# Delete the already viewed portion of a show



## harrinpj1 (Mar 10, 2005)

I recorded the first game of the World Series and I padded it by 3 hours to make certain I didn't miss any of it. Also I had to record this at best quality because sports look awful when the quality is any less. After it was recorded I looked and it said it took up 14 percent of my disk space. 

I watched the game throughout the day and I thought it would be nice to delete the portions of the game that I had already seen so I could free up the hard drive space for other shows. So if I had just finished the 3rd inning, I could delete everything that was recorded before I paused to free up space (1st, 2nd and 3rd innings would be gone).

I was also thinking it would be nice for me to get my wife (who could care less about the game and therefore wouldn't mind seeing the score) to fast forward to the end and then delete the excess padding that I recorded in case the game went 20 innings.

Does anyone know if this kind of thing could be possible?


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## omni555 (Oct 4, 2006)

There's a solution at least to the first part of your question - if you have 2 networked TiVo's. I did it just yesterday. By accident, actually!!!

I was watching a TiVo'd movie in the bedroom, and before it was over had to go to the living room to work. I paused the show in the BR (about 1 hour into a 3 hour movie), and put the unit in standby. When I got to the LR, I selected to transfer the show from the paused point. 

I got caught up doing a few other things, and when I returned to the TV the remaining 2 hours had been transferred. It only took a few minutes.

What I ended up with was the last 2 hours of the movie on the LR TiVo, and I simply deleted the full movie from the BR TiVo. So I had basically what you were asking about with the already-watched portion of the movie "deleted".

...I guess you could use the same "idea" to transfer a show and monitor the transfer status, stopping the transfer when it gets to the "end padding" area to remove THAT from the program.

Not a really pretty solution, and a little clunky maybe, but it WORKS until TiVo comes out with a user feature to to this better!


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## DTap (Nov 7, 2006)

I was watching the hours and hours of Olypic coverage in HD this weekend and thought of this as well. Especially on the 8 hour blocks of coverage on the weekends, it would be nice after you have watched say 6 hours of it, to delete the previous 6 hours. What I have run into is that last night, it was recording a 4 hour primetime block at the same time I was watching the 8 hour programming during the day, and it would be great to free up the space.

At first, I wondered if it was possible as I am not sure if MPEG encoding has critical file information at the front of the file. But as you guys mention, when you transfer a file from another room, it gives you the option of only transferring the portion you haven't watched.

So I say, Tivo, please consider adding this.


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## espressomac (Feb 25, 2008)

DTap said:


> ......But as you guys mention, when you transfer a file from another room, it gives you the option of only transferring the portion you haven't watched.
> 
> So I say, Tivo, please consider adding this.


Hear hear. Don't know why this isn't standard. Like cropping a picture really. I end up having to manually record segments, like I did for the opening ceremony. It would be nice if TiVo gave you the option of recording a long show in 1 hour segments. In the same vein, I'd love to be able to downgrade the quality of a recorded show from like High Quality to Basic Quality.

espressomac

*my work
my play*


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

yep, manual recording in chunks or else transferring to another TiVo from the pause point are the two way right now.

I think TiVo could chunk things but adding in editing would call for a lot of code and work and the possible bugs could be very impactful.

I would vote stick with manual recording in time blocks -since it is not everything you would do this with. The other upfront work option is to put in a bigger hard drive which is what I actually did to allow room for things like long vacations or Olympic coverage.


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## Resist (Dec 21, 2003)

harrinpj1 said:


> I watched the game throughout the day and I thought it would be nice to delete the portions of the game that I had already seen so I could free up the hard drive space for other shows.


I have been thinking about this same thing lately myself and wish Tivo made it so we could delete portions of recordings. That would be such a useful feature.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

Zeotivo is right. Get a bigger hard drive. None of my 3 TiVos has less than 500G of hard drive space, plus I've got the 6T video server which holds most of the videos. With 750G hard drives being available for under $100, there's really no reason not to get a bigger drive.


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## Resist (Dec 21, 2003)

Still would be better if we could just delete a portion of a recording. It is not just about saving space, it is about removing what we don't want to view again and have to fast forward through. There are many instances when all I want to save is a small part of the news or other TV show.


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## flaminio (May 21, 2004)

Yeah, with a sufficiently large hard drive, this issue kind of goes away. Aside from multiple 8-hour Olympic blocks, I can't think of a single time when I would use this.

As far as saving a segment of a broadcast, TiVoToGo+video editing software is a much easier and IMHO better solution.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

Resist said:


> Still would be better if we could just delete a portion of a recording. It is not just about saving space, it is about removing what we don't want to view again and have to fast forward through. There are many instances when all I want to save is a small part of the news or other TV show.


It's not about that, at all. From the very beginning TiVos have allowed you stop watching the recording and exit, when you come back you will be right where you left off. No FF required. Get a larger hard drive. It almost totally eliminates the issue, and the side benefits are terrific.


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## ThreeSoFar'sBro (Oct 10, 2004)

lrhorer said:


> It's not about that, at all. From the very beginning TiVos have allowed you stop watching the recording and exit, when you come back you will be right where you left off. No FF required. Get a larger hard drive. It almost totally eliminates the issue, and the side benefits are terrific.


AND...if you go from watching a recording to live tv, and want to return to where you were, hit the left arrow and it takes you right back to the play menu so hitting the right arrow picks up right where you left off.


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