Puzzled re: TiVo program suggestions

[Phred]

Ok, a really stupid question. As far as I can determine TiVo will record programs it thinks might interest me, selecting shows from all channels – not just from the LiveTv channel. Given there’s only one active “tuner” source that is used to both record and/or watch LiveTv, how does TiVo know if I’m watching LiveTv or not? How can TiVo automatically select a show to record, change the channel to that show and know I won’t be upset ‘cause I wasn’t watching LiveTv? Hummm. When I'm not using TiVo should I switch out of LiveTv and leave TiVo in some other mode?

Phred

[Darren King]

There's a timer running somewhere in the "Myworld" code that monitors last active keypress and if this times out the TiVo will then start to record suggestions. I think this is set to one hour. The TiVo does warn you a couple of minutes beforehand it is going to change the channel to record a suggestion so if you are watching TV you can grab the remote and tell it to not go ahead with the suggestion.

If the suggested recordings feature annoys you then it can be switched off in the preference menus.

If on the other hand you happen to like this feature but annoyed it seems to be recording everything then you can help the TiVo out by rating the recorded programs with the thumbs up and thumbs down buttons as this is what they are used for.