Newbie conflict management question

[Will Mulloy]

Hi,

I just got my Tivo last night, and am so happy with it. It only takes
finding one show that you did not know about to pay for itself.

I have asked questions here as an outsider looking in, and you people have
always been prompt and very helpful.

Now that I actually own one, I have run into my first bout with conflict
managemnet. I have set up a season pass for "Switched!" on ABC Family. I
came home, and was dismayed to find a few programs on that channel clipped
off by a few minutes.

No problem, I thought, just pad the starting time.

"Switched!" is usually once a day at 4:30, so padding shouldn't be a
problem.

However, they have a back-to-back marathon Friday of several episodes. I
can't pad the start times, because Tivo complains that the marathon episodes
conflict, despite the fact that they follow one another on the same channel!

Is my only option to temporarily cancel my season pass, then set up a manual
time-based recording for the whole block, losing the ability to delete
individual episodes I might not want, and then re-establish my season pass
when the marathon is over?

Or is there a more elegant solution that a more experienced Tivo user would
have thought of?

On a more positive note, I forced it to do its daily call, and its taking a
hell of a long time, so maybe that means it's downloading the upgrade from
3.2-01-2-240 to 4.0. Any bets? I'm hoping so, as there's no local number in
my area yet.

Thanks for all help,
-Will

[Frank J. Perricone]

On Wed, 02 Jul 2003 18:48:32 -0700, Will Mulloy >
wrote:

> Is my only option to temporarily cancel my season pass, then set up a manual
> time-based recording for the whole block, losing the ability to delete
> individual episodes I might not want, and then re-establish my season pass
> when the marathon is over?

You wouldn't have to cancel your season pass in this case; just schedule
whatever things you want and then allow them to overrule the season pass
when it asks about the conflict.

> Or is there a more elegant solution that a more experienced Tivo user would
> have thought of?

There are two, but none are entirely satisfactory. First: just let it
record without padding. Since they're back to back, the bits you miss from
one show will be on the end of another. Not too great...

Second, and probably most useful: leave the season pass as it is. Go into
the To Do List. You'll probably find it's got every alternate episode
scheduled. Change each one (as a one-off, so it doesn't affect the season
pass) to pad by an entire hour instead of just a few minutes. Then each
"episode" it tapes will have two whole episodes in it. But you still have
the cut-off bits at either end, you just have half as many.

Also, be sure to complain to the folks who run the channel. Know that they
do this *on purpose* to try to keep viewers on their channel, and they have
clocks with enough precision and synchronization to avoid this (they have
to, to get commercials inserted at the right moments and such), so it's not
just slop, it's intentional.

> On a more positive note, I forced it to do its daily call, and its taking a
> hell of a long time, so maybe that means it's downloading the upgrade from
> 3.2-01-2-240 to 4.0. Any bets? I'm hoping so, as there's no local number in
> my area yet.

If you're still at 3.x, you'll get 4.x on your second or third call, so
probably, yes.

--
"It is more uplifting to find the beauty, wonder, spirituality, and
reverence in what we can see, than to imagine they only exist in what we
can't see." - http://hawthorn.mystarband.net/

[Jerry Boyle]

"Frank J. Perricone" > wrote in message
...
> On Wed, 02 Jul 2003 18:48:32 -0700, Will Mulloy >
> wrote:
>
> Also, be sure to complain to the folks who run the channel. Know that they
> do this *on purpose* to try to keep viewers on their channel, and they have
> clocks with enough precision and synchronization to avoid this (they have
> to, to get commercials inserted at the right moments and such), so it's not
> just slop, it's intentional.
>

I'm afraid it's TiVo that has to respond to this rapidly spreading *cancer* -
there's little economic incentive for the networks to curb this practice.

Soft-padding will complicate the user interface and will not completely solve
the problem. But I can't think of any other pragmatic solution.

[ZikZak]

On 7/2/03 6:48 PM in article , Will
Mulloy at wrote:

> However, they have a back-to-back marathon Friday of several episodes. I
> can't pad the start times, because Tivo complains that the marathon episodes
> conflict, despite the fact that they follow one another on the same channel!
>
> Is my only option to temporarily cancel my season pass, then set up a manual
> time-based recording for the whole block, losing the ability to delete
> individual episodes I might not want, and then re-establish my season pass
> when the marathon is over?

Temporarily remove all the padding from the season pass. You'll then get the
entire marathon, and if they're starting off a little early, the worst that
will happen will be that the first minute of show #N will be on the last
minute of the recording for show #N-1.

If you did decide to set up a manual recording instead, there would be no
need to temporarily cancel the season pass. One-time recordings take
precedence over all season passes.

ZZ

[Matt Ackeret]

In article >,
Frank J. Perricone > wrote:
>On Wed, 02 Jul 2003 18:48:32 -0700, Will Mulloy >
>wrote:
>> Or is there a more elegant solution that a more experienced Tivo user would
>> have thought of?
>
....
>Second, and probably most useful: leave the season pass as it is. Go into
>the To Do List. You'll probably find it's got every alternate episode
>scheduled. Change each one (as a one-off, so it doesn't affect the season
>pass) to pad by an entire hour instead of just a few minutes. Then each
>"episode" it tapes will have two whole episodes in it. But you still have
>the cut-off bits at either end, you just have half as many.

Or he could just manually un-pad each show from the to do list.

I do this for some of the MTV shows I record that a SP doesn't always
catch.. i.e. I'll often get a couple episodes in a row rather than one a week..
and I do this by manually un-padding all but the first in the block and the
end in the block. (Though MTV shows actually seem to *end* on time
more often nowadays.. or at least they don't have the entertaining bits over
the credits.. At least for Real World & Road Rules.)