[mythtv-users] Switch to enable "TiVO" like experience? WAS Re: mythtv keeping recordings of everything i watch?

Jafa hdtv at silicondust.com
Wed Jul 26 19:12:43 UTC 2006


> 50% of /this/ thread (i.e. Subject: WAS Re: mythtv keeping recordings of 
> everything i watch?):  Whine!  MythTV records everything I watch in 
> LiveTV and it's eating up my disk space.  How do I stop this because I 
> need that space for other programs...
>
> 50% of /this/ thread (i.e. Subject: Switch to enable "TiVO" like 
> experience?):  Whine!  My TiVo is always recording LiveTV--even when I'm 
> not watching it.  Why doesn't Myth do this?
>
> You can't please everyone.  :)
>   
To clarify what TiVo does (for better or worse)...

1) All tuners are always recording, but only into a 30 minute ring 
buffer (per tuner). This means that you can jump to live tv and as long 
as you don't change channel you can rewind up to 30 minutes.

Rewinding live tv to before you started watching is not particularly 
useful in my opinion... what are the chances it was on the right channel?
The more common situation is pausing live tv because of an interruption 
- MythTV has the advantage it will pause indefinitely. A Tivo can only 
pause for 30 minutes unless you explicitly tell it to record.

2) You can watch live TV at any time, even if all tuners are recording. 
If you attempt to change channel and there are no spare tuners then the 
TiVo will ask if you want to stop the current recording.

Mythtv complains that you can't enter live tv mode because there are no 
spare tuners, forcing the user to go to the recordings screen to figure 
out what is recording. It was a surprise the first time but now I know 
how mythtv works it doesn't bother me. Then again it also helps that I 
am running 3 tuners and it is rare for me to watch live tv.

3) TiVo records things it thinks you might like to watch. It is 
psychotic. For some reason it decided I liked watching game shows. I 
have never watched or recorded a game show on my tivo. It was recording 
hundreds of game shows... even ones that were so old they were in black 
and white!

The most useful aspect of this TiVo feature is the menu option to turn 
it off :-)

Recording suggestions might be useful if done well. I don't see an 
advantage with recording all the time.

BTW - I have a wide collection of TiVos, one Comcast DVR, and one MythTV 
box. I use the MythTV as my main viewing platform.

Nick



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