Odd Recording

[bills976]

This has probably been discussed here, but here's what happened:

A night ago (actually early morning of June 12), I was up pretty late (circa 3 AM - Don't ask why). I turned on my Directivo (Sony T-60) and noticed it was recording a paid program on the Discovery channel. Obviously I wouldn't set a timer for this and I have suggestions turned off. So I figured it might be an infamous yellow star program that all Tivo users know about. Well, it turned out to be an infomercial about the HDVR2. Alright, I figured, no problem, I'll probably see it on my Now Playing list in the morning. Lo and Behold, I wake up and there's no such program on the list. Does anyone have any idea what this was all about?

[spanishannouncetable]

It was a "teleworld paid programming" show. Translation - a TiVo-sponsored download which contains the video segments you can see when you go to Showcases. It is recorded on TiVo's reserved portion of the hard drive, so it takes none of your available recording time and cannot (easily) be deleted by the user.

The yellow star which occasionally shows up on the main menu is triggered by info received via the semi-daily phone calls. The call also tells the unit how to break-up the recorded video segments and where to place them in Showcases. There was information this week about the HMO, so the HDVR2's will ignore those segments (they will be in Showcases only for SA TiVo users), and the Hulk trailers will stick around, with the yellow star intact, for another week or so.

[raj2001]

NOt all of the yellow stars is seen on the teleworld paid programming though. You will notice that DirecTiVo's will also sometimes have temporary channels that will disappear after a while. These are additional "yellow star" videos that will only show up on DirecTiVo's.

In the second part of teleworld, sometimes labelled "advanced paid programming" you will see the screen flashing black and white with lots of little rectangles. This is actually the TiVo service data being downloaded for SA (standalone) TiVo's. TiVo does this so they can reduce the length of the daily phonecalls.

[bills976]

Thanks for the replies, spanish and raj. Though this brings up some interesting questions:

Tivo often makes up channels as you said (prime example being the replacement of ch. 100 when it downloads its nightly update). Is Discovery actually broadcasting this stuff to its subscribers, or is it just the Tivo overriding the channel number like it does on channel 100? If it does actually record discovery, what about those who just subscribe to Sunday Ticket and don't get Discovery?

[spanishannouncetable]

It is actually on Discovery late at night. SA TiVo subscribers with cable got the same program you were watching (if the cable co. didn't override and resell that block to another advertiser, that is).

If you don't subscribe to Discovery, it isn't in your Channels I Receive list anyway, so the TiVo doesn't "see" the show listed.