Categorized Guide

[wtg]

My cable lineup includes far too many channels. Nice when I want them of course, but a pain when I have to wade through all the channels to get to the ones I want in the guide. I've love a way to assign channels to a group of categories and switch to viewing just those when I wanted.

For instance, all my music channels are 800-899. I like them but don't want to scroll through them when I'm looking for movies. My premium movie channels are all in the 600's. PPV are all in the 950-999. HD are all 900-949. I would love to be able to assign channels to a category (more than one) and switch between those categories.

I'm sure one of the problems with this would be how to switch between them from the screen since there's limited room for controls and the logical remote keys are pretty much all accounted for. Might I suggest something simple. First time into the guide displays all channels, but pressing the Guide button again, when in the guide, switches categories. Or a single digit + Guide switches to category 0-9. Nice for us 45-button remote people anyway.

Creating categories and assigning channels to them could be done either in config, or a config option from the System plugin.

[Jim_]

TV Listings allows you to switch between all and favorites from the system menu using the remote.
System>Settings>TV Listings>“Only show favorite channels in guide”

Not exactly what you're asking for (multiple favorite groups), but it’s a very nice feature if you're not already using it.

[wtg]

Thanks Jim.

I'm not using the Favorites feature... I saw the little checkbox on the channels setup and wondered what that was. But as you said I'm really asking for multiple favorites and the ability to easily switch between them. I probably won't use the favorites feature even now unless there's a quicker way to turn it on and off within the guide.

Off to check the docs...

[Torque]

This sounds neat, I'll have to check it out tonite

[nkh]

My cable lineup includes far too many channels. Nice when I want them of course, but a pain when I have to wade through all the channels to get to the ones I want in the guide. I've love a way to assign channels to a group of categories and switch to viewing just those when I wanted.

If you're currently scrolling through all the channals, then it might be easier just to press 5 0 0 and then [ok] to jump to the channel you have on nr 500.

[bdgbill]

I love this idea.

I have the same problem of too many channels. And channels that are not grouped logically.

I would love to be able to set up catagories like "news", "networks", "movies" etc. Maybe a row of programmable buttons on the TV guide screen.

Further I would like to set up a custom tv guide just for the girlfriend who watches channels i never watch and vise / versa.