On a TV, Search shows your results on the left and the highlighted result on the right: what it is, whether it is already in your favourites, watchlist or groups, what is on now and next for a channel, a show’s description, and everything you can do with it. Press Right to reach those actions, and Left or Back to come back to the same result. On phones and tablets there is no panel: each result has a … button for its actions instead. Sports and Kids hero controls scroll when space is short; automatic spotlight changes pause while any hero control has focus and stop when Reduced motion is enabled.
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Search everything at once Free
Path: Sidebar → Search
How
- Type at least two characters, or select Speak to search to use your voice. The microphone only appears if your TV has a speech service installed. Wherever the TV has one, TiviGlass listens itself rather than handing you over to the TV’s assistant (on Google TV boxes such as Chromecast and onn. the assistant takes the words for itself and never passes them back), so it asks once for microphone access the first time you press it and a small Listening panel shows what it hears. If it opens and hears nothing, or the speech service fails, TiviGlass says so instead of leaving you looking at an unchanged screen. The same microphone sits beside the Settings search box as Speak a setting.
- Choose which TV services to search with In … at the end of the filters: your current service by name, All TV services, or another named service. Selecting a named source only changes Search; it does not switch the service you are watching.
- Use All, Channels, Programmes, Movies or Shows to narrow the results. Channels and programmes have separate choices, and each filter shows its result count.
- Press Right on a result to reach its actions beside the list. Something you can watch now starts with Watch now, and a film or show with Open details; a programme still to come starts with recording and reminders. The guide, favourites and groups follow. On touch screens use the result’s … button; holding OK or pressing MENU opens the same actions as a menu. Add to groups adds that channel even when you found it through a programme. Tick the groups and choose Done to return to the actions.
- Movie and show options also offer Add to groups. You can make a New group from that page, then return without leaving your results.
- Show in guide opens the result’s playlist and channel; for a programme it also goes to that programme’s time. Back returns to Search and the result you opened.
Good to know
Live, Movie and Show groups are kept separate, and each can contain matching items from different playlists, so the same quick action works in All TV services without switching your active provider. The same menu also carries the relevant favourite and watchlist actions. Creating a new custom group requires Premium; any groups you already have remain editable. Guide results cover roughly the next two weeks, so searching a film name will find the broadcast as well as the on-demand copy. Recent searches are kept so repeat lookups are one press. The current TV service / All TV services choice is remembered too, on this device, so if you search across everything you only have to say so once — it is still there next time you open Search, and after a restart. A particular named playlist is kept for this Search visit.
A guide result does everything the guide does. Open one and you get the same Watch and Record actions as holding OK on it in the TV guide — record it, schedule it, set a Series Link, set or cancel a reminder, add the channel to Multi-view, and watch a finished programme from catch-up where your provider carries it. A live channel result offers Record live and Multi-view the same way. Actions your provider or your box cannot do are not shown at all; actions your plan does not include are greyed with the plan they need.
Every result is organisable, whichever playlist it came from. Favourites, watchlist and groups work on a film or show found in another TV service exactly as they do on one from the service you are watching — the menu acts on the item’s own provider, so nothing is switched behind your back.
Typing never blanks the screen. While a new search runs, the results you already have stay where they are, with a thin line moving above them, until the new ones arrive; the filters keep their place too. If a search is still going after ten seconds, a strip above the results says so, with Try again. The keyboard opens by itself when you first open Search. After you have moved away from the search box, coming back to it does not throw the keyboard up again: press OK on the box to type.
Leaving a result and coming back keeps your place. Play a channel, open a film, open a show, or jump to the TV guide from a result, and Back brings you straight back to the same search: the same text, the same source choice, the same filter, any group you had expanded with Show all, the same position in the list, and the same result under the highlight. The keyboard is not reopened over the top of it. Only when there is nothing to come back to does the cursor start in the search box again.
Searching all TV services includes your current service. It always includes the service you are watching, plus every other service the current profile may use. If one service cannot be reached, the results from the others still appear and a strip above them names the service that failed, with Try again — a single unreachable provider no longer empties the whole screen. And if nothing can be searched at all, TiviGlass says which it is rather than reporting no matches: no TV service has been added yet — with an Add a TV service button right there — or this profile is not allowed to browse any of them.
Different channels come before repeats of the same one. Many providers carry one brand several times over — an HD copy, a 4K copy, a backup feed. Searching the brand shows you each distinct channel first, and the extra copies of one you have already been offered below them, so a name like “ESPNEWS” is not pushed off the end of the list by four more copies of “ESPN”. Nothing is removed: the group heading counts every match, and Show all opens the lot.
An All TV services search shares the list fairly. Results from every service are ranked together, so one large provider cannot fill the screen and leave a smaller one with nothing.
Channels you have hidden are not searched, because hiding one takes it out of your line-up and results are a line-up. If a search found nothing except hidden channels, it says so rather than reporting no matches, so an empty result reads as your own setting rather than a search that lost channels. Bring them back in Channels & groups, where hidden channels and groups stay listed, dimmed, and OK switches them back on (how-to 13).
A guide result does everything the guide does. Open one and you get the same Watch and Record actions as holding OK on it in the TV guide — record it, schedule it, set a Series Link, set or cancel a reminder, add the channel to Multi-view, and watch a finished programme from catch-up where your provider carries it. A live channel result offers Record live and Multi-view the same way. Actions your provider or your box cannot do are not shown at all; actions your plan does not include are greyed with the plan they need.
Every result is organisable, whichever playlist it came from. Favourites, watchlist and groups work on a film or show found in another TV service exactly as they do on one from the service you are watching — the menu acts on the item’s own provider, so nothing is switched behind your back.
Typing never blanks the screen. While a new search runs, the results you already have stay where they are, with a thin line moving above them, until the new ones arrive; the filters keep their place too. If a search is still going after ten seconds, a strip above the results says so, with Try again. The keyboard opens by itself when you first open Search. After you have moved away from the search box, coming back to it does not throw the keyboard up again: press OK on the box to type.
Leaving a result and coming back keeps your place. Play a channel, open a film, open a show, or jump to the TV guide from a result, and Back brings you straight back to the same search: the same text, the same source choice, the same filter, any group you had expanded with Show all, the same position in the list, and the same result under the highlight. The keyboard is not reopened over the top of it. Only when there is nothing to come back to does the cursor start in the search box again.
Searching all TV services includes your current service. It always includes the service you are watching, plus every other service the current profile may use. If one service cannot be reached, the results from the others still appear and a strip above them names the service that failed, with Try again — a single unreachable provider no longer empties the whole screen. And if nothing can be searched at all, TiviGlass says which it is rather than reporting no matches: no TV service has been added yet — with an Add a TV service button right there — or this profile is not allowed to browse any of them.
Different channels come before repeats of the same one. Many providers carry one brand several times over — an HD copy, a 4K copy, a backup feed. Searching the brand shows you each distinct channel first, and the extra copies of one you have already been offered below them, so a name like “ESPNEWS” is not pushed off the end of the list by four more copies of “ESPN”. Nothing is removed: the group heading counts every match, and Show all opens the lot.
An All TV services search shares the list fairly. Results from every service are ranked together, so one large provider cannot fill the screen and leave a smaller one with nothing.
Channels you have hidden are not searched, because hiding one takes it out of your line-up and results are a line-up. If a search found nothing except hidden channels, it says so rather than reporting no matches, so an empty result reads as your own setting rather than a search that lost channels. Bring them back in Channels & groups, where hidden channels and groups stay listed, dimmed, and OK switches them back on (how-to 13).
If the selected playlist has no matches, Search all TV services broadens the search. If a selected content type is empty but another has results, Show all matches brings them back. Search actions, group editing and guide matching open as pages; Back returns to the preceding page.
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Live sport at a glance Essentials
Path: Sidebar → Sports Hub
Everything that shapes the hub sits on one bar under the featured match: Today and Tomorrow, All sport, My teams once you follow someone, a chip for each sport in your guide, Find and Customise Sports. Choose a sport and its competitions appear on a second line underneath, so you can narrow Football to the Premier League in two presses. All competitions clears it; changing sport, day, viewer or source resets it. Football recognises EPL/Premier League, EFL, SPFL, MLS and Champions League. Competitions appear only when the guide supplies matching listings.
Find opens a search box that filters the matches by words in the guide title, description or channel name. It only browses and creates no recording rule. Choose Find again (it then reads Close find) to clear it.
Hold OK on any match, or choose More under the featured one, for its options: watch or remind, Follow either side or the competition, Record every match of a team you follow, Hide that sport, or open Customise Sports.
How
- Move through Your teams, Live now, Starting soon, Tomorrow’s matches and Recently finished.
- The hero at the top follows whatever you have focused.
- Filter by day, sport or competition on the bar under the hero. Darts has its own filter when your guide contains darts or PDC events.
- Press OK to watch, or set a reminder for a fixture that hasn’t started.
Good to know
Turn on Hide sports scores (in Customise Sports › Options) to hide scores until you choose to see them. Fixtures are read out of your guide data, so how much detail appears depends on how good your EPG source is — and on a very large channel list the first visit takes a while to read through it all. Matches appear as they are found rather than all at once, and the heading says “Still searching your guide” until the sweep is done, so you can start watching before it finishes.
On capable devices the hero plays the match behind it. While the hub is showing its own pick it plays with sound; as soon as you focus a match card the hero follows your focus and goes silent, so arrowing along the rails never starts audio you did not ask for. It also waits for your focus to settle for about a second before changing channel, so moving quickly through a rail does not tune every match you pass. Press OK to watch a match properly.
On capable devices the hero plays the match behind it. While the hub is showing its own pick it plays with sound; as soon as you focus a match card the hero follows your focus and goes silent, so arrowing along the rails never starts audio you did not ask for. It also waits for your focus to settle for about a second before changing channel, so moving quickly through a rail does not tune every match you pass. Press OK to watch a match properly.
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Customise Sports and follow your teams Essentials
Path: Sports Hub → Customise Sports · or Settings › Home & menu › Menu entries › Customise Sports
Customise Sports is the one place the Sports Hub is managed, laid out like Customise Home and Channels & groups: tabs down the left edge that say what OK does (Left reaches them from anywhere in the list), then the list, a preview of what it changes on the right, and the keys along the bottom. Every change is saved as you make it.
How
- My sports: press OK to show or hide a sport. The preview shows today’s matches and the competitions found for it.
- Arrange: press OK to pick a sport up, move it with Up and Down (Left for the top, Right for the bottom) and OK to put it down. The bar and rows follow this order.
- My teams: every team, player and competition in your guide is listed, so there is nothing to type. Press OK to follow one. Following is free: their matches get a star, a Your teams row at the top of the hub, and come first in every list.
- With a followed team focused, press Right for Record every match, which records each of their matches by itself when it is in the guide.
- Options: Hide sports scores (with an example of what it hides) and Sports in the menu.
Good to know
You can also follow straight from a match: hold OK on it and choose Follow. Teams are read from the match’s title or, when the guide puts them there instead, its subtitle, so an NFL listing such as NFL Football with Kansas City Chiefs at Buffalo Bills underneath offers both teams. American football, basketball, baseball and ice hockey listings written as Team at Team or Team @ Team are understood; in other sports at usually names a venue, so only v, vs and @ count there. Stopping following a team also stops recording its matches. Record every match uses the same engine as Series Links, so recordings land in the normal Recordings section and obey your storage limits, and it needs a plan that includes recording. Hidden sports disappear from the hub, the bar and Home’s Live sport row; saved reminders still go off. Your sports are saved for this profile on this TV service; the teams you follow go with your profile to every TV service, and both travel with cloud sync.