Unintelligent Qs about Intelligent Recording

[Gaurav]

Have been using Sage for an year but not used IR yet. Am thinking of giving it a shot.

I did try it once. It kept recording continuously for a week - before i turned IR off. No matter how many programs i set to "Watched" or "Not like", Sage just kept finding new stuff to record and the pc never slept....

Q1. Is that normal behaviour ?
Q2. If it is, what happens when the drive is full - will it just delete old "intelligently" recorded programs to record new stuff ?
Q3. If yes, how does it decide which ones to delete - FIFO?
Q4. When will the pc go off to sleep - if ever ?

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by Gaurav

I did try it once. It kept recording continuously for a week - before i turned IR off. No matter how many programs i set to "Watched" or "Not like", Sage just kept finding new stuff to record and the pc never slept....

Q1. Is that normal behaviour ?

When you first use it, yes. It needs training & thinks _anything_ you've watched & have not marked as Don't Like is OK to record. If you do a lot of channel surfing, you might be in trouble. The most often recommended thing around here is to use an STV w/malore's Viewing History screen & start clearing the Watched status of old stuff you don't really like & setting them to Don't Like instead.

Q2. If it is, what happens when the drive is full - will it just delete old "intelligently" recorded programs to record new stuff ?
Q3. If yes, how does it decide which ones to delete - FIFO?

See Appendix C in the SageTV manual, starting on p. 189 for v2.2.

Q4. When will the pc go off to sleep - if ever ?

hmmm... it won't wake the PC for IR shows, but I never looked into whether IR will prevent the PC from going into standby. Anyone have experience with that?

- Andy

[waynedunham]

Gaurav,
I've had Intelligent Recording turned on for a long time now and it's working fairly well for me. As Opus mentioned it does take some training to get it to work and if you actually watch live TV on the machine then you may have troubles getting it to work as you want, especially if you "channel-surf". I do not watch ANY live TV on my Sage HTPC which is probably one reason it is working fairly well for me.

It does take attention several times a week to keep it under control. I have a lot of favorites, record a LOT of tv and have a pretty diverse taste in television. For instance I enjoy Champ Car racing, Indy Car Racing so when I record those IR starts thinking, "Hey he likes racing!" so it starts picking lots of racing programs to record. Well sadly IR thinks that NASCAR is racing. (Go left, turn straight!) So I have to tell it that I "Don't Like" Nascar races/shows.
I also record a few shows on the Food Network so it started thinking I like ALL cooking shows so I had to tell it the ones I didn't like.

I "train" it every couple days by pulling up the recording schedule to see what it's picked to record. I go through the list setting "Don't Like" for those shows I don't like and "Watched" for shows I like, but episodes that I've either already seen, or don't want to record.

When you first turn it on you'll probably have to go through a VERY long list if things it's picked to record. After a while the process will only take a minute or less to cull through the list of things on the recording schedule as IR gets a better picture of what you like/don't like.
If/When you start recording something new you will probably see a small hiccup where it will suddenly find a whole bunch of new shows similar to what you just started watching. An example was when I set up a favorite for new episodes of South Park. IR sees that as animation so it started putting every animated show in the list of things to record. It took me a while to set "Don't Like" for the dozens and dozens of those it put in the list over the next week or so.
Another area where it might cause some headaches is if you record movies. Well if it's a Sci-Fi movie you'll see lots of Sci-Fi movies suddenly showing up in your list of things to record.

So it does take some work, but after you've been using it for a while it does get at least somewhat "intelligent". On the upside on many occasions it has found programs that I otherwise never would have known about. Many of those are now set up as favorites.

VERY IMPORTANT: I've got "aggressive_negative_profiling" set to true in the sage.properties file. When set to true IR works harder to understand your dislikes.
So if you're still having troubles with it picking too much stuff you don't like then try setting this to true.

[Kanati]

So if you're still having troubles with it picking too much stuff you don't like then try setting this to true.

I wouldn't even wait. Just do it. Otherwise it's pretty far from intelligent in it's recording. I am loathe to turn it off though because I'm so used to tivo recording things for me that I generally DO want to see, that I'd hate to miss something that I simply forgot about and sage/tivo didn't. That's one of the reasons I'm holding on to my tivo in another room. It's far more intelligent in it's selection. And I've been training it for well over a year. It's a tame little puppy now. Sage is a rottweiller in heat and will not mind at all right now.

[Gaurav]

Thanks a lot for all your comments.....the thing that I didn't like about IR is that the PC works 24/7 but i end up liking only 10% of what it records. To me the effort wasn't worth the fruit.

However, i'm going to turn IR on tonight - this time with "aggressive_negative_profiling".

[Kanati]

Just keep in mind that you'll still be spending time teaching it for some time to come (or so I'm told... I've only had my box up for a bit over a week now).

[waynedunham]

Exactly, you will have to "train" it. A lot at first, and less as time goes on.
The only times I get a lot of things showing up that I may not like are as I warned, if you record something new you'll go through another small round of training.

It is kind of nice when it finds something that you are interested in, but didn't know anything about. Bonus Time!

[jominor]

Originally Posted by Gaurav

Thanks a lot for all your comments.....the thing that I didn't like about IR is that the PC works 24/7 but i end up liking only 10% of what it records. To me the effort wasn't worth the fruit.

However, i'm going to turn IR on tonight - this time with "aggressive_negative_profiling".

I don't use the negative profiler option, but I believe that IR is THE feature of SageTV. So it records things, you don't like? So what? That's the point, to guess and grow smarter. It started for me, just like everyone else with everything and got better and better.

My wife likes ice skating. So far, two seasons running, its IR that picks up the first skating show of the season and allows us to use additional airings to get everything else. Anything I really don't like, I mark as don't like and good bye.

I think the feature works great!

[Kanati]

I think the feature works great!

You've never used TiVO's "suggestions" have you?

All in all, deleting stuff I didn't want to watch isn't nearly as annoying as missing something I did (or WOULD) want to watch however, so it's a minor gripe for me.

[jominor]

Originally Posted by Kanati

You've never used TiVO's "suggestions" have you?

All in all, deleting stuff I didn't want to watch isn't nearly as annoying as missing something I did (or WOULD) want to watch however, so it's a minor gripe for me.

Nope. Tivo doesn't easily allow me to add additional HD space, doesn't work well with my online music, doesn't have a client that allows me to watch what's on my server, doesn't allow me to add unlimited tuners, doesn't have free program listing, and doe have ads I'm not interested in. And doesn't Tivo have plans to prevent people from fast forwarding through commericials?

But I'll bite, to my knowledge, IR has worked fairly well picking out all manner of shows that I've enjoyed along with some missings that don't concern me.

What exactly does Tivo's "suggestions" have over it?

[Kanati]

Tivo doesn't easily allow me to add additional HD space

It's not THAT hard... format the drive on your computer and drop it in. All done. Now if you want to add more beyond that... well then you do get into some issues.

doesn't have a client that allows me to watch what's on my server

Think Tivo2Go does do that... It's a "client" that runs on your computer.

and doe have ads I'm not interested in.

Right now it's only in the main menu at the very bottom... I think I've only seen a couple of them because they were interesting to me. The ones they are planning haven't been implemented yet, but will be banner type ads only during fast forwarding and rewinding... Which is minor at best because you are, by definition, fast forwarding and rewinding to a part of the show you want to watch anyway.

And doesn't Tivo have plans to prevent people from fast forwarding through commericials?

No. Not sure where this comes from but while I'm sure the MPAA and networks would love to see that, I'm pretty sure that TiVO has ruled that out as a possibility.

What exactly does Tivo's "suggestions" have over it?

It has a sliding scale of like and dislike that makes for some MUCH more intelligent decisions. And it doesn't treat live TV as something that can be rated. Which means that watching a few dozen news shows doesn't mean that tivo will start recording them. All shows are treated as neutral on live tv. Only when you record something and give it a rating (up to three thumbs or three thumbs down) does it start making "suggestions" which is records for you.

Watching something that it has recorded for you gives it a bit higher internal ranking, while deleting it unwatched gives it a slightly more negative rating internally (irrespective of the "thumbs" rating).

Also, if you give a show a negative rating of two or more thumbs down, the likelihood of it recording that show EVER again unless you tell it to do so is amazingly low. Which means you have a way of telling it "do not record this show. period." and it'll listen. Unlike sage which seems to think that the home shopping networks are the most interesting thing on tv right now for me...

Because of the sliding scale and live tv being treated as neutral you don't have a constant re-training procedure you have to go through when you watch live tv or channel surf. It also learns a LOT quicker than Sage and only gets smarter in it's recording suggestions... Occasionally it'll burp and think you are a chinese acrobat addicted to midget porn, but it's very rare and easily told that it is wrong.

Kanati

[jominor]

Originally Posted by Kanati

It's not THAT hard... format the drive on your computer and drop it in. All done. Now if you want to add more beyond that... well then you do get into some issues.

I use all USB2 drives. I never have to even shut the machine down. Regardless, last I heard you had to use all manner of Tivo hacks to use larger drives. It just isn't in Tivo's interest to make that process easy.

Think Tivo2Go does do that... It's a "client" that runs on your computer.

Finally caught up! However, since Sage has had this for a while, this is not a switching feature.

Right now it's only in the main menu at the very bottom... I think I've only seen a couple of them because they were interesting to me. The ones they are planning haven't been implemented yet, but will be banner type ads only during fast forwarding and rewinding... Which is minor at best because you are, by definition, fast forwarding and rewinding to a part of the show you want to watch anyway.

I don't think that's minor. I don't want ads. Period. I personally don't like Tivo's ability to hijack even the fastforwarding. If wouldn't like it if Sage did it.

It has a sliding scale of like and dislike that makes for some MUCH more intelligent decisions. And it doesn't treat live TV as something that can be rated. Which means that watching a few dozen news shows doesn't mean that tivo will start recording them. All shows are treated as neutral on live tv. Only when you record something and give it a rating (up to three thumbs or three thumbs down) does it start making "suggestions" which is records for you.

Watching something that it has recorded for you gives it a bit higher internal ranking, while deleting it unwatched gives it a slightly more negative rating internally (irrespective of the "thumbs" rating).

Also, if you give a show a negative rating of two or more thumbs down, the likelihood of it recording that show EVER again unless you tell it to do so is amazingly low. Which means you have a way of telling it "do not record this show. period." and it'll listen. Unlike sage which seems to think that the home shopping networks are the most interesting thing on tv right now for me...

Because of the sliding scale and live tv being treated as neutral you don't have a constant re-training procedure you have to go through when you watch live tv or channel surf. It also learns a LOT quicker than Sage and only gets smarter in it's recording suggestions... Occasionally it'll burp and think you are a chinese acrobat addicted to midget porn, but it's very rare and easily told that it is wrong.

Kanati

I don't do any retraining at all. As I watch shows, Sage makes fairly intelligent guesses and sometimes new things show up. But it is fairly controlled. For example, I watched a hour or so of CNN Headline news, and a couple of days later, it showed up in my IR. That seems reasonable to me.

In fact, from what you described, I would say that Tivo is MORE work. If I watched a couple of any show, I'm clearly interested. But I'm also lazy. Very lazy. So get the third and fourth show. I've added shows to my favorites BECAUSE I watched one or two and IR pulled it in and I decided, "Hey, I'm watching this this thing alot, why not make it a Favorite?"

Also, I don't channel surf. I watch mostly recorded content or use the guide that Tivo charges for. Channel surfing seems pretty inefficient when the guide tells you exactly what's on.

Sage learned what I liked pretty quickly and I have only minor issues. My only real complaint is that I would like to say "Don't ever record this even if I watch it."

But I would submit that saying Sage needs to be retrained is not exactly accurate. As my watching habits change, I want the system to guess. I would rather say err on the side of caution and record it. I can always tell it no later.

[Kanati]

It just isn't in Tivo's interest to make that process easy.

Actually the TiVo people have gone out of the way to help the modding community do anything they want to the boxes EXCEPT decode the proprietary format of the video files. I think their SDK is out of beta now too to allow even more customizations and applications to be written for it.

I personally decided to create an HTPC mostly because I like to archive shows to DVD and recapturing them to PC via my TV Wonder was a pain... And re-encoding them so I can edit out the commercials after transferring them with tivo2go is equally a pain. I also wanted an all in one solution for playing divx, xvid, etc. Sage's built in player for divx and dvd's isn't all that good btw... I'm hoping that's addressed in V3. I still have to drop out of sage to play some divx files that sage chokes on.

To each his own I suppose. I see both having a place in my house for quite some time.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by Kanati

Sage's built in player for divx and dvd's isn't all that good btw... I'm hoping that's addressed in V3.

Could you be more specific? I see this posted rather frequently, but no one ever says what is wrong with it, and unless they're privately emailing SageTV, then Sage doesn't know either, and won't know how to fix it.

[Kanati]

I've had it hang while trying to play a divx file. IE: I go to play it and it sits there and thinks about it for as much as 30 seconds... goes to a black screen like it's going to play... then goes back to the "watch now" menu. But during this time it's still churning away and the menu isn't accessable. You have to hit STOP in order to regain control. Other times it will play, but trying to skip around in the file will produce all kinds of havok like the above mentioned, or just plain stopping playback, sound getting out of sync, etc.

[stanger89]

Have you submitted a bug report/support request?

[Kanati]

STOP ASKING ME THAT AND MAKING ME SAY NO!!!!

[stanger89]

Sorry, but how do you expect it to ever get fixed if you don't report it? I've seen time and again that there will be threads running for weeks months with people going "Is this fixed yet", only for Jeff to drop in and say nobody reported it.

[Kanati]

That was a shot at myself, not you.

[stanger89]