Will Suggestions Be Supported By The New Tivo Service?

[Pete77]

I have tried having a hunt around for this and couldn't see anything so just wanted to ask if there was any chance that Suggestions will still work with the replacement UK EPG service?

As I am sure other members are well aware Suggestions are the most definitively Tivoish aspect of the current S1 boxes (apart I suppose from advanced tricks with jumping 30 minutes in FF/RW etc at one go and jump back when you hit Play during FF) but I have seen no mention made as to whether there is any chance of them being supported by the replacement EPG service.

Gut instinct tells me that as Suggestions are reliant on complete data for any program in the EPG in terms of genre etc that this may well sadly be problematic.

But anyhow I just thought I would start the ball rolling as obviously the Australian, Dutch, South African and other Tivo crews will already know whether they were able to make Suggestions work in any fashion on their S1 series units.

[krayzeekev]

I have tried having a hunt around for this and couldn't see anything so just wanted to ask if there was any chance that Suggestions will still work with the replacement UK EPG service?

Gut instinct tells me that as Suggestions are reliant on complete data for any program in the EPG in terms of genre etc that this may well sadly be problematic.

The TiVo software itself will be unchanged. In fact, it's incredibly difficult to make any changes to the way the TiVo works. Little hacks can be added in underneath the scenes but don't expect changes to interface, features, etc. And then you're right - if the genres are there, genre based wishlists will work. Same with directors and actors. And the more of that data that is available, the better the suggestions will be. From what I've seen on these boards, it looks like you'll have a very well populated set of data so these things should work very well.

[Pete77]

krayzeekev,

You sound fairly confident that something reasonable will still happen with Suggestions even though with only six weeks to go this forum is quite a lot quieter than I might have expected it to be. But on the other hand what is the size of the Tivo using community in Holland or South Africa and by how many enthusiasts are they supported? I would hazard a guess that the total Tivo user universe in each country was probably under 500 (or perhaps even under 200) and that that they were supported by perhaps only 10 to 20 enthusiasts working on the data source? On that basis I suppose we should have enough manpower as there seem to be anything up to 100 hardcore enthusiasts associated with the Tivo UK world with substantial coding skills of one sort or another and a potential userbase for the self help run on Tivo service of at least 500 people up to probably more like 1,000 to 1,500 Tivo users.

Although you say changing how the Tivo works is relatively restricted it strikes me that things like Autospace, Endpad and Bufferhack were relatively substantial interventions to the day to day working and a hack was also developed to control the times of day at which and/or the frequency with which Tivo called home. Logo extensions were again a significant front end user hack. Ditto Tivoweb overcomes the problem of not being able to manage recordings without stopping watching your current tv programs and DailyMail is another quite substantial intervention.

In any case I don't know what else I can do to help with the development. I would certainly be happy to help with any dummy database testing before the service goes live although I do wonder how much time in practice you will have available for this before June 1st?

[krayzeekev]

You sound fairly confident that something reasonable will still happen with Suggestions even though with only six weeks to go this forum is quite a lot quieter than I might have expected it to be. But on the other hand what is the size of the Tivo using community in Holland or South Africa and by how many enthusiasts are they supported? I would hazard a guess that the total Tivo user universe in each country was probably under 500 (or perhaps even under 200) and that that they were supported by perhaps only 10 to 20 enthusiasts working on the data source? On that basis I suppose we should have enough manpower as there seem to be anything up to 100 hardcore enthusiasts associated with the Tivo UK world with substantial coding skills of one sort or another and a potential userbase for the self help run on Tivo service of at least 500 people up to probably more like 1,000 to 1,500 Tivo users.

Indeed. The guys seem to have a very thorough source of data.

Although you say changing how the Tivo works is relatively restricted it strikes me that things like Autospace, Endpad and Bufferhack were relatively substantial interventions to the day to day working and a hack was also developed to control the times of day at which and/or the frequency with which Tivo called home. Logo extensions were again a significant front end user hack. Ditto Tivoweb overcomes the problem of not being able to manage recordings without stopping watching your current tv programs and DailyMail is another quite substantial intervention.

Yeah - but none of those change the basic operation of the TiVo interface. They're all poking at the internals from underneath. Autospace puts some ugly text on the screen, true, but it's hardly integrated into the experience (don't get me wrong - I love autospace - just saying, you don't see it in the same font as the rest of the interface, or in a menu option or anything). Endpad and bufferhack are completely background. Same with TiVoWeb. The main TiVo software sitting there recording, playing, etc is unchanged.