TELLY ALL ABOUT IT!
Sky employee reveals TV remote ‘swipe trick’ that will save you time every day after telly watcher begs for help
There are three other TV remote tricks you need to know too
A SKY employee has revealed a seriously handy TV remote trick that'll save you plenty of time.
It's easy to miss unless you know it's there – and it fixes a very common telly conundrum.
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When you go to a new channel, you might have a sudden feeling of regret.
Maybe the new show is rubbish and what you were watching just before was way better.
Rather than manually navigating all the way back to the previous channel, there's a TV remote shortcut you can use instead.
This'll take you right back to where you were.
Read more on Sky TV
It was revealed by a Sky employee in a forum post where a telly fan asked: "Is there a way to go back to the previous channel you were watching?"
In a post created by the unnamed Sky employee, the answer is: "If you swipe right on the touchpad remote it will bring up a screen at the bottom where you can select your previous channel."
If you want to go back to the previous channel another way, you can use voice search.
Just press the microphone button on your sky remote and say "Go back to previous channel."
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You'll need to keep holding the microphone button down while you speak – and only release it once you're done.
Of course that's not the only Sky TV remote trick worth knowing.
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MASTER YOUR SKY TV REMOTE
One of the worst telly nightmares you can have is losing your remote.
Thankfully Sky Q watchers can take advantage of a simple hack to instantly track it down.
Just walk over to your TV box and press the Sky Q logo.
It's actually a button that triggers a beeping sound on your TV remote.
HOW TO SEARCH WITH SKY VOICE REMOTE
Here are some easy commands to try out...
Search for specified movie - "[Movie title]"
Search for specified programme - "[Programme title]"
Search for content which stars specified actor - "[Actor name]"
Search for content directed by specified director - "[Director name]"
Search for movies within specified genre - "[Movie genre]"
Search for sport content within specified genre. Genres include football, F1, Rugby Union, Cricket, and Rugby League - "[Sport genre]"
Search specific channel - "[Channel name]"
Search for movies with a specific star rating - "[x] star movies" "movies rated [x] stars"
Search for content with specified picture format. Picture format includes SD, HD, and Ultra HD - "[Picture format]"
Search for sports, teams or competitions – “[Sport Name]”, “[Team Name]”, “[Competition Name]”
The remote control will beep for 30 seconds, allowing you to quickly track it down.
Then just press a button on your remote to make it stop – or wait for the timer to expire.
This won't work if your remote isn't paired properly, is out of range, or has no battery.
And it won't work on Sky Q Mini boxes – just the main box.
But it's a great hack that should save you a lot of time searching down the back of the sofa, leaving you with more time to enjoy the telly.
Another handy trick is Sky TV ad-skipping.
It works using the voice function on your remote control.
If you're watching recorded content, just hold the microphone button down and say "skip forward three minutes".
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This will be enough to skip past most ad breaks, and is much faster than manually fast-forwarding.
Sadly it won't work on live TV (for obvious reasons), but it instantly upgrades your Recorded TV-watching experience.
And there's one more voice trick that might come in handy this Christmas.
You can actually search for movies or TV shows just by saying a famous quote.
It's a handy trick if you've forgotten the name of a film – but you can remember its iconic line.
Here's Sky's official list of movies and shows that support the feature:
READ MORE SUN STORIES
- 42nd Street “Sawyer, you're going out a youngster, but you've got to come back a star!”
- A Few Good Men “You can't handle the truth!”
- A League Of Their Own “There's no crying in baseball!”
- A Streetcar Named Desire “Stella! Hey, Stella!” “I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.”
- Airplane! "Surely you can't be serious!” “I am serious… and don't call me Shirley.”
- All About Eve “Fasten your seatbelts. It's going to be a bumpy night.”
- Animal Crackers “How he got in my pajamas I’ll never know.”
- Annie Hall “La-dee-da, la-dee-da"
- Apocalypse Now “I love the smell of napalm in the morning.”
- Apollo 13 “Houston, we have a problem.” “Houston, we've had a problem” "Houston, we've had a problem.”
- Auntie Mame “Life is a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death!”
- Avengers: Endgame "I need three gaziliion heroes", "I need four gazillion heroes", "I need five gazillion heroes", "Bring me Mjölnir"
- Beyond The Forest “What a dump.”
- Bonnie And Clyde “We rob banks.”
- Bumblebee "Show me four broken toys"
- Casablanca “Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.” “Play it, Sam. Play As Time Goes By.” “Round up the usual suspects.” “We’ll always have Paris.” “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.”
- Chinatown "Forget it, Jake, it's Chinatown.”
- Citizen Kane “Rosebud.”
- Cool Hand Luke “What we've got here is failure to communicate.”
- Dead Poets Society “Carpe diem. Seize the day, boys. Make your lives extraordinary.”
- Die Hard "Yippee-ki-yay"
- Die Hard "Now I have a machine gun, ho ho ho!"
- Dirty Dancing “Nobody puts Baby in a corner.”
- Dirty Harry “You've got to ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel lucky?' Well, do ya, punk?” “Do you feel lucky, punk?”
- Dog Day Afternoon “Attica! Attica!”
- Dr. Strangelove “Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room!”
- Dracula “Listen to them. Children of the night. What music they make.”
- E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial “E.T. phone home.”
- Field Of Dreams “If you build it, he will come.” “If you build it, they
- Frankenstein “It's alive! It's alive!”
- Funny Girl “Hello, gorgeous.”
- Game of Thrones “winter is coming”
- Gone With The Wind “Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.”
- Grand Hotel “I want to be alone.”
- Incredibles 2 “we need elastigirl”, “you have powers”
- Jaws “You're gonna need a bigger boat.”
- Jerry Maguire “Show me the money!” “You had me at hello."
- Jingle all the way "Jingle all the way"
- Knute Rockne All American “Tell 'em to go out there with all they got and win just one for the Gipper.”
- Lampoon'S Animal House “Toga! Toga!” “Bluto.”
- Little Caesa “Mother of mercy, is this the end of Rico?”
- Love Actually “show me christmas favourites”
- Love Story “Love means never having to say you're sorry.”
- Marathon Man “Is it safe?”
- Mary Poppins Returns "We need the world's most famous nanny"
- Mary, Queen of Scots "Two quarrelling queens"
- Mean Girls “on Wednesday we wear pink”
- Midnight Cowboy “I'm walking here! I'm walking here!” “Ratso.”
- Mommie Dearest “No wire hangers, ever!”
- Moonstruck “Snap out of it!”
- Muppet Christmas Carol "Bah Humbug!"
- Network “I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!”
- Now, Voyager “Oh, Jerry, don't let's ask for the moon. We have the stars.”
- On The Waterfront “You don't understand! I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I could've been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am.”
- Poltergeist “They're here!”
- Psycho “A boy's best friend is his mother.”
- Rocky "Yo, Adrian!”
- Scarface “Say ‘hello’ to my little friend!”
- Shane “Shane. Shane. Come back!”
- She Done Him Wrong “Why don't you come up sometime and see me?” “Why don't you come up and see me sometime.”
- Some Like It Hot “Well, nobody's perfect.”
- Sons Of The Desert "Well, here's another nice mess you've gotten me into!”
- Soylent Green “Soylent Green is people!”
- Star Wars “May the Force be with you.”
- Sudden Impact “Go ahead, make my day.”
- Sunset Boulevard “I am big! It's the pictures that got small.” “I'm ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille.” “All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up.”
- Taxi Driver “You talking to me?”
- Terminator 2: Judgment Day “Hasta la vista, baby.”
- The Godfather II “Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.”
- The Graduate “Mrs. Robinson, you're trying to seduce me. Aren't you?”
- The Grinch "You're a mean one, Mr Grinch"
- The Grinch "Take me to Whoville!"
- The Jazz Singer “Wait a minute, wait a minute. You ain't heard nothin' yet!”
- The Lego Movie 2 "Two worlds colliding", "Three duplo aliens!", "Three lego aliens!"
- The Lord Of The Rings: Two Towers “My precious.”
- The Maltese Falcon “The stuff that dreams are made of.”
- The Pride Of The Yankees “Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth.”
- The Sixth Sense “I see dead people.”
- The Terminator “I'll be back.”
- The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre “Gold hat.”
- The Wizard Of Oz “I'll get you, my pretty, and your little dog, too!”
- Titanic “I'm the king of the world!”
- Top Gun “I feel the need - the need for speed!” “Goose.”
- Wall Street “Greed, for lack of a better word, is good.”
- When Harry Met Sally “I'll have what she's having.”
- White Heat “Made it, Ma! Top of the world!” “Cody.”
- Yankee Doodle Dandy “My mother thanks you. My father thanks you. My sister thanks you. And I thank you."
Be warned: this won't work if Sky doesn't have the movie you're asking for in its library.
CAN'T GET VOICE CONTROL TO WORK?
Here are Sky's official tips for fixing Voice Control...
If Voice Control isn't working, check your Sky Q remote for problems:
- Remove the battery cover off the body of the Sky Q remote.
- Take out the batteries and insert them again, matching the + and - signs.
- Once the batteries are in place, replace the cover by aligning the catch with the remote body and sliding forward, so it clicks back into place.
Press help (?) on your remote to check it has battery power:
- If the LED light at the top of the remote flashes , then press and hold the Voice Control button. If you don't see the search screen then replace the batteries, and press the Voice Control button once more.
- If the LED light at the top of the remote doesn't flash , then check the batteries are in correctly. If they are, replace them with new batteries. Press and hold the Voice Control button, if you don't see the search screen then pair the remote.
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