Tivo Hacks. 100 Industrial-strength Tips Tools 2003

Hack 17 Enabling Advanced WishLists

Advanced WishLists allow you to specify combinations of actors, titles, and so forth for TiVo to find and record .

TiVo's WishLists, while being pretty powerful, are limited in how granular you can get. You can ask for shows only by actor, title, director, category, or keywordnot a combination of two or more. Advanced WishLists bring the "and" to WishLists, allowing you to specify movies directed by so-and-so, starring what's-his- name .

It's not clear why TiVo exposes the Advanced WishList systemperhaps because it cannot be explained in the two to three sentences the make-it-simple philosophy the TiVo requires.

To activate the Advanced menu off the Search Using WishLists menu, start the Node Navigator [Hack #16], carefully select node 30, and select the expert interface for creating WishLists. Hit the button to jump out of the navigator.

Now, if you go to the WishList menu, the last item in the list should be Advanced WishList (you might have to scroll down past the screen). From here you can create a WishList that is any combination of actors, directors, keywords, and genres. Be as specific as you want to be. Nice, isn't it?

The Advanced WishLists hack will remain in effect after a reboot.