Comcastic? Or just really sucky? The ComCast TV Guide

One thing even more hateful than television is the silly TV Guide that Comcast provides for its cable viewers. This on-screen infrared remote control driven system will stand as a shining icon of bad user interface design, perhaps for as long as western civilization itself persists.

An extensive array of program slots, arbitrarily numbered from 0 to 999, have been assigned to content channels through a combination of historic precedence and paid placement. Certain conventions apply—to mollycoddle the non-subscribing public, feeds of local broadcast stations (Channel 5, Channel 4, etc) are mapped to lower cable numbers, the extra-cost “premium channels” are grouped up in the 500s.

To improve confusion, each provider is assigned a 3 to 5-letter alphanumeric identifier, e.g. “E-LVw”. Some inconsistent attempts to associate these by meaning, by provider, or geographic service area have also been applied.

A bonus feature of the navigational system is the presentation of broad segments of programming that are actually not available to the watcher. My favorite example of this is the range of channels from 400-500, inactive except for sports fanatics who have purchased special coverage for College Football and the National Hockey League. Crossing this deadly desert of inaccessible sports events requires the surfing user to depress the remote control’s “Chan” button at least a dozen times. No doubt part of the idea is to demonstrate to watchers all the great offerings that they are missing.

Even more disappointing are the numerous listings for premium channels to which one has not subscribed. Again and again the index finger twitches, depresses the OK button. “Not Authorized, Not Authorized.”

Eventually even the most stubborn of us are beaten into an understanding of the need for meta-navigation across this barren landscape of entertainment. Several types of magical conveyance are available to those that devote the time to mastering their invocation:

1. “FAV” This small button at the bottom right of the top bank of buttons on the remote control allows the user to cycle through a set of channels on which there is a faint possibility of an interesting program. To program your FAV button is difficult, but only the barest minimum of on-screen instruction is provided. Here, free of charge, are some important tips:

a) The FAV button simply switches between the list of previously designated favorite channels. In GUIDE mode it presents only those designated channels. There is no way to add or modify your favorite list by using this button.

b) To program your Favorite channels you need to press the MENU button. Don’t be fooled by the presence of the heart shape in the menu bar though. This icon does refer to your Favorites list, but you’ll be sad when you realize that this function does nothing more than display the same list of Favorites that you see in the GUIDE. Again, you won’t be able to change anything.

c) The secret lies in pressing the MENU button twice, or pressing it once and then selecting the MENU icon from the set at the bottom of the TV screen. That will cause a set of ten sub-menu buttons to be displayed. Select “Setup.”

d) There are an additional ten menu buttons on the “Guide Setup” screen. One of these is “Favorite Lists Setup” Use the remote control’s arrow keys to navigate to this button and press OK. The favorite lists setup screen will appear.

e) Select an existing list or create a new list. Once you’ve done so, note the helpful words that are displayed: “To add channels to this list, select the heart icon below.” After you do this you’ll see a “Channel Selector” screen, in which channels are displayed “sorted by name”. Warning! Because many channels do not have any names associated with them, the first screen shown contains only blank entries, i.e. 26, 951, 950, 949, 920 This can confuse some people. Use the Page Down key on your remote control to scroll through the list until you see the alphabetical entries. Please note, also, that “Sort by Name” really means “Sorted by last three characters of the channel ID”. Thus, on my screen the list begins with 61411MEX and 50352MX, because the numeric IDs “11MEX” and “52MX” are alphanumerically before such entries as “A&E”. Anyway, you’ll find your channel sooner or later. When you do, press OK to select it as a favorite.

f) Don’t be confused by the words on the screen that tell you to select the checkbox marker to make the selection your favorite. Touching the arrow key to get the checkbox icon will move the yellow highlighted line and change your choice in the list. You really need to click OK first, then go down to confirm it.

g) The nice thing about this feature is that you can go through a whole list of channels and make multiple selections of favorites. That means that you won’t have to do this operation very often (so you are guaranteed that you’ll forget it and be doomed to rediscover the process).

h) But if you just want to add a single channel, like maybe the one you happen to be watching at the moment, as a favorite, there’s a simple answer. Refer back to the text in e) above. It continues “You can also add a channel to you Favorite List from a program information screen by selecting the Heart.”

i) You might not know immediately what a “program information screen” is. It’s the little bit of useless info that the TV Guide gives you about a show when you press the INFO button on your remote. True, it’s a little strange to be looking at the program information to be selecting the channel as a favorite, but you’ll get past that. Just don’t forget that most information screens actually have two parts. You’ll need to press INFO a second time or use the down arrow key to see the row of icons in which the Heart displays.

2. Searching. A number of methods are provided. First, press the MENU key. In the icon bar at the bottom of the screen is an image of a magnifying glass. That means “Search”. Select this icon and press OK.

You’ll see a secondary search menu with 9 buttons. Surely with all these choices it will be simple to find what you’re looking for. By default the button labeled “Title Search” is highlighted in yellow. If you know the title of the show you want to see you can locate it here easily, by entering the first few letters of the title in the input boxes at the top of the screen. Use the arrow keys to navigate through the letters of the alphabet and select them, much as you might do to enter the name of someone in the phonebook of your home telephone.

If a title search isn’t what you’re looking for, you can choose to search in a variety of bewildering and potentially overlapping categories, like “Movies,” “Premium Channels,” “Sports,” “Kids,” and “Adult.”

Finally, if all else fails, try TV Listings by Channel. This feature allows you to view the entire programming schedule for the channel you are currently watching. If you’d like to perform the operation for a different channel, simply exit the feature, switch to that channel and begin the operation again.

3. Guessing and remembering. Over time you become aware that the entry of a valid three-digit channel number jumps immediately to that channel (two-digit channels require also pressing the “ENTER”, button, also labeled “MUSIC”). Sadly, the entry of an invalid channel code does nothing, so it’s important to memorize certain channels by number. “555” is a good number to remember, as it is easy to enter in the dark with the remote control, and puts you in the middle of the premium channel listings of movies you have already seen.

By now you will have begun to appreciate that ComCast’s interactive electronic programming guide is much more a means to force subscribers to interact with the service in particular convoluted ways than an actual convenience for them. Usability is an aspect, but really more of a minor factor than a real one. Plus, it’s a legacy offering, as the industry increasingly tries to impel its customers to the “on-demand” model.