EPG on FTA

[Anole]

That's why I bought my dreamboxes... now I just gotta get my lazy butt in gear and write some software to gather guide info from about 2 gazillion places to fill in the epg on the dreamboxes.

Okay, that's a bit of a challenge.
But, with that same info, anyone else (not a Dreambox user) could have a laptop with a custom guide,...
...using links to TitanTV (or other internet sources)

The problem is, we all have different interests in channels, and different birds we can receive.
But, how 'bout the GloryStar users?
They may be trying to work toward a broadcast EPG, but I suspect the cooperation to do that is an uphill battle.
At least that's a fixed set of channels.

As a proof-of-concept, how about a way to do a computer-upload of a guide to all the Mercury II's through their serial port?
If you manually did it once a day, you might be able to have an EPG good for several days into the future.
With so few channels, maybe you could do a weekly upload.
SatAV, are you listening?

Now, I know the down side is that many in that user-base may not be computer-comfortable.
But for those households where someone is, can you imagine the excitement?

If anyone wants to really discuss this idea, open a new thread and we'll hash it out.

 

[lumpkin666]

Anole, that's exactly what I wanted to do. But I couldn't find anyone who had any info on where the guide data would be stored and/or how to upload it. I started doing some serious digging thinking that the format for the guide data had to be somewhat standard on many receivers, but started getting into sites that were doing things that I didn't want to be a part of (if you catch my drift).

Once I get off my duff and get to writing my guide data gathering program for the channels that list their guides, that same data could easily be used elsewhere. The biggest issue I have is accessing guide data for the variety of channels (freely). I actually talked with a couple people from fyitelevision (who supply titantv data) about defining a lineup that encompasses all of the FTA offerings, but it was beyond my allowable time committment to try to track down actual broadcast channels corresponding to all of these FTA channels so that they could build the channel lineup for the guide listings :/

I think from the GloryStar prospective, gathering the guide data should be the most difficult part. They have the contacts/motivation/etc to obtain a small part of the data stream in order to provide an EPG (I'm thinking providers would certainly toss in a couple bucks a month for the EPG datastream if the epg service would funnel viewers to them)

 

[Anole]

way off topic

I think from the GloryStar prospective, gathering the guide data should be the most difficult part. They have the contacts/motivation/etc to obtain a small part of the data stream in order to provide an EPG (I'm thinking providers would certainly toss in a couple bucks a month for the EPG datastream if the epg service would funnel viewers to them)

Well, Brian sells (a lot of ) Mercury II's to the GS market.
They are already somewhat customized. (I don't know the details)
Yes, over-the-air delivery of the Guide info would be best, but I'm assuming that won't come soon.

Also, I assumed the channels in the package were already available on Titan or other public sites.
If I'm wrong, that would be a problem.
It just seemed like a large enough test-case, with a small enough channel set to try some alternate procedure.

What about loading the EPG monthly?
Surely you could get to Grandma's house once a month with your laptop, and top-off her guide!

 

[lumpkin666]

Also, I assumed the channels in the package were already available on Titan or other public sites.
If I'm wrong, that would be a problem.

I'm thinking they are probably listed (at least many of them). The problem with titanTv is finding the channels. At least my experience is that TitanTv wants to produce a channel lineup for you using your zipcode and your provider (or OTA). Since no single provider exists that has all of these channels, you are stuck guessing which combination of providers to use.. or manually searching for the right channels (in which case you have to know the call letters of a "local" station that carries the channle)

What about loading the EPG monthly?
Surely you could get to Grandma's house once a month with your laptop, and top-off her guide!

I think you'll run into some space limitations there on many receivers. Maybe not, but a month's worth of detailed guide data is a LOT (If I recall correctly, it seemed that Dish receivers used to only load a handful of days at a time). Maybe you could get away with loading only the program time/name and not the detailed data for the guide.

 

[Anole]

in the beginning . . .

On the old receivers, Dish supplied about 4 hours, as I recall.
- That really sucked - if you scrolled too far ahead to tonight's shows, the guide had to update!
Then, the 301 (and others) were reprogrammed to do about 46 hours of guide.
- That was a big improvement, and didn't suck so bad. However, you couldn't see to set a timer for next week.
The 508 PVR family held the 8 day (?) guide on the hard drive.
- No sucking at all. You see something advertised for next week at this time, and you could scroll forward, set a timer, they really got this one right !

But, Dish has hundreds of channels.
GS has what? Dozens?

Getting guide data more than two weeks in advance might be a problem, but the storage should not be.
But, let's assume the program & time data was really only accurate for one week, due to that being all the channel producers offered.
You could still make up a 2- or 4-week data base, where the second (through fourth) week was a copy of this week.
There's an 80% chance that guide will be reasonably accurate.
And, there's a 100% chance that a partially accurate guide is better than no guide at all!

If a big special event is planned and known 30 days in advance, then maybe that info could actually be correct in the guide 30 days ahead.
But the point is, if a guide database were prepared daily, using the best info at hand, then any day you put -that- guide into the FTA receiver, it'd be correct for a few days or a week, and if not updated for weeks, still have some sort of hint as to what was on.

This keeps getting better the more we talk about it!


And I'm still serious that this guide should be inserted into the receiver through the serial port, just like re-flashing the rom.

 

[Mr Tony]

On the old receivers, Dish supplied about 4 hours, as I recall.

actually it was an hour...My 3000, 4000 & 5000 would only do an hour...90 minutes tops

- That really sucked - if you scrolled too far ahead to tonight's shows, the guide had to update!

which took an ion to update

Then, the 301 (and others) were reprogrammed to do about 46 hours of guide.

44 hours

The 508 PVR family held the 8 day (?) guide on the hard drive.
- No sucking at all. You see something advertised for next week at this time, and you could scroll forward, set a timer, they really got this one right !

the 501, 508 & 510 could do 9 days but at the time it was only on 110 which if you had just 119 (and a fair amount of people did) you were stuck with 44 hours...now its on 119

Unless FTA becomes more mainstream like it is in Europe, I highly doubt we'll see EPG

 

[digiblur]

If the channels are also on DishNetwork you could dump their EPG nightly via XML with TSReader. Then have another program massage the data to what you need.

Of course you'd have to write conversions from their TIDS and SIDS to what the FTA channels are.

 

[SatelliteAV]

We are in the process of obtaining programming information from the Glorystar broadcasters and are looking to release the information in three ways.

• Scrolling video channel guide with corner sponsor inserts (I.E. TV Guide Channel)
• EPG data on one transponder which Glorystar receivers will be mapped to receive.
• Website with additional program information and links.

We would certainly be interested in sharing this data to the right project.



Porting data to the receiver's flash and modifying each channel to reference internal data rather than the data on the individual transponder would require each participants FTA receiver to use identical channel lists and would fill the standard FTA receiver's memory quite quickly.

I would probably suggest that a project to provide EPG for the majority of FTA channels would be better suited to a linux based receiver with access to a common EPG database via internet distribution. Each channel could be mapped to a EPG source and that data displayed on demand rather than stored internally.

Just my 2 cents!

 

[qwert1515]

How many hour of program information do you think you will be able to get from the broadcasters and how much in advance?

Also will the Glorystar tranponder EIT have the same information?

 

[Anole]

deep thought

Okay, I thought the GloryStar situation would be a nice small contained test case.
Looks like no one supports that, but there's modest interest in a general FTA solution.

Assumptions:
1). A day's guide is better than no guide at all.
2). An abbreviated guide (instead of a verbose guide) is better than no guide.
3). Partial list with most of my favorite channels , is better than no guide.
4). Manual uploading of a customized guide is better than no guide.
Yes, I twisted the assumptions.
But, if people won't bother unless the guide is spectacular, then that's an unrealistic goal, and it won't come about.

Please support or argue against these points.
Maybe a better understanding of user's needs will become apparent.

If the channels are also on DishNetwork you could dump their EPG nightly via XML with TSReader.

This is a really inspired idea. - :up
What if you could get -some- of your favorites off local-station guides.?
That's a heck of a nice source of as much info as you want.

 

[kb7oeb]

This site may be of help Schedules Direct , its used by free DVR software for guide data, if there was anyplace that would create the custom list you want I think they would be it.

 

[Tron]

Only satellite I *really* wish I had an EPG for is G-10R, but most of that programming info is available on TitanTV

 

[lumpkin666]

This site may be of help Schedules Direct , its used by free DVR software for guide data, if there was anyplace that would create the custom list you want I think they would be it.

It's been quite awhile since I worked with Schedules Direct... I can't recall what the issue was there, but I wasn't able to get a guide organized

What would be VERY helpful is to identify common broadcast stations that deliver the content to most of these channels so that we could easily gather the guide data for the channels. I've found that you can't easily go and ask these guide data "vendors" for channel information for something many of these channels due to the fact that they carry the end-resulting station's listings and not the source station listing. So if something like Daystar is being broadcast on a channel called WXBY Tv, you have to tell them WXBY Tv because they don't have any listings for Daystar.

Also, obviously, it would be helpful if we had some documentation as to the storage location/format used (at least for one common receiver) for the EPG data so that we could start looking for a mechanism to upload and store the data.

 

[lumpkin666]

If the channels are also on DishNetwork you could dump their EPG nightly via XML with TSReader. Then have another program massage the data to what you need.

Of course you'd have to write conversions from their TIDS and SIDS to what the FTA channels are.

I'd started down that road at one time, but I could not find a decent location that had a large number of channels that I wanted for the guide. What happens is that for each of the RTN stations (for instance), you have to get lineups from a number of areas just to pull the channel data for that one channel. This is not that big of a deal, except that you end up pulling the xml data for the entire channel lineup about 15 times... and dish has a LOT of channels. I couldn't actually get 15 locations worth of data downloaded in one night - I'm sure my process was not efficient, but it's still slow, and you still only have 15 channels of data.

 

[SatelliteAV]

We are requesting 30 days data providing the ability to modify an event if submitted by the broadcaster 48 hours in advance of the schedule change.

One transponder will carry all EPG data. Initially we will offer 24 hour
advance.

How many hour of program information do you think you will be able to get from the broadcasters and how much in advance?

Also will the Glorystar tranponder EIT have the same information?

 

[rv1pop]

I am not home right now to looking in my notebook, but I have noticed that Daystar, GCN? and TBN (as well as several other network on GloryStar have monthly newsletters with schedules, but they just list the program(er) and not what the subject is IE; James Robison - which may be his regular ministries' program with guests, a vitamin pitch, or the water or soup bowl beg. The first I might watch, the others NO.

TBN sends out a daily email, with the Praise The Lord details, they schedule weeks in advance, but finding out who/what is on in a few days is not easy. (Vern Jackson is supposed to sing every Thursday.) I don't know if this is what you would want.... Believer's Voice of Victory Program gives a list at least two weeks in advance and they can tell us what is scheduled way in advance, but that can change.

Just my thoughts!

 

[Anole]

minor timing glich

One thing that came to mind is related to the viewer's time zone.

You can see that guide data for an east coast TV station, might need to be corrected for a west coast viewer.
On the other hand, if the viewer was tracking a west coast TV station which carried the same satellite feed, he might not have to correct the time.
This would be a problem if using Titan TV, I think, but maybe not so much for Schedules Direct.
I'm uncertain how it would impact use of Dish's EPG stream as source.

Probably just a minor thing to keep in the back of your mind for the future.

 

[digiblur]

I'd started down that road at one time, but I could not find a decent location that had a large number of channels that I wanted for the guide. What happens is that for each of the RTN stations (for instance), you have to get lineups from a number of areas just to pull the channel data for that one channel. This is not that big of a deal, except that you end up pulling the xml data for the entire channel lineup about 15 times... and dish has a LOT of channels. I couldn't actually get 15 locations worth of data downloaded in one night - I'm sure my process was not efficient, but it's still slow, and you still only have 15 channels of data.

If you are trying to grab the EPG from DishNetwork, you just need to tune to the right transponder on the bird. If you tune to any TP you'll only get the guide for 2 hours on every channel in the system.

I have a scheduled task that kicks off TSReader and pulls the 44 hour guide from 110W for every channel. It's huge but it doesn't take long. I have a custom program that narrows it down to the TIDS and SIDS I need for TV viewing.

Here's where the EPG and EEPG is.

36861 - EPG [EPG] - EchoStar9 121W TP 21 ConUS beam - Available
36861 - EPG [EPG] - EchoStar8 110W TP 21 ConUS beam - Available
36861 - EPG [EPG] - Anik F3 118.7W TP 07 ConUS beam - Available
36861 - EPG [EPG] - EchoStar7 119W TP 19 ConUS beam - Available
36861 - EPG [EPG] - EchoStar9 121W TP 21 ConUS beam - Available
36861 - EPG [EPG] - EchoStar5 129W TP 17 ConUS beam - Available
36861 - EPG [EPG] - EchoStar1 148W TP 19 ConUS beam - Available
36861 - EPG [EPG] - EchoStar3 61.5W TP 29 ConUS beam - Available
36862 - EEPG [EPG] - EchoStar7 119W TP 18 ConUS beam - Available

 

[lumpkin666]

If you are trying to grab the EPG from DishNetwork, you just need to tune to the right transponder on the bird.

You know.. I was making it WAY too darn hard. I have a DVB card and could do that, but instead I wrote programs to extract the information from the web via soap requests .. stupid.. stupid.. stupid..
That's what happens when you're a software developer - everything can be solved by software.. even if it doesn't make sense to do it that way *laf*

 

[Anole]

what receiver to start with?

Well, on a Dreambox linux based FTA receiver, or on a PCI card, getting the computer to do the guide lookup (even if it has to access the internet) wouldn't be so much of a challenge.
How many such receivers do we folks have as opposed to stand-alone boxes.?
I have a card and a USB device, but kinda gave up on 'em last year.

Now, as to the FTA receivers, which ones would have the storage space to hold a decent guide for... what? .. your 100 favorite channels?
And let's be reasonable, you don't really need to have all channels in the favorites, so 100..200 might be do-able (correct me if you disagree!)

Only two types of receivers that I know of have storage for the big EPG projects (500+ channels?) like the hackers run.
Those would be the receivers with a hard drive (well, some), and the Coolsat 6000 with the big ram.
There are probably more, but those are the only ones I've run across with such capability.
Neither are all -that- common among the members, from what I've read on this forum.
I don't have either, but with all the nice improvements to the Visionsat IV-200, I might be persuaded.

Anyone know of another receiver? The Mercury II got enough ram?