TiVo Adds Overlap Protection

One enduring complaint about PVRs is that networks sometimes schedule a show just over the half hour mark, for instance ending at 8:31 or starting at 9:29. It's either an effort to transfer viewers to another show or a conspiracy to punish PVR users for skipping commercials.

Either way, it looks like TiVo's doing something about it. A knowledge base article describes a new feature called "Overlap Protection" that, when enabled, will keep a show ending at 8:31 from preventing an 8:30 recording. When an overlap occurs, the TiVo will give preference to the show with a higher priority in the Season Pass manager.

This feature is reportedly part of the 7.2.1 software currently being distributed to Series 2 TiVos.

Comments

[Keith]

I got the 7.2.1 software a couple of days ago along with a "tivo message" describing the Overlap Protection feature. Although I can't yet confirm that it works as advertised, I can confirm that their description of the functionality exactly matches yours.

They also fixed the annoying "jittery playback when resuming from pause" bug that had crept in one or two updates ago.

[sMoRTy71]

I am assuming that this is only for standalone TiVos, correct?

[Kirk]

I'd rather see the Start Recording 1 minute earlier and Stop Recording 1 minute later feature use negative numbers.

I could control it eaiser for individual shows.

[New York]

> They also fixed the annoying "jittery playback when resuming from pause" bug that had crept in one or two updates ago.

Thats actually very exciting - thought this was somehow an intended change in the playback functionality.

[Scott]

I think I'd rather have it give preference to the show that is ending. Even if the later show is higher in the Season Pass listing, I'd prefer to see the final minute(s) of a show over the opening minutes of another.

[Dave Zatz]

For those interested, I've got a few more details and pictures here:
http://www.zatznotfunny.com/2005-10/tivo-721-dissected-with-pics/

[Gavin]

Scott,
I think you could have that functionality as it looks like it clips the lower priority show. If the first program is higher priority, it will complete and the start of the second show will be missing.
At least, that's how I read the funtionality - I haven't seen it come through on mine yet.

[Eric]

why the five minute window? I'd much rather it offer me this opportunity whenever there is overlap. For instance, if I'm a half hour late starting a football game, I can live with that. Instead, I'm forced to manually record, which is annoying.

[Tom Reed]

>I think I'd rather have it give preference to the show that is ending. Even if the later show is higher in the Season Pass listing, I'd prefer to see the final minute(s) of a show over the opening minutes of another.<

I set up my season passes in order by days then timeslots that they air. So a Monday night show at 8:00 will be rated just above the 8:30 program in my season pass. If you set-up season passes this way you will get the end of the earlier broadcast. Note: I do this for ALL network programs. For many of the premuim channels I rate them lower since they run multiple showings of most of those shows.

[Fuzzy_Logic]

Agree - have an option to tell Tivo to finish recording the end of the show and miss the first minute or two of the beginning of the new show.

Who thought that having Tivo cut off the last minute or two of a show to go to a 'higher priority' show was a good idea?

Do the Tivo people even watch TV?

[Gig Giacona]

Does anyone know if overlap protection will be updated into the Series 1 boxes?

[Troy]

I disagree with unilaterally giving preference to the show that is ending. Many shows have endings that are either completely worthless (like just the end credits, for example) or throw-offs, whereas some shows (Alias) often have very important stuff in the first few minutes.

If watching the cliffhanger ending of Smallville is more important than the generic opening shot of CSI, then you gotta rate it higher, especially now that the overlap doesn't mean that you'll miss it entirely. Essentially, it just means you might have to re-think how you prioritize your Season Passes.

I've been waiting for this feature for a long time, and I can't wait 'til it shows up on my box!

[Todd]

I am also curious about the support for this in the Series 1 box. I don't know if TiVo has any love left for the Series 1 owners.

[Belgand]

While I initially was part of the "why not always finish the current show, dammit!" camp I've come to realize that, yes, maybe this does make a bit more sense. Still, it feels very much like the standard TiVo/Apple "you will do it the one way we decided is best" philosophy rather than giving the user the choice of doing it the way they like best (i.e. always finish, always switch, go by priority or set manually on a per show basis). Using the priority system can really cause further problems with this since it rarely works as they seem to want it to (e.g. I like this show better than this other show). I spend far, far too much time trying to game out my season passes so they're set up just right to properly record everything while also not deleting stuff earlier to make room for stuff that I don't care as much about (now that would be a good feature: a big line and you don't delete a show above the line in order to record a show below the line meaning I won't lose that shown-once network show in order to record something that I probably won't even watch off of cable that'll be shown five times later in the week).

As it currently exists the priorty system is a pretty big kludge necessary to make the idea of season passes work correctly. Cramming more features onto it though just makes things harder on the user. I mean, what happens when I have a show that I want to be lower priorty for recording purposes, but I want to be higher priority for overlap?

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