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

[_cooper_ <cooper@linvdr.org>]

Hello,

it took longer than I expected, but here the latest details to what is going
on with my efforts to get a clean EPG on Vox.

Vox and the whole RTL group will change the data link to SES from beginning
2003, instead of using a TV archive there will be a direct line from Colonge
to Luxembourg. Because of this, Mr. Indek (my contact to Vox) cannot do
great efforts to reach changes in the EPG that will last for 2 or 3 month.

There will be a round table in November 2002 with all the responsible people
from the RTL group, I hope to get an invitation so I can present the view of
the customers/viewers. Perhaps I can help that all stations will have a
useable EPG in the future, but I fear I have to read a lot more of EPG and the
technical backgrounds... do you have any suggestion for a good document?

Since next year we will have to work with the EPG of Vox as it currently is.
Klaus: Perhaps you could add the EPG parsing as you suggested some weeks ago?

There are two basic formats, one "correct" and one "simplified". It's
currently not fully clear how there can be correct EPG entries at all, because
SES claims not to be able to generate such entries ;-)

The "simple" entries allways will have this format, which will (says Indek)
not change till the big change next year:

In the title field:
  <title>
In the subtitle field:
  (<country>, <year> <length>') Von <name>, <name>, ..., <name>. Mit <name>,
  <name>, ..., <name>. "<subtitle/series title>". <description>

- One or all of <country> (allways three capital letters), <year> (allways 4
  digits) and <length> (in minutes)  may miss, or the whole braces may miss.
  This forms may occour: (USA, 2000 105') or (1998 89') or (USA, 1999) or
  (USA) or (1999)
- One or both of directors and actors names may miss: "Von <name>, ...,
  <name>. Mit <name>, ..., <name>." Perhaps there will be a form "Von <name>
  und <name>." or "Mit <name> und <name>.", it should be not too difficult to
  take care of this variant.
- If <subtitile/series title> will miss, then the whole quotation will miss.
- Even <description> may miss.

Sadly, we have no flagg where on we could detect a film with title,
subtitle but no description in the "correct" format and a film with title,
description but no subtitle/year/country/length in the "short" format. Till we
get a flag, I would suggest to take an entry which fits to "title and
description" in the short format as short format -- I hope there will be only
some very few entries with "title and subtitle but no description".

I think it's not too difficult to do with this format for some month, perhaps
we get a better EPG then. I'll stay in contact with Vox and keep you up to
date from time to time.

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



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