Re: Electronic Program Guides (DVB-SI)

["@rtur Lugmayr" <lartur@cs.tut.fi>]

> > *  The (DVB- and channel-specific) EPG information that
> >    is sent on most channels.

The problem is that only less channels provide a complete and
DVB encoded TS/DVB-SI.

> This is what I'm mainly interested in being able to access.
>
> > *  The general teletext information.
>
> This is useful to an extent, but every channel uses a different format to
> display the information.  It would be a lot of work to write parsers for the
> hundreds of channels out there.

DVB provides a pretty good description of it`s MHP and provides a pretty
good framework in Java. My implementation bases on this - still there is
a problem, as it`s too much tables for parsing. I suggest a parsing tool for
all those tables. Furthermore there should be only one channel format ->
DVB...

> However, I'm currently working on extracting VBI teletext information from
> terrestrial BBC1 teletext signals (I live in London) in order to feed a
> database of sporting results.   This system could easily be used as the basis
> of a teletext-based EPG system if required, but the real data should be used
> from the Service Information broadcasts.
>
> Does anyone think that creating an "EPG database" is the right way to
> implement an EPG?  The only problem I can forsee with it is a legal one
> concerning the copyright of the program listings.

I think there is no other way than that!!! Without a DB no user-depended-
serach can be made. Furthermore it is almost not possible to decode each table
(there are too much) to a "hashtable" ;-). If you dont want to use
a DB I suggest you to decode just the EIT for retrieving information about
the actual program shedule or only a subset of all tables...

Regards,


@rtur
Lugmayr