[The Old Wizard]

Well, I signed up for the STARZ Video On Demand (SVOD) about a week ago. Now my D-TiVo wants to record "The Fast & The Furious" evertime it appears in the program guide. D-Tivo has tried to record it 5 times now. It recorded this movie I believe last Friday for the first time. I watched & deleted it on Saturday.

Now, I'm not a novice to Tivo, I have a stand alone hooked to cable, & my D-Tivo with DirecTV. I do not have suggestions turned on, on my D-Tivo. So that is not why it keeps doing this crazed behavior.

From what I can tell SVOD is something like sugestions, but different too. SVOD movies also do not show up in the TO DO list, or in recording history. This also means the 28 day rule is not in effect either. Has anyone else here that has a D-Tivo & subbed to STARZ Video On Demand run into this one? :shrug:

 

[James_F]

Check out this long thread about Starz VOD at Tivo Community

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=72784

Looks like they are above suggestions, but below your own recordings. I have SVOD, but not the problem you are describing. I'll keep my eye out.

 

[Guest]

Wouldnt true VOD be like a virtual video store rather than your Tivo recording a short list of movies that are already on Starz for you to record yourself? Im thinking more of wanting to watch some movie (that isnt scheduled) and ordering it up a la pay per view or hotel Lodgenet movies.

 

[The Old Wizard]

I have read that thread when I was thre earlier. From what I gather there appears to be a couple of glitches. One that i have observed. In the Showcases in the SVOD section there is a list of movies that are to be recorded this week. All of these movies are supposed to come from the STARZ Super Pack channels. This is not the case for "Back To The Future 2." That one is listed as being on the Disney Channel at 8:40 PM 9/5 now we all know the Disney Channel is not a part of the STARZ Super Pack. Now, if you do a search it shows up on WAM which is a STARZ Super Pack Channel, & it was also shown on Encore I believe, on Sunday.

From what I have been able to discern from the threads at The TiVo Community Forums, one should not delete these movies when you have finished watching them like you normally do. This is in my opinion either a bug or a glitch. If you delete the movie the D-TiVo seems to think it has to record the movie again.

Now, as I have said I have a stand alone Tivo hooked to cable with Suggestions turned on. When you delete a Suggestions recording the 28 day rule kicks in, & TiVo will not record that exact show, or movie again during those 28 days.

Now if SVOD were exactly like Suggestions it should do the samething, but in this case it doesn't. So either this is a bug/glitch. If it's not a bug, then Tivo has done a poor job of explaining the procedures one must do when you are a part of SVOD.

 

[James_F]

I think its different. From what I understand they will reapear just in case you deleted by mistake. What is supposed to happen is that SVOD doesn't take away any space from your recording space. So a 35 hour TiVo would still have 35 hours of space even if there was some SVOD recordings on there.

 

[Maniacal1]

James, the Starz VOD is in the 35-hour recording space. That's what the message that TiVo sent about the program said, anyway.

 

[James_F]

Really, I've seen it both ways. I guess I'm hoping that its in the reserve space. I'll have to delete some of the movies and see if my space goes up. Do you have a link to the message, or was it an email?

 

[The Old Wizard]

In the activation area that is part of the SVOD area in Showcases it says that you must have approximately 10 hours of hard drive space free to get all of the movies, & the D-Tivo has to be making it's daily phone calls. I also belive the same message was sent to the DirecTV messages area in the DirecTV menu.

 

[James_F]

Well look at that. You'd think I'd read the messages before signing up. Oh well...

 

[The Old Wizard]

I did read these messages before I signed up. The use of 10 hours of hard drive space is NOT what concerns me. It is the fact that you CAN NOT delete these movies in the same way you can with ALL other recordings. In ALL other recordings the 28 day rule is in effect, & your receiver will NOT record the same movie or progam in the next 28 days.

When I have finished viewing a recorded movie, or TV program I am done with it, & preffer to delete it. I don't want to watch it again. I also don't want the same program to be re-recorded just because I have deleted it. By having the D-TiVo re-recording these movies over after they have been deleted is going against what Tivo is all about. Watching TV MY way.

 

[James_F]

So why sign up for it. It just a test to see how VOD works. Since all the movies are available on Starz anyway, you could just record them on your own just as easy.

 

[Ryan]

I believe the idea with VOD in general and Starz-On-Demand is that certain features will be always available on your machine(s) for a certain amount of time.

True VOD would transfer the feature to you on demand (meaning you wouldn't have to store anything locally), but that's not widely available yet. So the next best thing is to pre-load certain features, in Starz case, about 5 per week, and keep them for a certain amount of time.

Since you are deleting them, you are affecting the 'on-demand availability' of the features and therefore the systems tries to load them again to meet its marketing of 'On-Demand.'

If you don't want the system to work like that, or it doesn't meet your needs for storage space or other reasons, then Starz-On-Demand doesn't seem to be a package designed for you.

Perhaps they could build an option to 'Delete, Don't Re-Record,' but then it would be more like Starz Suggestions than Starz-On-Demand.

 

[The Old Wizard]

Actually it really is more like STARZ Suggestions. Naming it STARZ Video ON Demand is not really an accurate desciption.