If you: Have a hacked DirecTiVo (or hacked standalone TiVo), Use TivoWebPlus to manage recordings, Have a Season Pass for Countdown with Keith Olbermann, and Are annoyed at having to manually delete the rebroadcast showings of Countdown–especially now that there are two rebroadcasts every night–because the rebroadcasts are not properly marked as “repeats”, You can [...]

If you:

• Have a hacked DirecTiVo (or hacked standalone TiVo),
• Use TivoWebPlus to manage recordings,
• Have a Season Pass for Countdown with Keith Olbermann, and
• Are annoyed at having to manually delete the rebroadcast showings of Countdown–especially now that there are two rebroadcasts every night–because the rebroadcasts are not properly marked as “repeats”,

You can add a filter (called a Blocking Pattern) to the Todo List which will automatically cancel recording the rebroadcasts. Here’s how:

• In TivoWebPlus, go to the /todo page and then click the “Title Blocklists and Blocking Patterns” link (/gbl_edit).
• In the right pane, add “Countdown+!17″ — that means “don’t record anything named ‘Countdown’ if it doesn’t start at 5:00 pm”. Readers in time zones other than Pacific should alter the time accordingly, e.g. “Countdown+!20″ for Eastern time.
• Click “Save Changes” and you’re done.

I hope this helps someone. I’m very pleased to no longer have to manually delete the rebroadcasts from my Playlist and Todo list.

From Ars Technica comes the welcome news that TiVo and DirecTV are getting the band back together. Come 2008, DirecTV’s TiVo users will get a major update to their DVRs. The message from DirecTV HQ appears to be “don’t bail on us yet, TiVo users.” In early June we reported on signs of renewed courtship [...]

From Ars Technica comes the welcome news that TiVo and DirecTV are getting the band back together.

Come 2008, DirecTV’s TiVo users will get a major update to their DVRs. The message from DirecTV HQ appears to be “don’t bail on us yet, TiVo users.”

In early June we reported on signs of renewed courtship between TiVo and DirecTV’s new ownership, Liberty Media. TiVo CEO Tom Rogers hinted at the possibilities between the two parties when he noted that Liberty isn’t in the business of making DVRs, unlike DirecTV’s previous owners, News Corp. TiVo’s profitable relationship with DirecTV came unraveled years ago when News Corp’s influence led them to roll their own DVR solution and begin phasing out TiVo altogether.

Clearly the road map has changed, as the two companies today announced something that I thought I’d never see: a series of major updates planned for Series 2-based DVRs. This includes all TiVo units DirecTV has rolled out in recent years, including the HD TiVo HR 10-250, which is based on the Series 2 platform.

I’ve been a DirecTV subscriber for ten years and a very happy DirecTiVo devotee for three. Last year, I upgraded and expanded my DirecTiVo unit with the Zipper–going from stock 35GB to 500GB and adding the networking and other features DirecTV didn’t want to roll out to TiVo users–and although HD is beautiful (especially for baseball!) I don’t want to move to DirecTV’s non-TiVo HD-DVR. The possibility (mentioned later in the Ars Technica article) of a new DirecTiVo HD unit has me very excited.