# Why won't KEEP UNTIL I DELETE actually do it?



## Wekiva (Aug 6, 2002)

I've been away from the forum for a while. I started w/ Tivo based DirecTV DVRs and only recently upgraded to a HD unit that DirecTV provided....HR22 I believe. Is there a forum for me to post questions about this unit until DirectTV comes out w/ the new Tivo based units? I know this is the Tivo community...but here must be many users out there like me who no longer have Tivo units and are just waiting for them to come out again.

My only complaint that I can't figure out is the KEEP UNTIL I DELETE function on the series I record. I want to record HOW ITS MADE but only have it keep 4 episodes. In the series settings I set the KEEP UNTIL option to UNTIL I DELETE. Now what I'm assuming the unit should do is record 4 shows and then stop recording the show unless I delete one of them...then it should replace the show I deleted and then stop recording again.

But this stupid thing just keeps recording the shows over and over. This is annoying for 2 reasons:
1. Sometimes episodes come on that I want to keep to show someone...but the episodes keep recording over each other...deleting the ones I want to save.
2. This also plugs up my ToDo list with shows I don't care to record. We are currently in the middle of a HOW ITS MADE marathon for the next 4 days...48 episodes a day. It took me 10 minutes to fast forward through my ToDo list just to see past them all.

In the big scheme of things it's not the end of the world...just the main gripe I have right now. Am I doing something wrong? My lovely R10 (and previous) Tivo units had this working perfectly.


----------



## litzdog911 (Oct 18, 2002)

It's working as designed. "Keep Until I Delete" will keep recording shows, but the DVR won't automatically delete them ... you must delete them. I'm not aware of any way to have it do exactly what you want and just keep 4 episode until you delete some.


----------



## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

It sounds like you need a combination of Keep Until [I Delete] and Keep At Most [4 episodes]. I've never tried that, but it seems like that might have the effect you want.


----------



## Gavroche (May 27, 2007)

Rob Helmerichs said:


> It sounds like you need a combination of Keep Until [I Delete] and Keep At Most [X episodes]. I've never tried that, but it seems like that might have the effect you want.


Yeah, that's what I was thinking... does that not work?


----------



## Thom (Jun 5, 2000)

It won't do what you want it to do.

Keep At Most 4 means that, at the end of recording an episode, it will look at the total episodes on disk and ATTEMPT to delete all episodes beyond 4. However, Keep Until I Delete does not allow any deletion except manual deletion by the user. Thus a Keep At Most 4 combined with a Keep Until I Delete means your TiVo will keep recording the show, but be unable to delete any of the shows.

You can try setting your Season Pass or WishList to record only 1st Run episodes. But if the guide data is inaccurate/incomplete it will either record too many or skip ones you wanted to record.

If 1st Run doesn't work for you, then get rid of the Keep Until I Delete, raise Keep At Most to 10~25 or so, and move the Season Pass/WishList to the bottom of the list (least priority) in your Priority Manager.


----------



## Wekiva (Aug 6, 2002)

Gavroche said:


> Yeah, that's what I was thinking... does that not work?


On my HDVR6 and R10 it does work....but on my HR22 (non Tivo) it does not. My settings are KEEP 4 and KEEP UNTIL I DELETE. The result is it keeps 4 but it then bumps off the oldest of the 4 and records a new one. It is impossible to keep a specific episode.


----------



## Gavroche (May 27, 2007)

Is this by design, or is this a bug?


----------



## Wekiva (Aug 6, 2002)

The more I think about this I can see why some would want it to work as it does now. For instance you want to record the national news and keep a week's worth of shows...or a week's worth of Oprah...and then it starts overwriting itself.

But I can also see plenty of times you'd want what I'm expecting above.

It would be nice if there were three options:
KEEP UNTIL I DELETE (as it is now...keeps episode # I request but then overwrites)
KEEP UNTIL DISK IS FULL
(new) - KEEP UNTIL ONLY I DELETE (will stop recording episodes when my limit is reached)


----------



## TyroneShoes (Sep 6, 2004)

Thom said:


> It won't do what you want it to do.
> 
> Keep At Most 4 means that, at the end of recording an episode, it will look at the total episodes on disk and ATTEMPT to delete all episodes beyond 4. However, Keep Until I Delete does not allow any deletion except manual deletion by the user. Thus a Keep At Most 4 combined with a Keep Until I Delete means your TiVo will keep recording the show, but be unable to delete any of the shows.
> 
> ...


Thom's approach should work well for you. Replay actually had a better way, but Replay is no more.

What you might do to add to this is:

Once you remove KUID, shows are ripe for deletion. But you can check the shows it records, and if any of them look like keepers, you can change their attributes individually after they are recorded, which will protect them from deletion. On Tivo, I'm not sure if these "kept" versions count against your "at most" number (on Replay they did not, which was pretty cool) but if you KUID a couple and want to as well still keep 4 new shows "in the chamber", you can up your "at most" number to compensate.


----------



## Jonathan_S (Oct 23, 2001)

TyroneShoes said:


> you can change their attributes individually after they are recorded, which will protect them from deletion. On Tivo, I'm not sure if these "kept" versions count against your "at most" number (on Replay they did not, which was pretty cool)


On TiVo they wouldn't count against your "at most" number.

On TiVo:
If you change a recording option (padding, keep until, etc) for a specific episode (either before or after it's been recorded) the episode gets 'divorced' from the season pass and treated like a manual recording.

This means that it is not counted against that season passes keep at most limit. 
FYI it also means, for episodes that haven't been recorded yet, that the modified episode just jumped to the very top recording priority (manual recordings always beat season passes) which _might_ be a problem if the schedule gets changed.


----------

