Remotely Scheduling a Recording Through the HMO

Hack 64 Remotely Scheduling a Recording Through the HMO

With the TiVo Home Media Option, remotely scheduling a recording is as easy as going to http://www.tivo.com and making your selection.

Scheduling a recording via the Home Media Option (HMO) is supposed to be pretty simple, and indeed it is.

Before you can use TiVo's HMO to administer your TiVo Series 2 remotely, you'll need to log in to TiVo Central Online at http://www.tivo.com/tco. You'll be prompted (see Figure 5-1) for the email address and password that you used when you signed up for the HMO.

Figure 5-1. Logging in to TiVo Central Online

After successfully logging in, you're presented with a page for scheduling a recording (see Figure 5-2). First, choose which TiVo you want to record on; assuming you're fortunate enough to own more than one, there will be multiple choices.

Figure 5-2. Scheduling a recording through TiVo Central Online

In much the same manner as TiVo itself, you can Search TV Listings for a particular show by title, title/description, or actor/director; or, you can Browse by Channel for a gander at what's on TV over the next couple of days.

Advanced Search (shown in Figure 5-3) is reminiscent of the Advanced Wishlists [Hack #17]. If you choose that interface, you can set up "and" relationships in the search you want to make. Name that show and the actor/director and the category. TiVo Central Online will try to find it for you.

Figure 5-3. Using TiVo Central Online'sAadvanced Search interface

This site behaves just as you expect your TiVo would. Figure 5-4 shows it listing all the upcoming episodes.

Figure 5-4. The results of the program listing search, showing all the shows that match the query

Select which upcoming show you want recorded by clicking on it. You will be given the option of recording just the one episode or getting a Season Pass to it (see Figure 5-5).

Figure 5-5. Record this episode or get a Season Pass to the show

The recording options (shown in Figure 5-6) are similar to the options you have when you schedule a recording on the TiVo itself: you can have the box keep the recording until space is needed, specify whether to start and stop the episode on time, and pick the quality of the recording. There is one recording option that might not seem that familiar:

"What priority?"

Figure 5-6. Setting all the recording options when scheduling a show to be recorded

Because your TiVo is not continuously connected to TiVo, Inc.'s web site, it doesn't know exactly what shows your TiVo is already scheduled to record. Because your broadband-enabled PVR connects to TiVo, Inc. only a few times a day; the information the HMO has may not be as up-to-date as it would like to be. So, if you ask the HMO to schedule a recording for you, it can't know if there is a conflict brewing. To work around this problem, there are two options: "Only record if nothing else conflicts" and "Cancel other programs if necessary." These selections do exactly as they say: the first will record if there are no other entries on the To Do List, and the second will trump anything else already in the schedule.

If you ask for a Season Pass to be added to your lineup, you're presented with a similar screen, but this time you are able to modify the Season Pass options, as shown in Figure 5-7. The only thing you can't change is the ordering of your passes; to reorder your passes, you're going to have to go to your TiVo.

Figure 5-7. Set the Season Pass recording options remotely through the HMO

After you have asked TiVo Central Online to schedule a show for you, TiVo, Inc. just waits for contact from your PVR. And here is the main reason that you're now using your broadband connection for your TiVo: your TiVo doesn't have to use your phone line anymore. Now, it's really simple and basically unobtrusive for your TiVo to make its Daily Call. A few times a day, sometimes as often as once an hour, your broadband-enabled TiVo will connect over the Internet and receive any of these queued-up requests from TiVo Central Online. If it receives any, it will start to incorporate them into its schedule.

If all goes as it should, the next time you turn on your TiVo you should find a message waiting for you, confirming that your request has been added to the To Do List. And if you check out the To Do List, the show will be there, as expected.

If all does not go to plan—for example, if there's a scheduling conflict—then things get a little more complicated. An hour or so after you ask the HMO to schedule a recording—probably around the time your box decides to connect to TiVo Central Online—you'll receive an email message, informing you of the conflict. A typical email of this sort looks something like this:

From: TiVo - Your Upstairs TiVo DVR confirmations@tivo.com Date: Sat May 3, 2003 15:15:07 America/New_York

To:

Subject: Status of your request for "Law & Order: Criminal Intent"

Your online request for "Law & Order: Criminal Intent : Malignant" has been received. However, this episode COULD NOT be scheduled to record because it conflicts with a previously scheduled, higher priority recording.

Will NOT record:

Law & Order: Criminal Intent 5/4 10:00 pm-11:00 pm 7 WHDH overlaps with Alias 9:00 pm - 11:00 pm

To change which programs will and won't record, go to the To Do List and Recording History. To get there:

- press the TiVo button to go to TiVo Central - choose "Pick Programs to Record"

- choose "To Do List"

Best regards, TiVo

http://www.tivo.com/support

This is the TiVo HMO's way of performing conflict resolution. Now it's up to you to go back to TiVo Central Online and reschedule.

Because your TiVo is not constantly connected and your web browser is not talking directly to your TiVo, the remote abilities of the HMO are quite limited. There is no way for you to take a look at the To Do List, and there is no way for you to manage your Season Passes. In fact, you are not able to do anything except schedule a recording, and even that may not go to plan, because you have no way of knowing—until an hour has passed—whether there is a conflict. In fact, if you want to record a show that starts in 5 minutes, there is a very good chance that Remote Scheduling will not do it for you.

Those of you who want it all, take a look at TiVoWeb [Hack #65] instead.

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Hack 65 TiVoWeb, a Web Interface to Your TiVo

TiVoWeb is the TiVo interface embodied in a web browser, allowing you full remote control of your TiVo from anywhere in the world.

Josha Foust's TiVoWeb (http://tivo.lightn.org/) predates TiVo's Home Media Option (HMO) and far outstrips it in terms of features. While the HMO's Remote Scheduling feature simply allows you to add something to your TiVo's recording schedule over the Web, TiVoWeb is almost the full TiVo interface embodied in a web browser. It allows direct manipulation of about every aspect of your PVR: manipulate your Season Passes, unschedule something from the To Do List, undelete a program you might have accidentally deleted, read your TiVo messages, and the list goes on and on.

A nice side effect of running TiVoWeb is the ability to manipulate your TiVo while it's doing something else—playing back a recorded show, for instance.

Before you begin, you'll need a networked TiVo [Hack #49] with a Bash prompt [Hack #52]. You can even use a PPP-over-serial [Hack #47] instead of the TiVo/TurboWeb card in your Series 1.