# Get Tivo to just show subscribed channels?



## jhyland (Aug 26, 2016)

Hi,
I recently setup my Tivo Bolt. I have a tuning adapter and a cable card. I'm using Time Warner Cable.

I was able to select a nearby zipcode and choose the correct cable provider. The channels downloaded along with all the program guide data. Note that the Tivo was not activated when I did this. It took Tivo about 24 hours to activate my unit (Lifetime transfer from Series 1).

However, many channels are listed in the guide that I do not subscribe to. When I go to one of those channels it says it is not authorized. I know how to go to settings, Channel & App Settings and manually uncheck channels. But this is very time consuming and error prone. There are probably hundreds of channels to unselect.

Does Tivo offer an automated way of doing this? Should I start over and choose the cable provider again? Could it be because it wasn't activated when I chose my channel provider?

Thanks for your help.


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## thyname (Dec 27, 2010)

jhyland said:


> Hi,
> I recently setup my Tivo Bolt. I have a tuning adapter and a cable card. I'm using Time Warner Cable.
> 
> I was able to select a nearby zipcode and choose the correct cable provider. The channels downloaded along with all the program guide data. Note that the Tivo was not activated when I did this. It took Tivo about 24 hours to activate my unit (Lifetime transfer from Series 1).
> ...


So let me ask you this: How would TiVo know which channels you subscribe to and which you don't? There is no way for TiVo to know which package you have with cable company. Other than TiVo asking you a simple question during the Guided Setup on premium channels, unfortunately you will have to check / uncheck channels from the menu. You will do it once, and you are done. It should not take long, as long as you know what channels you subscribe to.

And while you are at it, you can set up the favorite channels:

https://support.tivo.com/articles/Features_Use/How-to-Add-Channels-to-My-List-of-Favorites


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## dianebrat (Jul 6, 2002)

There is no automated way and the Tivo can''t know exactly what you've subscribed to, this is a time honored complaint and one that's been made a lot easier to resolve with the current software.

Grab your favorite beverage, call up the guide, change the guide style to Grid and sort by channel name.
Grab a copy of your channels in the package, and just deselect the ones you don't and this is a good time to remove SD duplicates of HD channels.
It takes nowhere near as long as you think it will, we promise


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## jhyland (Aug 26, 2016)

I was hoping there was a scan function such as what existed on my series 1 when I set it up. I've seen this type of function on many TVs during setup also. I think what happens is the tv (or tivo) would tune to a channel and detect whether there is a signal on that channel or not and then mark the channel accordingly (like skip or save). It would do that for each channel. It would take awhile, maybe 10 minutes, but it was automatic. That's the type of function I'm looking for on my Tivo Bolt.

I hope that better explains what I'm asking about. Thanks.


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

jhyland said:


> I was hoping there was a scan function such as what existed on my series 1 when I set it up. I've seen this type of function on many TVs during setup also. I think what happens is the tv (or tivo) would tune to a channel and detect whether there is a signal on that channel or not and then mark the channel accordingly (like skip or save). It would do that for each channel. It would take awhile, maybe 10 minutes, but it was automatic. That's the type of function I'm looking for on my Tivo Bolt.
> 
> I hope that better explains what I'm asking about. Thanks.


It would be nice if the channel scan worked like a TV. My cable feed has 460 channels, and I subscribe to 240. I leave selected maybe 50 and have 20 as Favorites that I display in the guide. This whole operation takes about 10 minutes. If channels are added they don't show in the guide either. I love my Favorites.


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## thyname (Dec 27, 2010)

jhyland said:


> I was hoping there was a scan function such as what existed on my series 1 when I set it up. I've seen this type of function on many TVs during setup also. I think what happens is the tv (or tivo) would tune to a channel and detect whether there is a signal on that channel or not and then mark the channel accordingly (like skip or save). It would do that for each channel. It would take awhile, maybe 10 minutes, but it was automatic. That's the type of function I'm looking for on my Tivo Bolt.
> 
> I hope that better explains what I'm asking about. Thanks.


That would be an awesome feature to have in a perfect world.

Maybe you can bring it up with TiVo as a suggestion for development.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

dianebrat said:


> There is no automated way and the Tivo can''t know exactly what you've subscribed to, this is a time honored complaint and one that's been made a lot easier to resolve with the current software.
> 
> Grab your favorite beverage, call up the guide, change the guide style to Grid and sort by channel name.
> Grab a copy of your channels in the package, and just deselect the ones you don't and this is a good time to remove SD duplicates of HD channels.
> It takes nowhere near as long as you think it will, we promise


Or just leave it numerical, use you cable company list that has them numerical and check the ones you have. If everything is grouped together, like they are here on FiOS, you can go through many hundreds of channels in under ten minutes.


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## convergent (Jan 4, 2007)

I see the point of the OP... if Tivo is tuning into something that says the channel is not authorized, then it would seem that it is technically possible to devise a way to get rid of those channels automatically. 

Having used TiVos for many years, I can say that manually selecting them is not really a big deal... took me about 10 minutes and I never had to mess with it again. It is possible you may lose some channels as lineup changes, but it isn't that often.

As a point of comparison, having recently gone to Uverse using their equipment; it is much worse. They don't automatically remove the channels that aren't subscribed, nor is there an easy way to remove the 100 or so junk channels that are just 24x7 infomercials. To make matters worse, you have to select channels for each device... think Tivo Mini vs. Uverse receiver. With TiVo, you select your lineup and it applies to the minis too. With Uverse, I have to do this on every receiver separately.

So while its not a perfect system, in the grand scheme of things its not that big of a deal on a TiVo to delete unsubscribed channels during the setup process.


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## dianebrat (Jul 6, 2002)

aaronwt said:


> Or just leave it numerical, use you cable company list that has them numerical and check the ones you have. If everything is grouped together, like they are here on FiOS, you can go through many hundreds of channels in under ten minutes.


I also have FiOS and what trips me up on that approach is the duplicate SD's vs the SD only channels, so I go through and do an SD/HD delete to pare those down and then dig into "what don't I get?" as a second step, even then as a legacy customer my lineup doesn't always match what's shown on the website as the product lineup at times.


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## ThAbtO (Apr 6, 2000)

jhyland said:


> Hi,
> I recently setup my Tivo Bolt. I have a tuning adapter and a cable card. I'm using Time Warner Cable.
> 
> I was able to select a nearby zipcode and choose the correct cable provider. The channels downloaded along with all the program guide data. Note that the Tivo was not activated when I did this. It took Tivo about 24 hours to activate my unit (Lifetime transfer from Series 1).
> ...


Normally, you would go to Settings/Channels/Channels list and un-select on the channels you do not receive, but its hard to know what is currently received or not.

A simpler method is:


Channel surf until you encounter a channel you do not receive/subscribe/in another language.
Press CLEAR to clear off any Tivo screens such as channel info.
Press SELECT and it brings up a sort of Mini-guide.
Press Left on the direction arrows until you are highlighting the channel in the channels column.
Press SELECT on either Remove Channel, or Add to Favorites.
Repeat.


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## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

I find it best to do a high level review for the channel list to remove the easy to find channels. 

Next, from that screen I hit live TV. That let's you enter a channel number to see if you want it. Hitting left circle brings you back to the channel list to check/uncheck. 

I like the guide for doing the fine tuning of channels, it's just not as efficient when first setting up the channel list.


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