OK, I got the computer fixed (at least for now), but now I have a question for all the DirecTV Tivo mavens out there. This is something that has been driving me nuts ever since I got the farging thing.

Why does it fill up my hard drive with programs that I've zero interest in, have never watched, have never evinced any interest in watching? More to the immediate point, why, when I'm watching Fox News, and have a half-hour of it in the can, and am waiting for Brit Hume to come on, and can zap commercials, does it randomly decide that I'd rather watch Seinfeld, and switch to that channel, thus losing everything on the hard drive from Fox News, so that when I switch back in frustration, I've lost the first half hour?

'Cause you have TiVo Suggestions turned on. On my TiVo, I go to TiVo Central -> Messages & Settings -> Settings -> Recording -> TiVo Suggestions and check No, don't record TiVo Suggestions.

It comes with Suggestions turned on by default because, let's face it, who'd turn it on manually? It recorded every Disney Channel program for me until I turned it off.

It's a two part answer. The "thumbs" are meant for training the TIVO to record when space is available programs "like" what you flag as thumbs up.

If you don't want to record suggestions, as above turn it off.

Leaving it on and steering with the thumbs works for me.

Also, alot of these DVRs come with two tuners, but are not smart enough to realize you want to record and surf. So, you need to manually swap tuners.

Someone else in your household may have programmed "their" programs to come on automatically. Check your settings and see if Seinfeld is set to come on automatically. Tell everyone in the family to stop programming the tuner without at least advising everyone else.

Someone else in your household may have programmed "their" programs to come on automatically.

Nope.

Check your settings and see if Seinfeld is set to come on automatically.

Nope. Nothing is (at least obviously) set to do this. It just decides, seemingly randomly, to change the station.

Longtime TiVo user. "bill" is right. Turn off suggestions or be PATIENT and use Thumbs to train your TiVo to fill up EMPTY disk space with stuff it 'learns' you might like. It will NEVER delete something you recorded to record one of these suggestion shows.

Be patient because at 1st somehow my TiVo thought I was gay. WTF? But since I've now Thumbed Up/Down lotsa stuff it now sometimes surprises me with a movie or science channel program I'd like. That's like less than one outa 10 but it's stuff I'd a missed.

There are two separate problems here. One is filling up the drive with crap. The other, and the one that really annoys me, is switching stations that I'm watching to something that I have no interest in watching, and in so doing, losing the backlog for the channel that I'm watching. It should never do this, in my opinion, at least not for sometihng that I didn't explicitly program it to do.

Hey Rand,

Your second problem of the tivo switching stations seems at odds with the behaviors I've noticed on my DTV tivo. The only time it changes channels is to record a programmed recording. When it does this it puts up a warning before switching channels. I've never noticed it changing channels to record its suggestions -- although I've generally got the HD full of stuff I've selected to record.

My suggestion to you: Program the tivo to record Brit. I use an explicit time slot to avoid recording reruns during the day. I keep only one episode (it's news so I don't want old ones). If you put it at the top of you recordings nothing will override it. Plus you can FF to the end and watch just the panel.

If you are watching a spontaneous show you like, just hit record. It will immediately let you know if there are any conflicting recordings scheduled and you can decide which you prefer. It will also grab the previous 30 minute buffer if possible.

Gratuitous Blog Plug: http://politicalfred.blogspot.com

Your second problem of the tivo switching stations seems at odds with the behaviors I've noticed on my DTV tivo. The only time it changes channels is to record a programmed recording. When it does this it puts up a warning before switching channels. I've never noticed it changing channels to record its suggestions -- although I've generally got the HD full of stuff I've selected to record.

That's what I'm wondering--if this is the way Tivo acts (at least DirecTV Tivo), or if there's something weird going on here. It does exactly what I say. I will be watching a delayed show (with about fifteen minutes behind), and it will simply switch to another with no warning, losing the recorded delay. It happened last night, during the last couple minutes of Gibson's show. At 6:30 PM, it simply switched to the local broadcast channel for a Seinfeld rerun (that I've never asked it to record). When I switched back to Fox, it was in real time--I'd lost all of the delay.

It's possessed by the Devil.

Rand,

Definately something weird. You should get a warning.

Cheers

--Fred