Has anyone scrolled the entire guide database...

[sushikitten]

Has anyone ever scrolled the entire guide database ("Search By Title") just to see what shows there might be that you want to see but would never normally think about otherwise?

I did this when I wasn't working the last few months of my pregnancy (i.e. when I had the time, lol). I scrolled from 0 to Z and found some neat things I would never have found, or just sounded interesting. I don't have a full list off the top of my head, but I remember fun things like "100 Sexist Videos of All Time" or "100 Top One-Hit Wonders" to all three Back to the Future movies to things like BBC's Earth series (Earth? Ocean? something along those lines). Just recently I was looking to program "Surviving Survivor" and saw two lines down "Survivor Millionaires: Where Are They Now?"

I figure I can't be the only one who has ever done this. Poll coming.

[MickeS]

Yeah, I've done it a few times when I was bored... :D I don't think I made it all the way to the end though.

Since I've cut down on channels since then (OTA only) it would probably be a lot quicker and easier to do it now. :)

[heySkippy]

I'll narrow it to HD movies and scroll sometimes. I wish it could just display each title once instead of multiple times (for movies that appear on HBO, HBO2, HBOW, HBOS, etc). I usually don't make it all the way from one end to the other.

[LifeIsABeach]

I have done it with Sitcoms to find old ones I wanted to record, but not the whole database.

[scandia101]

I searched through the whole data base just once. But I regularly search through just the movies.

[brettatk]

I've done it a few times in the past. As someone mentioned earlier, now I'll just search on HD to cut down the number of shows.

[gayste]

I've started plenty of times, but sadly never get to the end. Next time i'm gonna have to start at the bottom, to see some of those shows that start with xyz :)

[ZeoTiVo]

I played around like this in the TiVo search beta app - would not want to do it on the find by title listing though.

Now I have seen other shows when using find by title and recorded them. That keeps a little of the "oh, did not know this was on" magic.

[Doh]

I used to do this for movies, but now it seems like there are too many to do (not sure if I have less free time or tivo has more movies).

[wmcbrine]

I've done it, but it takes freaking forever. I have to break it up into sections. As in, "OK, I've made it up to 'D', so I'll start there next time."

[bkc56]

As others above, I regularly do it with movies, but never the whole thing.

[danterner]

I'll narrow it to HD movies and scroll sometimes.

This. I'll do this every few months, and often find at least 2 or 3 movies that would otherwise have passed me by. (Most of them, though, are still sitting unviewed).

[waynomo]

I did it on my old series 1. Definitely found some things I wouldn't have otherwise.

I am surprised that no one here has written a program to make downloading all this info down to ones PC possible. I guess maybe the data is proprietary/copyrighted by Tribune and I guess they don't allow it.

I would love to search for movies by number of stars. A wish list for all four star movies or something. I guess I am getting a little off topic here.

[taronga]

I used to do it with movies, and I have a Wish List to do a similar thing with talk shows. I also regularly scroll through the complete listings for the two PBS stations I receive. Yes, I have a lot of time on my hands. :)

[ThAbtO]

I go through the entire list once a week, only takes me about 1/2 an hour. :D

[CrispyCritter]

I go through the entire list once a week, only takes me about 1/2 an hour. :D
But how many channels do you have?

Back of the envelope:
I have 530 channels (and no premium channels, but I'm in two major OTA markets.) Figure 1 hour per show, 270 hours in the guide; that's 140,000 shows in the guide. At 7 shows per screenful and 2 seconds to look at each screen, that's 40,000 seconds or about 11 hours.

I know not all shows are in the guide and so forth, so it's an overestimate, but that is still an awfully impressive (depressive?) amount of stuff being fed to my TiVo!

[ThAbtO]

But how many channels do you have?


Only forty on my OTA. :PHEW: :D

Sounds like your Tivo needs to go on a diet. :LOL: :D

[orangeboy]

Cable - No.
OTA - yes.

[bschuler2007]

I've done it several times.. and yes.. I also break it down into, I did A-F today, tomorrow F-J, etc..

I just wish Tivo would remove all the paid advertisement shows from the list.. I mean, 50+ listings for Natural Colon Cleaner, lol.

[jayfest]

For everything, I think I did it once.
More recently, I select Music and do it during times when my TDL gets shorter.

[Gavroche]

I do it all the time on my (Comcast cable-box-less) Series 2. It only takes a few minutes to go through every show thanks to Comcast dropping all but about 10 channels of analog in my area.

It's the best way to find content that I can actually get on that box. At this point it's really just a "how can I make use of this until my 3-year contract runs out" situation, and after than I'll say goodbye to the third Tivo.

[cwaring]

Has anyone ever scrolled the entire guide database ("Search By Title") just to see what shows there might be that you want to see but would never normally think about otherwise?
Only for films when I add the Sky Movies (http://movies.sky.com/sky-movies-home) pack for a month here in the UK.

[DaveBogart]

Just like reading The Bible, I've started a few times but didn't finish.

[TIVO_GUY_HERE]

All the time, but like others I break it down to groups.

[netringer]

How about going to the end of the guide on a channel? I do that about once a week.

Thus my being miffed with HBO, which as always, starts promising good stuff just as I'm thinking of canceling.

[rozndon]

I have and do it from time to time to find movies to record and watch when I'm on the treadmill. I go from A to Z and when I'm done, I have a headache!

[Gregor]

I scroll through HD Movies a couple times a month.

[mattack]

How about going to the end of the guide on a channel? I do that about once a week.

Not exactly the same thing, but sometimes I go skim through prime time near the end of guide data.. and I check one of our PBS stations' Saturday night listings since they seem to air interesting stuff then... (as well as other times of course, but the Sat night stuff is movies and documentaries).

[timckelley]

I do it narrowed to either sci-fi movies, or Fantasy movies. Sometimes even for action movies.

[Uncle Briggs]

I've done the entire database several times. It took me 2-3 hrs.