Would be nice if there was a "recently watched channels" option for the quick guide.
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Can 't You go into library and see Recently Watched ?
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I'm talking about the quick guide in Live TV. It would be nice if we had the option for the quick guide to show recent channels watched (maybe the last 8 or 10 that have been tuned). Right now, we have the option to show All Channels, Current Collection, etc. I would like to see recent channels tuned as an option.
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+1
My workaround is to sort Favorites so my most frequently watched channels are at the the top of the Guide or use Collections for the same purpose.
The latest TestFlight beta for tvOS/iOS adds Recents as a native collection in the app. It's off by default. Turn it on at Settings > General > Live TV
Can we exclude sources/collections from the Recent list? I use EPlus and most of those channels are useless after the event airs. Though it is nice to be able to quickly go back to another event/game if channel hopping so I'm not sure what the best way to handle the stale channels would be.
Can somebody smarter than me explain how you're using this new feature with the Quick Guide? I had envisioned being able to select a channel, watching something else, and have the previously selected channel available in the Quick Guide, without ever having to exit out of watching a show. But if I set the Quick Guide to show the Recent Channels collection, I can't really switch to any new channels via that method if I don't first go back to the guide and watch the channel. For example, if my Recent Channels has ESPN, ABC, and CBS showing, and I want to watch NBC (and have that then show up in Recent Channels), I'll have to back out to the guide, go to NBC, and only then will it show up in my Recent Channels and be available to toggle between. I guess the same could be said for using it with collections. I have to just use that collection, and can't access anything recent while in the collection I normally use.
(I guess what I was envisioning was something like how iPadOS handles apps by default, with the most recent apps showing up on the right side of the dock, or how YouTube TV handles shows, with recent ones being available with a quick swipe. So I was thinking I could still keep my same collection as the default for the Quick Guide, with the recents taking up the first few spots).
I'm sure I'm missing a better way to use this, so would love to hear some suggestions.
That’s why it needs to be “recents “ plus any collection. If I’m in my sports collection then it should show the last 3 or so channels first and after that my normal channels in the sports collection. If it’s limited to a rolling last three channels the dead espn plus channels would rotate out. Last three recents should be persistent across all collections, if i switch to my wife’s favorites collection the last three should show first then her channels.
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One improvement I'd like to submit for consideration is some sort of time threshold. Right now if we channel surf for example, for seven seconds, through five channels in the guide, just to get down to one, all six channels will land on the Recents list.
Perhaps it can be improved so that a channel will only be added to Recents list if it has been tuned into for more than 10 seconds or so?
As of the latest TestFlight beta, this is now an option. Once you turn it on, it will show the last 3 recent channels at the front of the list. It will not show them at all if the collection being used in the Quick Guide is the Recent Channels collection.
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Seems like a good start but on iOS(I haven’t checked tvOS) if I tap into a channel in the first 3 recents, then pull up the quick guide again the guide it will be on the current channel way down the list. I think it would preferably pull up the guide at the very top (only when this feature is enabled) as that channel is the most recent.
In other words the guide is following the order of the collection and not following the top of the guide l. If espn is 35th out of 40 channels in a collection, I have to scroll up 32 channels to reach my recent 3. I think with that single change this will be my permanent setting.
It should never show the channel twice, ie in both sections, because it only shows your last three recent channels. The current channel isn’t included in “recents”.
If it’s showing in both sections, please submit diagnostics or show a screenshot.
The current channel doesn’t show twice. It only shows once and in its place within the collection. What this causes is when you pull the quick guide up and the currently playing channel is second from the bottom of the collection order, you now have to scroll all the way up to the top to see the recent 3 channels.
When this feature is enabled the default action of pulling the quick guide up should be to display from the top of the list not where the currently playing channel resides in the collection.
In this video FS1 and FS2 are at the bottom. FS1 is currently playing and I brought up the quick guide. I had to scroll all the way up to see my last 3 which is hard to do.
So the Quick Guide should change how it works? This seems like it would just introduce more confusion.
Umm ya that’s what’s happening here the quick guide is changing with this setting. The point of recents is for quickly finding and bouncing back and forth. If scrolling all the way to the top to get to recents that kind of defeats the purpose doesn’t it.
The Quick Guide’s job is to show more info about what you’re currently watching and also provide a way to see what else is on.
Showing a channel that is different than what is currently playing is not something that will ever change. It’s a core feature of how it works.
This feature adds the last few channels to the top of the list. It’s that simple. It doesn’t guarantee them as being one click away.
What you’re expecting is not only a fundamental change in how the app works, but one that doesn’t even make any sense, as I described above.
This feature does work better on tvOS than iOS, I’ll admit, but honestly that’s because the iOS version of the Quick Guide isn’t all that great to begin with.
Clearly some improvements could be made here. And when that happens, this Recent Channels in the Quick Guide will be taken into considerstion.
I’m not really asking for that. If the currently playing channel was included at the top of the list this core feature would remain.
I’m not a coder but I understand many things myself and other people request are difficult or nearly impossible to implement and what I prefer may be totally opposite from them. That’s what makes your job so difficult as devs, to decide what’s best for the masses, but if nobody gives their opinions informed decisions would be difficult. All I can do is give my opinion on what would make the experience better for me. I do appreciate the work on this so far.
I’ve come up with a hacky way to minimize the scrolling. I’ve created a collection with a single channel in it. Pick a different collection and add the 3 channels to recents by tuning to them. Switch to the collection with the single channel. Now the quick guide will have the recents with nearly no scrolling. Probably won’t use it much but for game days and in that case it probably makes more sense to take 2min to create a new collection with the different channels the games are on. I’ll put this feature in the close but no cigar section along with the other version of recents collection because the way they work doesn’t make sense to me.
Interesting. I do very much like the idea of being able to create smaller, temporary channel collections, on-the-fly, like that. I can see how that would be very useful throughout busy game days or times we're bouncing around between a handful of stations covering breaking news.