TiVo Tips

[nrc]

With the race season approaching it's time for some of you TiVo newbies to start enjoying the racefan bliss that is TiVo (ideally with DirecTV).

I was just writing a note with some suggestions for another new CART fan/TiVo owner and I thought I would share these tips with the group.

The good news is that it looks like they've changed the way they list the races in the guide.

It used to be that they listed everything as "Auto Racing" and you had to use a Wish List to pick out just the stuff you wanted. Now they have CART events listed as "CART Racing." So now you can pick up almost everything with a normal Season Pass for "CART Racing". Of course we only have one race worth of data to look at so far, so we'll have to keep an eye on it.

Right now, the only thing that doesn't catch is the pre-race show, but that's actually a good thing. The guide data for the pre-race show has always been wrong. It shows up like it's the same show every race. Because of that it won't let you set up a Season Pass for it. Instead you need to set up a seperate wish list for "CART PRE RACE" and set the option to "Record All With Duplicates". If you don't set the "record all" option it will only record it once a month because it thinks it's the same program every time.

The other reason to do it this way is padding. You'll probably want to put some padding at the end of the "CART Racing" season pass in case an event runs long, but you never want padding for the pre-race, since it runs into the actual race. Of course if you have DirecTV with TiVo and both tuners active that's not a big problem unless you have a third conflict. But in any case you should make sure that your "CART Racing" Season Pass has higher priority in the Season Pass Manager than the Pre Race wishlist.

Unfortunately, not all racing has it's own listing yet. NASCAR does, but World Rally and Trans Am still show up as "Auto Racing" and you'll have to catch them with a wish list. I don't see any F1 listings yet so I don't know how they'll show up.

The most important thing is to check your "To Do" list from time to time to make sure the programs you're expecting to record are showing up as scheduled to record. Once you see that things are showing up as expected you don't have to check so often, but it's usually a good idea to check from time to time. TiVo has been extremely reliable for me, but it relies on accurate guide data. If the guide data changes or starts coming out wrong TiVo can't just guess what it's really supposed to do.

[WickerBill]

I ... can't ... wait.

nrc, tell me this: it seems ChampCar races run notoriously late, and you've already mentioned padding a little bit. But what of those races that last 45 minutes too long? I'm almost tempted to just put a note on my calendar to manually set up recording for pre-race, race, and whatever show is on after it, just to make sure I get everything.

Thoughts?

[Napoleon]

Originally posted by WickerBill
nrc, tell me this: it seems ChampCar races run notoriously late, and you've already mentioned padding a little bit. But what of those races that last 45 minutes too long?

I don't have TiVo, but years ago I started programing anyting I was taping to run several hours after it was suppose to end if it was live, or if it was on ESPN, even though my VCR has an option where I could just plug a program number into it to program it.

(humourous note, the first time I had a problem with a show getting cut off early was a movie I once taped of a cable channel, like TNN or something like that, which started and ended their movies 10 after the hour, something I was not familiar with. After watching 1 hour 50 minutes of the movie it suddenly ended because I had set my machine to tape from and to the top of the hour. was I POed)

[mnkywrch]

NASCAR's been a nightmare - almost not worth setting.

I have a season pass for "NASCAR Racing" - but that includes the trucks and BGN.

But it's for four different channels - Fox, FX, FSN, and Speed.

Also, it doesn't include Happy Hour practice - a different wish list entirely.

:shakehead

I'm not sure whether a Wish List for "NASCAR Winston Cup" would be better or not.

I caught the F3000 races with a Wish List in the category of Sports/Racing and the keywords of "Formula" and "3000".

[nrc]

Originally posted by WickerBill
nrc, tell me this: it seems ChampCar races run notoriously late, and you've already mentioned padding a little bit. But what of those races that last 45 minutes too long?

Since they've switched to 2.5 hour time slots I don't think they've run over nearly as often and usually not by much. But it's definitely something to consider.

By default I have 30 minutes of padding on the Season Pass. Most of the time I'm actually going to start watching the race about 15-20 minutes after it starts anyway, so if there's any indication that it may run over I can go in on the fly and extend the recording (without giving anything away).

If I'm going to be away when the race is recording I consider the circumstances. For a natural terrain road course I'm pretty comfortable with a half hour of padding on top of the 2.5 hour timeslot. For an oval or temporary street course I may extend it to an hour or more depending on the weather forecast.

Another thing to consider is that if it's a network TV race you probably won't get much beyond the 2.5 hour timeslot anyway.

Remember that if you go in through the ToDo list and adjust the padding there it affects just that episode instead of the whole season pass. So it's easy to have a half hour default and then change it for specific cases.

If we're tight on space I will sometimes do what you mentioned, turn off padding and schedule the following shows. That makes it easy to free up the extra space if it turns out the padding wasn't needed.

[nrc]

Originally posted by mnkywrch
NASCAR's been a nightmare - almost not worth setting.

They tried to help this season by giving it it's own program title "NASCAR Racing" but there are so many things that fall under that that it's probably not as helpful as the new "CART Racing" title is.

Of course "CART Racing" also picks up the Stars of Tommorrow, so maybe the Atlantics and Barber Dodge will end up under that title also. For me that would be great.

[mnkywrch]

Originally posted by nrc
They tried to help this season by giving it it's own program title "NASCAR Racing" but there are so many things that fall under that that it's probably not as helpful as the new "CART Racing" title is.

Of course "CART Racing" also picks up the Stars of Tommorrow, so maybe the Atlantics and Barber Dodge will end up under that title also. For me that would be great.

Another thing that bugs me: I have a Season Pass for Speed News, but it doesn't have the information to show which is a "new" episode and which is a repeat.

Same behavior as RPM2Night.

I've pretty much resigned myself to checking the To Do List every other day, myself, for those and other programs...

[JoeBob]

Here's more about the change to the racing descriptions: http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?postid=975785#post975785

For NASCAR, a wishlist is probably better than a season pass, as a season pass only covers one channel, while a wishlist will cover them all. Or, you could make yourself 4 season passes. But, with a wishlist, it should be smart enough not to record a replay on FX of a race already recorded on Fox.

As for Speed News, I set it to only keep one episode, and gave it a pretty low priority. If I miss the Sunday morning Speed News, I'll lose it, but the previews will have since become irrelavant, as the races happened, and the important stuff will be covered again anyway.

[mnkywrch]

Kay, I've ditched my four Season Passes for one Advanced Wish List with "NASCAR" and "Winston" as required words.

Other than one shopping show, it caught everything - even Happy Hour, which is titled "NASCAR Winston Cup Happy Hour" instead of "NASCAR Racing".

The thing that kills me is our Season Pass for Trading Spaces. When you've got a 20 hour TiVo (effectively 9 hours of space), 4 one hour episodes kill ya...

And another thing (since this is the OT forum): why on earth are CSI and ER going head-to-head this week?

Now I have to setup the VCR to tape CSI... since we have a stand-alone TiVo.

(We're VERY unsatisfied DirecTV customers.)

[tllips]

i don't think that I would set up a season pass for CART either since some races will be on CBS and most on Speed (Will Fox show one or two like Long Beach last year). If you set up the Wishlist, it will get it off of whatever channel it is on. The only problem I had last year was getting a Seaon Pass for CART Friday Night. (Something about being marked as a special, so you could not get a Season Pass).

Now that St. Pete is within range, I should check to make sure my Wishlist is working.

I love my DirecTivo! :D

[JoeBob]

mnky, I think a DirecTivo will cure all of your ills. :D

[mnkywrch]

Originally posted by JoeBob
mnky, I think a DirecTivo will cure all of your ills. :D

I'd rather have two TiVo's, myself... his & hers.

Talk about marital bliss! :cool:

[nrc]

Originally posted by tllips
i don't think that I would set up a season pass for CART either since some races will be on CBS and most on Speed (Will Fox show one or two like Long Beach last year).

Good point. With the Season Pass you do need one for each channel. For SPEED and CBS, no problem. But if we'll have races on FOX again I may go back to a Wish List.

Sorry mnky, I don't understand the concept of being disatisfied with DirecTV. :/

[mnkywrch]

Originally posted by nrc
Sorry mnky, I don't understand the concept of being disatisfied with DirecTV. :/

Our Dish found it's true calling - as a bird feeder.

Honestly, on the list of things that are jokes in this world, I rank DirecTV right below Mike Brown and the French military.

[Napoleon]

Originally posted by mnkywrch
Honestly, on the list of things that are jokes in this world, I rank DirecTV right below . . .the French military.

Now your taking personal shots at me.

[WickerBill]

DirecTV is the best thing that has happened to my television, period. It brought me DirecTivo, and spared me the insanity of Comcast charging me for my entire street, twice, then putting it on my credit report when I didn't pay.

[mnkywrch]

Originally posted by Napoleon
Now your taking personal shots at me.

What - you're Corsican, aren't you? ;)

[oddlycalm]

Originally posted by mnkywrch
I'd rather have two TiVo's, myself... his & hers.

Talk about marital bliss! :cool:

Amen, truer words were never spoken.

oc