# Suggestions on Dual Tuners



## Moebius (Nov 25, 2002)

So one of my long-time suggestions has always been a user selectable inactivity timer for suggestions. There have been a number of times watching a movie, or sporting event where the remote hasn't been touched in a while where I've had to grab the peanut to stop it from switching on a suggestion. Also, as I work from home (and hate the silence) I tend to tune the TiVo into one of the music choice stations and have it just loud enough to work as background music in my office. Invariably, after about an hour or so, I'll suddenly be listening to something recording as a suggestion and have to go back in and switch it back. Granted, I can turn off suggestions during this time (and do when I remember to), but...

I kind of thought with getting a TiVo HD that the problem would go away, but TiVo will try and record on the current tuner if something's already recording on the background tuner. Same problem. 

So that brings me to a second suggestion wish. A setting to say "Only record suggestions on inactive tuner." That way, if I have it set on a channel such as the music, TiVo will never change that channel and will only record suggestions on the other tuner.


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## WayneCarter (Mar 16, 2003)

Your suggestion makes sense, but be aware it is equivalent to "record suggestions only on the *background* tuner" (TiVo has no reliable way of determining if the foreground tuner is being used (ie if you're actually watching (or listening to) the TV at the time).

The workaround is to press "record" for any show you wish to "protect" from being preempted for suggestions.


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## Moebius (Nov 25, 2002)

WayneCarter said:


> Your suggestion makes sense, but be aware it is equivalent to "record suggestions only on the *background* tuner" (TiVo has no reliable way of determining if the foreground tuner is being used (ie if you're actually watching (or listening to) the TV at the time).
> 
> The workaround is to press "record" for any show you wish to "protect" from being preempted for suggestions.


Background would indeed be the tuner I was referring to. Inactive was a poor choice of words.

The only reason I'm leary of the record option is due to space concerns, at least until I get a 1tb drive for the thing. Let's say I'm running nearly full and press record on a 4 hour chunk of music choice. If the drive is running close to full, I run the risk to losing something else just to prevent it.


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## WayneCarter (Mar 16, 2003)

> Let's say I'm running nearly full and press record on a 4 hour chunk of music choice. If the drive is running close to full, I run the risk to losing something else just to prevent it.


I've never recorded a music feed - just out of curiosity, have you tried setting the recording to "Basic" quality? Does that affect the audio quality?

Another trick that might help if you usually want to listen to music at roughly the same times every day is to set up a series of one hour manual recordings of the music feed to "cover" the time you like to listen. Set quality to Basic (if that doesn't screw up the sound), and KAM set to 1. This way, you keep reusing the same 1 hour rather than using a 4 hour block. There will be a short gap each hour as the TiVo switches to the new "job".


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