Cool UTV Searches

Here is a cool search that I do every two weeks or so. UTV can make an alphabetical directory of all the movies that will be broadcast during the next two weeks, better than the one published in the weekly TV guide.

Do the following:
- Press Options ==> Search TV
- Select the "alphabetically" radio button
- Select the "category" link
- Select "Movies"
- Press the "Mark All" button and uncheck any uninteresting movie categories
- Press the "More Options" button
- Select "Narrow"
- Select "Ratings"
- Select all the "Movie" ratings (i.e. G, PG, ...) and unselect the "TV" ratings (TV-Y, TV-Y7). This will help find movies broadcast without commercials. It doesn't always work but it will help avoid the commercials.
- Press the "Done" button
- You can then also filter by "Years" (i.e. Classic and 1960's) if you like or just let it find all years.
- Press the "Done" button
- Finally press the "Search" button

The procedure isn't as bad as it sounds! Anyway the search results will appear alphabetically. Scroll through them. It takes about 1/2 hour to see them all! This isn't so bad because you can view the unobstructed TV window in the upper left of the screen, even during the individual movie searches. One can also jump to a particular section (i.e. movies starting with the letter "s") by pressing a letter on your UTV keyboard.

When you find a movie you like do the following:
- Select it
- Find a showing time that you like and press the record button on your remote control
- This step is important because you don't want to lose your place in the alphabetical listing search results == PRESS THE "BACK" button on your remote control.
- Continue to scroll through the list, selecting movies as you go

If you have other search tips/tricks please post them!

Right, this technique works for all kinds of searches, not just movies. And it is much more efficient than just browsing the guide. You will find many more interesting movies that will be broadcast during the coming 12-14 days than you ever knew were available. I've been recording more movies lately than I have time to watch and find little need to rent movies these days.

I'll post a few more tips about the advanced search options when I have some free time over the next few days.

Here is a tip on how to make some of the other "advanced search" options more useful. Many times one does a movie search and the results include many Pay Per View movies. There is an advanced search option that one used to be able to use to exclude PPV programs from the search results. It is in the "Narrow" section of the advanced search (actually called "combination search") page. That page is accessed by pressing the "More Options" button at the bottom left of any search page. After pressing "Narrow" you will see a Channels link. It used to be that if one selected all the check boxes EXCEPT "Pay Per View" the search results would exclude the Pay Per View channels. That used to work but unfortunately the guide data seems to have changed causing this feature to no longer work. It stopped working sometime after 3.7 was released and before the most recent 3.8 version was released. But there is a work around.

To exclude PPV channels from search results one must now remove all the PPV channels from the program guide. One does this by going into Settings==>Channels==>Channel list and unchecking all the PPV channels.

There is a "gotcha" though, this doesn't work for searches that list results alphabetically such as the "cool search" mentioned above. Alphabetical searches search all the channels in the guide, as indicated by the fact that the "Also search channels removed from the Guide" checkbox is automatically checked and disabled when doing those searches!

Yikes. I see what you mean. It appears that none of the "Channels" options work anymore, not just the PPV one. I think that "Years", "Times", "Ratings" and some of the "Audio/Video" selections still work. The "Audio/Video" section was going to be the topic of another search tip. I'll try to post it tomorrow.

Here is a tip about one of the Audio/Video "Narrow" search settings. Unfortunately the "Dolby Digital" (and maybe "Dolby Surround") search settings no longer work. As before those options used to work but broke sometime after 3.7 was released. It must have been a change in the guide data that broke the feature.

Before HDTV was readily available on DTV I used to always do a search for all movies that were both "Dolby Digital" and "Letterbox". They looked and sounded good on my 16x9 TV since UTV can be set to compress letterbox video to eliminate (or reduce in height) the top and bottom black bands, which would then be stretched by the TV for full screen 16x9. UTV is smart enough to do this horizontal compressing only if the program is broadcast as Letterbox.

One can still search for all movies that are "Letterbox" but how does one ensure that the Dolby Digital audio track (if available) plays when tuned to the movie? One might think that all you need to do is go into settings (Settings ==> Screen & Audio ==> Digital audio) and select "Dolby Digital (when available). It turns out that more is needed to get the Dolby Digital to output on the digital audio output. When it is available the Dolby Digital audio track is broadcast as an alternate audio track that must be selected. Luckily, once it is selected it stays selected (it is a sticky setting) so when you tune to other programs with a Dolby Digital track it will automatically be selected if it is available. So you can set it and forget it. Here is how:

Start by tuning to a program with multiple audio tracks. Start at channel 501. Typically only premium channels broadcast Dolby Digital audio tracks, and that can change depending on the movie being broadcast. Press the "Info" button on your remote. You will see yellow icons on the bottom of the slide-up panel to the left of the "More Info" button. You will always see the "Lock" icon but just to the left of that you might see the "Multiple Audio Tracks" icon. It is only displayed if multiple audio tracks are being broadcast. The yellow text to the left of that icon will usually be "English", assuming you set your primary language to English in Settings. If it says "English 1" then the program probably has an "English 2 (Dolby Digital)" setting as well. Those yellow icons in the slide-up panel are selectable so to change the audio track do the following:

- Press Info on the remote to display the slide-up panel.
- Press the left arrow button on the remote twice to skip over the yellow lock icon and select the multiple audio icon.
- Press the "OK" button on the remote to switch audio tracks.

The first track after English will typically be Spanish. If you press again you may very well see the "English 2 (Dolby Digital)" track. You should then see the AC-3 light on your external sound system light up, confirming that you now have AC-3 audio going to your audio receiver.

The slide-up panel will slide back down after a few seconds but now the setting is fixed so that any time you tune to a program with a Dolby Digital track your UTV will output it on the digital audio output.

Here is another of what I consider to be a "cool search". Say you are doing some DIY projects around the house and would like to install tile or a hardwood floor. You can do the following search to find programs broadcast during the next two weeks (approximate amount of guide data stored on your UTV).

- Press the "Options" button on your remote control.
- Select "Search TV" from the pop-up menu.
- Select "Category" and them select "Interests" from the following screen.
- Check the "How-To" and "House/Garden" check boxes.
- Press the "More Options" button at the bottom left of the screen.
- Select "Name".
- Enter the text "Tile" or "Floor" or "Hardwood Floor" into the text box.
- Make sure the "Title, person or description radio button is selected.
- Press the "Done" button at the bottom of the screen.
- Press the "Search" button at the bottom of the screen.

The search will usually display several programs that look interesting. You can either highlight them individually from the search results list and press the "Record" button on your remote control to select specific programs to record or scroll to the bottom of the page and press the "Auto Record" button to automatically record some of the programs. If you go the "Auto Record" route your list of recordings will be constantly updated so you will always have a few of these programs to watch.

Of course you can use this technique to do search for many kinds of programs. Lets say you have young relatives (nieces, nephews, grandchildren) coming to visit and you want to have a few shows recorded for them to view. You could select the Kids category and do a search to see what is found. You could highlight and press "Record" on your remote at that point or you could press the 'Adjust Search" button at the bottom of the screen to refine your results. Say you press "Name" and enter "barney" in the text box with the "Title, person or description" radio button selected. Your search results will have many "Barney and Friends" and some "Flintstones" episodes broadcast on many different channels. If you AutoRecord at this point you will have a bunch of shows for them to watch in no time. To eliminate the Flintstones just "Adjust Search" and select the "Title" radio button instead of "Title, person or description".

As another example, say the holidays are coming and you want to automatically record kids programs with "Christmas" in the "Title, person or description". There are many possibilities.

Just to be perfectly clear, when I wrote "Enter the text "Tile" or "Floor" or "Hardwood Floor" into the text box" I meant enter the single word "Tile" or the single word "Floor" or the two words "hardwood floor" into the text box. I didn't mean to enter them all at the same time. There probably are not many programs being broadcast with all the words "Tile" and "Floor" and "Hardwood" in the description!

One more thing. Some of you might not know that you don't need a keyboard to enter text to do these searches. Just use your remote control to highlight the text box and press the "OK" (RCA) or the center selection button (Sony) on your remote control. An on-screen keyboard will display that you can use with your UTV remote control.