Where do you find your TV listings?

[Nords]

Spouse records all the TV that I can program on six VCRs. For the last couple decades I've been getting the listings from the Sunday TV supplement, but lately it's been too short, too sparse, or just plain wrong. We're recording off rock-bottom basic cable with nothing fancy, and those listings seem to be getting squeezed out by all the special extras & digital channels.

I know that I could look up listings on each channel's website, or let the TV scroll through its dedicated schedule channel, but there are times when a program title needs more explanation. It'd be great to find one consolidated local website or (*gasp*) an ol' fashioned paper publication that lists the title of the show as well as its subject or plot, let alone be correct. So far the best seems to be TV Guide's website showing programming in three-hour blocks (for which I'd scroll through over a dozen screens per week). At this point I'd put up with that for listings that are accurate and maybe even a little more detailed.

Where do you find your local/network cable TV schedules? Is it worth trying the print version of TV Guide, or is there another choice?

 

[Mr._johngalt]

Personally, I don't need any. I have no cable nor dish and
only watch
whatever seems of interest when I happen to switch it on.
Lately I have found there is almost nothing I want to watch.
Here is the interesting part. With no cable at home, traveling
used to be more fun because I could watch all of those
programs I would otherwise never see. For some reason,
I can no longer find anything interesting on cable (except for the occasional movie). I do have a
theory. I don't want to watch because it's not about me.

Whatever the reason, I am now to a point where I could very easily eliminate TV from my life, which I view as a good thing.

JG

 

[astromeria]

My husband goes somewhere online for our listings (don't remember where, and he's got a 9am class at the moment so I can't ask), but it includes local channels and is free.

I used to flap around the dial, but have lost interest. It seems now that we have a nice TV w/surround sound, I'm losing interest in television! We have one level up from basic cable (still analog)--I miss Independent Film Channel (IFC) and Sundance, which we had at a higher cable rate when I was working, and is where I discovered many of the quirky movies I love (Bagdad Cafe, Babette's Feast, Lone Star, Enchanted April, Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert, Strictly Ballroom, Tampopo, Never Cry Wolf...).

After dinner I usually ask, Anything on TV? The usual answer is No. The only shows we watch at all regularly are Frontline, Nova, House, the new Battlestar Galactica, the new Aaron Sorkin (Studio 60) which is on for the second time at 10 tonight (we'll see if that holds our interest), sometimes Mystery and Masterpiece Theatre, and some nature, music, and art specials (any other fans of Sister Wendy?). We tend to dislike sitcoms, most dramas, and especially so-called reality TV. The only news we can abide is MacNeil Lehrer, though I'll occasionally tune in other stations for breaking news (or Fox for a laugh--or more likely, a groan). The appeal of most popular shows utterly escapes me--I think the last popular show I watched was MASH.

 

[Zathras]

If you record that much TV, you may like the Tivo service.
It includes an on-screen guide service which is very nice and can get you details about any program by clicking Info.

You can also record any program from the guide, or find programs by actor, title, subject or other keywords to record. It will also allow you to record a series (doesn't matter when it is on, whenever it plays the system will record it).

I believe Microsofts media center OS works like this as well.

Personally I love TV and always have some of my favorite science and nature programs recorded as Tivo just keeps hunting them out and recording them for me

 

[Martha]

What are you saving it for?

Get a Tivo type service. Besides the ease of finding what you want and recording, it will be much easier to skip through the commercials.

Disclaimer: We don't have the service either and haven't wanted to pay for it, but I am sorely tempted.

 

[riskadverse]

Time to step up to TiVo.  My 6 VCR's sit idle while my 2 TiVo's churn away recording up to 4 programs simultaneously.  I can review about a month's upcoming programs on a single channel in about 2 minutes.  At some point you end up with more "good" programs accumulated than you can easily watch and you'll only look for new programs infrequently, while "season passes" are automatically being recorded.  I've had a number of friends purchase a TiVo on my recommendation and every one swears they don't know how they got along without it before.  

 

[FIRE'd@51]

Here are a couple I use:

http://tvlistings5.zap2it.com/tvlistings/GridAction.do

http://tvlistings.aol.com/listings/state/city/provider?zipcode=

You can customize them by ZIP code and also for regular TV, cable, & satellite in your area and do searches.

 

[TromboneAl]

I recommend the Panasonic DVR which doesn't require any monthly fees or a telephone connection.

Here's a post showing the TV listings. Just click the ones you want. Sort by time, type (e.g. movie), or alphabetically.

 

[janeofalltrades]

DH uses http://tv.yahoo.com/lineup/?co=us&.intl=us&.done=/grid/.

I haven't read a TV guide in years. Though we don't watch much TV and don't have cable so there hasn't been much need to purchase one.

 

[youbet]

I've only been RE for three months, so I'm hardly an expert on how to spend free time yet.  Just the same, I have to say that so far I'm NOT watching more TV.  It's just a matter of prioritization I guess but needing to fill hours with incremental TV time just hasn't been part of our new ER life.

Since we live in a major metropolitan area, we can receive 15 channels over the air with a simple antenna.  Three PBS stations, all the major networks and several independents.   It's getting hard to justify the fifty bux a month we pay for basic cable!

We're running a little experiment.  I stuck a little portable TV out in our screenhouse for the summer.  I didn't want to bother running cable out there, so we just have the stations the TV receives on the built in "rabbit ears."  So far, it seems like we're not missing the incremental cable channels when watching out there.  

Admittedly, I did get up and go turn on the TV in the house to watch Purdue beat Minnesota on ESPN Saturday!

 

[Leonidas]

You can personalize My Yahoo to include channels for your area and service provider. When I got DVR boxes from my cable provider I found the built in guide to be pretty useful for finding what's on that I might be interested in and setting options for recording.

 

[razztazz]

www.TVguide.com.   You set up the page with your zip code and cable/sattellite company and the extensive listings are all there. And it changes when it needs to on the fly. eg Pre-empting Law & Order for a presidential speech will be updated a soon a the speech and time are confirmed.

And you can search for things up to two weeks in the future in case  you want to know which episode of Andy Griffith TVLand is showing a week from Tuesday

 

[Nords]

I used to flap around the dial, but have lost interest.

I'm with you. I haven't watched TV regularly since Star Trek ended. Spouse watches an old 32" CRT with headphones (it encourages our kid to keep her TV quiet two rooms away) and does most of it on fast forward. Last year she actually wore out her universal remote, which was a bit challenging to replace, but otherwise neither of us has felt the need for a bigger/better TV. My Kill-a-Watt says the A/V stack only uses 130W peak (about 52W average) so I can't complain.

It's a lot more pleasant to "watch" TV with the sound turned off. I've learned that only PBS requires a sound track to keep up with the subject matter. I was pretty surprised to discover that "Desperate Housewives" actually has dialog...

Here are a couple I use:
http://tvlistings5.zap2it.com/tvlistings/GridAction.do
http://tvlistings.aol.com/listings/state/city/provider?zipcode=
You can customize them by ZIP code and also for regular TV, cable, & satellite in your area and do searches.

Thanks everyone for the schedule links; I especially like the Zap2It six-hour blocks. They actually listed our local cable provider and a couple local channels that TV Guide didn't.

I'll test-drive these sites over the next couple weeks but I think that we're finally done with our newspaper subscription!

What are you saving it for?

I recommend the Panasonic DVR which doesn't require any monthly fees or a telephone connection.

You guys are absolutely right; those prices have really come down. I wish one of the electronics manufacturers would address the market for recording six channels simultaneously!

We "rescued" five of the VCRs from pawnshops ($10-$20 each) and I have a spare in storage. I picked up over 100 VHS tapes from FreeCycle (when they're used for weekly recordings, they only last about two-three years) so we're probably good until HDTV kicks analog off the air. The big problem is replacing our decade-old Scotch-brand VCR head cleaner with something as good, but we haven't really started searching for it yet.

It'd be great to get everything down to a couple boxes (or to make room for a DVD player). The big advantage of a multi-channel DVR is that spouse would take over her own programming!

 

[BigMoneyJim]

I use the Yahoo TV listings. I pick my service options and bookmark the resulting page. It lets you search for future programs, too.

I also use a relative's Tivo and cable DVR. The other day I manually set up a recording on my DVD recorder and realized I am spoiled to the Tivo/DVR interface where you can scroll up to two weeks ahead and just click record on the show you want.

The Tivo brand is much nicer to use than the Scientific Atlanta DVR that came with the cable service, but it is still way better than a VCR. I'll have to check out that Panasonic; there are too many free places to get listings to pay for a DVR to get them. (At least I hope so.)

 

[bpp]

Where do you find your local/network cable TV schedules?

Back page of the daily newspaper. For cable-only channels (which we hardly ever watch -- probably less than once per month -- but the one time I tried cancelling it my wife claimed she was suffering acute withdrawal) there is a monthly program listing that comes in the mail from the cable company.

Recently we moved the TV into a different room, so that one has to really plan to watch TV instead of just flipping it on as background noise. Now we don't really watch it unless there is something specific we want to see, usually news or a documentary. Seems to be an improvement.

 

[SC]

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Netflix yet. We don't have cable and seldom watch live TV. A lot of TV shows are out on DVD - Family Guy, Six Feet Under, Buffy, etc. We don't mind being a little behind the times and it's great to watch them on our schedule, without commercials, and without those increasingly-intrusive "bugs" in the lower right corner of the screen...

At least in our area, Netflix is between 1/3 and 1/2 the price of basic cable.

 

[AltaRed]

DW buys the Friday local paper to get the paper version of the TV listings. But am not sure she looks at it very much during the week. I typically watch only the 6pm news and the odd sports event.

DW sometimes likes to watch a DVD (3-5 times a year) but hasn't turned on the VCR for 3-5 years. Still have a 1991 vintage VCR here but I have no idea whether it still works or not.