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Product: Remote: Channel
Channel Tagger   (+5, -1)  [vote for, against]
Surf Just The Channels You Want

Everyone's flicked on the tube, surfed the channels to see what's on, and come up with two or three channels that look interesting in the middle of dozens about which you couldn't care less. The Channel Tagger lets you electronically tag the interesting channels as you go by. From then for the next hour, or until reset, the Channel Up/Down switch on your remote just looks at the channels you found interesting, bypassing all the worthless ones.
-- ceruleanbill, Jan 09 2005

Most current sets already give you the choice of at least two selected channels to toggle between, but your idea is probably an improvement over scrolling through larger "Favorites" listings. However, if you're only interested in "Sports", for example, it's not too difficult to set up a menu for the channels which only show soccer or basketball games with most cable and satellite systems.
-- jurist, Jan 09 2005


Indeed, our cable box has this feature (with a separate button to scroll through the tagged favorites, so you don't get confused).

And people have posted this idea before.
-- DrCurry, Jan 09 2005


Yes, our digital cable box has that. You can add or drop a channel from the favorite channels list. Then, hitting the favorite button takes u to the next favorite channel. I keep 5 or 6 channels on it, usually the same ones every day.
-- Mustardface, Jan 09 2005


Buy a tv tuner card and search for good software. I *guess* many linux distributions come with good tv viewers. If u dont find, just google.
-- kamathln, Feb 07 2005


Howsabout's as an addition when a program finishes, that channel is automatically re-added to your list (by a signal being transmitted to your box?)

that way as you flick through the tv, you will never see the same naff program pass you by more than once, and you don't risk missing Terminator 4 because ladies bowling has finished since you last checked the channel?!

Alternatively, for repeats, have a 'never want to watch' button. A single press on your remotes checks from the digitial signal the name of the program -- and if you EVER flick to a channel showing that program again, it auto-skips the channel! A kind of internal hate-list (never show me ER for example).

OVerwritable naturally .. but I can think of at least 100 programs I'd want on the 'Jesus never show me' list.
-- britboy, Feb 07 2005



random, halfbakery