In the department of ironically named features... comes Rogers' new "Quick Start" menu. This replaces the normal handy dandy program guide with a new menu system with links and some minor new features:

* Link to the actual program guide
* Link to the recorded programs menu
* Links to so-called "mix" channels, which are 6 PIP screens for news, sports or kids. You can change the audio by moving the cursor from PIP window to window. These, however, are accessable as normal TV channels and don't require the menu system.
* A nested menu system with all HD channels sorted into categories... even the ones you don't get. Also a similar menu for On Demand channels.
* The weather (considering that if you have a cable box you also have the weather network...)
* 4 rather small games
* A link to reboot the box (actually this could be handy, save for the fact that the menu is probably not going to be working right when you need this)

So, it's all kind of useless fluff. The problem is that the GUIDE button now brings this up. If I want the actual program guide, which I use countless times every day, I have to hit GUIDE a second time (but not too quickly - you have to wait a couple seconds for the screen to load or it does nothing).

Of course what's most irksome is that the remotes that Rogers uses have two particular buttons: GUIDE and MENU (plus of course LIST and SETUP). Previously, these both did the exact same thing: bring up the program guide, because there wasn't anything else for MENU to do.

Now? They both bring up the Quick Start menu. Why didn't they put Quick Start on MENU? Or if they wanted to force current in-a-comfortable-routine customers to see that by default, they could have at least put Guide on MENU.