TiVo Tip
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I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: You’ll pry my TiVo out of my cold dead hands. Loves me some TiVo. So I got this message today as a TiVo Tip, and thought I’d pass it on to other TiVo users:
WishList(r) Search Suggestion: De-dupe Your Now Playing List
Even more remarkable than the truth behind “My TiVo gets me” is the inspiring fact that many of you truly get the real genius of TiVo, and why a cable DVR couldn’t even begin to compare.
If you like The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, you know what happens when the show takes a week or two hiatus: Your DVR records lots of repeats because they stop listing the guests for each night. Why? When the networks don’t provide unique guide data, TiVo can’t determine if the show is new or a repeat, so it records them all to play it safe. Waste space and/or manual recordings no more! Martin T., from the Web’s most beloved TiVo community forum, exercised the new-and-improved TiVo WishList(r) feature to get us our daily Jon Stewart, without the three extra servings. Here’s how:
1. Go to Find Programs, and create a new WishList(r) search.
2. Enter the show title as your first Keyword: Daily Show with Jon Stewart.
3. Select “Done entering Keyword.”
4. Next, select Keyword again, this time entering the generic program description (the following is the generic descriptor for Daily Show): A humorous slant on top news stories.
5. Now give it a Thumbs down. (By default, your first Keyword gets a Thumbs up.)
6. Set the WishList to “Auto-record” with “First-run only.”
7. Delete the old Season Pass recording for Daily Show.
So what just happened? You’ve instructed your TiVo DVR to record all new episodes and ignore episodes with generic guide data. No more reruns. No more multiple recordings. And if two of your tuners are busy at airtime, TiVo will choose to record a later show. Ahhhh…
“In addition to working very well for The Daily Show and The Colbert Report,” explains Martin. “I use the above method for an ongoing ‘Amazing Race’ WishList search that will automatically record each new season, but ignore generic reruns, as well as ‘Saturday Night Live’ and ‘Conan O’Brien’ WishList searches that ignore generic, late-night reruns.”
h/t to a very cute boy who forwarded this to me. Thanks honey!
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9 Comments
November 29th, 2007 at 8:58 pm
That is freaking BRILLIANT! I’m off to re-program our beloved T-box right now.
Thank you, DB!
And thank you, Cute Boy!
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November 30th, 2007 at 1:56 pm
I have a feeling that this isn’t going to work. In my experience, the Tivo guide info for TDS and TCR don’t always feature the same program info, even with new episodes and repeats.
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January 12th, 2008 at 5:51 pm
Any ideas how to do this when the generic description is blank?
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January 13th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
I sure don’t. I’ve been wondering that myself, as the Strike Shows are showing something different in the description than the regular shows.
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February 19th, 2009 at 12:53 pm
I’m going to try this out. It was driving me crazy having so many instances of the same episode from both TDS and TCR.
Thanks.
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March 25th, 2009 at 1:25 pm
This did not work for me. By pressing the thumbs down after the second keyword, nothing happens. My tivo doesn’t accept a thumbs down for a keyword, in fact, it does not accept a thumbs down any time during the Wishlist search.
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June 17th, 2009 at 9:23 pm
Why can’t Comedy Central provide specific show data consistently? What’s the problem. (Thanks for the tip, though)
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July 9th, 2009 at 3:23 am
You have to hit the thumbs down after you go to the screen showing the 2 keywords that you’ve created.
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August 4th, 2009 at 1:03 pm
Maybe I’m thick, but the thumbs don’t seem to work for me either. I also tried it on the screen with the two keywords showing.
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