# Anyone else tired of organizing season passes?



## innocentfreak (Aug 25, 2001)

As I sit here adding shows for next week and reorganizing my season pass manager on just one Tivo with 3 to go, I realized I am really sick of doing this. Now I admit I have a ton of season passes and many duplicated over several machines in case of any number of issues but I now dread adjusting my season passes. It doesn't help that I have to do it at my parents houses either every time I visit since they usually realize a show hasn't been recording and they never got the hang of adjusting season passes.

Obviously there are multiple options to solve this problem all with potential issues or problems but there has to a better way than this. I even find myself wandering into HTPC/DVR forums just to see what other people are doing, but I don't want to give up my Tivo. I guess I just keep wondering if and when Tivo will offer a better option that individual season pass managers per box especially as multiple Tivos in a single house become more and more common.


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## bkdtv (Jan 9, 2003)

Why would you keep reorganizing your season passes? Are you adding new series programs all the time? I modify my season pass order when I add a new series or wishlist, but aside from that, I don't touch it.

I'm sure you know this, but for the benefit of others: While organizing season passes, make sure you don't click any options, or you'll see the "Please wait..." screen while the TiVo processes the changes. Always make any changes to specific season passes *before* or *after* you're done organizing.

I'm not aware of any other DVR with a better method. Most have simply copied TiVo. Moxi does allow you to define a priority number as part of the initial season pass setup, potentially eliminating the need to separately visit the series manager -- you might like that. Some older DVRs do not offer any real conflict management at all; they simply record programs in the order the recordings were created (priority to either first or last recordings made).

I do wish the TiVo had some sort of "automatic" setting which would always record the maximum number of programs -- while still observing the priority list for instances when no re-airings exist--- based on the fact that some programs are shown multiple times a week and others are not. With the current implementation, users must know to place their ABC/FOX/CBS/NBC season passes at the top of the priority list to maximize the number of programs that get recorded...and many outside this forum do not understand that.


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## innocentfreak (Aug 25, 2001)

bkdtv said:


> Why would you keep reorganizing your season passes? Are you adding new series programs all the time? I modify my season pass order when I add a new series or wishlist, but aside from that, I don't touch it.


I reorganize my season passes every weekend for new shows the next week. For example this week I added about 10 shows which start this week. Adding them obviously isn't the problem. The problem is getting them where I want them to avoid conflicts. Half the time I am tempted these days to delete all season passes so I can readd them in the order I need them versus shifting everything. If I had 30 shows this wouldn't be a problem but when you break a 100 it gets old quickly especially when you have to do each of the 4 Tivos individually. I just wish Tivo would do it for me or at least let me do it online and upload it similar to the Netflix queue where you just drag and drop or number the movies.



bkdtv said:


> I'm not aware of any other DVR with a better method. Most have simply copied TiVo. Moxi does allow you to define a priority number as part of the initial season pass setup, potentially eliminating the need to separately visit the series manager -- you might like that. Some older DVRs do not offer any real conflict management at all; they simply record programs in the order the recordings were created (priority to either first or last recordings made).


I am seriously at this point considering building a 6 tuner HTPC to handle just primetime which would solve a bulk of the conflicts not to mention not having to deal with reorganizing the season passes.


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## bareyb (Dec 1, 2000)

I feel your pain. The "Please Wait" time is unbearable. I don't mind the way it organizes things, I just wish it could be done faster. A _lot_ faster.


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## argicida (Feb 17, 2009)

It would be so nice if you could download your list into a spread sheet, clean it up and put it back.


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## wmcbrine (Aug 2, 2003)

I don't think there are new shows every week... anyway, normally I just let my new SPs rest at the bottom of the list. Only if there's a conflict (i.e., new SP is not picking anything up) will I bother to rearrange them.


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## balboa dave (Jan 19, 2004)

Here's a thread I started two and a half years ago explaining how I do it. It might help a little.


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## restart88 (Mar 9, 2002)

Speaking of reorganizing I get very irritated when special programming, especially sports, change the programming schedule around. If I didn't know an event was going to interfere and change the schedule around (sometimes at the last minute) to adjust recording times I'd just lose my show.

I know there's currently not a lot that can be done about that. The only upside is a lot of shows are now available as a pay per episode the day after airing. So at least that is an option. 

But it does seem to me that somehow a website could be used to coordinate all your DVRs in one shot. I have used Yahoo to schedule some recordings, so technically it would seem this is possible. Just a matter of someone willing to write the software to do it, i would think.

But I wonder just how many people actually have more than 2 DVRs. Those who have multiple DVRs seem to be the most vocal, and using a website would benefit them most, but I'm sure there are even people with just 1 DVR who would like to make their changes online instead of navigating via the remote.


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## jsmeeker (Apr 2, 2001)

I don't reorganize as often as the OP or add as many new shows on a weekly basis as the OP, but I do have to rearrange. It's not just when I add a new one. It can also be required when shows that already have an SP change time slots. It can be somewhat problematic when you have a single tuner TiVo.


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## elwaylite (Apr 23, 2006)

I only reorganize when I add a new show, and I do it right after I add, dont see an issue. I also delete Season Passes when the show is finished for the year, and re-add when it comes back.


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## timr_42 (Oct 14, 2001)

I do it twice year. With 3 tivos it takes a while. I always try and get network SP's to the top and cable (because of repeats) at the bottom. It's the "please wait" that keeps me from doing it more.


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## jlb (Dec 13, 2001)

I like the idea of being able to centralize the SPM amongst multiple TiVos on the same home network.

But that does raise an interesting problem.....Let's assume most, if not all, of your TiVos are connected wirelessly. What happens if for some reason one or more of your TiVos loses its wireless connection to the network. Then, the central SPM might only see two (or whatever) tuners.

But, if you could write code that allowed for a central SPM, someone should be able to write code that says "I normally have X tuners and right now I only see some of them. I need to send an e-mail alert to <email address>.

That.........would be great. Think about it. You could set up a whole host of "flags" that you could have your TiVo email you about if any of the flag situations is encountered.

BTW, I don't organize my SPs much. But I do check the To Do list usually at least once per week to make sure things are not messed up (like a show switching nights one week or a scheduled program length that has changed and resulted in a clip or non-record event).

It's a small price to pay for the benefit of having TiVo in the first place.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

innocentfreak said:


> I reorganize my season passes every weekend for new shows the next week. For example this week I added about 10 shows which start this week. Adding them obviously isn't the problem.


how many weeks out of the year do you add new shows?
Having over 100 season passes is rare and if all 100 were still active shows I would say you were one of a kind.

I would say having between 30 to 50 on a TiVo is more the norm for a heavy user of a dual tuner box.

something I identified as an option to help. The beta search can give you instant conflict result - if they tied in the online ability to select from any tiVo on your account then from one TiVo you can find the DVR to record a new show on.


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## Bierboy (Jun 12, 2004)

ZeoTiVo said:


> how many weeks out of the year do you add new shows?
> Having over 100 season passes is rare and if all 100 were still active shows I would say you were one of a kind.
> 
> I would say having between 30 to 50 on a TiVo is more the norm for a heavy user of a dual tuner box.
> ...


I consider myself a moderate user, and I have 25 SPs. And I thought THAT was a lot.  Several of those are currently not active (e.g., Eureka, Monk, etc.).


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## magnus (Nov 12, 2004)

This goes back to the one feature that Tivo should be working on.... cooperative scheduling. If a Tivo has a season pass for which it cannot record a particular episode then it should check the network for other Tivos... if one is found that can record the episode... then it should record it.... then later it should auto-MVR it to the Tivo that has the season pass.


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## innocentfreak (Aug 25, 2001)

ZeoTiVo said:


> how many weeks out of the year do you add new shows?
> Having over 100 season passes is rare and if all 100 were still active shows I would say you were one of a kind.


I would say pretty much every week. There is the occasional off week where there are no new shows but it always seems like those weeks are the weeks where shows move timeslots resulting in new conflicts to deal with.

Yeah at least 100 of the shows are active. I do delete shows when the season pass is over but with shows talking midseason breaks these days I don't delete those since I sometimes miss when they return.


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## MikeAndrews (Jan 17, 2002)

bareyb said:


> I feel your pain. The "Please Wait" time is unbearable. I don't mind the way it organizes things, I just wish it could be done faster. A _lot_ faster.


There's no reason for the TiVo software to be constantly analyzing conflicts when you haven't left the "Manage Season Passes" screen yet. All that is needed is an option to tell it to suspend conflict management until you're done. It could just warn you (once!) if you go to "View upcoming episodes' that what you see as scheduled recordings may not be valid.

It can do the sorting job when you leave "Manage Season Passes" so what you see on the To Do List will be right when you get there.

Being that I'm just on the cusp of having multiple live TiVos again, I agree that TiVo should set up a way on tivo.com to upload and copy (edit!) Season Passes on the web and between Tivos on an account.


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## MikeAndrews (Jan 17, 2002)

innocentfreak said:


> ...
> Yeah at least 100 of the shows are active. I do delete shows when the season pass is over but with shows talking midseason breaks these days I don't delete those since I sometimes miss when they return.


I was thinking we should start a thread on who has the most Season Pass entries. I have 123 with some intentional dupes and about 12 Wishlist entries. (Lately I've been setting a Wishlist for old movies I see mentioned that I've never seen. Once in a while I get it.)

I have left Season Passes in place for series that cable channels run on occasional bunches or marathons. Now that I can collect some of those thanks to kmttg I can delete them once I know I have the whole series.

A recent example: I caught only a few minutes of "A Personal Journey with Martin Scorcese" on Ovation. Set a Season Pass that has been lurking for almost a year. It just got me what I think are all 3 2 hour shows. No. You can't get them. No more episodes for maybe another year...  .. but now *I* can delete the season pass.


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## porges (Feb 28, 2001)

bkdtv said:


> I do wish the TiVo had some sort of "automatic" setting which would always record the maximum number of programs -- while still observing the priority list for instances when no re-airings exist--- based on the fact that some programs are shown multiple times a week and others are not.


I'll never find the source for this, but years ago someone (possibly from TiVo, possibly not) claimed that there were two reasons not to do this. One was that the problem is actually intractable in the general case (NP-complete, for compsci people). The other is that TiVo was afraid of more tech support calls, because now the rules for "what gets recorded when" would be more complicated. And what if it tried to record a later broadcast of a higher-priority show, and then lost signal or the network de-scheduled it?


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## MikeAndrews (Jan 17, 2002)

porges said:


> I'll never find the source for this, but years ago someone (possibly from TiVo, possibly not) claimed that there were two reasons not to do this. One was that the problem is actually intractable in the general case (NP-complete, for compsci people). The other is that TiVo was afraid of more tech support calls, because now the rules for "what gets recorded when" would be more complicated. And what if it tried to record a later broadcast of a higher-priority show, and then lost signal or the network de-scheduled it?


That's another one. You could solve the "no useful description" problem with "record only once in 24 hours." And yeah, I know how to fix "The Daily Show." Even that still gets you a dupe every once in a while and exposes you to missing shows if the Trib never updates the description.

How hard is it to just increment the show number in the listings? "Charlie Rose" does that to great effect for TiVo users.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

innocentfreak said:


> I would say pretty much every week. There is the occasional off week where there are no new shows but it always seems like those weeks are the weeks where shows move timeslots resulting in new conflicts to deal with.
> 
> Yeah at least 100 of the shows are active. I do delete shows when the season pass is over but with shows talking midseason breaks these days I don't delete those since I sometimes miss when they return.


If I was doing major work on my season passes every week then I would get tired of it as well. Is there any way wishlists would get the shows you want with less hassle?


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## MikeAndrews (Jan 17, 2002)

innocentfreak said:


> I would say pretty much every week. There is the occasional off week where there are no new shows but it always seems like those weeks are the weeks where shows move timeslots resulting in new conflicts to deal with.
> 
> Yeah at least 100 of the shows are active. I do delete shows when the season pass is over but with shows talking midseason breaks these days I don't delete those since I sometimes miss when they return.


I think I'm going to mitigate some of the conflicts by moving some season passes for SD shows to the SD Series 2 TiVo and still have them where I want them with MRV.

Hey, I can record 4 things at once. Somebody stop me.


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## bareyb (Dec 1, 2000)

balboa dave said:


> Here's a thread I started two and a half years ago explaining how I do it. It might help a little.


Very clever. So far I haven't had to go to that extreme but it's nice to know there's another method out there I hadn't thought of. For now I get away with putting all the Network Shows at the top half of my Priority list and the shows that have repeat airings in the lower half. I have two TiVo's and so far that's worked out well for me, although this year, I seem to be running into more conflicts now that the Networks have started taking DVR's into account when they counter program.


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## Slider10 (Aug 5, 2003)

A web interface would be nice. I think that would make things much easier.

In addition, I've wished for years that TiVo had a 'migration' service that allowed you to migrate your SP's to a new TiVo just by logging into your account. There is nothing more frustrating than writing down all my SP's and their settings to then set them up one-by-one on a new unit. I feel like this wouldn't be hard to implement given that the unit has our account info and checks in every 20 minutes.


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## TolloNodre (Nov 3, 2007)

Hmm - this reminds me of a friend who grew more and more convinced he could 'archive' everything on the internet and threw more and more money, time and machinery to ensure he 'archived' it all. 

Of course, he never used in of it since he was so busy making sure he 'captured' it. Eventually he was fired from his university computing job and had to move in with his sister.


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## janry (Jan 2, 2003)

I probably can't offer any real advice as I can't imagine having to record so much that all that recording capability would make managing season passes such a job.

A dual tuner HD is plenty for our needs. I've never needed to record more than 2 things at one time.

I don't know what kind of recording you do, but can you assign a primary network to each TiVo. CBS season passes to TiVo 1. NBC to TiVo 2. ABC to TiVo 3. Fox to TiVo 4. Then assign secondary recording chore to each of them.


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## innocentfreak (Aug 25, 2001)

janry said:


> I probably can't offer any real advice as I can't imagine having to record so much that all that recording capability would make managing season passes such a job.
> 
> A dual tuner HD is plenty for our needs. I've never needed to record more than 2 things at one time.
> 
> I don't know what kind of recording you do, but can you assign a primary network to each TiVo. CBS season passes to TiVo 1. NBC to TiVo 2. ABC to TiVo 3. Fox to TiVo 4. Then assign secondary recording chore to each of them.


Unfortunately I am on DTV so no MRV which means if I set up each Tivo dedicated to specific channels I have change rooms everytime I want to watch a show from a different network otherwise I would consider doing this.

The more I think about it the more I just want a central setup with all my season passes with enough tuners where any box can access and playblack the shows. Still trying to figure out the best way to accomplish this though so for now I will just spend a couple of hours every week fixing season passes and conflicts.


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## MikeAndrews (Jan 17, 2002)

TolloNodre said:


> Hmm - this reminds me of a friend who grew more and more convinced he could 'archive' everything on the internet and threw more and more money, time and machinery to ensure he 'archived' it all.
> 
> Of course, he never used in of it since he was so busy making sure he 'captured' it. Eventually he was fired from his university computing job and had to move in with his sister.




It really is being done! http://archive.org

My buddy says he's volunteering to backup Netflix's inventory. 

I used to record stuff on tape that I never watched. Now I have around 3TB of it.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

innocentfreak said:


> Unfortunately I am on DTV so no MRV


no MRV and 100s of channels does change everything. Still I wonde if wishlists would help you out


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## Schmye Bubbula (Oct 14, 2004)

Two points:

- I thought that one's season passes and some other info *are* backed-up to the Mother Ship if one has enabled either KidZone or some other TiVo service I can't remember at the moment. I recall someone posting a while back that he bought a new TiVo and was amazed to see his old TiVo's season passes get restored after his Guided Setup.

- Would one of the TiVo employees who hang-out here please chime-in and tell us why a preemptive multitasking OS like Linux (which I understand is TiVo's OS) can't resort the season pass reordering to the schedule in the background, instead of making us wait? (Grrrr!)


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## restart88 (Mar 9, 2002)

magnus said:


> This goes back to the one feature that Tivo should be working on.... cooperative scheduling. If a Tivo has a season pass for which it cannot record a particular episode then it should check the network for other Tivos... if one is found that can record the episode... then it should record it.... then later it should auto-MVR it to the Tivo that has the season pass.


Seems to me it would actually be better for the consumer to make a 4 tuner Tivo and distribute from 1 box to the entire home network of TVs by some method. Of course that probably wouldn't be the best idea for Tivo's revenue stream unless they determine that having more people with 1 super Tivo is better than having less people with many Tivos.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

jlb said:


> But that does raise an interesting problem.....Let's assume most, if not all, of your TiVos are connected wirelessly. What happens if for some reason one or more of your TiVos loses its wireless connection to the network.


I'd make it so that each Tivo had its own Season Pass list (in its own order), as a 'backup'. If it could connect to the 'master' Tivo when it did the To Do list recalculation.. then it would use that (and the SP Manager would say a user friendly version of "this list is being overridden by the list on <my main Tivo>".



Bierboy said:


> I consider myself a moderate user, and I have 25 SPs. And I thought THAT was a lot.  Several of those are currently not active (e.g., Eureka, Monk, etc.).


I'd call that a minor user!! Heck, I have way over 100, though a bunch of them are ARWLs for various musicians and such. Plus, for some things I have SPs on multiple channels (some PBS shows are easier to do with multiple SPs than ARWLs since they have generic names).



innocentfreak said:


> I would say pretty much every week. There is the occasional off week where there are no new shows but it always seems like those weeks are the weeks where shows move timeslots resulting in new conflicts to deal with.


I still honestly don't quite get what you mean that you're doing. I thought I was OCD, when I check the To Do list (*usually* daily, but now that I have many tuners, I sometimes let it go)... but even if I add new shows, I just rearrange THAT SP, not all the rest.


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## innocentfreak (Aug 25, 2001)

mattack said:


> I still honestly don't quite get what you mean that you're doing. I thought I was OCD, when I check the To Do list (*usually* daily, but now that I have many tuners, I sometimes let it go)... but even if I add new shows, I just rearrange THAT SP, not all the rest.


I pretty much sit down with a homemade word document with a tv schedule for each day Sunday through Saturday. I use thefutoncritic.com to go through and add new shows, move shows that need moving, or anything else that needs correction on the schedule. I usually add the shows on the first Tivo while doing this to confirm timeslot, length and also potential multiple airings. Then I go through on each Tivo and shift the new passes into position for conflicts and priority. I have primetime shows on top in order by timeslot Sunday through Saturday on 2 Tivos while shifting order for conflicts and cable shows on top in the same order on another.

I think that is about it.  I don't rearrange all the season passes but with new shows I usually have to play with the old shows some.


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## magnus (Nov 12, 2004)

Sure, only if you want to screw off the investment you have already made. Yes, they might also do something like a 4 tuner Tivo but where does that end?



restart88 said:


> Seems to me it would actually be better for the consumer to make a 4 tuner Tivo and distribute from 1 box to the entire home network of TVs by some method. Of course that probably wouldn't be the best idea for Tivo's revenue stream unless they determine that having more people with 1 super Tivo is better than having less people with many Tivos.


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## innocentfreak (Aug 25, 2001)

magnus said:


> Sure, only if you want to screw off the investment you have already made. Yes, they might also do something like a 4 tuner Tivo but where does that end?


Well from my limited research so far it seems 4 digital tuners tend to be the limit. This is a software limit in Vista which can be bypassed by registry hacks but I don't think there is the limit in Linux software. It isn't that common and people report never being able to get systems with more than 4 digital tuners working reliably. I haven't found anyone yet who has more than 4 tuners working successfully but like I said my research has been limited so far.

Personally I still like the idea of a Tivo box with the option to add in tuners even if it requires an additional harddrive for every two tuners or at least the option to order a Tivo with your choice of the number of tuners. Tivo could add a dollar to the monthly fee for every pair of tuners added to the box or $100 per pair to lifetime. You would still need regular Tivo HD to stream shows to another room.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

innocentfreak said:


> I pretty much sit down with a homemade word document with a tv schedule for each day Sunday through Saturday. I use thefutoncritic.com to go through and add new shows, move shows that need moving, or anything else that needs correction on the schedule. I usually add the shows on the first Tivo while doing this to confirm timeslot, length and also potential multiple airings. Then I go through on each Tivo and shift the new passes into position for conflicts and priority. I have primetime shows on top in order by timeslot Sunday through Saturday on 2 Tivos while shifting order for conflicts and cable shows on top in the same order on another.


That sounds vaguely like what I did looong ago when I had premium channels (e.g. HBO). I would get online data and skim through it and find movies I hadn't seen yet.

But really, I think you just need MORE TUNERS. I'm probably at least as TV obsessed as you are, but now that I have 4 'main' tuners (Tivo S3/HD tuners) and a S1 and a Toshiba XS32 analog tuner, I pretty much just let Tivo 'figure it out', and check the To Do list at least several times a week. As long as prime time shows are ahead of shows that are repeated, mostly it 'just works'. Heck, the only problems I have are usually due to manually padding virtually every show a minute before and after in the SP.


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## ciper (Nov 4, 2004)

Why are all of you doing this through the GUI? The TiVoWebPlus interface is _way_ easier and doesn't tie up the TV! You dont even have to wait for the changes to apply before moving to another function.


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## wmcbrine (Aug 2, 2003)

Well ciper, I don't think most of us have hacked TiVos, which we'd need in order to run TiVoWeb. All of TiVo's current models require PROM mods to even get started on that, don't they? I have two S3's and a 540, so, forget it. (I also have an HR10-250 and an HDVR2, but they're out of service. I haven't run TiVoWeb since then.) With TTG, TTCB and HME -- and being on Fios, with no CCI -- 95&#37; of the old (read, DirecTivo) motivations for hacking are already taken care of.


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## magnus (Nov 12, 2004)

I still miss TWP. It would be nice if Tivo had an authorized product like that for things like creating your own folders, scheduling recordings, displaying the NPL, and more. I like to do these things without turning on the TV.


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## reneg (Jun 19, 2002)

With two Tivo HDs, what I have found to work best for me is to prioritize by network per night per tuner. What this does is avoid a lot of conflicts and clipping. I prioritize the broadcast networks before the cable networks because the cable networks are more likely to replay the same program later the same night. Then once a week, I check the todo list and go through the online grid guide to make adjustments or pick up new shows. I have about 60 season passes on the primary Tivo & 40 on the secondary Tivo.


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## Shanezam203 (Jul 28, 2007)

I don't do much to manage my season passes and I have 10 or 15. 

I think they are pretty organized, with the dual tuner now I rairly see conflicts.


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## realityboy (Jun 13, 2003)

I have usually around 120 season passes or so on one Series 3, and then I use my Series 2 for conflicts. Each week, I'll go through the prime time stuff that is not repeated and whatever conflicts, I can record on the Series 2 then MRV. If its a 4 way conflict, then I just don't record it. I guess it would be harder without MRV. The cable shows have a lower priority so I just make sure that one of the showings are recorded. I don't make any adjustments to my season passes based on time or channel otherwise. I make it simple 1 is my favorite and so on. Once a year the entire list gets reviewed and reordered. I couldn't rearrange my season passes every week.


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## ciper (Nov 4, 2004)

wmcbrine said:


> Well ciper, I don't think most of us have hacked TiVos, which we'd need in order to run TiVoWeb. All of TiVo's current models require PROM mods to even get started on that, don't they?


Yes it is true that a prom mod is needed. It really isn't that hard and I know of at least two people offering this service. Most any TV repair technician could install the socket as well. I did my own and I barely know how to solder.



wmcbrine said:


> I have two S3's and a 540, so, forget it. (I also have an HR10-250 and an HDVR2, but they're out of service. I haven't run TiVoWeb since then.) With TTG, TTCB and HME -- and being on Fios, with no CCI -- 95% of the old (read, DirecTivo) motivations for hacking are already taken care of.


But what about guide data manipulation, two hour liveTV buffer or significantly improved transfer rates even with the inbuilt wired NIC?


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

Most people don't care about those 'features' man, it's just not worth the effort for the hack. wmcbrine is a well-known Tivo dev here and if he doesn't care, why should I? Your reasons are your own, of course.


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## magnus (Nov 12, 2004)

Ok, but it would be nice to have a Tivo sanctioned web interface.



slowbiscuit said:


> Most people don't care about those 'features' man, it's just not worth the effort for the hack. wmcbrine is a well-known Tivo dev here and if he doesn't care, why should I? Your reasons are your own, of course.


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## ciper (Nov 4, 2004)

slowbiscuit said:


> Most people don't care about those 'features' man, it's just not worth the effort for the hack. wmcbrine is a well-known Tivo dev here and if he doesn't care, why should I? Your reasons are your own, of course.


I would like to point out that the overall effort would be reduced with the hack. Right now you are using the painfully slow way of organizing season passes which also happens to tie up the TV for minutes at a time. With TiVoWebPlus installed you could do it all through the web interface which processes instantly*. Heck not only do you not have to have the TV turned on but you don't even have to be home to do it!

*The changes apply instantly but it takes a while for the TiVo to update the Todo list.


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## argicida (Feb 17, 2009)

realityboy said:


> I have usually around 120 season passes or so on one Series 3, ...


That's interesting in itself - my Hi Def DirecTV DVRs is limited to 50 season passes. That a serious pro-Tivo argument.


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## TiVoEvan74 (Sep 11, 2004)

1) Web based rearrangement would be great!

2) You can move all the passes around and get them into the order you want--BEFORE having it process them all. You don't have to do them one at a time, and WAIT after each one. Just move to the up/down arrow, move the show where you want it, then LEFT arrow back to the titles, find another one, go to its arrow and move it where you want it, etc. Just don't hit the RIGHT arrow off the up/down or it will start processing them all.

3) I'd like a pop-up notice of conflicts instead of manually having to check the history/upcoming list. I'm not sure how to implement that, however!

By the way, if writing down all the passes in a spreadsheet or word document as a backup for safe-keeping is going to take too long, someone years ago suggested taking digicam pics of the screens as a record.


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## Schmye Bubbula (Oct 14, 2004)

I still wants to know...


Schmye Bubbula said:


> - Would one of the TiVo employees who hang-out here please chime-in and tell us why a preemptive multitasking OS like Linux (which I understand is TiVo's OS) can't resort the season pass reordering to the schedule in the background, instead of making us wait? (Grrrr!)


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## bareyb (Dec 1, 2000)

Shuffling the order of Season Passes is the one function that TiVo does really poorly. It's almost unusable in it's current iteration. I too have over 100 SP's and rearranging them is an exercise in frustration. It's faster now than it was on my series 1 but it's still waaaaay too slow to make it a feature that's in any way convenient to use. I dread moving anything in there because it locks up the TV for so long.


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## jgaermom (Oct 22, 2005)

I use a spreadsheet to check for confilicts and schedule my 4 tuners. I rarely change my season passes, just click Don't record this episode and add in whatever I want to havge higher priority. My son thinks that is over the top. Glad to see I am not the only obsessed one here. Actually I rarely record more than 3 shows at once but since I don't trust my expander I double record everything on my s3 (on my 2 s2s) so that if the expander or hard drive dies I still won't lose the programs.


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## ciper (Nov 4, 2004)

Schmye Bubbula said:


> - Would one of the TiVo employees who hang-out here please chime-in and tell us why a preemptive multitasking OS like Linux (which I understand is TiVo's OS) can't resort the season pass reordering to the schedule in the background, instead of making us wait? (Grrrr!)


It is able to resort the seasons pass in the background,,, you just have to use the TiVoWebPlus interface rather than the official GUI.

Another advantage to TWP is that you can easily save or repply your season passes. I _hate_ using the on screen TiVo keyboard.


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## Schmye Bubbula (Oct 14, 2004)

ciper said:


> It is able to resort the seasons pass in the background,,, you just have to use the TiVoWebPlus interface rather than the official GUI....


Oh, fer christ's sake! This completely misses the point and doesn't answer the question.


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## E94Allen (Oct 16, 2005)

Schmye Bubbula said:


> I still wants to know...


TiVo has considered it but decided against it because it would cause the problem of sort not said what kind.

I read it from other post somewhere don't remember where.


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## Schmye Bubbula (Oct 14, 2004)

E94Allen said:


> ...because it would cause the problem of sort not said what kind....


Thanks for the reply, and please don't take this the wrong way, but I can't make out what you're trying to say - I can't comprehend the grammar. Please elaborate. Thanks!
In any event, if what you're saying is something along the lines of the Mother Ship not wanting us to be able to go back into the Season Pass Manager and attempt other edits while it's in the middle of sorting, I understand that completely: it could cause a real mess. It's a problem all database managers address. But the solution isn't to (rudely and inconsiderately!) lock us out of all other TiVo functionality, but rather to politely put up an alert if attempting to re-enter the Season Pass Manager: "Busy sorting - please try later in a few minutes," letting us go do something else in the meantime.


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## ADent (Jan 7, 2000)

Are you guys getting the Please Wait just at the end or in the middle of sorting? If you do it properly you can move the SPs around and just get Please Wait at the end.

Two tuners helps A LOT (though it sounds like many of you need 3 or 4)

You guys record a lot of TV.


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## Schmye Bubbula (Oct 14, 2004)

ADent said:


> Are you guys getting the Please Wait just at the end or in the middle of sorting? If you do it properly you can move the SPs around and just get Please Wait at the end....


Right, at the end of multiple resorts, when exiting Season Pass Manager. I don't think anyone is reporting differently.


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## bareyb (Dec 1, 2000)

ADent said:


> Are you guys getting the Please Wait just at the end or in the middle of sorting? If you do it properly you can move the SPs around and just get Please Wait at the end.


Please elaborate


Schmye Bubbula said:


> Right, at the end of multiple resorts, when exiting Season Pass Manager. I don't think anyone is reporting differently.


I could swear my TiVo puts up the "Please Wait" with every single change... I don't recall being able to shift a bunch of them around and THEN have it do the "Please Wait" for all of them all at once... Has that changed?


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## innocentfreak (Aug 25, 2001)

bareyb said:


> Please elaborate
> 
> I could swear my TiVo puts up the "Please Wait" with every single change... I don't recall being able to shift a bunch of them around and THEN have it do the "Please Wait" for all of them all at once... Has that changed?


It has been this way for a while. The only reason it will go into please wait is if you select a show to change recording options in after you have moved something or accidentally hit left to back out while shifting shows. Otherwise you can shift till your done.


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## bareyb (Dec 1, 2000)

innocentfreak said:


> It has been this way for a while. The only reason it will go into please wait is if you select a show to change recording options in after you have moved something or accidentally hit left to back out while shifting shows. Otherwise you can shift till your done.


I didn't know they changed that. It used to "Please Wait" every single time I moved _anything_. This is a big improvement. Now at least I can shift them all around in the evening just before I shut off the TV. Let it "Please Wait" after I go to bed. Cool. Learn something new every day. Thanks! I have some SP's to rearrange.


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## E94Allen (Oct 16, 2005)

Schmye Bubbula said:


> Thanks for the reply, and please don't take this the wrong way, but I can't make out what you're trying to say - I can't comprehend the grammar. Please elaborate. Thanks!
> In any event, if what you're saying is something along the lines of the Mother Ship not wanting us to be able to go back into the Season Pass Manager and attempt other edits while it's in the middle of sorting, I understand that completely: it could cause a real mess. It's a problem all database managers address. But the solution isn't to (rudely and inconsiderately!) lock us out of all other TiVo functionality, but rather to politely put up an alert if attempting to re-enter the Season Pass Manager: "Busy sorting - please try later in a few minutes," letting us go do something else in the meantime.


No need to elaborate since you answered to your own question and I like your answer better.
You said "letting us go do something else in the meantime" would it be considered as sorting in background?


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## Schmye Bubbula (Oct 14, 2004)

E94Allen said:


> ...You said "letting us go do something else in the meantime" would it be considered as sorting in background?


Yes indeedy. In fact, if TiVo's OS indeed is Linux, then I believe that under its preemptive multitasking scheme it's impossible for any process to completely take over the computer in the first place, as once was possible under cooperative multitasking platforms like pre-Win95, pre-Mac OS X, and Novell Netware. (Even if one does a "renice" on the command line to change a process' system scheduling priority to the min value of 20.) So TiVo's locking us out of everything else during Season Pass resorting is completely artificial and only a cosmetic GUI thing. It's not well thought out and seems quite user-hostile on the Mother Ship's part, unless I'm missing something.


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## ciper (Nov 4, 2004)

Schmye Bubbula said:


> Oh, fer christ's sake! This completely misses the point and doesn't answer the question.


Sure it answers the question, you just don't like the answer. 
The TiVo is able to perform database manipulation in the background. It does it all the time. TiVo would rather try to get more money than fix existing issues. This SP sorting problem has existed for 10 years.


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