Yellow w/ Exclamation mark very inaccurate - Delete to mak..

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.video.ptv.tivo (More info?)

Gordon Burditt wrote:

> They can't predict the actions of the user. It is likely, for
> example, that the earliest show marked with a yellow exclamation
> point on my TiVo will be deleted the next time I leave for 3 days
> (and therefore don't watch and delete any shows). However, it's
> been around for 4 months, and it will likely stay around a few more.
>
> I'd like to see several indicators:

Instead of a single number of bar graph, I'd rather have the Now
Playing list give informative indications as to which recordings
are at risk.

Taking into account what is in the To Do list, and assuming that
nothing is manually deleted, calculate how many days each recording
will remain before being deleted to free up disk space.

I would rather have a number (from 0 to 9) instead of an exclamation
point for shows marked with a yellow circle.

(0) = show has less than 24 hours to live
(1) = show is safe for 1 day (24 to 47.9 hours to live)
(2) through (9) = similar
no mark = 10 or more days at current rate of consumption.

Then I could look at the Now Showing list and say, "If I don't free
up any space, then that show right there will be gone the day after
tomorrow."

-Joe

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.video.ptv.tivo (More info?)

In article <06CdndDQxqRC-STfRVn-qw@comcast.com>, Joe Smith wrote:
> Gordon Burditt wrote:
>
>> They can't predict the actions of the user. It is likely, for
>> example, that the earliest show marked with a yellow exclamation
>> point on my TiVo will be deleted the next time I leave for 3 days
>> (and therefore don't watch and delete any shows). However, it's
>> been around for 4 months, and it will likely stay around a few more.
>>
>> I'd like to see several indicators:
>
> Instead of a single number of bar graph, I'd rather have the Now
> Playing list give informative indications as to which recordings
> are at risk.
>
> Taking into account what is in the To Do list, and assuming that
> nothing is manually deleted, calculate how many days each recording
> will remain before being deleted to free up disk space.

You also have to worry about nothing being manually added, in
particular MRV from another TiVo for which it may not sink in
to a user that the show is copied and not streamed.

You also have to worry about scheduled, but unrecorded, KUID
shows. Nobody has mentioned those, but TiVo reserves space for
them as soon as it finds out about them. So that's another
category altogether that needs to be included for any of these
approaches.

You also have to worry about new KUID shows entering the database
due to a phone call (ie, 12 days out). Despite you not doing
anything, you may suddenly lose a few hours of available space,
and therefore a few shows! Very unhappy user.

You also have to worry about what's going to happen once
cooperative scheduling actually gets implemented (fingers
crossed!). You may not know what is going to get recorded on
this TiVo.

All of these worries are going to cause increased support calls
to TiVo, and some of them will be with very irate customers!
Doesn't seem worth it to me. (A simple percentage of disk
currently allocated to shows use would be much more reasonable.)

Chris

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.video.ptv.tivo (More info?)

Chris Buckley (chrisb@sabir.com) wrote in alt.video.ptv.tivo:
> You also have to worry about what's going to happen once
> cooperative scheduling actually gets implemented (fingers
> crossed!). You may not know what is going to get recorded on
> this TiVo.

Cooperative scheduling without cooperative disk space management would be
pretty useless.

Consider what would happen if you had two TiVos, and one had a lot of lower
priority ARWLs that hit for movies, but tended not to be recorded because
high-priority sitcoms use up the tuner. All those movies would go to
the "other" TiVo. Since cooperative scheduling would have the SP Manager list
only in one place (otherwise, how do you set priority between two conflicting
shows in different lists?), you would now be funneling all these 2-hour
movies to the "slave" TiVo while the "master" records nothing but sitcoms.

If the "master" is a 120-hour unit while the "slave" is a 40-hour unit, you'd
use the space very badly, and would also have shows deleted that you wouldn't
have to.

--
Jeff Rife |
| http/www.netfunny.com/rhf/jokes/99/Apr/columbine.html

 

[sinner]

Archived from groups: alt.video.ptv.tivo (More info?)

* Wrote in alt.video.ptv.tivo:

> I think that a % indicator would work.

It wont work because people will depend on it to protect a recording
that is NOT marked KUID and when that dosent work they will blame the
Tivo not their own stupidity.

> Everyone has a fuel gauge
> indicator on their car.

And yet every day people run out of gas on the highway.

> It doesn't tell you you can go exactly
> 32.5 miles, but it is still useful.

But not really useful enough as you can see above.

> Your argument is that your
> mileage will vary whether you are on the highway or local so let's
> just rip out the fuel gauge altogether.

No, my argument is that if you cant provide accurate information you
are treading on dangerous ground.

Funny that you should mention the gas gauge as it is a particular pet
peeve of mine. It would be trivial to measure the gas as it goes in
to the tank and as it gets pumped into the engine therfore Gas gauges
should be much more accurate, the fact that they arent is the reason
people still run out of gas. The funny thing is, they dont blame
Dodge, but you can bet that when little Jimmy's birthday announcement
on the morning news gets dumped because they thought theyd have
enough space to record Regis and Kelly they will be blaming Tivo.

> All I really am
> interested in is a ballpark that tells me I am running low on
> space and stuff will be deleted.

And ALl Tivo is interested in is a happy customer and while the gauge
would be a nice to have, it buys more trouble than its worth.

> Just liek I don't care if my car
> has a full, 3/4 or 1/2 tank of gas.

You dont? Thats pretty silly. I check my gas gauge everytime I get in
my car.

> I am concerned when I have
> less than 1/4.

What if your taking a long road trip to somplace youve never been and
dont know when the next gas station will be around?

> I don't need to know that I can fit 178 minutes of
> recording if it is at X and X compression.

No but it would sure matter if 178 minutes WOULD fit at X compression
but 180 at Y compression would not and since youve no idea what the
compression is how do you decide?

--
David

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.video.ptv.tivo (More info?)

Well, all arguments aside, I think my origianl premise is correct: the
yellow exclmation provides little value. You contend adding a %
indicator would complicate the interface. I think the yellow
exclamation does. Telling you something "may" be deleted is silly
since anything not marked KUID "may" be deleted if you record enough
shows. If anything, I think that it should sum up everything in your
to-do list and if based on that, something will be deleted within say 3
days, put the exlamation point. Your whole argument of confusing
people is silly because I think the exclamation point is more confusing
making people think stuff will be deleted when it wont.

 

[sinner]

Archived from groups: alt.video.ptv.tivo (More info?)

* Wrote in alt.video.ptv.tivo:

> Well, all arguments aside, I think my origianl premise is correct:
> the yellow exclmation provides little value. You contend adding a
> % indicator would complicate the interface. I think the yellow
> exclamation does. Telling you something "may" be deleted is silly
> since anything not marked KUID "may" be deleted if you record
> enough shows. If anything, I think that it should sum up
> everything in your to-do list and if based on that, something will
> be deleted within say 3 days, put the exlamation point. Your
> whole argument of confusing people is silly because I think the
> exclamation point is more confusing making people think stuff
> will be deleted when it wont.
>
>

Better that than the alternative which is deleteing something that I
*thought* I had enough room for.

--
David

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.video.ptv.tivo (More info?)

Back to the car analogy: I think if for years you filled up your car
because an indicator told you it "might need gas" only to find out that
most of the time your tank was more than half full you would be
irritated.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.video.ptv.tivo (More info?)

michaeljc70@hotmail.com wrote:
> Back to the car analogy: I think if for years you filled up your car
> because an indicator told you it "might need gas" only to find out that
> most of the time your tank was more than half full you would be
> irritated.
>

Ahh, but you'd be a *lot* less irritated than if you ran out of gas!
Better safe than sorry.

Randy S.

 

[Howard]

Archived from groups: alt.video.ptv.tivo (More info?)

"Randy S." <Randy@nospam.com> wrote in news:d9krna$1cdi$1
@spnode25.nerdc.ufl.edu:

> michaeljc70@hotmail.com wrote:
>> Back to the car analogy: I think if for years you filled up your car
>> because an indicator told you it "might need gas" only to find out that
>> most of the time your tank was more than half full you would be
>> irritated.
>>
>
> Ahh, but you'd be a *lot* less irritated than if you ran out of gas!
> Better safe than sorry.

And of course, the 'logic' behind this thread is exactly the way fuel
gauges work now anyway. When it says that I have a half tank, it has
absolutely NO idea if this is going to last me another hour, another day,
another week, or another month. You are required to use your intelligence,
factoring in such things as how much you will be using the car in the near
future, to figure out when you need to refuel.

This is ALL people have been asking for, but people keep trying to muddy
the waters. Despite attempts to paint it otherwise, people are not asking
for a feature where the TiVo will tell them "assuming you do this, and
don't do this, you will run out of space at this time on this date...unless
of course you don't do this, and do this instead, in which case you will
run out of space at THIS time on THIS date, and that's assuming you don't
do this or this in the meantime".

But then again, this is a thread started by someone who thinks 'can be
deleted at any time' means/should mean 'going to be deleted soon', and
nobody has ever said THAT, either.

--
Minister of All Things Digital & Electronic, and Holder of Past Knowledge
stile99@email.com. Cabal# 24601-fnord | Sleep is irrelevant.
I speak for no one but myself, and |Caffeine will be assimilated.
no one else speaks for me. O- | Decaf is futile.

 

[Jason]

Archived from groups: alt.video.ptv.tivo (More info?)

On 26 Jun 2005 00:53:45 GMT, Howard wrote:

>"Randy S." <Randy@nospam.com> wrote in news:d9krna$1cdi$1
>@spnode25.nerdc.ufl.edu:
>
>> michaeljc70 @ hotmail.com wrote:
>>> Back to the car analogy: I think if for years you filled up your car
>>> because an indicator told you it "might need gas" only to find out that
>>> most of the time your tank was more than half full you would be
>>> irritated.
>>>
>>
>> Ahh, but you'd be a *lot* less irritated than if you ran out of gas!
>> Better safe than sorry.

Ounce of prevention, and all that, until your gas gauge always
says empty, and you stop bothering to look at it, and start
guessing how full the tank is by miles traveled. I've had to do
that, on a long trip, and it wasn't my car, so I had no idea how
often I had to stop.

A gauge that doesn't provide clear and consistently useful
information is not worth the space it uses. A feature like that
exclamation point that has a very small area of relevance is not
worth the effort to keep track of it.

>And of course, the 'logic' behind this thread is exactly the way fuel
>gauges work now anyway. When it says that I have a half tank, it has
>absolutely NO idea if this is going to last me another hour, another day,
>another week, or another month. You are required to use your intelligence,
>factoring in such things as how much you will be using the car in the near
>future, to figure out when you need to refuel.
>
>This is ALL people have been asking for, but people keep trying to muddy
>the waters. Despite attempts to paint it otherwise, people are not asking
>for a feature where the TiVo will tell them "assuming you do this, and
>don't do this, you will run out of space at this time on this date...unless
>of course you don't do this, and do this instead, in which case you will
>run out of space at THIS time on THIS date, and that's assuming you don't
>do this or this in the meantime".

Yeah, the OP said in a reply that a little % gauge next to "Now
Playing" would be the minimum required. As far as muddying the
waters... Well, the software is going to the trouble of figuring
out the %full, so why not take the info it's adding up and just
place it as a separate menu item. And as long as it's doing the
math, give us the results in color coded form...17% KUID, 28%
recent (no ball), 25%yellow(ball and exclamation point), 10%
black(suggestions), and the rest (20%) white unused. I don't feel
that asking for a breakdown of the space used as muddying the
waters, I'm still asking for a percentage used graph.

>But then again, this is a thread started by someone who thinks 'can be
>deleted at any time' means/should mean 'going to be deleted soon', and
>nobody has ever said THAT, either.

The OP said that. Remove the word 'means', and you have
essentially distilled his complaint into a single sentence:

On 13 Jun 2005 18:29:54 -0700, michaeljc70 @ hotmail wrote:
>I have a 140 (160GB) Directv Tivo. I have about 50 hours of programs on
>there (all keep until space needed) and, on average, my To Do list
>shows it will record about 13 hours a day. Why area shows showing as
>may be deleted to make room for new programs when I have at least 7
>days before that would happen?????
>
>It seems to me this is way off and it would have been much better to
>tell you how many hours your have left rather than having arcane
>icons/msgs that don't give you accurate info. My ReplayTV tells you
>what time you have left and you can adjust accordingly. I guess Tivo is
>made for the masses (aka dumb people) and they thought it would confuse
>people.

 

[Howard]

Archived from groups: alt.video.ptv.tivo (More info?)

Jason wrote in news:c4vtb1tah40bid5c1o0ntca7hpal7haq7q@4ax.com:

> Yeah, the OP said in a reply that a little % gauge next to "Now
> Playing" would be the minimum required. As far as muddying the
> waters... Well, the software is going to the trouble of figuring
> out the %full, so why not take the info it's adding up and just
> place it as a separate menu item. And as long as it's doing the
> math, give us the results in color coded form...17% KUID, 28%
> recent (no ball), 25%yellow(ball and exclamation point), 10%
> black(suggestions), and the rest (20%) white unused. I don't feel
> that asking for a breakdown of the space used as muddying the
> waters, I'm still asking for a percentage used graph.

I'm not certain how 'what will happen on a future date' (which is what the
muddy water people keep trying to use) became 'current use'...but I'll pick
up the ball and run with it.

Actually, no I won't. Sorry. The ball is so out of play, I can't even
find the damned thing. Perhaps you are new to the issue, so I'll explain
again.

The request for a 'disk used/available' indicator has been pretty much the
top request since the first TiVo came out. There are those who would find
this useful, and those who would not. Those who would not somehow think
others should not have it, merely because they themselves would not use
it/do not understand it. So they point out how 'useless' a gauge would be,
because while you may have 20 gig free 'now', you won't tomorrow, or three
days from now, or a week from now. This is like saying a fuel gauge is
useless because perhaps you have half a tank 'now', but who knows about
tomorrow, three days from now, a week from now? This is completely stupid,
and so far, the best FUD that crowd can com up with.

I said, and continue to maintain, that that crowd is the only one who has
ever asked for anything involving future dates. Every single person I have
ever seen ask for the space indicator wants it to display what is
used/available NOW. Not yesterday, not tomorrow...now. What you may or
may not record or delete in the next (insert time interval) has
nothing...NOTHING to do with the question 'how much space do I have now?'.

>>But then again, this is a thread started by someone who thinks 'can be
>>deleted at any time' means/should mean 'going to be deleted soon', and
>>nobody has ever said THAT, either.
>
> The OP said that.

Well...yes. That would kind of be why I said the thread was started by
someone who thinks that. How was THAT unclear?

> Remove the word 'means', and you have essentially distilled his complaint
into a single sentence:

Ok, grant me a correction then. Correction: nobody who understands/has
read the manual has ever said that.

Nor, for that matter, will the icon ever change to mean that. What the
icons mean are definite, absolute, and pretty damned difficult to
misunderstand unless you try really really hard. There's less than a zero
chance TiVo is going to change them to mean "This will be deleted in 24
hours, unless of course you delete some other things to free up space, or
suddenly schedule a whole bunch of recordings in the next 12 hours, which
will shorten the 24 hour lifespan of this icon".

--
Minister of All Things Digital & Electronic, and Holder of Past Knowledge
stile99@email.com. Cabal# 24601-fnord | Sleep is irrelevant.
I speak for no one but myself, and |Caffeine will be assimilated.
no one else speaks for me. O- | Decaf is futile.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.video.ptv.tivo (More info?)

Howard wrote:
> So they point out how 'useless' a gauge would be,
> because while you may have 20 gig free 'now', you won't tomorrow, or three
> days from now, or a week from now. This is like saying a fuel gauge is
> useless because perhaps you have half a tank 'now', but who knows about
> tomorrow, three days from now, a week from now?

Bad analogy. Tanks don't have fuel added without intervention.
In an automobile with the amount remaining is steadily decreasing,
a bunch of fuel will not magically appear. But TiVo can make free
space appear by deleting something.

> nothing...NOTHING to do with the question 'how much space do I have now?'.

But what good is an indication of the disk space now?
1) Warm fuzzies having that bit of info
2) Bragging rights
3) Crucial if you have to manually delete to make room for more shows.

A percent-remaining gauge is for necessary for people who micro-manage
their disk space. The kind that use KUID and SUID for everything.

-Joe

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.video.ptv.tivo (More info?)

Joe Smith seemed to utter in news:Z-mdnRalN5_zal3fRVn-pA@comcast.com:

> But what good is an indication of the disk space now?
> 1) Warm fuzzies having that bit of info
> 2) Bragging rights
> 3) Crucial if you have to manually delete to make room for more
> shows.
>
> A percent-remaining gauge is for necessary for people who micro-manage
> their disk space. The kind that use KUID and SUID for everything.

I was just asking myself this same question... why would you need
to know the current disk utilization? The only reasonable reason
seems to be your #3 above for people manually managing the space.

I'm sure some would say, "Because I want to know." Perhaps that would
fall into the #1 or #2 reason above.

I'd really like to know, though. From people who really want this
feature - what would you use this feature for if you had it. Perhaps
I am just unaware of how much better I could "use" my TiVo if I
had this gauge.

-- TRW
_______________________________________
t r w 7
at
i x dot n e t c o m dot c o m
_______________________________________

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.video.ptv.tivo (More info?)

"Tim Witort" <trw7at@ixdot.netcomdotcom> wrote in message news:Xns96846880036A5timwitortwrotethis@207.217.125.201...
> Joe Smith seemed to utter in news:Z-mdnRalN5_zal3fRVn-pA@comcast.com:
>
> > But what good is an indication of the disk space now?
> > 1) Warm fuzzies having that bit of info
> > 2) Bragging rights
> > 3) Crucial if you have to manually delete to make room for more
> > shows.
> >
> > A percent-remaining gauge is for necessary for people who micro-manage
> > their disk space. The kind that use KUID and SUID for everything.
>
> I was just asking myself this same question... why would you need
> to know the current disk utilization? The only reasonable reason
> seems to be your #3 above for people manually managing the space.
>
> I'm sure some would say, "Because I want to know." Perhaps that would
> fall into the #1 or #2 reason above.
>
> I'd really like to know, though. From people who really want this
> feature - what would you use this feature for if you had it. Perhaps
> I am just unaware of how much better I could "use" my TiVo if I
> had this gauge.
....

When my DirecTV DVR was new I wanted to know how much the DVR could store.

I created an Excel spreadsheet to total the running time of programs
on the DVR. This spreadsheet has confirmed the current capacity of the
DirecTV DVR at about 34 hours. The cell data is time in hours:mins format
stored on lines identified by date. I update the Excel data every week or two.
Now that I know how much the DVR can store I let suggestions deletions
remind me the DVR is near capacity with recordings. I have a 3 hour
"The Office" BBCA special from last October with the Yellow Exclamation icon.

A percentage remaining space value might be interesting but less than useful.
On the spreadsheet, I've never bothered to calculate percentage used,
percent free or otherwise. I have a cell where the historical max. hours:mins
value is kept.

I manually delete most programs recorded with other than a Season Pass.
Season Pass options are set to keep 2 or 3 episodes. A "keep 1" setting
is bad if your electrical service is unreliable and you don't have a UPS.

BTW, the original maximum capacity of the DVR totaled less than 28 hours.
About the time the spot beam satellite was put in service and new local markets
were added to the national beam, the maximum DVR recording time increased
to the 35 hour number.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.video.ptv.tivo (More info?)

> A percent-remaining gauge is for necessary for people who micro-manage
> their disk space. The kind that use KUID and SUID for everything.

Or perhaps it's a matter of a Tivo not being the right sort of device for
these folks.