Recently, I bought a new DVD player/recorder with an internal hard disk. One of the nice features I discovered when playing with it is a free tv guide! GUIDE+ shows me all programs on the major television channels in my region and allows me to easily select them for recording with one press of a button.

A few times a day, my DVD player goes out to a specific host channel, which contains all tv guide data needed to feed the GUIDE+ system, and syncs its internal guide to the latest version, making it far more trustworthy then your usual paper-based tv guide and also without the cost of buying one. Having a guide stored on the hard disk of your recorder is has some nice advantages. No more entering times manually, just select the program you want and hit the record button and it's done.

Another nice feature is the ability to filter for movies of a specific genre. Want to see which Crime movies are on this week? Apply a filter and you get a nice list, ready to be scheduled for recording.

This system is available in most European countries, supported by quite a few big brands. If you got a GUIDE+ supported player and live in a supported country, it's as simple as configuring your postal code, waiting a few hours until it has retrieved the guide for the first time, and you're ready to go. Program information is usually available for the coming week for most big stations, while the smaller stations are updated with information for the next two days. Have a look at the detailed list per country for more info on the stations and the amount of data supplied.

When this becomes available in the cheapest recorders on the market, I'm pretty sure everyone's grandmother will be able to record something, point and record! :)