8 Day EPG Test in London TV region
 

The following news appeared today at:-

http://www.dtg.org.uk/news/uknews/-f...epg_london.htm

Quote:-

From 2.00pm next Wednesday (5 May) the current trial of 8-day information in Wales
will be extended to London's Crystal Palace transmitter
- and its relays at Guildford, Hemel Hempstead and Reigate.

SI has been extended on a trial basis in Wales for some time now, initially offering a 4-day
schedule which was latterly extended to 8 days.
A statement from the BBC's Strategy & Distribution Team says:
"The broadcasters felt that a larger target trial audience was required to provide added
confidence in the service before considering full national roll-out. Despite the obvious
differences in geography and audience size, providing the extended service in London
is technically very similar to doing so in Wales. This means that the technical risk is
minimised whilst achieving a significant gain in audience size. There are also significant
benefits to providing London coverage, as many broadcasters, manufacturers and
industry bodies will be able to experience an extended schedule service for the first time."

For operational reasons, during the trial the extended SI will only be transmitted in the
BBC, Crown Castle and D3 and D4 muxes:
SDN won't carry the extended SI during the trial period.

There is also a caveat about which receivers can display the data as so many
were developed before the current profile was decided.
The BBC brief says that the following receivers will attempt to decode the schedule information:

Humax F2 Fox 1 STB
Humax 8000 PVR (full product details not specified)
Pace PVR
Pace DTVA
Sony VTX D800U
Sony iDTVs (integrated digital TV sets)
"However, once extended SI is available ongoing, [the broadcasters] would
hope that more manufacturers make their boxes capable of
displaying extended SI - either through over-air software
upgrades or by marketing new 'schedule-ready' receivers."

On Fri, 30 Apr 2004 20:24:26 +0100, "Mark Carver"
wrote:

From 2.00pm next Wednesday (5 May) the current trial of 8-day information in Wales
will be extended to London's Crystal Palace transmitter
- and its relays at Guildford, Hemel Hempstead and Reigate.

Woohoo! Great news, hopefully most of the pain of setting my PVR8000T
will disappear.

Now if they could just arrange it so TV programmes would actually
start and end when they are supposed to...
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On 30-Apr-2004, Andrew [email protected] wrote:

Now if they could just arrange it so TV programmes would actually
start and end when they are supposed to...

Or get the "now and next" to change at the moment the programme actually
finishes. Then get the box software to start/finish the recording when
the "now and next" changes. A sort of PDC. Or is that to simple in this
technical age?

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On Fri, 30 Apr 2004 23:03:58 GMT, "Malcolm (itsonlyme)"
] wrote:


On 30-Apr-2004, Andrew [email protected] wrote:

Now if they could just arrange it so TV programmes would actually
start and end when they are supposed to...

Or get the "now and next" to change at the moment the programme actually
finishes.

Or actually get now and next to show current information.

Then get the box software to start/finish the recording when
the "now and next" changes. A sort of PDC. Or is that to simple in this
technical age?

"Malcolm (itsonlyme)" ] wrote in message
...

On 30-Apr-2004, Andrew [email protected] wrote:

Now if they could just arrange it so TV programmes would actually
start and end when they are supposed to...

Or get the "now and next" to change at the moment the programme actually
finishes. Then get the box software to start/finish the recording when
the "now and next" changes. A sort of PDC. Or is that to simple in this
technical age?

That already happens to a degree, the EIT should perform the task of PDC of
yesteryear. You should find that "now" doesn't become current until that
programme is about to start, opposed to simply being triggered by time. i.e.
A programme labelled 21:00 could still be "next" at 21:01 and not trigger
until 21:02, on the Beeb at least.

The consequence of this is the inevitable over-run at the end of each show,
but I think that can also be triggered separately.

Az.

"Mark Carver" wrote in message ...
The following news appeared today at:-

http://www.dtg.org.uk/news/uknews/-f...epg_london.htm

Quote:-

From 2.00pm next Wednesday (5 May) the current trial of 8-day information in Wales
will be extended to London's Crystal Palace transmitter
- and its relays at Guildford, Hemel Hempstead and Reigate.

snip
I wonder how long the rest of the country will be waiting, next trial
Sutton Coldfield transmitter please!

Ed wrote:
"Mark Carver" wrote in message ...

The following news appeared today at:-

http://www.dtg.org.uk/news/uknews/-f...epg_london.htm

Quote:-

From 2.00pm next Wednesday (5 May) the current trial of 8-day information in Wales
will be extended to London's Crystal Palace transmitter
- and its relays at Guildford, Hemel Hempstead and Reigate.


snip
I wonder how long the rest of the country will be waiting, next trial
Sutton Coldfield transmitter please!
Assuming all goes well...;-)
There won't be any more trials. There will be a rollout to the rest of
the country. I believe the speed will be determined by how fast BT can
upgrade thier circuits carrying the EIT schedule.
Andy.

Andy Dee wrote in message ...
Ed wrote:
"Mark Carver" wrote in message ...

I wonder how long the rest of the country will be waiting, next trial
Sutton Coldfield transmitter please!
Assuming all goes well...;-)
There won't be any more trials. There will be a rollout to the rest of
the country. I believe the speed will be determined by how fast BT can
upgrade thier circuits carrying the EIT schedule.
Andy.

So hopefully everything will work well on Wednesday! It should be the
kind of test where if it does not go haywire in the first week, then
you can presume that everything is okay. Hopefully the rest of the
country will get the new EPG by the end of June? They have had months
to get it right. I am just waiting to be able to program my PVR using
the 7 day EPG, now that will be good. Saying that I will still have
to adjust every recording to give a bit of extra space for late
finishes.

.. Saying that I will still have
to adjust every recording to give a bit of extra space for late
finishes.

There is an option in disk settings somewhere to add x minutes to the end
each recording, I assume this should still work with the epg.

Mike

On Mon, 3 May 2004 00:32:29 +0100, "Spock"
wrote:

There is an option in disk settings somewhere to add x minutes to the end
each recording, I assume this should still work with the epg.

Which PVR are you talking about?
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On Mon, 03 May 2004 06:56:07 +0100, Andrew [email protected] wrote:

On Mon, 3 May 2004 00:32:29 +0100, "Spock"
wrote:

There is an option in disk settings somewhere to add x minutes to the end
each recording, I assume this should still work with the epg.

Which PVR are you talking about?

The Pace Twin has it :-

menu - configuration - timer settings.

Colin.

"Spock" wrote in message news:[email protected]
. Saying that I will still have
to adjust every recording to give a bit of extra space for late
finishes.

There is an option in disk settings somewhere to add x minutes to the end
each recording, I assume this should still work with the epg.

Mike

There may be on the Pace, but I do not believe there is on the Humax.

There is an option in disk settings somewhere to add x minutes to the end
each recording, I assume this should still work with the epg.

Which PVR are you talking about?
--

I was referring to the pace twin.

menu, configuration, timer settings

you can adjust the start time and end time, the settings will be applied to
all timer recordings.
Mike

On Tue, 4 May 2004 18:00:33 +0100,
lid (Alan Pemberton) wrote:

I'm afraid I can't get my head around the concept of an 'improvement'
that allows you to use the epg to programme a recorder, yet doesn't use
the epg to control the recording as steam PDC does on analogue.

Was PDC ever that good? I've had about 3 videos with PDC over the
years and on all of them, using PDC often resulted in recording
cock-ups. I've had huge lumps missed off the end of recordings,
recordings starting ridiculously late and completely failed
recordings. In the end, I just switched it off and manually added a
few minutes to the timer settings.

Anyway, have we got anything concrete to tell us that recordings won't
be event driven rather than time driven under the much awaited EPG?

Colin.

Colin Stamp wrote:
..

Was PDC ever that good?

IME C4's was. Never had a failure in 8 years of use.

Now BBC PDC, umm.............quite another story !

Mark Carver wrote:

Colin Stamp wrote:
.

Was PDC ever that good?

IME C4's was. Never had a failure in 8 years of use.

Now BBC PDC, umm.............quite another story !

Unfortunately after a few bad experiences people were liable to give
up. I certainly never appreciated that there was a difference between
the channels and after a few ruined recordings from BBC2 I ditched the
whole idea and used manual timings.

--
Abso [at] ukrm [dot] net

The FAQ for upce is at http:\\upce.org.uk

On Fri, 30 Apr 2004 20:24:26 +0100, "Mark Carver"
wrote:

The following news appeared today at:-

http://www.dtg.org.uk/news/uknews/-f...epg_london.htm

Is this working for anyone yet? My Humax PVR8000T is still running in
the usual "Now and if you are lucky Next" mode.
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Anyone used the 8 day EPG yet.

Especially on the Humax 8000

If so is it automatic or do you need to reset to enable?

Thanks

"Abso" wrote in message
...
Mark Carver wrote:

Colin Stamp wrote:
.

Was PDC ever that good?

IME C4's was. Never had a failure in 8 years of use.

Now BBC PDC, umm.............quite another story !

Unfortunately after a few bad experiences people were liable to give
up. I certainly never appreciated that there was a difference between
the channels and after a few ruined recordings from BBC2 I ditched the
whole idea and used manual timings.

--
Abso [at] ukrm [dot] net

The FAQ for upce is at http:\\upce.org.uk

Is this working for anyone yet? My Humax PVR8000T is still running in
the usual "Now and if you are lucky Next" mode.

Its working on my Pace Twin

On Wed, 5 May 2004 17:32:31 +0100, "Nick"
wrote:


Is this working for anyone yet? My Humax PVR8000T is still running in
the usual "Now and if you are lucky Next" mode.

Its working on my Pace Twin

Hmmm, that isn't boding well for my Humax then :-(
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In article , Andrew
writes
On Wed, 5 May 2004 17:32:31 +0100, "Nick"
wrote:


Is this working for anyone yet? My Humax PVR8000T is still running in
the usual "Now and if you are lucky Next" mode.

Its working on my Pace Twin

Hmmm, that isn't boding well for my Humax then :-(

Well its "almost" working on my Humax F2-Fox T.

Almost, in that it doesn't show a guide for all of the next 8 days, but
its a lot more than just the now and next that was there yesterday.

BBC channels seem to be 2 and a half hays in the future.
Other channels range from half a day to 1 and a half days in the future.

Perhaps it will improve as more data is uploaded, perhaps it won't and
they want you to buy a TV Guide. ;-)
--
Kennedy
Yes, Socrates himself is particularly missed;
A lovely little thinker, but a bugger when he's ****ed.
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Is this working for anyone yet? My Humax PVR8000T is still running in
the usual "Now and if you are lucky Next" mode.

Well the EPG is working after a fashion on my fairly new (and excellent)
Pace Twin.
I only managed to step forward as far as tomorrow evening's programs (which
seemed to take a long time) at which point the box froze solid and needed
the mains switch treatment. Even so 24 hours of programs will be good.

Mike

In message , on Wed, 5 May 2004,
Kennedy McEwen writes

Well its "almost" working on my Humax F2-Fox T.

Almost, in that it doesn't show a guide for all of the next 8 days, but
its a lot more than just the now and next that was there yesterday.

BBC channels seem to be 2 and a half hays in the future.
Other channels range from half a day to 1 and a half days in the future.

Working in a similar fashion on my PVR8000T and on my KD32DX150, so
possibly that's all there is to be shown at the moment.

Phil

On Wed, 5 May 2004 21:53:27 +0100, Philip Stokes
wrote:

Working in a similar fashion on my PVR8000T and on my KD32DX150, so
possibly that's all there is to be shown at the moment.

Which software version is your PVR8000T running?
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Is this working for anyone yet? My Humax PVR8000T is still running in
the usual "Now and if you are lucky Next" mode.

I've got this running on a Nebula DigiTV PCI card. Here's a sample,
all from today 6/5/2004.

UKTV History - Full to 12/05
BBC1 - Full to 12/05
BBC3 - Full to 12/05
BBC4 - Full to 12/05
BBC Parliament - Full to 12/05
ITV1 - Full to 12/05
Channel 4 - Full to 12/05
Five - All of today, up to 5:35am 7/05
ftn - Full to 12/05

There may very well be data for further in to the future, but I don't
think that the DigiTV stores it.

I'd contend that it's little better than useless on the Twin as it'd
generally be quicker to program manually than to wait for the EPG to
populate and then to navigate to the program - especially if it's more
than a few hours away.

While the multi-channel timeline approach they've taken sounds great,
seeing everything in context, I'm now thinking they should have taken
a more teletext kind of approach. e.g., show just one channel at a
time, using Ch+/- to move to the previous/next channel, with L/R or a
couple of colours to act as prev/next screenfull and another couple of
colours to skip to prev/next day. In a really cool world they could
have a button to toggle such a view between titles only and titles &
descriptions.

I know we've been after this for ages and shouldn't complain when it
comes, but I can't see myself using it on the Twin in its current form
for anything other than recordings later on in the same evening.

Do any of the other boxes/IDTVs present the info in a more manageable
way?

In message , on Wed, 5 May
2004, Andrew writes
On Wed, 5 May 2004 21:53:27 +0100, Philip Stokes
wrote:

Working in a similar fashion on my PVR8000T and on my KD32DX150, so
possibly that's all there is to be shown at the moment.

Which software version is your PVR8000T running?

PGTTF 1.00.08

On Thu, 6 May 2004 16:16:06 +0100, Philip Stokes
wrote:

Working in a similar fashion on my PVR8000T and on my KD32DX150, so
possibly that's all there is to be shown at the moment.

Which software version is your PVR8000T running?

PGTTF 1.00.08

Strange, yours isn't running the current version, mine is 1.00.09.
Mind you, if your EPG is working, don't upgrade it :-)
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On Thu, 6 May 2004 18:07:07 +0100,
lid (Alan Pemberton) wrote:


I've had PDC vcrs since 1996 and used PDC exclusively for recordings on
all analogue channels. I rarely had any missed recordings, and the BBC's
service was particularly good as it turned on the vcr and held it in
pause until a few seconds before the start of the programme.

More recently I started having problems with some BBC shows that started
around midnight, but in any case I began recording from digital boxes
and had to forget about PDC (except that I still use it regularly for
recording from Arte on digital satellite, and haven't had any problem
there).

It sounds like you've had a lot more luck with it than me. I tried it
in the early days and it was truly dire. Each time I bought a new
video, I had another bash. The last one was a couple of years ago - it
was better, but still messed-up big-time occasionally. I'd much rather
resign myself to pressing the "+10 min" button for each recording than
risk missing it altogether - or worse, find out after watching most of
the program, that the last 15 minutes is missing... again :o(
As far as I'm concerned, Setting up a time-driven recording is pretty
near perfect. It's difficult for PDC to beat that and, for me at
least, it never did.

Colin.

On 05/05/2004, Kennedy McEwen wrote in message
:

Well its "almost" working on my Humax F2-Fox T.

Almost, in that it doesn't show a guide for all of the next 8 days, but
its a lot more than just the now and next that was there yesterday.

BBC channels seem to be 2 and a half hays in the future.
Other channels range from half a day to 1 and a half days in the future.

It may be doing something like showing the next 20 programmes
for each channel.

Simon.
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