codegen's Journal: The unfriendliness of Digital Cable Tuning Boxes

For various reasons, I finally subscribed to digital cable. I won't be watching
TV that much more, but my sister will be staying with me for a period of time.
I only have a regular 27" TV, and thus we now have a digital cable tuner box.

My biggest peeve is that there doesn't seem to be any way to get it to skip
the channels that I do not subscribe to. Since there are a large number of such
channels, the channel up down key becomes useless once you leave the block
of common everyone channels. Similarly the program guide always displays
all of the channels and there doesn't seem to be anyway to limit it to display
only the channels that are subscribed.

Since my existing TV and VCR have the ability to skip channels, it seems
to me that I have taken a step backwards in usability.

Luddite

[Captain Splendid]

You'll take your "progress" and you'll like it!

favorite channels

[tsalaroth]

Depending on the hardware, you should have something like a "favorites" button/feature. It's the opposite of what you're looking for (you select which channels you want, instead of which ones you don't want), but it works, and you can just get in the habit of favorites browsing instead of the default "guide" functionality. I know the Scientific Atlanta DVR boxes have this, as do their older models.

Re:

[codegen]

There is a favorites feature. The only problem with it is that it only goes forwards.
That is the favorites button advances to the next favorite channel. There is no way to
go back to the previous favorite channel. I'll use it to the best that I can.

It would also be nice to be able to filter the guide. I know that it is sent as
data and formatted, so It would be nice to only show the channels that I am
subscribed to (+ appropriate preview channels, PPV subscriptions).