# 'Free Space Indicator'



## KustomMerc (Jun 1, 2007)

Hi does anyone how or where on the Tivo 3 there is an indicator of how much time I have left to be able to record. my other unit use to have it displayed at the top. how many hours etc. ?? I have the new 8.3.1 firmawre..? 


thanks 
Kustommerc


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## Gregor (Feb 18, 2002)

There is no free space indicator on the Series 3.


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## matthewwhite (Dec 27, 2003)

FSI has been long requested for new tivo owners.

My series 3 filled up in a month and my free space is zero. Just as is every other tivo eventually. every recording must replace a deleted item or a suggestion. if the suggestion count dips then other programs may have to be deleted for new ones to record.

the answer to "how much free space is on my tivo" is zero.


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## osterber (Feb 13, 2001)

The extension of that is... one way to estimate "free" space is to look at how many suggestions have been recorded. If you have a lot of suggestions recorded, then you have a lot of "free" space. If you have almost no suggestions, then you are tight on space. (Depending on how much you care about the items at the very very bottom of your Now Playing list, which would get deleted next, after the suggestions.)

-Rick


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## AbMagFab (Feb 5, 2001)

1) Turn on Suggestions
2) Wait a few days for it to fill up
3) See how many items you have in Suggestions to tell you how much recording time you have left

Pretty easy, works for most.


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## Jerry_K (Feb 7, 2002)

The deleted items folder works for space left too. And for me it is better since once in a while my lovely wife or I delete something and then want to show the other some snippet. If we used suggestions as a FSI then the deleted items folder would suffer. 

To each his own.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

KustomMerc said:


> Hi does anyone how or where on the Tivo 3 there is an indicator of how much time I have left to be able to record. my other unit use to have it displayed at the top. how many hours etc. ?? I have the new 8.3.1 firmawre..?
> 
> thanks
> Kustommerc


Not again?!


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## Bierboy (Jun 12, 2004)

aaronwt said:


> Not again?!


...I bit my tongue when I saw the original post...


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## Fofer (Oct 29, 2000)

Jerry_K said:


> The deleted items folder works for space left too. And for me it is better since once in a while my lovely wife or I delete something and then want to show the other some snippet. If we used suggestions as a FSI then the deleted items folder would suffer.
> 
> To each his own.


I've seen shows from the Deleted Items folder just *disappear* rather quickly, even when nothing new has been recorded. I don't think they stick around quite as long as Suggestions do. They're on their own weird purge schedule.


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## wgw (May 16, 2007)

I'd say that a free space indicator is essential now with the introduction of Unbox. As well as an indicator stating how much space will be required for the next 48 hours of scheduled recordings. How else is someone supposed to know how many recordings have to be deleted in order to get the Unbox video to download to their recorder. Deleting a few recordings and then waiting and hour and hoping the Unbox video will download just doesn't cut it. If nothing happens, this process must be repeated over and over again.

Come on Tivo. If you actually want customers to purchase Unbox videos, make it easy to determine just how much space must be freed to enable the download to start. I for one have little interest in using Unbox again due to the frustration of trying to get the download to occur.

I wonder how much time Tivo and Amazon have wasted handling support calls related to insufficient space.

If nothing else, add an option called "reserve 20GB for Unbox Video and force download". When this option is activated by the user and 20GB is available, display a message indicating that scheduled recordings may need to be suspended and force the download to begin.

Rant complete. Tongue biting and flailing may resume.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

matthewwhite said:


> FSI has been long requested for new tivo owners.


The discussion circles around again...

I've now been a Tivo user for a very long time, and still think this is the #1 thing missing from the Tivo. I understand the arguments against it, but I still would very much appreciate such a thing.

I use the free space meter on my NON-Tivo hard drive/DVD recorder (that otherwise has a lot of things that can be said bad about it, and some good things) ALL THE TIME, and vary the recording quality of some recordings specifically based upon how much free space it has.

The #2 thing IMHO is "cooperative scheduling" between multiple Tivos.. and the #3 thing is "be able to pad shows on the same channel WITHOUT using multiple tuners -- share part of the recording between multiple recordings".. obviously only works if they're at the same quality. I would pay a HEFTY one-time fee for any of these..


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## pmiranda (Feb 12, 2003)

mattack said:


> #3 thing is "be able to pad shows on the same channel WITHOUT using multiple tuners -- share part of the recording between multiple recordings".. obviously only works if they're at the same quality. I would pay a HEFTY one-time fee for any of these..


I'd think you'd want it to record the common segment with the higher of the two quality selections. I'd love this and the ability to do simple edits of recordings (like chop off the padding at the beginning or end of an event that started late or ended early). In times of low disk space, it'd also be handy for removing the portion of a show that I've already watched but haven't finished.


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## Dajad (Oct 7, 1999)

matthewwhite said:


> FSI has been long requested for new tivo owners.
> 
> My series 3 filled up in a month and my free space is zero. Just as is every other tivo eventually. every recording must replace a deleted item or a suggestion. if the suggestion count dips then other programs may have to be deleted for new ones to record.
> 
> the answer to "how much free space is on my tivo" is zero.


As one of the OLDEST TiVo users that has continuously requested and loblbied for an FSI, it always surprises me how much those that don't want one try to impress upon everyone else how much the rest of us don't need one. I'm not going to argue the pros and cons for the 100th time. Suffice it to say, there is no FSI and it seems TiVo will never implement this highly desirable feature.

For the time I used the pathetic Scientific Atlanta 8300 HD PVR, its FSI was only one of two of its features I preferred over TiVo - and, yes, this OLD PVR user used it EVERY DAY. And I miss it.

Look at iTunes ... it shows an FSI every time you sync your iPod. What it presents is exactly what I want. See the bar at the bottom of the iTunes image here:

http://blog.grogmaster.com/2006/09/syncing-podcasts-with-ipod-in-itunes-7.html

All I want is a little bar showing how much space is used (at this minute in time) by which types of content. It could include a separate color for Suggestions or show "Suggestions" as empty space - I don't care. Deleted Shows could also have their own color or be represented as empty space. It doesn't matter. All I want to know is what percentage of my capacity is used by saved shows I requested to record and what percentage is either empty, suggestions, or deleted, or they could each have their own color - it doesn't matter. All that mattters is that I can see, at a glance, the state of my TiVo this moment. And, TiVo could implement this in just a few hours of development time. Heck, I seem to recall that at one point they did develop it and some pictures of a prototype were leaked, but it was never implemented.

I do, at least, appreciate how in the latest software releases they say what % of the hard drive the current show uses. That's a start at least.

...Dale


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## richsadams (Jan 4, 2003)

aaronwt said:


> Not again?!


 Whack that dead horse one more time! 

P.S. I'm for a free space meter myself...heck if my old POS Comcast box could do it...TiVo can.


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## juanian (Oct 2, 2002)

Just FYI: If you allow those TiVoCast clips to download (like the CNET blurbs), they can take more space than you think. I recall that the 15 minute CNET informational reviews actually used as much space as over 2 hours of a recording at Basic. So, if you use TiVoCast, be aware of how much space those items can take!

Since my TiVo is usually pretty full of shows I would like to watch, I was not happy when the CNET items were deleting many recordings on me without me knowing when they would download (in the "pre-TiVoCast" days). Now, at least there is a semi-'regular' schedule of when many of the downloads will occur.


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## missiontortilla (Sep 26, 2006)

I wish they would open up the HME API to enable a 3rd party developer to implement this feature. As it is now the HME API has zero access to any information about the recordings stored on the TiVo.


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## KustomMerc (Jun 1, 2007)

sorry didn't realize this was such a sore subject...since I'm a newbie I had no idea..my bad.... 

I have a hard time trying all the,, if you have,,,, then ,,,type of stuff... so today I ordered
a Seagate DB35 eSATA 500gb 7200, sce drive and a Antec MX-1 encloser, with a sig esata to esata cable. with this upgrade 96hours of HD or whatever i won't have to figure out all this... thanks for the posts though
KustomMerc


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## CharlesH (Aug 29, 2002)

richsadams said:


> I'm for a free space meter myself...heck if my old POS Comcast box could do it...TiVo can.


Those other POS don't have to worry about data that is technically in use (from the file system's point of view) but automatically deletable under certain circumstances, like Recently Deleted and Suggestions. Not that that is really an issue, as has been *oft* discussed.


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## richsadams (Jan 4, 2003)

KustomMerc said:


> sorry didn't realize this was such a sore subject...since I'm a newbie I had no idea..my bad....


 No worries...a lot of people like to spend their lives here and fuss if they see something that was discussed previously...like within the last two or three years.  


KustomMerc said:


> I have a hard time trying all the,, if you have,,,, then ,,,type of stuff... so today I ordered a Seagate DB35 eSATA 500gb 7200, sce drive and a Antec MX-1 encloser, with a sig esata to esata cable. with this upgrade 96hours of HD or whatever i won't have to figure out all this... thanks for the posts though
> KustomMerc


 That's exactly what a lot of us have and to date no one has posted that they've had any trouble with that combination...well done! :up:

Oh, you didn't have to order an eSATA cable (if that's what you did  )...one is included with the MX-1 enclosure. In fact I would recommend NOT using a different one as the one Antec supplies is the exact one to use.

Good luck and keep us posted.


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## richsadams (Jan 4, 2003)

CharlesH said:


> Those other POS don't have to worry about data that is technically in use (from the file system's point of view) but automatically deletable under certain circumstances, like Recently Deleted and Suggestions. Not that that is really an issue, as has been *oft* discussed.


 True and true.


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## Jerry_K (Feb 7, 2002)

I don't need to know the full free space. Just that if there are 23 one hour shows in the Deleted items folder, I have enough space for the programs I will be recording in the near future.


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## Blahman (Mar 4, 2002)

Sadly the closest thing to an accurate free space indicator (ignoring deleted items and counting that space as free): 

Manually Select each recorded program, go to the play screen, then press info. On 8.3 with my S3 that gives the exact amount of space used in GB and the percentage of total space used.

Why the TiVo can not do a little addition is beyond me?

I miss my hacked DirecTV TiVo for that one little addition. Even the pile of junk SA 8300 (which never correctly recorded 2 shows at the same time for me) was able to tell me how much space was free.


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## bidger (Mar 30, 2001)

Blahman said:


> Why the my TiVo can not do a little addition is beyond me?


Don't know if it's already been suggested, but maybe it has something to do with standalone TiVos having four recording quality settings.


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## Fofer (Oct 29, 2000)

bidger said:


> Don't know if it's already been suggested, but maybe it has something to do with standalone TiVos having four recording quality settings.


I'd be happy with just a "percentage of space free."

Yes, I realize it's not a good indicator and it might lull me into a sense of complacency and things might STILL get deleted. But I'd get more warm and fuzzies knowing my TiVo is only 60% full... as opposed to having to mark EVERYTHING "save until I delete" for fear the good stuff might get deleted prematurely.

TiVo's lack of a FWI is like Apple's two-button mouse. Hopefully, one day, they'll cave and give the customers what they want.


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## gwsat (Sep 14, 2006)

Blahman said:


> Why the my TiVo can not do a little addition is beyond me?
> 
> I miss my hacked DirecTV TiVo for that one little addition. Even the pile of junk SA 8300 (which never correctly recorded 2 shows at the same time for me) was able to tell me how much space was free.


One of the reasons I have concluded that an FSI would do me little good is that the SA 8300HD, and the 8000HD before it, have FSI. I used one or the other for three years and still have an 8300HD connected to my other HDTV, but have almost never looked at them.

I should explain that I have never archived much and routinely delete programs after I watch them. Thus, even with the SAs 160Gb hard drive, storage space was rarely a problem. With the S3s 250Gb of storage its never been a problem and I dont anticipate that it will be. Of course, when and if I add a big eSATA drive to my S3, I may change my routine.


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## Dajad (Oct 7, 1999)

gwsat said:


> One of the reasons I have concluded that an FSI would do me little good is that the SA 8300HD, and the 8000HD before it, have FSI. I used one or the other for three years and still have an 8300HD connected to my other HDTV, but have almost never looked at them.


 That's the wonderful thing about TiVo users. We are ALL different in the features and functions we want and use. Unlike you gwsat, I looked at the 8300s FSI every day! I used it and miss it.



Blahman said:


> Even the pile of junk SA 8300 (which never correctly recorded 2 shows at the same time for me) was able to tell me how much space was free.


Well said ... and exactly my point. That and its ability to do PiP were the ONLY two features the 8300 had over TiVo.


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## richsadams (Jan 4, 2003)

Dajad said:


> That's the wonderful thing about TiVo users. We are ALL different in the features and functions we want and use. Unlike you gwsat, I looked at the 8300s FSI every day! I used it and miss it.
> 
> Well said ... and exactly my point. That and its ability to do PiP were the ONLY two features the 8300 had over TiVo.


 TiVo FSI and PiP! YES! :up:


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## fred2 (Jan 20, 2006)

I don't really understand (oh, well, it is the net so maybe I do) why folks think that a FSI would really hamper THEIR use. Don't use it and allow the rest of us to feel warm and comfortable knowing how much free space we have. Would it be any more inaccurate than the information shown on the first page of the Information Screen? 

It's not a democracy but I vote for a FSI.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

Fofer said:


> I've seen shows from the Deleted Items folder just *disappear* rather quickly, even when nothing new has been recorded.


I've also noticed this too, and I don't get it... Though usually in my case, something new HAS been recorded (and for the purposes of this discussion, everything I record is in basic quality).. But for example I'll see several hours of deleted shows disappear, but I only recorded one new hour of programming.. and no, there weren't new suggestions added too.


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## astrohip (Jan 7, 2003)

mattack said:


> I've also noticed this too, and I don't get it... Though usually in my case, something new HAS been recorded (and for the purposes of this discussion, everything I record is in basic quality).. But for example I'll see several hours of deleted shows disappear, but I only recorded one new hour of programming.. and no, there weren't new suggestions added too.


I've been watching this issue closely, as the RD folder is my FSI. I have not seen any shows drop for no reason. Be aware that HD shows can vary dramatically in size. If you record an HD 2 hour movie, it may drop 5+ half hour SD shows to make room. So it may appear that shows are dropping, since it is not a one-for-one relationship between raw # of recordings versus # of RD shows.

It's hard to tell exactly what happens in the RD folder, especially if one is an active recorder/TV user (as I am). But again, on those rare occasions when not much is being recorded (and now that the OTA season is over, my recordings are waaay down), I don't see my RD count just dropping.

Has TiVo ever commented on this?


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## wgw (May 16, 2007)

Once each night, the Tivo will apparently clear enough space from the RD folder to allow for the scheduled recordings it needs to make over the next 24 hours. If you are very low on space, it will remove recordings from the RD folder more quickly to make room for the next scheduled recordings.


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## Dajad (Oct 7, 1999)

astrohip said:


> Has TiVo ever commented on this?


 Yes, numerous times in the past. Their rationale was essentially that it would be too hard to implement and confusing to customers owing to the complexity of the algorithms TiVo uses to calculate needed space, the fact that free space now may not be free in two hours after shows have been recorded ... yada yada yada.

They had in mind this incredibly complext FSI that would show graphically and or percentages of shows recorded, shows about to be recorded (whether as queued up by the user or as suggestions), shows about to be deleted, free space etc. What they, and the FSI detractors have always envisioned is something much more complex than what the users actually wanted.

We ain't stupid. We know that what is free now may not be free in a few minutes. We know all the variables. They are no more complicated than the variables that are involved with other PVRs or with iTunes/iPods (with space changing depending on whether you delete podcats or new ones are about to arrive etc.)

They thought that the customer support requirements to support an FSI would be prohibitive. They envisioned people calling up and complaining based on their lack of understanding that what is free now may not be in an hour when suggestions or queued shows are recorded.

Argh ... it really doesn't need to be and never has been as complicated as they made it out to be. They even did mockups of what it might look like (way more complex than what I wanted) and those mockups were posted here - and probably still are if you can figure out how to do FSI searches in the various levels of the archives on this site.

All I want is what the 8300 HD gave me or something like what iTunes has done from day one. IT'S NOT TOO COMPLICATED for John and Jane Doe's to understand - really!

Oh, and as nice as PiP might be, I'd value an FSI more than PiP any day. Hell, I'd value an FSI over 90% of the features (most of which I've never used and never will use) they've added over the years.

...Dale


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## gwsat (Sep 14, 2006)

Dajad said:


> Argh ... it really doesn't need to be and never has been as complicated as they made it out to be. They even did mockups of what it might look like (way more complex than what I wanted) and those mockups were posted here - and probably still are if you can figure out how to do FSI searches in the various levels of the archives on this site.
> 
> ...Dale


I hear you. Although, as noted earlier, an FSI isnt a particularly important feature to me, a simple free space indicator, like the SA 8300HDs, should be an easy addition. It seems to me that such a thing would fall under the head of, Might help, cant hurt.


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## Fofer (Oct 29, 2000)

They could hide it with some sort of SPS code, like the 30-second skip.


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## astrohip (Jan 7, 2003)

wgw said:


> Once each night, the Tivo will apparently clear enough space from the RD folder to allow for the scheduled recordings it needs to make over the next 24 hours. If you are very low on space, it will remove recordings from the RD folder more quickly to make room for the next scheduled recordings.


Hmm, that's interesting. I often look at my RD folder at night, because as I mentioned, I use it as an FSI. And the next day, it will have the same count. It usually doesn't change until there are recordings. I'll have to look closer, and see if I can tell when it actually lowers in count.

dajad--I meant had TiVo commented on the workings of the RD folder, not the FSI. But an interesting answer none the less :up:


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## wgw (May 16, 2007)

astrohip said:


> Hmm, that's interesting. I often look at my RD folder at night, because as I mentioned, I use it as an FSI. And the next day, it will have the same count. It usually doesn't change until there are recordings. I'll have to look closer, and see if I can tell when it actually lowers in count.


Well, you might be right. I could have been remembering how the suggestion folder used to work before they added the recently deleted folder. I used to use the suggestion folder as my FSI. How things get removed from both folders probably changed in the latest version.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

astrohip said:


> I've been watching this issue closely, as the RD folder is my FSI. I have not seen any shows drop for no reason. Be aware that HD shows can vary dramatically in size.


Remember, I said that my shows are all basic quality.. (except a VERY few I have recorded manually from QAM stations.. Yes, I'm currently using a S3 JUST for analog cable.. the lifetime subscription offer got me hook line and sinker at the beginning of the year.)


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

wgw said:


> Once each night, the Tivo will apparently clear enough space from the RD folder to allow for the scheduled recordings it needs to make over the next 24 hours. If you are very low on space, it will remove recordings from the RD folder more quickly to make room for the next scheduled recordings.


I really don't think this is true... I see shows go away *as new recordings are started*. Except for these relatively rare cases of recently deleted recordings seeming to disappear.

Hey, I just thought of what might be happening. As I noted in another thread, I seem to get a LOT of suggestions partially record. But in the latest software update, they now finally don't keep the partial suggestions (for the most part -- I still saw one partial one the other day -- possibly signal loss partial recordings are kept).. so some of these situations may be (1) suggestion recording starts which requires deletion of "recently deleted" show.. (2) suggestion recording ends for some unexpected reason.. causing to the user the deletion of items from "recently deleted" with no known new recording.

I'm 99% positive that's not the case in all situations where I've noticed it, but it is plausible for a lot of them.


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## Dajad (Oct 7, 1999)

mattack said:


> Remember, I said that my shows are all basic quality.. (except a VERY few I have recorded manually from QAM stations.. Yes, I'm currently using a S3 JUST for analog cable.. the lifetime subscription offer got me hook line and sinker at the beginning of the year.)


Why just for analogue? Attach a basic UHF antenna (indoors even) and there should be every HD network broadcasting from San Jose available for the picking isn't there?

...Dale


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## CrispyCritter (Feb 28, 2001)

Dajad said:


> Yes, numerous times in the past. Their rationale was essentially that it would be too hard to implement and confusing to customers owing to the complexity of the algorithms TiVo uses to calculate needed space, the fact that free space now may not be free in two hours after shows have been recorded ... yada yada yada.


Please offer evidence. I have never seen TiVo claim that technical difficulty was a problem. They have NOT commented numerous times in the past, unless you consider 1 or 2 numerous. My belief you are just flatly incorrect here.



Dajad said:


> They had in mind this incredibly complext FSI that would show graphically and or percentages of shows recorded, shows about to be recorded (whether as queued up by the user or as suggestions), shows about to be deleted, free space etc. What they, and the FSI detractors have always envisioned is something much more complex than what the users actually wanted.


Balony, and you're being quite hypocritcal here, Dajad. You're complaining about FSI detractors setting up strawman when you're doing exactly the same thing yourself. Every time FSi gets discussed, some people who want it come up with fantastically complex schemes that have to get de-bunked. *You* may not want anything complex, but others do.



Dajad said:


> We ain't stupid. We know that what is free now may not be free in a few minutes. We know all the variables. They are no more complicated than the variables that are involved with other PVRs or with iTunes/iPods (with space changing depending on whether you delete podcats or new ones are about to arrive etc.)


You speak for yourself. You understand the issues, but you present no evidence that the normal person who treats TiVo as an appliance and has no interest in understanding what is happening under the hood would be content. And if you, for example, think most people even here understand the complexities of KUID SPs and how they affect FSI, then you haven't been reading the same forum I have!



Dajad said:


> They thought that the customer support requirements to support an FSI would be prohibitive. They envisioned people calling up and complaining based on their lack of understanding that what is free now may not be in an hour when suggestions or queued shows are recorded.


And calling saying that their 250GB TiVo only has 150 GB of shows on it, but is deleting shows (can happen)? You present a strawman again. There are very legitimate questions that people will call support on.



Dajad said:


> Argh ... it really doesn't need to be and never has been as complicated as they made it out to be.


All the evidence is strongly against you. I have never seen an FSi thread where the proponents have agreed on what they want. The normal course is for somebody to suggest something simple, somebody else to say they need something more, and before you know it, the proposal is one of the monstrosities you're rightly complaining about. If it's that simple, why haven't the FSI folks agreed on what is needed after all this time?


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## astrohip (Jan 7, 2003)

CrispyCritter said:


> If it's that simple, why haven't the FSI folks agreed on what is needed after all this time?


I was with ya' all the way to here. 

I am in favor of an FSI, but please don't lump me in with "the FSI folks". Just because there is not universal agreement on how an FSI should be implemented among us TiVoholics doesn't mean it shouldn't be implemented *at all.* Geez, if TiVo waited to do something until all of us in the forum agreed, there would be no TiVo.


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## zachcarter (Sep 11, 2006)

Fofer said:


> I've seen shows from the Deleted Items folder just *disappear* rather quickly, even when nothing new has been recorded. I don't think they stick around quite as long as Suggestions do. They're on their own weird purge schedule.


One explanation could be that the Tivo is always recording a live TV buffer on both tuners, so even though it may not be recording a suggestion or scheduled show, it does need space to write that 30 minute buffer to the disk. Not only that, the amount of space needed for the buffer could vary greatly, depending what is playing at the time (HD versus SD, etc.)


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## CrispyCritter (Feb 28, 2001)

astrohip said:


> I was with ya' all the way to here.
> 
> I am in favor of an FSI, but please don't lump me in with "the FSI folks". Just because there is not universal agreement on how an FSI should be implemented among us TiVoholics doesn't mean it shouldn't be implemented *at all.* Geez, if TiVo waited to do something until all of us in the forum agreed, there would be no TiVo.


I was not arguing that the FSI folks should agree, I was arguing that it's not a simple problem. There are many different needs that people express in the FSI threads, and they all get lumped together as being "solved by FSI". It's impossible for a simple FSI to solve all of them.

The TiVo FSI question is much more complicated than Dajad is willing to admit. I don't think I've ever seen an FSI proposal that did not have unresolved questions about it. If a single proponent can't be bothered to work out the details of what they want, my view is they haven't thought through the problem enough.


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## MickeS (Dec 26, 2002)

CrispyCritter said:


> The TiVo FSI question is much more complicated than Dajad is willing to admit. I don't think I've ever seen an FSI proposal that did not have unresolved questions about it. If a single proponent can't be bothered to work out the details of what they want, my view is they haven't thought through the problem enough.


TiVo could just put in a "20% of storage currently available" like my SA8300 had, and be done with it. It would be completely useless, but it would shut up the talk about the missing FSI.


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## richsadams (Jan 4, 2003)

MickeS said:


> TiVo could just put in a "20% of storage currently available" like my SA8300 had, and be done with it. It would be completely useless, but it would shut up the talk about the missing FSI.


 +1


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## zachcarter (Sep 11, 2006)

CrispyCritter said:


> If a single proponent can't be bothered to work out the details of what they want, my view is they haven't thought through the problem enough.


Well, most of us are not privy to the inner workings of the Tivo software, but its not unreasonable to suggest that if Tivo wanted to, they could design a "simple" FSI, like other PVRs have. I could suggest a strategy like this:

1. add up the space taken up by recordings that are labeled as "do not delete" or "keep until space needed". I can find this myself by looking at the recordings individually.
2. add up the space taken up by the OS, guide, buffers, etc. 
3. subtract all that from the total space on the system.

thats the free space! Sounds pretty simple to me.

My guess is that they could do it, but they don't want to for whatever reason.

Deciding that it is too complex to implement sounds disturbingly similar to the Series 1 DST debacle, in which Tivo gave up trying to fix the issue, only to have an outside hacker figure it out for them.


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## wgw (May 16, 2007)

I wonder if Tivo simply does not implement certain features like this to make sure they do not get sued by the companies who implemented it first in the same way they sue others for implementing options that imitate Tivo's patents. Or if they may have come to some agreement not to implement certain options. They do seem to tread lightly and come to agreements with every possible authority before acting.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

Dajad said:


> Why just for analogue? Attach a basic UHF antenna (indoors even) and there should be every HD network broadcasting from San Jose available for the picking isn't there?


I've tried "rabbit ears" type antennae, and I couldn't get any signals (that I cared about -- I think I sporadically got one of the local independents).

I probably just have to pop for a ~50-ish indoor antenna.. though I keep thinking eventually I'll move and get a real roof antenna.


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## CrispyCritter (Feb 28, 2001)

zachcarter said:


> Well, most of us are not privy to the inner workings of the Tivo software, but its not unreasonable to suggest that if Tivo wanted to, they could design a "simple" FSI, like other PVRs have. I could suggest a strategy like this:
> 
> 1. add up the space taken up by recordings that are labeled as "do not delete" or "keep until space needed". I can find this myself by looking at the recordings individually.
> 2. add up the space taken up by the OS, guide, buffers, etc.
> ...


But it's inaccurate enough to be completely unusable for some folks! Eg, you can have 100GB free by this measure on a stock S3 and have the TiVo be deleting recorded shows. It's not that simple.


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## zachcarter (Sep 11, 2006)

CrispyCritter said:


> But it's inaccurate enough to be completely unusable for some folks! Eg, you can have 100GB free by this measure on a stock S3 and have the TiVo be deleting recorded shows. It's not that simple.


huh! Please explain. What is the free 100GB being used for? What do you mean by "deleting recorded shows"? Are you telling me that the tivo will decide to delete something I've requested (with "keep until space needed"), when there is still 100GB of free space?


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## CrispyCritter (Feb 28, 2001)

zachcarter said:


> huh! Please explain. What is the free 100GB being used for? What do you mean by "deleting recorded shows"? Are you telling me that the tivo will decide to delete something I've requested (with "keep until space needed"), when there is still 100GB of free space?


Probably not quite on the last point. It will delete shows you recorded with default settings ("able to delete after 2 days") before the two days are up in order to free more space while showing 100 GB free (given your definition).

As you said, you don't know TiVo's algorithms; my challenge wasn't meant for you. (That's not meant as an insult to you, just an observation that probably only a long-time reader of the forums has the knowledge to do a reasonable job).

I don't doubt one can be written. I'm just a bit bemused by the realization that thinking back to the many dozens (hundreds?) of FSI threads I've read, I can't remember a single fully developed proposal that accurately measures FSI enough to be always useful and that people won't misunderstand. I'll wait for other stabs at it before offering concrete objections.


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## astrohip (Jan 7, 2003)

CrispyCritter said:


> I'm just a bit bemused by the realization that thinking back to the many dozens (hundreds?) of FSI threads I've read, I can't remember a single fully developed proposal that accurately measures FSI enough to be always useful and that people won't misunderstand. I'll wait for other stabs at it before offering concrete objections.


Repeating myself for the 100th time, do it like the cableco DVRs: "What percent of the hard drive is used by current recordings?". No suggestions, no future recordings, no deleted recordings, no KUID.

This doesn't tell me when I will run out of space. It doesn't tell me when recordings will be deleted. It doesn't do anything except *tell me how much space I've used.* Isn't that what a *Free Space Indicator* does?

Let's not intentionally obfuscate this issue, as you have done.


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## Dajad (Oct 7, 1999)

Astrohip - exactly right!!!

As I said at the beginning of this thread. I'm not going to reargue the pros and cons again. I'm also not going to start personally attacking and insulting Crispy 

Crispy ... feel free to search the forum archives here for ALL the answers to your questions. Your insulting me certainly hasn't made me predisposed to do that work for you. It's all here (assuming the archives are complete). I for one find the archives on this forum too difficult to navigate through and, while I understand Dave's shunting things off into archives, it's made it extremely difficult to find all the information from the past that has been thoroughly discussed and argued before.

Suffice it to say, what the 8300HD provides is ALL I want - is simple to implement and certainly causes NO customer confusion for the unfortunate legions of SFA users and their MSO service providers. And, while it may not satisfy ALL the needs of all the FSI proponents, it would make most of us happy.

...Dale


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## CrispyCritter (Feb 28, 2001)

astrohip said:


> This doesn't tell me when I will run out of space. It doesn't tell me when recordings will be deleted. It doesn't do anything except *tell me how much space I've used.* Isn't that what a *Free Space Indicator* does?


Are you really claiming that you'll be happy if this FSI says you have 100 GB free, you tell TiVO you want to record a show you're watching live, and it tells you it will have to prematurely delete an existing recording in order to free up more space for the new recording?

A *Free* Space Indicator to most people means the amount of space you have *free* in order to record more shows. What you've described is far from that, on a TiVo. I can accept it may be accurate on other DVRs, but a TiVo has different space allocation policies than other DVRs. For instance, there's at least 2 circumstances where a TiVo will reserve space for a recording hours or days before the actual recording.


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## zachcarter (Sep 11, 2006)

CrispyCritter said:


> Probably not quite on the last point. It will delete shows you recorded with default settings ("able to delete after 2 days") before the two days are up in order to free more space while showing 100 GB free (given your definition).


I'm not sure I understand you. I have not observed my Tivo deleting recordings that are labeled "keep until space needed", when there is lots of free space left. It usually only deletes them when required to make room for new recordings I have requested, which isn't the case when there is 100G of free space. Even if it is "able to be deleted after 2 days", my Tivo usually keeps it anyway, unless I'm truly out of space.

If there is 100G free by my definition, then also there is no need to delete programs I've requested to be recorded with "keep until space needed". This is because the space taken up by those recordings is not "needed" by the Tivo to make room for new recordings.


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## CrispyCritter (Feb 28, 2001)

Dajad said:


> Astrohip - exactly right!!!
> 
> As I said at the beginning of this thread. I'm not going to reargue the pros and cons again. I'm also not going to start personally attacking and insulting Crispy
> 
> ...


Dajad, could you please give your version of an FSI that you claim is not confusing and will not cause support calls to TiVo?

The 8300HD does not have the capabilities or algorithms that the TiVo has. Life is much simpler there.

To disagree with another claim of yours, there is absolutely no way that TiVo has stated their position on FSI numerous times. On the contrary, they have been very quiet on the subject, much to the chagrin of the people here. If they had said anything authoritative (other than they are looking at it), the forum would have kept track of it!


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## CrispyCritter (Feb 28, 2001)

zachcarter said:


> I'm not sure I understand you. I have not observed my Tivo deleting recordings that are labeled "keep until space needed", when there is lots of free space left. It usually only deletes them when required to make room for new recordings I have requested, which isn't the case when there is 100G of free space. Even if it is "able to be deleted after 2 days", my Tivo usually keeps it anyway, unless I'm truly out of space.
> 
> If there is 100G free by my definition, then also there is no need to delete programs I've requested to be recorded with "keep until space needed". This is because the space taken up by those recordings is not "needed" by the Tivo to make room for new recordings.


The point is that 100GB free by your definition does not necessarily agree with 100GB free by TiVo's definition. The TiVo will reserve space for some shows hours or days ahead of actually recording them. It's that reserved but not used space that causes complications.


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## zachcarter (Sep 11, 2006)

CrispyCritter said:


> The point is that 100GB free by your definition does not necessarily agree with 100GB free by TiVo's definition. The TiVo will reserve space for some shows hours or days ahead of actually recording them. It's that reserved but not used space that causes complications.


Taking future usage into account would add unnecessary complexity to the scheme I proposed, and I don't see how it is relevant. I can tell all I need to know about the future by looking in the ToDo list. I didn't ask for a Reserved Space Indicator, I asked for a Free Space Indicator. My strategy doesn't care about anything but the recordings that exist right now, minus the total space....very simple. If the logic inside the Tivo wants to do something more complex to forecast future usage, that complex procedure does not need to be displayed to me.

I do agree that creating an FSI *could* be very complex, but I don't agree that it *has* to be. It could be very simple, if the designers wanted it to be. If I can run thru the now playing list and manually calculate it myself, then I have no doubt it could be done by a programmer.


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## CrispyCritter (Feb 28, 2001)

zachcarter said:


> Taking future usage into account would add unnecessary complexity to the scheme I proposed, and I don't see how it is relevant. I can tell all I need to know about the future by looking in the ToDo list. I didn't ask for a Reserved Space Indicator, I asked for a Free Space Indicator. My strategy doesn't care about anything but the recordings that exist right now, minus the total space....very simple. If the logic inside the Tivo wants to do something more complex to forecast future usage, that complex procedure does not need to be displayed to me.


But the point is that the TiVo might have 100 GB reserved but not used space. Your FSI would show 100 GB free. The TiVo would refuse to record another show without deleting one of your existing shows; this happens now in such a situation. The TiVo is out of space but your FSI disagrees. Massive confusion for the user.


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## richsadams (Jan 4, 2003)

astrohip said:


> Repeating myself for the 100th time, do it like the cableco DVRs: "What percent of the hard drive is used by current recordings?". No suggestions, no future recordings, no deleted recordings, no KUID.
> 
> This doesn't tell me when I will run out of space. It doesn't tell me when recordings will be deleted. It doesn't do anything except *tell me how much space I've used.* Isn't that what a *Free Space Indicator* does?
> 
> Let's not intentionally obfuscate this issue, as you have done.


 Exactly! :up: :up: :up: No if's, and's or but's. That's it, that's all folks.


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## Dajad (Oct 7, 1999)

CrispyCritter said:


> Dajad, could you please give your version of an FSI that you claim is not confusing and will not cause support calls to TiVo?


 Right now on my S3, TiVo reports what percentage of the hard drive each recorded show takes. TiVo need only add up those percentages and subtract from 100%. That is the Free space. Ideally it would be in a bar that looks exactly like the 8300HD bar. I did a search for a picture of that bar online and didn't find one. I happily returned my 8300HD when I purchased my S3 last November so I can't take a picture of one. But, I did link (earlier in this thread) to a picture of the iTunes bar that is essentially the same thing. Take a look at that for what I'm talking about:

http://static.grogmaster.com/uploaded_images/itunes_podcasts-760527.png

Again, even that is more complicated than what I need, but I like it, you could have a different colour each for Now Playing Shows, Suggestions, Recently Deleted, and empty space, but you don't really need to. All I really care about is one colour for "Now Playing" Shows and another for everything else, because everything else (Suggestions, Recently Deleted and empty space) is essentially free space that is available to record the shows on my To Do list and anything else I might want to record.



CrispyCritter said:


> The 8300HD does not have the capabilities or algorithms that the TiVo has. Life is much simpler there.


 True, and irrelevant. The FSI I have in mind doen't require any of those alorigthms to be factored in. All I want is an indication of free space now. Not free space in 10 minutes or 3 days, or factoring in shows deleted or about to be deleted or KUIDs or whatever. Just the state of things this second.



CrispyCritter said:


> To disagree with another claim of yours, there is absolutely no way that TiVo has stated their position on FSI numerous times. On the contrary, they have been very quiet on the subject, much to the chagrin of the people here. If they had said anything authoritative (other than they are looking at it), the forum would have kept track of it!


 Disagree all you like. I've been a very active member of this forum since 1999. The reason I don't want to "debate" this again is because I debated it so many times in the past and invariably they become nasty and personal. In one of those debates in the past Richard Bullwinkle or someone from TiVo actually included a mockup of an FSI that TiVo had actually built, but never implemented. Can I find it now? - I don't know. I don't really want to spend hours searching around Dave's convoluded archives. I've tried searching the TiVoCommunity archives in the past for debates/threads of yor with little luck. Links to threads in the past do not translate into links in the archives - so if you find ONE thread on topic with links to other threads, they all break because the archive URLs are different from the original URLs in the original posts.

Do I know TiVo commented? Absolutely ... because I was heavily involved in those debates back then. If you choose not to believe me, that is your choice. Why would I make it up?


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## zachcarter (Sep 11, 2006)

CrispyCritter said:


> But the point is that the TiVo might have 100 GB reserved but not used space. Your FSI would show 100 GB free. The TiVo would refuse to record another show without deleting one of your existing shows; this happens now in such a situation. The TiVo is out of space but your FSI disagrees. Massive confusion for the user.


No. Thats not my point at all. I don't care what the TiVo has reserved for the future. I only care about what space is taken up by recordings that exist right now. From what you said, FSI would show 100GB free, even though the Tivo may have it "reserved". And I say fine. Thats what I wanted. If I have an existing show that is set to "keep until space needed", then I have accepted the fact that the Tivo *may* decide to delete it in the future. The point is, I don't care! If I wanted to keep the Tivo from deleting it, I would save it "until I delete".


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## CrispyCritter (Feb 28, 2001)

zachcarter said:


> No. Thats not my point at all. I don't care what the TiVo has reserved for the future. I only care about what space is taken up by recordings that exist right now. From what you said, FSI would show 100GB free, even though the Tivo may have it "reserved". And I say fine. Thats what I wanted. If I have an existing show that is set to "keep until space needed", then I have accepted the fact that the Tivo *may* decide to delete it in the future. The point is, I don't care! If I wanted to keep the Tivo from deleting it, I would save it "until I delete".


Again, I'm apparently not getting my message across. I'll try again.
Situation:
1. TiVo has reserved 100 GBytes for specific future recordings, eg. you set up a KUID Wishlist for the Star Wars marathon.
2. Your FSI will show 100 GBytes free.

Consequences:
You have 0 GB free space right now to do anything (until after the Star Wars marathon).
1. You hit record right now while watching Live-TV. You will lose a recorded show right now. If you only have KUID shows left, you will either lose one of them, or you will not be allowed to record the present show.
2. Any non-KUID season pass that starts recording will end up deleting one of your present recorded shows right now. Not in the future, right now.
3. Any MRV you do to the TiVo will end up deleting a present recorded show right now.

As I said, despite the 100 GBytes your FSI says you have, you will lose shows right now if you record anything new. You have no *space free* to record anything. The 100 GB is not available to record anything other than the Star Wars marathon. TiVo's algorithms require the space to just sit there unused until the marathon.


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## CrispyCritter (Feb 28, 2001)

Dajad said:


> Disagree all you like. I've been a very active member of this forum since 1999. The reason I don't want to "debate" this again is because I debated it so many times in the past and invariably they become nasty and personal. In one of those debates in the past Richard Bullwinkle or someone from TiVo actually included a mockup of an FSI that TiVo had actually built, but never implemented. ...
> 
> Do I know TiVo commented? Absolutely ... because I was heavily involved in those debates back then. If you choose not to believe me, that is your choice. Why would I make it up?


I absolutely believe everything you said here. I was here for most of it (I came in 2000; I helped buy the PayPal server). I've seen the mockup; I believe you're right that it was Richard. I've seen the screen dump of the implementation that escaped the beta right before MRV. I know you heavily participated in the FSI debates back then because I was arguing with you back then (my active FSI participation started towards the end of your FSI participation).

But that doesn't alter the fact that TiVo has not commented on FSI since that very small set of messages about 7 years ago, and I believe*one* message from TiVoPony (I think) saying they continued to look at it. Nothing in the past 4-5 years. There has not been "numerous" messages from TiVo talking about the difficulty of implementation. No comment made about difficulty of implementation 7 years ago has any relevance to today's system; the issues are very different.

My main issue with your definition of FSI has been described in my previous messages. A user can have 100 GBytes free given your FSI, and have absolutely no free space available to record anything new. For people interested in making sure they don't lose recordings, your FSI will not handle KUID SPs usefully, for example. They can actively lose shows while your FSI is showing 100 GBytes free.


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## Dajad (Oct 7, 1999)

Crispy ... Let's agree to disagree on how involved TiVo was or was not in the early discussions of the FSI. I made no comment or suggestion that they have commented on it recently. My comments were historical.



CrispyCritter said:


> My main issue with your definition of FSI has been described in my previous messages. A user can have 100 GBytes free given your FSI, and have absolutely no free space available to record anything new. For people interested in making sure they don't lose recordings, your FSI will not handle KUID SPs usefully, for example. They can actively lose shows while your FSI is showing 100 GBytes free.


I believe your use of KUID is different than mine and most everyone else that wants an FSI. And I suspect that is the nut of our different perceptions of its utility.

The whole point of the FSI is to ensure I don't loose the recordings I care about.

I have owned a TiVo for 7.5 years and have NEVER once set the Keep Until settings in any manner other than Keep Until I Delete (KUID). I have used my TiVo in binary mode from day 1. Either I set a recording to KUID, or I let TiVo's default Keep Until (x days) do its thing. If I do NOT set a recording to KUID that means I don't care if or when it deletes. I don't know of a single real world person/friend/associate (outside the anti-FSI users) who futz with the Keep Until settings except to set KUID.

So, in my world, I know I have x number of shows (already recording or coming up) that are KUID. When I looked at the Free Space indicator on my SFA (and how I'd look on it if it was on a TiVo) I'd factor, in my head, the fact that some of the recorded and upcoming shows are KUID. That's all part of my thinking.

Let's take an example, and let's assume I am recording everything on lowest quality (1 gig per hour) for the sake of this discussion. This scenario happened to me many times. It's a Saturday Afternoon and a five hour Masters Golf tournament is on. If I had a 30 Gig TiVo (as I used to) that currently has 27 Gigs of USED space and 3 Gigs free. That means, at this moment, I could only record 3 of the five hours. If I recorded more than that, I'd loose 2 hours of my lowest ranked shows that are NOT KUID. That is useful info to me. What can I do with it. I can choose:

A. Not to record the golf
B. Record 3 hours of it (the last three)
C. Pair away some of my least desired recordings (some of which are probably NOT the one's TiVo would delete) to make room.

Now extrapolate that to my thinking for Sunday. Another 5 hours of golf is coming. Let's assume I haven't set anything else to record between Saturday and Sunday. If I chose option C. above. That means if I record 5 hours on Saturday, I would need to either - watch and delete those 5 hours to make room for Sunday's golf, OR pair away another 5 hours of shows (or chance-it on the TiVo KU-x day deletion lottery) to make room.

Now, as you righly point out, if I have Season's passes set to record between those golf shows, I'd know it. I'd know how much space they are going to take up , and I'd adjust my calculations in my head to compensate.

I can't tell you how many times over the years this EXACT scenario has come up - with long golf shows (over four days) or, more recently, the tennis grand slams 4 times a year (with me recording 8 to 10 hours a day) or the oscars or any other long big program.

Or now with my S3 and HD shows chewing up so much of my hard drive.

With the SFA, I could see all that visually and, despite that PVR being an absolute piece of trash - at least on this aspect of its functionality, I could accurately predict and manage the used space to deal with my circumstances.

Without an FSI, I just make a lot more guesses, based on suggestions and deleted programs.

Over the years as I moved from a 15 Gig to a 30 Gig to a 240 Gig S1, the need for the FSI fell away. The larger the hard drives, the less often I was coming close to running out of space - except four times a year with the tennis grand slams where space is a HUGE premium even on these bigger units.

But, when I first got the SFA 8300 (wit its, what, 25 hour HD recording capcity) I was right back to the problem I had with my earlier S1s.

Now with my S3 and only 34 hours of HD recording capacity, I ran right up against th is probelm again. Happily, today I installed a 750 Gig side car to my S3 and the whole FSI issue will likely fade away for me (at least until the S3 is filled again). See my success story here .

But, for the S3 users and S1 users with small hard drives, that think and manage their TiVo watching as I always have, an FSI would, for the reasons above, be extremely useful. And even with my terrabyte capacity on my S3 - I still want one.

...Dale

(P.S. So much for not arguing the pros and cons ... well, this time rather than "arguing" I just thought I'd lay out how I have and would use an FSI.)


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## zachcarter (Sep 11, 2006)

CrispyCritter said:


> Consequences:
> You have 0 GB free space right now to do anything (until after the Star Wars marathon).


In that scenario, it is not true that I have 0 free space. I have 100G, that I still can decide not to use for the Star Wars marathon. If I decide I'd rather not record that marathon, its not too late to cancel it. Having looked at the Todo list, I'm aware there is a Star Wars marathon coming up. If I had an FSI, I would also be able to estimate (perhaps not too precisely, but approximately as well as the Tivo can), how much of the Free Space will be needed for that Star Wars marathon. If I attempt to change the schedule by adding something new to the Todo list, or hitting record on a live show, I am well aware it may impact the scheduled marathon. If I had an FSI, I would be better able to predict that impact, and thus make a decision about what I might want to do about it.


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## Fofer (Oct 29, 2000)

I just think it's funny that people are actually debating this.

I have helped more than 75 people set up new TiVos, and in nearly every case, the first thing they want to know is "how do I know how much space is left, I don't want all my shows to disappear." Marking everything KUID, or keeping an eye on Suggestions/Deletions is NOT the answer.

A FSI would be a simpler birds-eye view and would be a user friendly gesture. Even a pie chart or temperature bar (a la the iPod in iTunes) is better than NOTHING.

Sheesh.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

CrispyCritter said:


> But the point is that the TiVo might have 100 GB reserved but not used space. Your FSI would show 100 GB free. The TiVo would refuse to record another show without deleting one of your existing shows; this happens now in such a situation.


(I admit I have only skimmed the messages in this thread PAST this article.)

Umm, what?

Could you please be more specific?

In the situation you describe as far as I understand it, the Tivo will give you the dialogs like:
So-and-so-future-show will be kept for 1 day
(instead of 2 days) 
because of the new recording, and that sort of thing... and you have to agree to that sort of thing to make a new recording.

But when will an existing recording be deleted *NOW* in any case EXCEPT when
1) there are NO suggestions left
2) the drive is absolutely full

The "100 gigs free" information NOW is very very useful IMHO. Not as useful as 
"100 hours in Basic quality, MINIMUM 25 minutes at highest HD quality"
(obviously I'm joking about the #s, but the HD stations take up way more space)
but still very useful.

I'll say it again... My Toshiba XS32 (which I have LOTS of bad things to say about, and in fact I'm replacing the DVD recorder on it because it went bad after a few years) has a simple FSI for DVD and hard drive space. It shows you the time left *at the current recording quality* (HD & DVD have separate default recording qualities).

Tivo has to be a bit more general, to be more "user friendly" and because of the obvious differences between analog & digital recordings.. but ANY sort of info is better than the NONE we get now.. (keeping track of suggestions & "recently deleted" is a partial workaround, not a real source of information.)


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## fred2 (Jan 20, 2006)

About two days into my original S2 I wanted to know how much of the disk was used/occupied. Period. I feel the same with my rather new S3. I just want a simple number. How much space have I used, how much is left. I don't care about its permutations about future recordings. 

I do the same with my computer's hard disks. I want to know how much space is left. Frankly, I know about as much about how much space the new SP recording will take as I do about some attachment a friend adds to an email. So when I go online to collect email I may get too many large attachments as I may get latter today's Tivo seasonpass recording.

Just tell me my free space (or conversely my occupied space) and let me do with the information what I want.

Would providing that information be anymore vague than the information screen from tivo central estimating my hd versus standard definition space. Actually, after my first or second recording session that information is totally useless but Tivo provides it.


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## Fofer (Oct 29, 2000)

This is a silly debate, and TiVo's just been stubborn about it.


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## CharlesH (Aug 29, 2002)

mattack said:


> But when will an existing recording be deleted *NOW* in any case EXCEPT when
> 1) there are NO suggestions left
> 2) the drive is absolutely full


3) When the TiVo has reserved space for a soon-to-be recorded show, and I tell it to record something now, and considering the reserved space as in-use, the TiVo needs the space from "expired" non-KUID shows to record the new requested program


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## zachcarter (Sep 11, 2006)

Fofer said:


> This is a silly debate, and TiVo's just been stubborn about it.


Yup. I'll go back to lurking now. This is just a case where my Tivo does not *get* me


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## TiVo Troll (Mar 23, 2006)

zachcarter said:


> My guess is that they could do it, but they don't want to for whatever reason.


Certainly!

TiVo is carefully designed for a particular market segment which especially appreciates its service; fairly affluent tech-savvy families with a shortage of spare time who don't want to deal with TV schedules. Everything about TiVo's operational methodology is designed very specifically to further watching TV totally timeshifted without thinking about the minutia involved.


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## Rustystaple (May 31, 2007)

mattack said:


> possibly signal loss partial recordings are kept


When I first got my S3 I powered it up did Guided setup and kept it up without any imput (coax or CC) for 4 days.

Recordings were started but not kept due to lack of signal.


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## Fofer (Oct 29, 2000)

TiVo Troll said:


> Certainly!
> 
> TiVo is carefully designed for a particular market segment which especially appreciates its service; fairly affluent tech-savvy families with a shortage of spare time who don't want to deal with TV schedules. Everything about TiVo's operational methodology is designed very specifically to further watching TV totally timeshifted without thinking about the minutia involved.


Yeah, until that show they *really* wanted to watch, disappeared because The Daily Show keeps recording (due to lack of accurate guide data.)


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## classicX (May 10, 2006)

Fofer said:


> I just think it's funny that people are actually debating this.
> 
> I have helped more than 75 people set up new TiVos, and in nearly every case, the first thing they want to know is "how do I know how much space is left, I don't want all my shows to disappear." Marking everything KUID, or keeping an eye on Suggestions/Deletions is NOT the answer.
> 
> ...


+1 on your first sentence.

My first DVR was a DirecTivo. I had no recently deleted option, so I had no way of knowing when all of the (!) recordings would be deleted - today? tomorrow? I lived with it, even though it was a gambit between sleeping and watching that one last episode because tomorrow it might not be there.

When I had an 8300HD, I used the FSI (once I found out that it existed) to quickly guage if I had enough space for the next days of recordings. I especially took advantage of the fact that when going into the DVR menu, if your free space is above 90%, you get a big red warning that says "FREE SPACE IS LOW. This meant I had to go through and either start watching something so I could delete it, or just delete items I'd seen but kept, or didn't really care if I had them or not. The problem was really exacerbated by the fact that you had only two options: Auto delete enabled, and auto delete disabled - and it's a global setting.

Now, with the ViP622 (Dish Network DVR) - when you go to the DVR menu, on the top of the recordings list, on the left, it says something like "Free: 24 hours 31 minutes HD" and on the right side something like "181 hours 22 minutes SD." This is best, IMHO.

I do think that Tivo people seem to overcomplicate things - on every Tivo I've used, when you change the Season Pass Priority, it was automatically a 5 minute wait until you could do anything. Performing the same operation on the Dish DVR is instant; no waiting.

Good luck on getting it - I think a simple one (even a percentage) would be useful. And to those who don't care for one, don't use it! I can all but guarantee that you would though.


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## juanian (Oct 2, 2002)

OK - I give up!!! Yak yak yak!

Here's *my* two cents:

TiVo will probably not implement FSI because it is impossible to satisfy everybody, and when they implement *something*, more people will complain about what is 'wrong' with it, and that will just cause TiVo more headaches. (Just look at the various FSI threads on TC!). Also, see the end of this post for the 'bottom line'.

As far as I can tell (with my S2s), the TiVo doesn't 'preallocate' space based on future recordings. When a recording starts, it takes a chunk of disk space (like, 124MB when recording in Basic quality). Once that chunk is fully used, it takes another chunk. If there is not enough 'free space' available, something is deleted (either from the Deleted folder, or TiVo Suggestions). If there are no programs of those types left, then a 'real' recording is deleted. When the current recording finishes, it appears that any remainder of the current chunk is released back to free space.

Period. No 'reserving space for the next day's programs'. No 'reserving space for KUID programs'. If the total amount of KUID programs will not fit on the drive, then the TiVo will remove them from the To Do list.

And the 30-minute live buffer? If you hit record on the current live program with '0 free space' available, it appears that it probably *will* delete a recording. *But*, this deletion *does not* occur because of saving the live recording -- it occurs if space is needed to continue recording the current program, *or* for the allocation of a new 30-minute buffer. (Current external FSI programs will actually show a negative amount of free space available in this condition, because the total amount of 'recordings' on the TiVo will be more than the normal 'baseline' for the TiVo drive; once the live 30-minute buffer is restored, the FSI numbers will go back to normal.)

Now, I must admit that the above information is based on my research from a few years ago, when I implemented my own FSI (first, based on rough calculations from the html Now Playing list, and later (once I learned how to do https from Perl) from the xml. I assume that the method of allocating and using disk space have not changed substantially over the past few years, but I might be wrong.

One thing that *has* changed, is downloadable content. *THIS* is the thing that (now) makes FSI *really* a problem. 'Who knows' when something is going to download, and at what quality. This runs the gambit from unbox through TiVoCast. I was pissed that the 'short' 15-minute CNET technology clips were taking up much more disk space than it really needed to (using more disk space than 15 minutes at Best, with picture quality worse than most Best recordings).

*Bottom line: So, what is the problem with TiVo implementing FSI?*
Let's say someone sees that the TiVo FSI shows there is 2 hours available, and they only have 1 hour that they need to record. Then, that evening, they find some programs were 'unexpectedly' deleted. They will be unhappy, and may think worse about their TiVo (or, call and complain about it). And where did the space go? It could have went the way of downloadable content; it could have gone away because a schedule update caused a new show to be available to be recorded. Either way, if someone _*relied*_ on the FSI to tell them something, and something 'unexpected' occurred, disappointment will follow. *That, in my opinion, is why TiVo will probably not implement a Free Space Indicator for a TiVo.* Someone will rely on that magical number, and could be disappointed. So, no magical number, no TiVo-sanctioned disappointment factor.

Real-world example: One of my early splurges was to get a new, top-of-the-line Hi-Fi VHS recorder (many, many years ago). It had a fancy 'no tracking lines' fast forward feature. It would playback tapes recorded at SP, LP, and SLP. But, if you fast-forwarded a tape that was recorded at LP, you would get a gray screen. Why? Because they didn't implement the extra overlap head angle to play back the FF LP without getting tracking lines. So, instead of getting bad marks in reviews for lousy FF LP playback, they just blocked the ability (for PR, a '-' is not as bad as a bad mark). Yes, it was a royal pain playing what few tapes I had that were LP -- I would have been happy to see the traking lines, so I would be able to know when to stop the FF. But perceived PR won out over functionality.

Me? Yes, my TiVos tend to run full. When they are near the breaking point, my morning ritual is to do an update to get the most current program information, check my FSI (or just the Recently Deleted folder), and make sure that I have enough space to record the day's programs (plus some spare space). But that's me.

Your mileage may vary (sigh).


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## astrohip (Jan 7, 2003)

juanian said:


> *Bottom line: So, what is the problem with TiVo implementing FSI?*
> Let's say someone sees that the TiVo FSI shows there is 2 hours available, and they only have 1 hour that they need to record.


For the 101st time...you are overthinking it. An FSI doesn't say how many hours are available. *It simply tells you how much of your hard drive is used.* No more, no less. A percentage, not a GB reading.

Please make the voices stop


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## richsadams (Jan 4, 2003)

Fofer said:


> Yeah, until that show they *really* wanted to watch, disappeared because The Daily Show keeps recording (due to lack of accurate guide data.)


 You can say that again! Five Daily Shows...all the same, recorded on the same day...several days in a row! Aurgh!  I know that's not TiVo's fault, but what a pain.


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## Fofer (Oct 29, 2000)

richsadams said:


> You can say that again! Five Daily Shows...all the same, recorded on the same day...several days in a row! Aurgh!  I know that's not TiVo's fault, but what a pain.


Live by TiVo's decisions, die by 'em. No, it's not their fault, but it just goes to show they haven't figured it all out, either.

Not including an FSI after all this time is a mistake and they are too stubborn to correct it.


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## CrispyCritter (Feb 28, 2001)

mattack said:


> But when will an existing recording be deleted *NOW* in any case EXCEPT when
> 1) there are NO suggestions left
> 2) the drive is absolutely full


This is the crux of the (this) argument. If you have a KUID SP, and there is a show on it that will be broadcast in, say, two days, space for that show is reserved now and *is counted as being used now* in the TiVo algorithms.

Thus if you have 100GB of such shows, and you have 150 GB of existing recordings and you have 250 GB of show space (ignoring system space for now), then TiVo thinks you have an absolutely full drive, and will delete an existing recording *NOW* when recording something new, despite the simple FSI here saying you have 100 GB free.


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## TiVo Troll (Mar 23, 2006)

Obviously what's being debated here isn't a "Free Space Indicator" at all; merely a "percentage of HD space being used right now" indication.

So what's a catchy name for this not too useful but comforting beast?


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## juanian (Oct 2, 2002)

First, let me apologize for last night's post -- I had just had enough, and the vent popped open. (I do stand by what I had said, though.)

<sound of me being sucked into this discussion>



CrispyCritter said:


> This is the crux of the (this) argument. If you have a KUID SP, and there is a show on it that will be broadcast in, say, two days, space for that show is reserved now and *is counted as being used now* in the TiVo algorithms.
> 
> Thus if you have 100GB of such shows, and you have 150 GB of existing recordings and you have 250 GB of show space (ignoring system space for now), then TiVo thinks you have an absolutely full drive, and will delete an existing recording *NOW* when recording something new, despite the simple FSI here saying you have 100 GB free.


A TiVo will not delete anything unless it is recording (or downloading) something, and the drive is 'full'. Period. It does not 'preallocate' space for a *future* recording. When it needs the space, it will take the space.

Now, the *algorithm* TiVo uses *does* automatically update the future date/time that a show is *expected* to be deleted based on a future recording; it doesn't actually delete the show until the space is actually needed.



TiVo Troll said:


> Obviously what's being debated here isn't a "Free Space Indicator" at all; merely a "percentage of HD space being used right now" indication.
> 
> So what's a catchy name for this not too useful but comforting beast?


I hated the info screen only telling me that the show's 'Disk Usage' is 4% or 2% or 1% or 'Less than 1%'. To what decimal place should this percentage be displayed for a FSI? If I had a 750GB drive (sob, *if*), what good would it be telling me that I had 1% left. And, if the %age was displayed with, say, three decimal points, I'd be able to calculate just how much space is left. So, if the percentage is *all* that will display, I suspect that people will be more unhappy that TiVo didn't include the simple calculation of GB from percentage, than if TiVo would have left it out.

Raise your hands -- who would be more unhappy if the FSI was only a percentage of the free space (or disk used space) and didn't include GB or hours left (at the different recording qualities)? ('More unhappy'?!?)

<sound of me taking a breath>

P.S. My FSI shows me the space left, and number of minutes remaining (at the different recording qualities):
*Free GB: 3.30; BMHB mins left=272 164 125 78*
The time is accurate to about 15 minutes; when the time left becomes negative, a deletion is imminent.

Now, if TiVo brings back the ability to sort the Now Playing list based on expiration time, it would be *easy* to see what the next show is that will be deleted. But, that feature seems to be gone forever. (Anyone remember entering the SORT code to enable sorting by Recorded date (1), Expiration Date (2), and Name (3)?)


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## CrispyCritter (Feb 28, 2001)

juanian said:


> A TiVo will not delete anything unless it is recording (or downloading) something, and the drive is 'full'. Period. It does not 'preallocate' space for a *future* recording. When it needs the space, it will take the space.


Wrong. For a KUID season pass, it pre-allocates space. See for example this thread with the statement from Dan203 (but read the whole thread):


> Do you have a lot of your Season Passes set to Keep Until I Delete? If so the TiVo considers all the space for scheduled recordings as used space. That's the downfall to using KUID for everything.


This is an odd corner of TiVo's space allocation strategy that most people never encounter. It causes problems for a simple FSI.


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## zachcarter (Sep 11, 2006)

CrispyCritter said:


> This is an odd corner of TiVo's space allocation strategy that most people never encounter. It causes problems for a simple FSI.


Once again, I fail to see the point of that with regards to a *simple* FSI. I'll grant that Tivo has a complex engine inside that is forecasting future needs, and that the Tivo may consider some amount of the available space as "reserved". The thread you linked to did not say that anything would actually be deleted until the space was actually needed. Quote from post #10 of the same thread:



Dan203 said:


> TiVo will only delete programs when the Recently Deleted folder is completely empty and any Suggestions you have are also gone.


All the user said was that they were not able to schedule a new recording, because the Tivo was planning ahead. Having a simple FSI that only shows me the current usage (not future plans), would at least help me to figure out what actions to take to prevent and/or fix that problem. I could take any of these actions to change the future projections:

- delete some programs
- change the Keep status of some of my existing programs
- cancel or change the recording options of items in the Todo list

Having a simple FSI which shows me the current usage would help me decide which of those actions to take, and how much additional space I needed to free up, so that I could ensure that the programs that are most important to me get recorded and saved.

It could be in GB, or hours, or % full. Anything at all would be better than manually sifting thru the Now Playing list to find out this information.


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## CrispyCritter (Feb 28, 2001)

zachcarter said:


> Once again, I fail to see the point of that with regards to a *simple* FSI. I'll grant that Tivo has a complex engine inside that is forecasting future needs, and that the Tivo may consider some amount of the available space as "reserved". The thread you linked to did not say that anything would actually be deleted until the space was actually needed.


The post you quoted applied to the particular poster who was being helped; he had ALL of his shows KUID. He will be asked whether he wants to delete a show, since the TiVo doesn't know what to do.

There are exceptionally few people with all shows KUID. I would guess that 90% of the people out there have some shows which are eligible to be deleted (past the default 2 days). I know I've kept shows eligible to be deleted around for 2 years, and would have been upset if TiVo had deleted them!

The user would not have been asked what to do if he had any shows eligible to be deleted. The TiVo just would have silently deleted them (they're eligible, right?). That's been proven by other people who've been unexpectedly caught by the KUID SP behavior who have wondered what happened to their shows.

Thus the simple FSI can show 100 GB free, and the TiVo will be deleting shows (that are eligible to be deleted). Users will be upset.


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## mkennedy96 (Dec 11, 2003)

I have followed this topic through many threads and have been amused by the Tivo apologists.

The FSI could be easily implemented. The exact format would be a compromise of options/complexity/ease of use. However, it CAN be done. All of the Tivo features/UI have been a compromise of competing interests/ideas. This includes the addition of features such as Swivel Search. This is of no use to me (so I do not use it), but may be of interest to someone else. Amazon downloads do interest me, but may not interest others.

The have had a working FSI on my Series 1 Tivo for several years now. I get a daily e-mail that includes the amount of free space (the FSI has the option to include or exclude Suggestions - I excluded Suggestions). It also gives a projection of space available as the list of programs to record is presented. See the attached screen shot.

Having to support a feature is the responsibility of Tivo. If an FSI required support, then so be it. Based upon the support requirements, they may be able to refine the FSI to improve clarity and ease of use. Many of the features of Tivo probably require some support as there are a lot of intelligence challenged individuals in this world. If Tivo's goal is to have no features that might require support, forget about MRV, TTG, Amazon downloads, or better yet, the entire software.
_______________________________________________________________
Tivo series 1 - 769 hours - November 1999
Tivo series 1 - 769 hours - January 2001
Tivo series 3 - 107 HD hours - April 2007
Tivo series 3 - 107 HD hours - April 2007


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## zachcarter (Sep 11, 2006)

CrispyCritter said:


> Thus the simple FSI can show 100 GB free, and the TiVo will be deleting shows (that are eligible to be deleted). Users will be upset.


I just don't believe in your scenario. If there is 100G that is not taken up by KUID or KUSN recordings, it is either taken up by Suggestions or Recently Deleted recordings (or things I have manually deleted from the deleted recordings folder). Based on what I've observed, and what was said in this thread, and the other thread you linked to, those will *always* get deleted before any of the KUID or KUSN recordings.

However, even if all you say is true, and some of the KUSN recordings will get deleted first, it doesn't change anything. It still has absolutely nothing to do with the simple FSI *this* user has proposed. All I want is count of the space taken up by existing KUID and KUSN recordings, subtracted from the total space, period. That scheme has a definite value to me, and having it around will not make me "upset". If my Tivo decides to delete a KUSN recording for whatever reason, I accepted that possibility when I decided not to make it KUID. All I want is a small bit of information that I can already obtain manually. I didn't ask for anyone to provide any guarantees about what recordings tivo might or might not delete in the future. That could perhaps be done in another *complex* scheme, and that complexity could result in confusion for the average user, but it has no relevance to what I proposed.


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## riddick21 (Dec 12, 2006)

What's the point in knowing how much space you have left? Would there be an option to stop all future recordings when all space is filled up? Knowing that you have x amount of space left, you would still need to go through the recordings you want to keep and mark them as KUID. I really don't understand the point of having a free space indicator. I think after a few days ideally you should have 0 free space since the TiVo would fill up with shows. I think its a lot more intuitive to mark the shows you want to keep as KUID than to figure out what shows you should record based on how much space you have left.


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## riddick21 (Dec 12, 2006)

Fofer said:


> I just think it's funny that people are actually debating this.
> 
> I have helped more than 75 people set up new TiVos, and in nearly every case, the first thing they want to know is "how do I know how much space is left, I don't want all my shows to disappear." Marking everything KUID, or keeping an eye on Suggestions/Deletions is NOT the answer.
> 
> ...


You can't keep your shows forever unless you keep upgrading the hard drive. How much space is left is really irrelevant because no matter what, over time, there will be zero space unless you actively make it a point to delete the recordings you already watched and don't want to keep (not very intuitive). In my opinion it would be much easier to go through what I want to keep and mark it as KUID (If I like the recording I just watched I immediately mark it as KUID) than to go through and delete all the stuff I don't want to keep, but thats just me.

Edit - I just finished reading this thread and I fail to see any practical reason besides curiosity for having a FSI and I don't think thats enough of a reason for TiVo to waste manpower in implementing this. If you fear losing recordings knowing how much space is left doesn't fix that problem because the way the TiVo works you will eventually run out of space and so you still need to mark the shows you want to keep KUID or archive them. It makes more sense to do this right after you watch the show than to go through all your recordings when your running low on space to determine what's worthy of keeping.


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## cgould (Dec 28, 2002)

Simple reason for this. If I can get an estimate of how many GB (or %, less preferred) is free, eg the calc above of Avail - KUID - KUSN, I can project myself if FUTURE RECORDINGS (from my OWN estimates) might endanger old recordings I *might* want to keep. eg, kind of "prefer to keep until I delete, but not absolute."

eg, I don't want to go thru and make EVERY old program KUID- that messes up Tivo future projections, is a hassle to go update EVERY program I "kind of" want to protect, and I would DEFINITELY NOT want an important program to FAIL to record, just for something old I MIGHT want to watch!

If I know how much space is available (not counting suggestions), and I can guess MYSELF how much space coming-soon recordings will take up (eg 1hr Medium is ~1.5gb, HD is 5-7gb, etc), I can take preventive actions; defer an HD recording to later airing, change to SD-digital, clean up old recordings, etc.-
this protects what I have, what I want in future, to MY choice.

How bloody hard is it to show a "current GB free" info. Use the calc above. There is no complex programming implementation. It is very straightforward for user.

If my tivo is near full- which it is, despite 500gb expansion- my Suggestions folder sometimes gets near empty, then I clean up bunch of stuff I figure I don't want after all (or, I make a special effort to watch or archive off big programs esp. HD stuff).
Now I have space free; but how much? I can't tell until more Suggestions record, and even then, they will vary in size from analog to SD to HD, so I'd have to manually add them up. Or I'd have to track the GB size of each program I delete, and calc that vs programs coming up. What a paiin in the butt.

JUST SHOW ME THE BLOODY GB FREE. give me a break.


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## zachcarter (Sep 11, 2006)

riddick21 said:


> What's the point in knowing how much space you have left? Would there be an option to stop all future recordings when all space is filled up? Knowing that you have x amount of space left, you would still need to go through the recordings you want to keep and mark them as KUID. I really don't understand the point of having a free space indicator. I think after a few days ideally you should have 0 free space since the TiVo would fill up with shows. I think its a lot more intuitive to mark the shows you want to keep as KUID than to figure out what shows you should record based on how much space you have left.


I think thats just a difference in how various people use their Tivo. If you don't see a need for FSI, then no one would force you to make use of the information. I personally feel that it would benefit me based on the way I manage my recordings. If I know that I have X amount of free space, and there is approximately Y amount of shows scheduled in the todo list, to a certain extent I can predict how many things to delete to make room for future recordings (I get to pick what is deleted, instead of the tivo), and I can also choose to reschedule or cancel future recordings based on what shows I feel are most important and deserving of the space. If the FSI shows me I have loads of space available, then I'll also be reasonably sure that I don't need to clean anything up. I already follow this strategy using the suggestions and deleted folders as a loose indicator, but it is a less precise source of information than I would like, especially given the differences in length and recording types (SD versus HD, etc.).

For me, this really would especially come in handy when I'm about to go on a vacation for a week or so. I could look in the todo list, gauge how much space I'll need, look at the FSI, gauge if I have enough to meet that need, and adjust things accordingly, by deleting old recordings or todo items. Again, I already use this scheme based on the total amount of suggestions and recently deleted items, so having the FSI would just make it a little easier and more accurate.

All that aside, I've lived without FSI for 6 or 7 years now, and I've learned how to manage my now playing list so that the things that are most important get saved. I believe it would definitely be easier with an FSI, but I'll probably survive just fine if tivo never implements it.


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## TiVo Troll (Mar 23, 2006)

juanian said:


> I hated the info screen only telling me that the show's 'Disk Usage' is 4% or 2% or 1% or 'Less than 1%'. To what decimal place should this percentage be displayed for a FSI? If I had a 750GB drive (sob, *if*), what good would it be telling me that I had 1% left. And, if the %age was displayed with, say, three decimal points, I'd be able to calculate just how much space is left. So, if the percentage is *all* that will display, I suspect that people will be more unhappy that TiVo didn't include the simple calculation of GB from percentage, than if TiVo would have left it out.


So the relatively not-very-useful info needs to be displayed extremely precisely! I understand why TiVo probably doesn't want to touch it with an 11 ft. 4 in. pole.

(An 11'4" pole is for things you wouldn't touch w/a 10 ft. pole.)


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## TiVo Troll (Mar 23, 2006)

zachcarter said:


> I personally feel that it would benefit me based on the way I manage my recordings.


Very likely it would indeed! But would it benefit TiVo?


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## CrispyCritter (Feb 28, 2001)

zachcarter said:


> I just don't believe in your scenario. If there is 100G that is not taken up by KUID or KUSN recordings, it is either taken up by Suggestions or Recently Deleted recordings (or things I have manually deleted from the deleted recordings folder). Based on what I've observed, and what was said in this thread, and the other thread you linked to, those will *always* get deleted before any of the KUID or KUSN recordings.


What can I say? You're wrong. TiVo doesn't bother actually deleting the Suggestions or RD; it knows it can delete them at any time so they are counted as free space already. Once the KUID future recordings exceed the sum of Suggestions + RD + totally unused space, it will start deleting KUSN shows (which now just means move them to RD; they won't actually get deleted until a Suggestion or something else is recorded.) I'm not defending TiVo's policy here; it's a bit weird. But I am accurately reporting what it is. Here's a megazone post that talks a bit about treatment of Suggestions in the presence of excessive KUID SPs.



zachcarter said:


> However, even if all you say is true, and some of the KUSN recordings will get deleted first, it doesn't change anything. It still has absolutely nothing to do with the simple FSI *this* user has proposed. All I want is count of the space taken up by existing KUID and KUSN recordings, subtracted from the total space, period. That scheme has a definite value to me, and having it around will not make me "upset". If my Tivo decides to delete a KUSN recording for whatever reason, I accepted that possibility when I decided not to make it KUID. All I want is a small bit of information that I can already obtain manually. I didn't ask for anyone to provide any guarantees about what recordings tivo might or might not delete in the future. That could perhaps be done in another *complex* scheme, and that complexity could result in confusion for the average user, but it has no relevance to what I proposed.


I accept it has value for you. Do you accept that to a person with KUID SPs, it's going to cause great confusion?


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## zachcarter (Sep 11, 2006)

CrispyCritter said:


> I accept it has value for you. Do you accept that to a person with KUID SPs, it's going to cause great confusion?


I accept that the way tivo scheduling is implemented can cause confusion, but I'm not convinced that having an FSI would make that confusion any worse. It sounds like, based on the posts/threads you've linked to, there are already confused users out there. megazone missed a download because of the way tivo plans ahead and schedules things, which really has nothing to do with FSI at all, IMHO.


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## juanian (Oct 2, 2002)

CrispyCritter said:


> Wrong. For a KUID season pass, it pre-allocates space. See for example this thread with the statement from Dan203 (but read the whole thread):


I'd love to see what the exact message was that the poster received, and what he did to generate the message.

I agree with zachcarter (no need for me to re-explain what he has already said).

Why would *I* use a FSI? As I have said, my TiVos are usually pretty full. Someone might ask "Since you don't want anything to be deleted automatically, why not mark everything KUID?" Well, the simple answer is this: If I did that, I would not be able to see what would be recording a few days from now, because I would have the message that tells me that, based on the current programs, there would be insufficient space to record more programs. But, the TiVo algorithm doesn't account for the fact that I will be watching (and archiving) shows between now and then. So, I only mark 'important' shows KUID, and I try and manage the rest by careful planning of my free space. (Drat -- cgould basically said the same thing! Maybe I should read ahead before I reply!)



zachcarter said:


> For me, this really would especially come in handy when I'm about to go on a vacation for a week or so. I could look in the todo list, gauge how much space I'll need, look at the FSI, gauge if I have enough to meet that need, and adjust things accordingly, by deleting old recordings or todo items.


Oh yea, what zachcarter said  -- I've done that many times.



CrispyCritter said:


> What can I say? You're wrong. TiVo doesn't bother actually deleting the Suggestions or RD; it knows it can delete them at any time so they are counted as free space already. Once the KUID future recordings exceed the sum of Suggestions + RD + totally unused space, it will start deleting KUSN shows (which now just means move them to RD; they won't actually get deleted until a Suggestion or something else is recorded.)


No, that is not true. The only time a TiVo will automatically toss things into the RD folder is if you have your SP set to only keep a certain number of episodes. It will not start tossing things into the RD folder based on future usage. What it *will* do is to change the 'Keep Until' for future recordings (and for existing Now Playing entries) to be less than 2 days (but that has nothing to do with the FSI discussion).



CrispyCritter said:


> I'm not defending TiVo's policy here; it's a bit weird. But I am accurately reporting what it is. Here's a megazone post that talks a bit about treatment of Suggestions in the presence of excessive KUID SPs.


No, that thread is talking about downloads.

Let's go back to the issue in the thread that you pointed out first -- what was the message that the poster received, and what did he do to generate the message. Did he choose to record the current program KUID? Did it tell him that recordings *in the future* would not occur? I mean, really -- if someone has 80GB free, and has 80GB of KUID recordings scheduled, and then wants to copy something else to the TiVo, something has to give -- either a future recording, or the item being copied. For MRV, it will prompt to remove the future recordings, and give the user a choice. In the case of downloads, there is no opportunity for a prompt, so it just decides to not do the download. How tough is that? The TiVo is doing just what it was programmed to do. Remember, the *simple FSI* just indicates how much space is available now, not in the future. One of the *complicated FSIs* will display information over time letting a user know when the free space on the hard drive will be gone, and when it will start deleting programs. Another *complicated FSIs* will display information over time letting a user know when there isn't any more space to record anything on the drive.

Are we happy yet? (Hey, I'm hungry! It is well past dinnertime for me!)


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## astrohip (Jan 7, 2003)

riddick21 said:


> What's the point in knowing how much space you have left? <snip> I really don't understand the point of having a free space indicator. I think after a few days ideally you should have 0 free space since the TiVo would fill up with shows.


For the 102nd time, just because you don't see the need for it doesn't mean others wouldn't find it useful.

I think some of the debate about FSI is because TiVo owners have different ways of using their TiVos. Many people record lots of stuff, knowing that much of it will never be watched. The important shows they watch relatively soon (or KUID), and the others... well, if they want something to watch, they always have something recorded. And if it falls off the hard drive, so be it. Just a step above suggestions.

I am a polar opposite. Most of what I record I intend to watch. So to me it's critical that my hd not fill up, as losing shows would be painful. Thus, space management is important. If I see that space is filling up, I either have to start watching or start deleting. Because if I don't delete, TiVo will, and we may not agree on the priority of deleted shows.

One can manually change the order of shows to be deleted, but what a pain. Especially when an FSI would let me know whether it is even needed.

Luckily, the RD folder solved most of my concerns. And a 750GB hard drive solved the rest :up: . But on my SA8300HD, I check the FSI every day or two. Only way to tell what's going on.

If you don't want an FSI, great. But blanket statements like "I don't understand the point of a FSI" are just burrs under the blanket to those of us who do.

[sound of head banging on wall]


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## richsadams (Jan 4, 2003)

astrohip said:


> For the 102nd time, just because you don't see the need for it doesn't mean others wouldn't find it useful.
> 
> If you don't want an FSI, great. But blanket statements like "I don't understand the point of a FSI" are just burrs under the blanket to those of us who do.
> 
> [sound of head banging on wall]


 *+1 * :up:


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## riddick21 (Dec 12, 2006)

I didn't make a statement like "FSI is not necessary" I said I dont think its necessary" there is a difference. I would rather have TiVo spend resources on other more important things (in my opinion) than a FSI (mac support for HD photos, TiVoComeBack, and streaming YouTube for example). If they are sitting around twiddling there thumbs then by all means they should add this for the people who want it but there are several alternatives already in place if you fear losing recordings. 

1. KUID
2. TiVoToGo (Series2)
3. eSata

Most of what I watch are shows in syndication so I rarely need to save them. For the few good new shows that are on TV I mark them as KUID. I really doubt TiVo's target market is going to go through a list of there shows every day and prioritize them. Right now there are three levels you can rate a show at. KUID (highest) KUSN (middle, kind of like the episode but not enough to stop new recordings) and delete (done watching it, dont care to see it again). 

There are already a bunch of systems in place to automatically prioritize certain shows over others so telling you how much space is left does not help in this respect. It requires that you actively manage your recordings. I think their time would be better spent making a delete priority list so some shows can be deleted before others (limiting how many shows in a folder already kind of does this). TiVo is supposed to make TV watching easier and I don't think managing recordings myself everyday does that.


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## MickeS (Dec 26, 2002)

riddick21 said:


> I just finished reading this thread and I fail to see any practical reason besides curiosity for having a FSI and I don't think thats enough of a reason for TiVo to waste manpower in implementing this. If you fear losing recordings knowing how much space is left doesn't fix that problem because the way the TiVo works you will eventually run out of space and so you still need to mark the shows you want to keep KUID or archive them. It makes more sense to do this right after you watch the show than to go through all your recordings when your running low on space to determine what's worthy of keeping.


You got it. However, I have learned long ago that people don't want to act rationally when it comes to this. TiVo as it works now, if you use it like it's intended to be use, does not need a FSI, besides for the curiosity factor (I use Suggestions for that). But people still want it, because they don't want to decide what shows to keep until they are forced to do it (somehow that makes for a better decision, apparently ).

So I say again: TiVo should put this useless function in (most likely something equally useless to their already existing info about how much space a show takes up on the HD) so this silly debate can be gone.


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## MickeS (Dec 26, 2002)

cgould said:


> Simple reason for this. If I can get an estimate of how many GB (or %, less preferred) is free, eg the calc above of Avail - KUID - KUSN, I can project myself if FUTURE RECORDINGS (from my OWN estimates) might endanger old recordings I *might* want to keep. eg, kind of "prefer to keep until I delete, but not absolute."
> 
> eg, I don't want to go thru and make EVERY old program KUID- that messes up Tivo future projections, is a hassle to go update EVERY program I "kind of" want to protect, and I would DEFINITELY NOT want an important program to FAIL to record, just for something old I MIGHT want to watch!
> 
> ...


Or you could just make up your mind earlier. 

It's been so long since I've had to deal with any user-initiated recordings being deleted that I don't remember this exactly, but isn't there a warning in the To Do list or when you set up a recording or something, that "Show so and so will be deleted earlier than planned because of this new recording"? And I think that there is a warning in the To Do list when a show will NOT be recorded due to lack of space.


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## TiVo Troll (Mar 23, 2006)

MickeS said:


> ...I have learned long ago that people don't want to act rationally when it comes to this. TiVo as it works now, if you use it like it's intended to be use, does not need a FSI, besides for the curiosity factor (I use Suggestions for that). But people still want it, because they don't want to decide what shows to keep until they are forced to do it (somehow that makes for a better decision, apparently ).
> 
> So I say again: TiVo should put this useless function in (most likely something equally useless to their already existing info about how much space a show takes up on the HD) so this silly debate can be gone.


I don't use TiVo the way "it's intended to be use(d)" and would actually appreciate an indication of HD space filled as of this moment with no consideration for scheduled upcoming recordings.

So, although I doubt that TiVo will add a, whatever it'd be called, feature that's been continually asked for for years, by all means, pursue "this silly debate"!


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## jhimmel (Dec 27, 2002)

riddick21 said:


> I didn't make a statement like "FSI is not necessary" I said I dont think its necessary" there is a difference. I would rather have TiVo spend resources on other more important things (in my opinion) than a FSI (mac support for HD photos, TiVoComeBack, and streaming YouTube for example).


I don't think mac support is necessary. I don't have a mac.

I would rather see a FSI. Actually, more like the bar graph that many have already mentioned with different colors for scheduled recordings, Suggestions, and free space (if any).


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## riddick21 (Dec 12, 2006)

jhimmel said:


> I don't think mac support is necessary. I don't have a mac.
> 
> I would rather see a FSI. Actually, more like the bar graph that many have already mentioned with different colors for scheduled recordings, Suggestions, and free space (if any).


Thats fine but there are preventative measures you can already take to insure the shows you want to keep don't get deleted. Whereas there is no support for mac HD photo streaming. But your entitled to your opinion and so am I and I think a FSI is as pointless as you think mac support is, especially when there are other ways to make sure your shows don't get prematurely deleted. There's other things they can spend time on besides mac support too like cooperative scheduling, internet video streaming, being able to watch shows you have recorded over the internet and getting TTG and MRV enabled for S3 users to name a few. Any time they waste on making a FSI is time and money taken away from other projects. I highly doubt a FSI would benefit the average TiVo user who does not want to take time out of there week trying to figure out what shows to delete. I think it is more likely that there is a greater amount of shows you would want to delete than keep so it makes more sense to manage what you keep and let the TiVo manage what is deleted based on that.


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## zachcarter (Sep 11, 2006)

What bothers me about this whole debate is the idea that tivo won't do it because they think its too complicated, which just isn't true. They said the same thing about DST on the series 1, and look what happened. 

The idea that FSI wouldn't be useful to people is just wrong as well. Enough people have spoken up about it on these forums, and enough people have used it with other devices, that the "FSI is useless" argument just doesn't hold up. 

I certainly can appreciate the fact that tivo has to weigh the pros and cons of adding different features based on the consumer demand and the difficulty of implementation. So if they are concentrating on other, better features, I'm cool with that. There are a few features that are more important to me than FSI, like being able to transfer content from my PC to the tivo. But I have a feeling the developers aren't really working on that too much either, since the technology is already there in the Series 2. That particular functionality seems to be more of a political/copywright issue with CableLabs at this point.


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## MickeS (Dec 26, 2002)

This thread cries out for this classic cartoon  (I have probably posted this in threads about FSI before ):


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## jhimmel (Dec 27, 2002)

riddick21 said:


> Whereas there is no support for mac HD photo streaming.


As I said - I don't think mac support is needed. I don't have a mac.
I would like to have a FSI.


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## riddick21 (Dec 12, 2006)

jhimmel said:


> As I said - I don't think mac support is needed. I don't have a mac.
> I would like to have a FSI.


Good for you. I do have a mac and think it is more important to support it then wasting time on a useless feature such as FSI when there is no added value in it. Most people are not so anal about TV and are not willing to take time out of their week to prioritize deletes based on how much space is left (which in most Tivo's I bet is zero). After a few days the TiVo will always have zero space remaining and the actions you would need to take to prevent this you can do without a FSI.

Just because something can be done doesn't mean it should be done.


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## zachcarter (Sep 11, 2006)

riddick21 said:


> I do have a mac and think it is more important to support it


How about supporting Linux? I think supporting Linux is much more important than supporting Mac or Windows. Why should I have to purchase a proprietary OS just to connect my tivo to my home PC? That said, I don't think it would be fair to tell you these things:

- your desire for mac support is misguided, or
- having mac support would be useless to you, or
- there is something about the way the tivo works that would make mac support impossible to implement correctly.

As consumers, we all have our own needs and priorities. I respect others opinions about what features are important to them, and I hope they can respect mine too.


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## riddick21 (Dec 12, 2006)

zachcarter said:


> How about supporting Linux? I think supporting Linux is much more important than supporting Mac or Windows. Why should I have to purchase a proprietary OS just to connect my tivo to my home PC? That said, I don't think it would be fair to tell you these things:
> 
> - your desire for mac support is misguided, or
> - having mac support would be useless to you, or
> ...


Look I'm all for the FSI if TiVo has nothing else on their plate, but there are a ton of stuff they need to do before they should even think about implementing this.


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## gwar9999 (Jan 16, 2007)

zachcarter said:


> How about supporting Linux? I think supporting Linux is much more important than supporting Mac or Windows. Why should I have to purchase a proprietary OS just to connect my tivo to my home PC?


No Kidding. TiVo is built on Linux yet TiVo Desktop only supports Windows and OS/X?! That seems absurd. If TiVo used a multi-platform toolkit (Qt, Wx Widgets, etc) then they could easily port between Lin/Win/Mac so end-users could use whatever operating system they wished.

I'm never going to use TiVo Desktop-- even though I do own some Windows licenses-- until a Linux version exists. Until then, Galleon works well enough for my needs.


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## jhimmel (Dec 27, 2002)

riddick21 said:


> Look I'm all for the FSI if TiVo has nothing else on their plate, but there are a ton of stuff they need to do before they should even think about implementing this.


I'll be all for adding useless features such as mac support when they have nothing else to do. mac support will do nothing for me. The FSI I would find useful.


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## Fofer (Oct 29, 2000)

Oh, brother.


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## jhimmel (Dec 27, 2002)




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## riddick21 (Dec 12, 2006)

jhimmel said:


> I'll be all for adding useless features such as mac support when they have nothing else to do. mac support will do nothing for me. The FSI I would find useful.


What is this supposed to piss me off? I really don't give a **** what you think. Im simply stating my opinion that I feel FSI is unnecessary. If you think mac support is unnecessary good for you, its a free country.


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## jhimmel (Dec 27, 2002)

riddick21 said:


> I really don't give a **** what you think.


I am just stating my opinion along with yours. Why so testy?


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## riddick21 (Dec 12, 2006)

Sorry, thats fine but I couldn't help but think you were saying what you said as retaliation for my comment. You can feel how ever you want just like I can feel how ever I want.


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## Fofer (Oct 29, 2000)

Boys, boys, settle down. You're both handsome.


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## jhimmel (Dec 27, 2002)

Fofer said:


> Boys, boys, settle down. You're both handsome.


I believe I am more handsome by a small margin, but I don't want to take this off topic.

Many of us feel that a FSI would be useful to the way WE use our TiVo's. There - back on topic.

Does anyone disagree? ANYONE??? Didn't think so...


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## Dajad (Oct 7, 1999)

juanian said:


> I hated the info screen only telling me that the show's 'Disk Usage' is 4% or 2% or 1% or 'Less than 1%'. To what decimal place should this percentage be displayed for a FSI? If I had a 750GB drive (sob, *if*), what good would it be telling me that I had 1% left. And, if the %age was displayed with, say, three decimal points, I'd be able to calculate just how much space is left. So, if the percentage is *all* that will display, I suspect that people will be more unhappy that TiVo didn't include the simple calculation of GB from percentage, than if TiVo would have left it out.
> 
> Raise your hands -- who would be more unhappy if the FSI was only a percentage of the free space (or disk used space) and didn't include GB or hours left (at the different recording qualities)? ('More unhappy'?!?)


I'm not sure what you are asking but all I ever wanted, and what most wanted, was a percentage indicator. Ideally a graphic bar. If TiVo chose to give us more, that's just gravey.

As for your 750 Gig question, as I said before the FSI gets less important as drive sizes increase. But, an S3 with 750 Gigs that is recording all HD is about the same as a 100 Gig hard drive recording primarily analogue stuff. In the S3 world it isn't as much as you think. By my calculations a 750 Gig system can record approximately 100 hours of HD. So, each percentage means ONE hour of HD shows. Hell, that would be EXTREMELY USEFUL for me to know!!!

And Crispy/Juan, who the hell cares whether TiVo allocates it, sets it aside or not. If their alogrthm sets it aside, the FSI algorithm can have ONE more variable that ads that "allocated" space into the Free Space calculation.

As I've said for years, to ward off against customer complaints, all TiVo needs in the FSI screen is a little notice on the bottom that says something like:

*WARNING:* The Free Space Information provided above is current as of this moment. It can and will change as scheduled recordings record and Now Playing programs are deleted.​


astrohip said:


> If you don't want an FSI, great. But blanket statements like "I don't understand the point of a FSI" are just burrs under the blanket to those of us who do.
> 
> [sound of head banging on wall]


 Oh how I feel your pain!!



riddick21 said:


> I didn't make a statement like "FSI is not necessary" I said I dont think its necessary" there is a difference. I would rather have TiVo spend resources on other more important things (in my opinion) than a FSI (mac support for HD photos, TiVoComeBack, and streaming YouTube for example). If they are sitting around twiddling there thumbs then by all means they should add this for the people who want it but there are several alternatives already in place if you fear losing recordings.


 As has been discussed in this thread - "WHAT RESOURCES" would it need to do this? TiVo already developed an FSI MANY YEARS AGO!!! They just never implemented it. It exists!!! Right now. I'm a hobbiest C programmer. I could write the program to do this in about 15 minutes. But, there's no need for me to do it. TiVo already HAS done it! Argh!!!

*Mickes* Loved the comic. I think Crispy, Riddick and their group envision the "How the Customer was Billed" slide when all I want is the rubber tire hanging from the tree in the last slide.

When I came to post tonight I was going to say how surprised I was that Crispy was the only anti-FSI poster in this thread. A huge departure from the past. But Riddick and others have proven that the debate is still alive and well and likely to last as long as TiVo survives (or until TiVo actually implements the darn thing and the anti-FSI crowd discovers that TiVo's customer support line doesn't collapse from the onslaught of confused and angry masses)!


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## riddick21 (Dec 12, 2006)

OK while I don't have a use for FSI I understand some people do and if it is easy to implement then they should go for it. But I really hope they leave it in the system information menu as a number read out because adding it to the NPL as a pie graph or something to that effect is going to look very technical and ugly.


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## davezatz (Apr 18, 2002)

Dajad said:


> I'm not sure what you are asking but all I ever wanted, and what most wanted, was a percentage indicator. Ideally a graphic bar. If TiVo chose to give us more, that's just gravey.


Me three.


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## TiVo Troll (Mar 23, 2006)

riddick21 said:


> OK while I don't have a use for FSI I understand some people do and if it is easy to implement then they should go for it. But I really hope they leave it in the system information menu as a number read out because adding it to the NPL as a pie graph or something to that effect is going to look very technical and ugly.


Have y'ever seen the (almost) endless conflict lists which TiVo produces when a manual Season Pass is set up or altered. Gads, what a silly distraction!

Perhaps some users actually find such displays helpful but I wish TiVo would just do whatever I entered.


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## juanian (Oct 2, 2002)

Dajad said:


> I'm not sure what you are asking but all I ever wanted, and what most wanted, was a percentage indicator. Ideally a graphic bar. If TiVo chose to give us more, that's just gravey.
> 
> As for your 750 Gig question, as I said before the FSI gets less important as drive sizes increase. But, an S3 with 750 Gigs that is recording all HD is about the same as a 100 Gig hard drive recording primarily analogue stuff. In the S3 world it isn't as much as you think. By my calculations a 750 Gig system can record approximately 100 hours of HD. So, each percentage means ONE hour of HD shows. Hell, that would be EXTREMELY USEFUL for me to know!!!
> 
> ...


Yea, the fear of an onslaught of 'confused' and 'upset' users (and, the more technical users wanting an implemented FSI to include *more* useful data) is probably the reason for not implementing it. If a user see the FSI, they might try and use it, and they could be disappointed.

I must agree with other posters -- with the RD folder, I rarely use my FSI anymore.

And include an hours *estimate* as well as percentage; if someone doesn't care about the hours values, they can ignore them!

Graphical display? Well, that might be a bit too much! 

So, here is my suggestion:

TiVo should implement FSI, but only as an 'Easter Egg' (like the 30-second skip). This way, it is 'unsupported', not documented to the masses, and only is available to those who seek it out. (There will still be threads on boards that will demand that TiVo add value XYZ to the FSI, but (hopefully) the majority of FSI users will be satisfied.)


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## juanian (Oct 2, 2002)

MickeS said:


> So I say again: TiVo should put this useless function in (most likely something equally useless to their already existing info about how much space a show takes up on the HD) so this silly debate can be gone.


I thought this silly debate *was* gone, until this thread opened up. 

(Sorry - I intended to tack this onto my previous post, but I forgot.)


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## richsadams (Jan 4, 2003)

juanian said:


> So, here is my suggestion:
> 
> TiVo should implement FSI, but only as an 'Easter Egg' (like the 30-second skip). This way, it is 'unsupported', not documented to the masses, and only is available to those who seek it out. (There will still be threads on boards that will demand that TiVo add value XYZ to the FSI, but (hopefully) the majority of FSI users will be satisfied.)


I'm good with that one! Doubt it will happen, but that would work fine for me. :up:


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## Fofer (Oct 29, 2000)

juanian said:


> So, here is my suggestion:
> 
> TiVo should implement FSI, but only as an 'Easter Egg' (like the 30-second skip).


Good idea, I agree:

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=5217174&&#post5217174


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## LCD1080 (Dec 13, 2006)

riddick21 said:


> What's the point in knowing how much space you have left?...


Did you ever hear of Linus and his security blanket?


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## Dajad (Oct 7, 1999)

juanian said:


> So, here is my suggestion:
> 
> TiVo should implement FSI, but only as an 'Easter Egg' (like the 30-second skip). This way, it is 'unsupported', not documented to the masses, and only is available to those who seek it out. (There will still be threads on boards that will demand that TiVo add value XYZ to the FSI, but (hopefully) the majority of FSI users will be satisfied.)


 GREAT IDEA! Unfortunately, not original. The first time I suggested this particular compromise was about November 1999 and several times since. But you and I are not the only one's. I'd hazard to guess I've seen this suggestion at least a dozen times. It would be nice.

While speaking about "undocumented Easter Eggs" suggestions, back in the day when they changed the skip-back response that occurs when pressing play after fast forwarding, those of us who had gotten used to the previous snappier timing complained bitterly for about a half a year to no avail. Many of us suggested at that time that an undocumented user selectable Easter-Egg slider could have been used as a compromise. The user would be able to select much corrective back-skipipng h/she wanted. Eg: on a scale from 1 to 10, the video game crowd could pick a 1 or 2, with virtually no correction needed, and the geriatrics could pick a 9 or 10 with generous corrections.

Alas, that Easter Egg was never added and I now must see the first 15 seconds or so of my show before I can press play. Either that or my TiVo jumps me back into the middle of the last commercial when pressing play after fast forwarding through commercials. Ultimately, in the long term this switched me from a predominately fast-forward user to a predominantly 30 second skipper guy.

...Dale


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## juanian (Oct 2, 2002)

Fofer said:


> juanian said:
> 
> 
> > So, here is my suggestion:
> ...


Oops -- sorry Fofer (and Dajad) -- after going through this thread, I guess my mind just became a bit numb (go figure). 

As to the skip-back, I thought about tinkering with it (long ago, when you still could). Instead, I just adapted the technique of being 'slower' on the trigger finger, and not pressing Play as soon as I saw the point I wanted. It takes a tad of practice, and I do occasionally still click too quickly, but it seems to be the best 'workaround' for now.

(And, if all of those PCs (and Macs and Linux systems) had continued to chew on coming up with the backdoor password, would we have it by now?  ) (Yea, but then TiVo would just change it again, right?)


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