View Full Version : 50 series limit?
IndyMichael
07-03-09, 06:50 PM
We watched the first two episodes of Hawthorne on DoD, then went to add a season pass and the ferkin thing said we'd have to delete a SP to add it. Who's the moron at DirecTV who set a 50 series limit?:nono2::new_cussi
chevyguy559
07-03-09, 06:57 PM
Yeah, if it could be 100 it would be better......I've had to prune the list a couple times now and missed the start of a season of a show because I forgot to put it back on :(
jhsanchez
07-03-09, 08:44 PM
That 50 limit is the single biggest problem I have with the HR product line. I get around it by using my other HR for the next 50.
We watched the first two episodes of Hawthorne on DoD, then went to add a season pass and the ferkin thing said we'd have to delete a SP to add it. Who's the moron at DirecTV who set a 50 series limit?:nono2::new_cussiYou're obviously expressing frustration but surely not expecting any of us to answer.
However, many of us have come up with creative ways to use AutoRecord Series Links (ARSLs) to try to get around the limitation of 50 series links. For example, if you have series links for all three CSI programs on your local CBS station, let's say Channel 2, you can create a keyword search, set it to record all matches, and eliminate 2 entries from the Prioritizer:
Search Term: CSI TTITLE CCHAN 2
If you have a lot of unique series/titles scheduled you may not be able to pare down the number of series links, but it's worth a try to work within the limits.
litzdog911
07-03-09, 08:51 PM
Add your vote to the Wish List ....
http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=93995
Shades228
07-03-09, 11:42 PM
I couldn't even name off 50 shows let a lone want to watch that many. However I do delete my season passes once the show is over for the season. I've had too many instances where I miss the first show of the season because they changed some ID on the Tribune data and it didn't record on my DVR. So each year I setup new ones. I always notice I have less then the year before. Guess that shows how much I like current TV shows.
I couldn't even name off 50 shows let a lone want to watch that many. However I do delete my season passes once the show is over for the season. I've had too many instances where I miss the first show of the season because they changed some ID on the Tribune data and it didn't record on my DVR. So each year I setup new ones. I always notice I have less then the year before. Guess that shows how much I like current TV shows.
If you have kids it's pretty easy to get up near 50 SLs. Four people watching different programming on the same DVR can really make 50 a tight squeeze...but I guess it's all the HR2x can handle.
IndyMichael
07-04-09, 07:07 AM
Add your vote to the Wish List ....
http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=93995
Do you have to register to vote, or use the dbstalk login?
IndyMichael
07-04-09, 07:09 AM
We have two HDdvrs going to our main tv, just checked the second one and it only has 28 SP's, but it also only holds 50 hours of HD. Can't wait to replace it with the new HDTivo, if it ever comes out.
litzdog911
07-04-09, 10:55 AM
Do you have to register to vote, or use the dbstalk login?
Uhhh, neither. Just click on the "Wish List Survey".
spartanstew
07-04-09, 11:34 AM
We watched the first two episodes of Hawthorne on DoD, then went to add a season pass and the ferkin thing said we'd have to delete a SP to add it. Who's the moron at DirecTV who set a 50 series limit?:nono2::new_cussi
While I also wish that limit were removed, it doesn't seem to be that big of an issue for you since you've just discovered it after 6 years.
Certainly not enough of an issue for your verbage.
IndyMichael
07-04-09, 12:13 PM
While I also wish that limit were removed, it doesn't seem to be that big of an issue for you since you've just discovered it after 6 years.
Certainly not enough of an issue for your verbage.
Did SD Tivos have the 50 series limits? If not, I've only had HDdvrs since Dec 29th, 2008, not 6 years.
IndyMichael
07-04-09, 12:16 PM
Uhhh, neither. Just click on the "Wish List Survey".
You must be logged in to use this feature. Please enter your username/password combination or use the link below to register.
That's what I get when I click on "take the survey"
Did SD Tivos have the 50 series limits? If not, I've only had HDdvrs since Dec 29th, 2008, not 6 years.
No, SD Tivos did not have the 50 series limit...that is DirecTV innovation.
litzdog911
07-04-09, 01:14 PM
That's what I get when I click on "take the survey"
Hmmm. It's been a while since I used that Survey tool. Did you try your DBSTalk username and password?
spartanstew
07-04-09, 01:41 PM
My dbstalk username and password work, but I don't remember if I registered there separately with the same information or not.
Racer88
07-04-09, 01:44 PM
they're too busy creating niche features that are "marketable" to concern themselves with things in the area of fundamental DVR functionality. that ship sailed long, long ago.
in fact I'm sure that someone has already identified this specific shortcoming as a way to bilk customers for even more money by conning them into additional DVRs to overcome it.
Shades228
07-04-09, 01:55 PM
they're too busy creating niche features that are "marketable" to concern themselves with things in the area of fundamental DVR functionality. that ship sailed long, long ago.
in fact I'm sure that someone has already identified this specific shortcoming as a way to bilk customers for even more money by conning them into additional DVRs to overcome it.
I'll take what they're currently working on rather then more recording links. Granted 50 series limit has no effect on me as I do have multiple dvr's so everyone can record what they want on theirs. So I am biased on this but considering the cost of SD DVR's now days another dvr isn't a bad investment if watching TV is something that you do a lot.
longrider
07-04-09, 01:58 PM
Another point to think about is what percentage of average customers does the 50SL limit affect? Members of this forum are not average customers. I know that no one I know personally comes anywhere close to 50 on their DVR
spartanstew
07-04-09, 02:04 PM
I'd much rather have the 50 limit and the speed of moving things around in the list, than no limit and the list slowness of the tivo's I used to have.
I'm sure if they removed the 50 limit, something else would suffer (I don't know what). Do we really want that?
IndyMichael
07-04-09, 02:12 PM
Our SD Tivos were much faster than our HDdvrs. I saw on the dvr comparison thread that Dishdvrs have a series limit of 96 shows. Seems to me it's an arbitrary number and nothing would be affected by upping it.
Shades228
07-04-09, 02:56 PM
Our SD Tivos were much faster than our HDdvrs. I saw on the dvr comparison thread that Dishdvrs have a series limit of 96 shows. Seems to me it's an arbitrary number and nothing would be affected by upping it.
None of the Tivo's I owned were faster then the slowest of my HD DVR.
spartanstew
07-04-09, 03:19 PM
Our SD Tivos were much faster than our HDdvrs.
Hmm, you must have gotten lucky.
Moving a show from the bottom of the prioritizer to the top with my DTivo's could take as long as 5 minutes.
With the HRXX's, it's basically instant.
IndyMichael
07-04-09, 03:29 PM
That's how it was was with our Tivos,everything seemed instant. We also had Uverse between our Tivos and our D* HDdvrs, so it's not like we had one one day and the other the next. Perhaps our Uverse boxes made the HDdvrs seem a lot slower than we remembered our Tivos being.
Hmm, you must have gotten lucky.
Moving a show from the bottom of the prioritizer to the top with my DTivo's could take as long as 5 minutes.
With the HRXX's, it's basically instant.There was an update to the DIRECTV with TiVo receivers that addressed this problem, making re-prioritizing the TiVo Season Pass Manager very snappy and responsive, so maybe you didn't get that update or were no longer using the receivers when the update was deployed.
While there wasn't a hard limit that I know of on the Tivos (although I wouldn't have been shocked at them having a limit of 127 or 255...there was a practical limit the Tivos had slower CPUs and less RAM than the DirecTV units (the DTivos are now going on eight-year-old computers.
They also did everything realtime instead of background processing (there are benefits to each way)...so I have a feeling that if you had a LOT of SLs on a Tivo things would slow down to the point of it being unusable.
I guess you'd have to look at one of their newer units to see how they do with large lists.
spartanstew
07-04-09, 05:06 PM
There was an update to the DIRECTV with TiVo receivers that addressed this problem, making re-prioritizing the TiVo Season Pass Manager very snappy and responsive, so maybe you didn't get that update or were no longer using the receivers when the update was deployed.
That would explain it. I got rid of them about 2 years ago when I went HD. It might also have something to do with Ken's comment, as we had a lot of Season Passes (probably 100 or so on our main unit)
You cant directly compare Dish DVRs, Tivo DVRs, and Directv DVRs in this sense. Each have their own code and hardware that is completely different.
My guess is that the limit is in place to keep performance good while the units are indexing the guide data and populating the ToDo list and such. With too many things, I am sure it would slow down. Tivos did slow down with too many SPs, even after that update.
ThomasM
07-04-09, 06:41 PM
People grumbled about the 100 limit on TO DO list entries on the R15 series and it got changed. Maybe the 50 series link(pass) limit will get changed too.
Personally, I agree with the poster(s) who never reach the limit. Of course, I don't have a dozen kids (or a wife) either. :D
You cant directly compare Dish DVRs, Tivo DVRs, and Directv DVRs in this sense. Each have their own code and hardware that is completely different.
My guess is that the limit is in place to keep performance good while the units are indexing the guide data and populating the ToDo list and such. With too many things, I am sure it would slow down. Tivos did slow down with too many SPs, even after that update.
Of course you can compare them...they're all supposed to do the same basic thing and if one model can only do 50 and another can do 200 that might be a big difference to someone and be a decision-making point.
Of course you can compare them...they're all supposed to do the same basic thing and if one model can only do 50 and another can do 200 that might be a big difference to someone and be a decision-making point.
True, I was speaking more from the sense of "if the Dish DVR can do it obviously the Directv one can" which with all the differences in software and hardware is not necessarily true.
Brennok
07-06-09, 09:14 PM
While there wasn't a hard limit that I know of on the Tivos (although I wouldn't have been shocked at them having a limit of 127 or 255...there was a practical limit the Tivos had slower CPUs and less RAM than the DirecTV units (the DTivos are now going on eight-year-old computers.
They also did everything realtime instead of background processing (there are benefits to each way)...so I have a feeling that if you had a LOT of SLs on a Tivo things would slow down to the point of it being unusable.
I guess you'd have to look at one of their newer units to see how they do with large lists.
I am currently down to 158 season passes on one of my Directivos but usually in the fall we are around 250 season passes per Tivo, I think this past fall we were at 268 on the main DTivo so no limit I have hit as of yet. I also don't have any of the slowdown people normally complain about. The only thing I can think is my upgraded drive helps but it wasn't slow before I upgraded from 100 hours to 435 hours. I only upgraded for the space and drives were cheap.
armophob
07-06-09, 09:33 PM
People grumbled about the 100 limit on TO DO list entries on the R15 series and it got changed. Maybe the 50 series link(pass) limit will get changed too.
Personally, I agree with the poster(s) who never reach the limit. Of course, I don't have a dozen kids (or a wife) either. :D
I don't have those and I am getting dangerously close to 50 on 2 DVR's. It isn't just the shows, its the keyword searches that eat up the limit. John Waters & HD, Lewis Black AALL, ect.
I am currently down to 158 season passes on one of my Directivos but usually in the fall we are around 250 season passes per Tivo, I think this past fall we were at 268 on the main DTivo so no limit I have hit as of yet. I also don't have any of the slowdown people normally complain about. The only thing I can think is my upgraded drive helps but it wasn't slow before I upgraded from 100 hours to 435 hours. I only upgraded for the space and drives were cheap.
Thanks for the info. The only part of Tivo I remember being slow was the calculation of new SLs when they were added...but that was on a Sony T60 and it was just a few seconds.
The hours it takes an HR2x to populate a To Do list has always struck me as pretty poor.
thomas102c
07-17-09, 06:34 AM
Does adding an external eSATA drive to an HR21 remove the 50 SP limit or is it built into the programing?
dodge boy
07-17-09, 06:39 AM
We watched the first two episodes of Hawthorne on DoD, then went to add a season pass and the ferkin thing said we'd have to delete a SP to add it. Who's the moron at DirecTV who set a 50 series limit?:nono2::new_cussi
This shoul dbe moved to the DVR thread, but I can't do that.
The "moron" who set up the 50 SP limit is the guy who wants you to add another DVR to your account...... :lol:
CCarncross
07-17-09, 06:46 AM
Does adding an external eSATA drive to an HR21 remove the 50 SP limit or is it built into the programing?
Its built into the code on the DVR...but there are many ways to combine multiple shows into single SL's that will allow you to actually record more than 50 Series....
Here's a simple example:
I record multiple shows every week on USA 242, Burn Notice, Royal Pains, and In Plain Sight. I do this with a single SL.
Start with a keyword search and enter this string:
AANY NOTICE ROYAL SIGHT TTITLE CCHAN 242
Never misses a recording. BTW those duplicate letters are mandatory for the search to work correctly.
CCarncross
07-17-09, 06:46 AM
This shoul dbe moved to the DVR thread, but I can't do that.
The "moron" who set up the 50 SP limit is the guy who wants you to add another DVR to your account...... :lol:
Are you always this angry about stuff?
dodge boy
07-17-09, 06:50 AM
Are you always this angry about stuff?
I am not angry about anything, I said "Moron" in quotes, being sarcastic, I thought, as the guy with the limits was trying to "drum up" business for D* by making you get a second dvr if you want more than 50 SPs....
Hey have a great weekend.
thomas102c
07-17-09, 07:13 AM
Its built into the code on the DVR...but there are many ways to combine multiple shows into single SL's that will allow you to actually record more than 50 Series....
Here's a simple example:
I record multiple shows every week on USA 242, Burn Notice, Royal Pains, and In Plain Sight. I do this with a single SL.
Start with a keyword search and enter this string:
AANY NOTICE ROYAL SIGHT TTITLE CCHAN 242
Never misses a recording. BTW those duplicate letters are mandatory for the search to work correctly.
Once this is done do the shows show up in the to do list?
CCarncross
07-17-09, 07:36 AM
Once this is done do the shows show up in the to do list?
Not usually immediately, except for maybe the 1st one that matches the criteria. But if the keyword search returns the results you were looking for, setting up the autorecord from there will slowly populate the TDL. I use this technique for shows I see an ad for but are more than 2 weeks into the future as well. Things like the sneak previews on HDNET Movies for example.
oldfantom
07-17-09, 07:38 AM
Once this is done do the shows show up in the to do list?
Eventually, there is a thread about setting up these multi key word searches
http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=132971
A couple of bummer points as I recall. But my lists have been fairly stable as of late.
You force all the shows in the keyword search to have the same priority (I have never had a problem with this).
1. All shows captured by the search show up in one folder.
2. The to - do list is slow to catch on what it is going to record.
3. The dash channels and channels I receive bugs can be an issue.
4. If you have a Season Pass and you add a keyword search task, no matter what the priority, the Season pass will record the show. So you can't practically test your keyword search. That said, they work and I don't often feel the need to test them.
thomas102c
07-17-09, 08:16 AM
Do you need to include an HD modifer in the search to record the HD version of the shows?
CCarncross
07-17-09, 09:21 AM
Do you need to include an HD modifer in the search to record the HD version of the shows?
It would depend on the channel but I don't depend on the HD modifier to work because not all shows are properly labeled as HD. A good example is what happened to WEEDS a few weeks ago, apparently the HD got dropped from the program description and I had the HD modifier in my search and it quit recording the show, I took it out and it started working correctly again. I'm always recording it on the same channel so it always is in HD(537 SHOeHD). Remember that if there are SD duplicate channels numbers, it should always choose the HD channel.
oldfantom
07-17-09, 09:38 AM
Do you need to include an HD modifer in the search to record the HD version of the shows?
If you put in a CCHAN restriction, probably not. If you are talking about a channel where there is a -x sister channel (e.g. 13 and 13-1) then probably. Unless they have changed something, the keyword search does not know the difference between the main and sub channels.
To the point of the previous post, it is something to consider that the HD descriptor might get lost. But you are always at the mercy of the guide data. In the thread I mentioned above, I believe we talked about restricting things like the generic program descriptions for the Simpsons and Daily Show. But it is a lot of effort to squeeze into 50 chars. This comment probably goes into the fire the engineers thread, but the fact of the matter is that you really have to babysit your series passes in the HR - xxx boxes. Too many bugs.
CCarncross
07-17-09, 01:15 PM
My autorecord SL's have been working pretty flawlessly using the -1, etc. for digital channels, for instance my local FOX OTA is 47-1, so I use that to record Mentalist, Lie to Me, and a few others...
oldfantom
07-17-09, 01:50 PM
My autorecord SL's have been working pretty flawlessly using the -1, etc. for digital channels, for instance my local FOX OTA is 47-1, so I use that to record Mentalist, Lie to Me, and a few others...
That is good to know, I disabled all my OTA channels when I started receiving the feed from D*, so it has been a long time since I had to worry about dash channels.
SParker
07-17-09, 02:26 PM
Agreed the 50 limit is insanity. Increase it by 25 at least please.
The Merg
07-17-09, 02:54 PM
We mainly use only one TV so we have series set up for 4 different people. That 50-ceiling is very easy to hit. We have to constantly remove and add series when they are over so that we can add in new ones. It is quite annoying to say the least.
Purchasing another DVR is not exactly a solution for us as I really don't want to spend another $100 up front and then $5 a month. Plus, I'm kinda out of inputs on my TV with my R22, Wii, and DVD player. Things would be so much easier if they removed the limit.
- Merg
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