EPG Data (was Re: [LINK] Television archival [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]

[George Bray]

> One of your biggest problems is a reliable Electronic Program Guide (EPG).
>
> Carl.

Too right.  There are a number of solutions, though none of them perfect.

1) Use publicly available XMLTV sources.  The completeness of the data
is questionable here, but the advantage is you at least get some
programme info for international channels.  The right thing to do is
to build a GUI so our users can contribute EPG data back to the
source, like the OzTivo gang.

2) Just buy the EPG data for as many channels as are covered by the
supplier.  The company Horan Wall and Walker (HWW) provide commercial
feeds of good data, but it's _really_ expensive because they price the
service on the number of potential users. HWW supply TransACT with
reliable and complete guide data, for example.

3) Similarly, IceTV have feeds available, but only for AU channels.

4) Ignore the problem for now, users will enter channel, date, time
duration to specify recordings.

5) Suck the data (for AU channels) out of the DVB stream, pissing off
FreeTV Australia because the data would be used in a service where
users can "skip ads".  I can't think how difficult it would be to
convince them and the broadcasters that "EPG data should be free!".
Maybe educational use of this data is OK for institutions under their
Screenrights agreement. Perhaps a new government will clarify/mandate
it...

The end rationale, however, is that none of the potential sources of
EPG data completely cover the channels we run, so we will always need
a "manual" way to specify the some recordings.

Any other sources of EPG data?

thanks for the discussion on this,
George

-- 
George Bray, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia.