Controlling what gets deleted

[mlar]

I'm still trying to complete my switch from TiVo to SageTV, but there are still a couple of things that are holding me back. It may be that I haven't read the manual thoroughly enough. On my TiVo I effectively have 3 categories of programming:

1) Shows I don't want to miss, under any circumstance (think: Simpsons first run)

2) Shows I'd like to watch on a regular basis, but it's not a disaster if they are deleted

3) Shows I dont mind if they are recorded, if they are, fine, I might watch them, I might not.

On the TiVo, this is basically setup as:

1) Season passes set to "Don't delete", ie, the TiVo would never deletes the show (unless told to). Even if I dont have time to watch it right away, it would not get deleted.

2) Shows recorded through season pass, but I allow TiVo to delete shows whenever space is necessary.

3) Suggestions, ie, shows TiVo thinks I might like (thumbs up). I give the shows I want it to record 3 thumbs up, which means it will usually record it if it is otherwise idle.

I'm trying to replicate this on SageTV, like this;

1) Favorite show. Unfortunately I can't tell SageTV that this particular show is a life and death matter, and can never be deleted.

2) Favorite show.. This works like expected.

3) Intelligent Recording. This works almost like the TiVo, but it seems like SageTV is constantly recording! I dont have enough space for everything that gets recorded.. I have 2 tuner cards, and they are always recording something, and I assume, always deleting something to make room for the other crap it records. The issue here is that there are shows I like (thumbs up), but I dont want them to be a favorite. I dont want them to compete over diskspace with my actual favorites. I only want them to be recorded if there is available diskspace, not if an actual favorite has to be deleted. On the other hand, they should have diskspace priority over SageTV's guesses.

I hope this makes sense to someone :)

[dkardatzke]

Here's how SageTV handles your questions above..

1. Shows you don't want to miss are Favorites in SageTV. They won't get deleted until you watch them. The only caveat would be if you fill up your entire allocated space with Favorites, it will have to start deleting the oldest ones first to make room for your new Favorite recordings.

If you don't want SageTV to delete shows after watching, remove the "Watched" notification through Options. In addition, you could move that particular show to your Library, where shows never get deleted. Move to Library is also available under Options.

2. Covered under Favorites as well, but won't get deleted until you watch them. Of course these shows may also get recorded through Intelligent Recording so SageTV will record them when they fit the schedule. Example for me is the Jimmy Kimmel show. I like to watch it but not everyday so SageTV records it a couple times a week without me telling it.

3. Covered by Intelligent Recording. SageTV is always recording to try to find shows of interest for you. It will still keep the shows you are most likely to watch at the top of the list and won't delete them as quickly. If there are shows you really want to see, make them Favorites or Manual Recordings then they won't get deleted until you watch them or specify them to be deleted.

You will also notice the more you use SageTV the more it learns. The shows that SageTV records for me after more than six months of straight use are quite different than if I was only using the application for a month or so.

Let me know if you have any follow up questions.

[Narflex]

I'd also like to add, you can press Record when you have a file selected to make its border yellow. Those will not be deleted.

I'm also going to add an option for Favorites where you can tell it not to delete them automatically after they're watched. That'll cover all the bases then I think.

Thanks for the feedback.

[mlar]

I played around this quite a bit more last night, and I realized that in contrast to TiVo, where you tell it what you don't like and what you like, you just have to tell SageTV what you don't like.. I spent an hour or so telling SageTV what I don't like, and at one point it actually stopped recording 24/7. Except for a couple of shows I've missed, it's mostly recording shows that interest me.

As for favorites and deletion. The issue isn't that things I have watch gets deleted, that is fine with me (I move the stuff I want to burn to DVD to the library). However, some shows should never, under any circumstances, be deleted. Even if SageTV is out of diskspace. I'd rather see that SageTV stops recording altogether than deleting these favorites, while it is okay if it deletes other favorites. Basically, just having a flag on certain favorites "Never delete"would solve the issue for me. If I go on vacation for 3 weeks I want to make sure that it keeps as many Simpsons episodes as it can, while it deletes other favorites, such as my local morning news that I keep as a favorite, but as such it gets old very quickly, and I have no need to keep it around. On TiVo I have my news set as "Keep at most one showing", so my TiVo always deletes the older one before it records the new one. In any case, my point here is that'd hate to see the morning news delete my simpson episodes when I'm on vacation.

[Narflex]

I've found with the morning news, I don't have it as a favorite. If you watch it every morning, the profiler will record it every morning anyways. You might find that reducing the number of favorites you have to only the few that you absolutely must see gives fairly good results.

[mlar]

I'd still love to see a "do not delete ever" flag on certain shows. But you are right, maybe I can get rid of the favorite status on the morning news. But then you have other shows that are more of a close call... Like.. uhm.. Simpsons and Futurama.. I'd hate for it to miss a recording of Futurama, but if I had to chose, I'd rather see it delete Futurama than the Simpsons. So, Futurama still deserves to be a favorite, but it isn't as important as the Simpsons.

[Narflex]

Don't worry, the "do not delete ever" is on the feature list.

[pscs]

Can I just add my vote to this.

The TiVo is pretty clear what is safe for ever (green blob), save for now (no blob), what is at risk of being deleted soon (yellow blob), what is at risk of being deleted any time now (yellow blob with exclamation mark) and what could go at any moment (red blob with TiVo logo)

They are also sorted so that the 'intelligent' recordings (red blobs) are located after the 'explicit' recordings (ones I've specifically asked for)

I look in the recordings from Sage, and it's totally baffling, and I don't know what I've asked for, and what is about to be deleted when. I have a feeling that the bold & yellow borders mean something, but I haven't got a clue what...

Even the 'Detailed Info' on a recording doesn't tell me if/when it might be deleted - if I go into the TiVo recording info, then it says when the recording may be deleted.

(Oddly the yellow border is used elsewhere for menu selection, but not in the guide where it means something else - which I also find confusing)

:confused:

Also, as mlar has mentioned, I think I prefer the TiVo way of 'intelligence'. With TiVo, it wouldn't record anything unless it thought you liked it, SageTV seems to just record everything it comes across. I've had it running for 2 days and already there's 72GB of stuff, and I've only asked for it to record one program (which is one of those GB) - it's not easy to find that program in the list...

[mlar]

Now that I have used SageTV for a couple of weeks it's getting better. It's just hard for me, as an ex-TiVo user to get used to the concept of only telling it what you DONT like. I keep telling it what I dont like, and it looks like it almost got the message now (except for some paid programming and news broadcasts I just cant get rid of no matter how hard I try). However, if there is a show I'd like to tell Sage that I would want it to record in the future, I have to set it up as a manual recording, and then hope it realizes that I'm probably interested in future airings as well. I'd really be much more comfortable wih a "Like" option in addition to the "Don't like". Don't give up though, keep telling it what you don't like and eventually it will stop.

[dkardatzke]

Originally posted by mlar
However, if there is a show I'd like to tell Sage that I would want it to record in the future, I have to set it up as a manual recording, and then hope it realizes that I'm probably interested in future airings as well. I'd really be much more comfortable wih a "Like" option in addition to the "Don't like". Don't give up though, keep telling it what you don't like and eventually it will stop.

There is a "Like" feature of SageTV, it's called Favorites. If you want to record all First Runs or Re-runs just set it up as a Favorite and SageTV will never miss it.

[pscs]

But I (and mlar, probably) still think in TiVo terms.

There, a 'Favorite' is like a 'Season Pass'. This is something you DEFINITELY want to record. Also, Season Passes may have settings to say 'never delete any of these recordings automatically'.

On TiVo, you also have 'Thumbs Up' and 'Thumbs Down' (with 3 levels of each). These are ONLY used for the 'intelligent' recording algorithms, for it to learn what programs (and TYPES of programs) you like and dislike. When TiVo is looking for stuff to fill up the hard disk, it tries to record a 'Thumbs Up' program first, but it will still delete a "3 Thumbs Up" program before it deletes any manually recorded program (including Season Passes)

This is why it's a bit different from SageTV. There's no way of saying 'I like that type of program', or 'I like that program and record it if there's space and you're not doing anything else, but I don't really mind if I miss it' compared to "record that program and don't dare delete it or you're going out of the window".

:D


Also, a nice feature of the TiVo is that if the disk starts getting full, when you schedule a recording it will TELL you if it's going to have to delete something sooner than otherwise expected to fit your new recording in. Also, if you have lots of programs set to 'Never Delete', it may say that it hasn't got space to record your program at all.

One 'challenge' for you, is, as mlar mentioned - what happens if I go on vacation for a month, can I set up SageTV to record what I want before I go, and make sure that the stuff that is vital won't be deleted before I get back, and that other stuff will be kept if there's space? - on the TiVo this is possible by the 'delete when' options (delete never or only delete after at least X days)

[mlar]

Dan,

These shows are not favorites though, just shows that I like. It's like when shopping for soda, I prefer Diet Vanilla Coke, if they don't have it, I'm almost as happy with Diet Coke. One caveat though, never remove Diet Vanilla Coke from my fridge to be able to fit more Diet Coke in there, and never buy Diet Coke, if there is Diet Vanilla Coke available. If my fridge has space, and there's only Diet Coke available, feel free to stock my fridge, but, as soon as Diet Vanilla Coke arrives, it has to be removed. TiVo goes a step further and allows me to say that Diet Coke is better than Diet Pepsi which is better than Safeway Select Diet Cola, but all of them are okay if nothing else is available, but the same rule applies, remove the Safeway cola first, then the pepsi, then the diet coke, but never my vanilla! :)

I've had my Diet Vanilla Coke removed due to Diet Coke many times with Sage TV. Eventually I ended end buy a couple of really large fridges to be able to fit both the vanilla coke and diet coke since my SageTV just couldn't see the difference between them. I guess the main problem is that there is no reliable way to tell SageTV what is vanilla and what is regular.

TiVo's disk management and intelligent recording features are superior to SageTV. As for everything else, SageTV rocks. I've made my switch, I'm happy with SageTV. But that doesn't mean that Sage can't improve, does it?

What, me thirsty? Nah.

[JJarmoc]

LOL! Interesting analogy..