[vdr] Re: Vox and EPG: A summary to the situation

[_cooper_ <cooper@linvdr.org>]

Hi Klaus, hi folks,

On Sat, 5 Oct 2002, Klaus Schmidinger wrote:
> > Since next year we will have to work with the EPG of Vox as it currently is.
> I believe (well, _hope_) you meant to write "Until next year..." - right?
Of course ;-)

> > Klaus: Perhaps you could add the EPG parsing as you suggested some weeks ago?
> Here's what I've implemented in VDR 1.1.10. It would appear to work rather nicely.
> This is an addition you should be able to easily insert in the 1.0.4 code of
> VDR/eit.c as well. Note that I've also modified the bugfix stats count, but that
> doesn't change the effect.
Thanks, I'll try it.

> > The "simple" entries allways will have this format, which will (says Indek)
> > not change till the big change next year:
> And once they change it, will it become *better*??
I pray and hope so, I'll do my very best to make them clear what they're doing
now and how to do it right. The absolute curious part is that there are a very
few absolute correct EPG entries from which nobody knows how they have been
programmed because they couldn't have been programmed because the software is
not capable of doing it (says SES, the Astra-Experts). I think we should
create a X-File, this must be Alien powered ;-)

> I really wonder what's so hard about doing this in a way that is really *useful*.
> The user, IMHO, wants the title in the <title> field, the episode name (or whatever
> short description is available) in the <subtitle> field (which, I believe, is not
> well named, since it has nothing to do with "subtitles"), and whatever additional
> information is available in the <extended description> field.
>
> > In the title field:
> >   <title>
> > In the subtitle field:
> >   (<country>, <year> <length>') Von <name>, <name>, ..., <name>. Mit <name>,
> >   <name>, ..., <name>. "<subtitle/series title>". <description>
>
> This is about as bad as it can be done - mixing several kinds of information
> in one field. This field should *ONLY* contain the episode name (or equivalent
> information).
Their argument for the current format is: There are some (old? antique?
pre-historic?) digital receivers with only one display line (they said
something about a Galaxis model) and it would be nice for the users to have a
description there and not only the title and subtitle.

> As far as I understand it, the EIT nomenclature speaks of four text fields that
> are of interest here:
> - ShortName
> - ShortText
> - ExtendedName
> - ExtendedText
Do you have any "official" source, a paper describing this as "standard" or
suggestion from any official organization? Are there some more fields you
didn't mention? Perhaps I'll be in the position to advice them one format.

My problem is: I tell them what they're doing is evil, and they answer that
it's not violating any standard. So I have to put my finger on the line and
show them they do wrong or at least are violating a suggestion of anyone to
speak of. Sadly, "most users" is not enough to them, because their version
could be read by everyone, the "correct" format would probably bring less
information to those old users.

The more, users of digital video recorders are the opposite of their target
group, so our satisfaction doesn't count too much in their eyes.

By the way: They currently discuss how to avoid automatic cutting-off ads. One
very attractive solution they thought of is to resize the screen to 70% and
do ads in an extra window or on a ticker below or at the direct bottom the
film window. Partly you can watch this horrible nightmare on Sat.1 when they
put some program forecast into popular series as ticker band...

> So, when you get the chance to talk to somebody in charge of EPG data, please
> make them understand that we need the title and episode name clearly separated
> (from each other and from other data) in order to nicely set up the recording
> directories - and also to present a useful channel display (What's on now/next).
I hope I could make them clear that a full featured EPG is no disadvantage at
all, the more, they could drag viewers to their channel by filling the
ExtendedName or even ExtendedText. And that channels without EPG (as Vox for
a couple of days or DSF) will not appear anywhere and so probably be ignored
at all.

My goal is to have an up to date, full featured EPG containing at least all
informations that are available via teletext.

> For more about what's wrong with the EPG data on the several channels please take
> a look at VDR/eit.c, function cEventInfo::FixEpgBugs().
Thanks, I will.

Bye,
  _cooper_
______________________________________________________________________________
 LinVDR - The Digital Linux Videorecorder               http://www.linvdr.org



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