Guides (although the rest of the KidZone features would still work).

The service needs to be aware of what is on the box in order to use those features. And...any personal information is used for provisioning these services to your box. It's not used for any other purposes, nefarious or otherwise.

So...you have to opt in and change your account settings to use these features. By doing so you're agreeing to allow the service to be aware of what is scheduled on your DVR. And there are a number of new features that are enabled as a result, some official, and in this case, one unofficial. 

But if you'd rather not change your account settings...don't! It's no problem...your TiVo DVR will continue to function just as before.

Cheers,
Pony


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Now that's cool! :up:

So how long before we can transfer SPs & WLs to a new TiVo? That would make it a lot easier on people who want to upgrade to a DT or a S3.

Dan


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

TiVoPony said:


> Wow, that didn't take long.
> 
> No 'Twilight Zone', just a bit of TiVo Magic.
> Pony


man, you can unleash a bucket of live bugs direct into my house with (un)official features like that coming out :up: :up: :up:


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## rainwater (Sep 21, 2004)

ZeoTiVo said:


> man, you can unleash a bucket of live bugs direct into my house with (un)official features like that coming out :up: :up: :up:


They already did!


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## segaily (Aug 3, 2003)

Hmm I wonder if this could someday lead to a cooperative scheduling feature.


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## dkroboth (Jan 25, 2002)

I tried to see if any additional info was availible from the https interface for this, but no luck. Maybe there or somewhere else?


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## megazone (Mar 3, 2002)

TiVoPony said:


> Both Guru Guides and the new KidZone Guides feature in KidZone require that you modify your account settings to allow the service to have access to what is scheduled on your DVR (that's how we can resolve conflicts, place priority, etc automatically with the new Guides).


Excellent move in the right direction!

Now that TiVo has the data on their servers, how long until we see this integrated into Tivo Central Online - being able to see all your SPs, WLs, etc. Seeing which shows in the schedule are already set to record, changing them, resolving conflicts, etc. Possible to do quite a rich interface with AJAX, more than on the unit itself. 

Being able to deliberately 'back-up' and 'restore' settings would be the next step from today I think, and it would make it more enticing to upgrade to new units. Backup the old unit, restore on the new unit. Presto!

Just having the data on the servers opens up a lot of potential! Yay!


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## rainwater (Sep 21, 2004)

Even before Guru Guides it was very easy to setup your Season Passes using TCO. Only wishlists weren't able to be setup using this method. Like TivoPony said this is tied to the TSN so you can't using it for transfering your data. So TCO is still the quickest way. Now if we could only setup wishlists using TCO


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## bpurcell (Mar 16, 2005)

Setting up, sure, but maintaining and revising would be a big step in the right direction if they made that type of upgrade. 

And since they have a copy of your SP's and WL's, then it's not that huge of a leap for transfering them to another TSN (well maybe code-wise it's a big leap).


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## rainwater (Sep 21, 2004)

bpurcell said:


> Setting up, sure, but maintaining and revising would be a big step in the right direction if they made that type of upgrade.
> 
> And since they have a copy of your SP's and WL's, then it's not that huge of a leap for transfering them to another TSN (well maybe code-wise it's a big leap).


Except I don't see them adding a feature to transfer the data. While I few people here might use such a feature, the general public would have little use to transfer SP and WL data. I would think managing your season passes online would be nice but it could be difficult to manage conflicts.


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## megazone (Mar 3, 2002)

rainwater said:


> Except I don't see them adding a feature to transfer the data. While I few people here might use such a feature, the general public would have little use to transfer SP and WL data.


Make it easier to upgrade to the S2DT, S3, etc, and more people will. One of the major drags to upgrading is having to set up the new system - and losing all your thumbs data, etc. You have a TiVo for years, it learns well - then you're back to scratch. Very frustrating.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

segaily said:


> Hmm I wonder if this could someday lead to a cooperative scheduling feature.


once they have the data on their servers a lot more is possible. I always saw cooperative scheduling as too complex for a TiVo to process while it had all the real time stuff going on.

HME seemed the next way to go but it seems they did not want ot make a lot of DVR APIs public to HME. 

but this is a way to go as well. More than cooperative scheduling I really just wanted one pleace to manage all my season passes on the various TiVo at one time. With dual tuners cooperative scheduling in itself is not such an issue anymore but having a screen that would list all my season passes and which TiVo they are on and then view upcoming shows and which are set to record or not would be fairly easy to design (though a LOT of work to code) the only new function would be to cancel a season pass or recording.

That would give us "manual" cooperative scheduling by making it easy to move stuff around. really all I need and Iwould feel better doing it myself I think then having a program moving shows around to where I have to hunt them back down


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## MighTiVo (Oct 26, 2000)

TiVoPony said:


> Wow, that didn't take long.
> 
> No 'Twilight Zone', just a bit of TiVo Magic.
> 
> ...


Very Cool!

Now let me edit the passes, move them to another box, etc. through TCO!


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## TiVoEvan74 (Sep 11, 2004)

What's TCO?


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

TCO = TiVo Central Online

Dan


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## Stormspace (Apr 13, 2004)

That is too sweet. :up: :up: :up:


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## yunlin12 (Mar 15, 2003)

MighTiVo said:


> Very Cool!
> 
> Now let me edit the passes, move them to another box, etc. through TCO!


How do you do that on Tivo Central Online? I'm not seeing it.


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## jfh3 (Apr 15, 2004)

yunlin12 said:


> How do you do that on Tivo Central Online? I'm not seeing it.


You don't. That's what he wants to see next.


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## yunlin12 (Mar 15, 2003)

jfh3 said:


> You don't. That's what he wants to see next.


Duh! Now I read it again. Someone put me down for the running of the least attentive forum member of the month.

It'd be nice to have, would be difficult, too, especially if it is real time. I haven't hacked my Tivo this way, but is it possible to access a Tivo's SP list through TivoWeb with the port 80 opened on the router and forwarded to the Tivo box?


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## rainwater (Sep 21, 2004)

MighTiVo said:


> Very Cool!
> 
> Now let me edit the passes, move them to another box, etc. through TCO!


Editting will be extremely tricky. Because TCO isn't dealing with real time data and doesn't transfer it back realtime, dealing with conflicts would be real difficult to pull off. I wouldn't count on it anytime soon.


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## MighTiVo (Oct 26, 2000)

rainwater said:


> Editting will be extremely tricky. Because TCO isn't dealing with real time data and doesn't transfer it back realtime, dealing with conflicts would be real difficult to pull off. I wouldn't count on it anytime soon.


I have been changing the configuration of recordings online for years on my ReplayTV and it is very nice even though changes only get pushed once a day.

TiVo can update every 15min or less.

Imagine the ability to view and edit a full list of your season passes, reorder in bulk with no waiting, change KUID, # to save, first run only, en masse.

Now add even more feature like grouping season passes and shutting them down out of season without having to delete them, moving a season pass from one box to another.

It can be done, it doesn't have to be complicated, and it would be AWESOME!

Sure, in addition to TCO TiVo should provide access to the scheduling engine for HME apps and then someone will write a killer app for LAN control as well.
Still these are features that really should be on TCO.


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## yunlin12 (Mar 15, 2003)

MighTiVo said:


> Now add even more feature like grouping season passes and shutting them down out of season without having to delete them, ....


This sounds like a job for the Gurus. Are they up to the task?


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## Leon WIlkinson (Feb 13, 2000)

TiVoPony said:


> Wow, that didn't take long.
> 
> No 'Twilight Zone', just a bit of TiVo Magic.
> 
> ...


I did Clear And Delete after a Instant Cake upgrade. Would that cause the SP not show up? I'm running 7.3 and did another download.

I was going to redo my ID's in the HME however those was there even with 7.2 :up:


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## HeatherA (Jan 10, 2002)

MighTiVo said:


> Imagine the ability to view and edit a full list of your season passes, reorder in bulk with no waiting, change KUID, # to save, first run only, en masse.
> 
> Now add even more feature like grouping season passes and shutting them down out of season without having to delete them, moving a season pass from one box to another.
> 
> It can be done, it doesn't have to be complicated, and it would be AWESOME!.


Oh I'm drooling! I would so be in heaven if we had the ability to do this. I'm so confused between my 2 S2 TiVos and my MCE setup... There are so many season pass duplicates and triplicates and no easy way to clean them up without running all over the hosue with a pad of paper and a list written of what's on what...


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## jlb (Dec 13, 2001)

Not to drag out an old thread, but, does the TiVoMagic keep thumb data and all? Just want to confirm?

This makes the possibility of doing an internal upgrade to our HD almost as likely as just popping on a My DVR Expander.


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## Schmye Bubbula (Oct 14, 2004)

I just visited my account at TiVo.com, and I can't find where I signed-up for Guru/KidZone Guide features. I vaguely remember doing so years ago, and my TiVo's System Information page says, _Opt Status: Optedin _(is that it?), but I just wanted to check.

Does KidZone actually have to be turned-on for my Season Passes to get backed-up online to the mother ship? Or is just being signed-up for it enough?


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## Larry in TN (Jun 21, 2002)

Are the season passes restored right away (1 or 2 calls?) or does it take some time before they filter back?

Thanks...


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## daveak (Mar 23, 2009)

You must subscribe to at least one Guru guide for the unadvertised feature to 'work', I do not think you actually have to have the KidZone feature turned on. I do not know if it will start repopulating the data if you force a couple of calls, but it will begin to appear within a day. Just put in your new drive and be patient (assuming you are using a Guru guide). Then enjoy.

If I misstated, I will be corrected by one of the fine TCF or TiVo folks.


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## Schmye Bubbula (Oct 14, 2004)

daveak said:


> You must subscribe to at least one Guru guide for the unadvertised feature to 'work',...


Would it suffice to subscribe to one category, but go into Customize and uncheck all its shows, yet still get the stealth backups?


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## daveak (Mar 23, 2009)

Schmye Bubbula said:


> Would it suffice to subscribe to one category, but go into Customize and uncheck all its shows, yet still get the stealth backups?


I don't know. Maybe check 1-2 shows just to be safe?


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## Schmye Bubbula (Oct 14, 2004)

I just wish that the powers-that-be at TiVo would just go ahead and make backups to the mother ship an official, explicit feature, automatic for everybody! I mean, backing up one's computer is standard best practices. Why doesn't TiVo just *do it, *anyways? The programming is already coded; just pull the trigger!


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## Larry in TN (Jun 21, 2002)

I must have done something wrong as it didn't work.

I signed up my Premiere for some Guru Guides a few days before I replaced the hard drive. After going through guided setup and a service upgrade, I forced a number of connections but had no luck. When I logged into my account it no longer showed any Guru Guides for the Premiere and the season passes never returned.

Any idea what I might have missed?


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