[vdr] Re: Strange EPG on VOX??

[Jaakko Hyvätti <jaakko@hyvatti.iki.fi>]

On Tue, 10 Sep 2002, Klaus Schmidinger wrote:
> They should learn how to set title, episode name and extended description
> right - I really wonder what's so difficult about that...

  This style of using EPG 'shortinfo' for all additional information about
the programme seems common.  In Finland all channels are like VOX in this
matter.  I tried to find standards documents about it, and came up with
the following:  Etsi document TR 101 288 V1.2.1 (1997-12) - Television
systems; Code of practice for an Electronic Programme Guide (EPG).
However it does not talk about using 'shortinfo' for episode names..

  So I think we have already lost the battle, and cannot hope to have sane
structure in EPG data everywhere.  Nobody has standardized it.  Maybe it
is just good luck that some broadcasters have adopted a convention of
putting episode names into 'shortinfo'. Or do you have some other document
that we can use when arguing with the broadcasters?

  In addition to everything else, we might get advertising in short info..

-----------------------------------------------
8.3.1    Text content

The three text fields in a PI block are:

- Title: the name of the programme, maximum length of 40 characters;

NOTE:    Early decoders may truncate titles to around 30 characters.

- The Short Information can provide details about the programme.
Alternatively it may be used for other purposes such as advertising. On
the display it will appear in the Message Area and shall always be
displayed when the programme is selected or otherwise highlighted by the
user.  Subsequent user actions may result in other information appearing
in the Message Area. The maximum length of Short Information is 255
characters;

- The Long Information will be used for longer critiques of films or for
information such as recipes or contact addresses associated with the
programme. Not every programme will have a Long Information within a
typical EPG service. This information will be displayed in the Message
Area or full screen, and the maximum length is 1 000 characters.

Recommendations:

For the Title it is recommended to be as efficient as possible remembering
that spacing attributes count as a character. If a Title is greater than
40 characters it should be repeated in full in the Short Information. A
carriage return command should not be used within a Title to prevent
complications within a decoder.

The recommended length of the Short Information is typically 140
characters as it has to fit within the Message Area (the size of which is
defined by the EPG Service Provider via the OSD Information block). The
Short Information should explain what the Title does not.
-----------------------------------------------

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