Electronic program guide
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
An Electronic Program(me) Guide (EPG) or also an Interactive Program(me) Guide (IPG) or Electronic Service Guide (ESG), is an on-screen guide to scheduled broadcast television programs, allowing a viewer to navigate, select, and discover content by time, title, channel, genre, etc, by use of their remote control, a keyboard or even a phone keypad.
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[edit] History
In June of 1988 a patent was awarded to Eli Rider, Michael H. Zemering, and Frank Shannon. US Patent Number 4,751,578 patenting the implementation of an Electronic Program Guide. Shannon originally envisioned this concept and the conceptual design was created by Zemering with the backing of Rider. Mysteriously the attorney processing the patent, David P. Gordon, ended up having the patent assign to him and amassing a huge fortune along with Rider. Michael H. Zemering, and Frank Shannon never realized any compensation for the design. The 578 design is now in millions of set top boxes. Although several of the EPG ideas were being used no one had integrated all of the features in to one design. In 1988 it was estimated that it would have cost over $1000.00 per set top box. It was cost prohibitive to implement the system but it was feasible to make a prototype.
In 1953 a weekly national US-published entertainment news and television program listing magazine called TV Guide was launched. By 1985, a small independently-owned cable station called the Electronic Program Guide (EPG) was launched, providing a 24-hour on screen listing scroll with programming information for each given cable system.
In 1988, Prevue Networks (the original creators of the electronic program guide) notified most of the smaller cable companies that still carried the older version of the channel to replace their existing service with the updated Prevue Channel version. Then, in 1999 TV Guide and the Prevue Channel agreed to merge and became what is now the TV Guide Channel. Today, the TV Guide Channel carries its own 24 hour on-screen program guide (which makes it easier for viewers that don't have access to the internet, a magazine subscription, or digital cable or satellite TV). The TV Guide Channel uses its own special satellite system similar to The Weather Channel's WeatherSTAR system, used to carry local weather forecast.
[edit] Present Day
Although completely different from the on-screen program scroll on the TV Guide Channel in the United States, the technology is based upon broadcasting data to an application usually residing within middleware in a set-top box which connects to the television set and enables the application to be displayed. The technology is predominant in the digital television and radio world, but equally EPGs exist that rely upon analogue technology (using the vertical blanking interval). These signals may arrive via cable TV, satellite TV, cable radio, satellite radio, or via over-the-air terrestrial broadcast radio and television stations.
By navigating through an EPG on a receiving device, users can see more information about the current program and about future programs. When EPGs are connected to PVRs, or personal video recorders they enable a viewer to plan his or her viewing and record broadcast programs to a hard disk for later viewing.
Typical elements of an EPG comprise a graphical user interface which enable the display of program titles, descriptive information such as a synopsis, actors, directors, year of production, and so on, the channel name and the programs on offer from subchannels such as pay-per-view and VOD or video-on-demand services, program start times, genres and other descriptive metadata. The information is typically displayed on a grid with the option to select more information on each program. Radio EPGs offer more text-based displays of programme name, programme Description, genre, on-air or off air, Series. artist, album and track title information.
An EPG allows the viewer to browse program summaries, search by genre or channel, immediate access to the selected program, reminders, and parental control functions. If the device is capable of it, an EPG can enable one-touch recording of programs, as some DirecTV IRDs can do with a VCR using an attached infrared emitter (which emulates a remote control).
The latest revolution in EPGs is a personalised EPG which uses semantics to be able to advise one or multiple viewers what to watch based on their interests. iFanzy is such an EPG that is completely personal. It allows users to use or create custom skins (like a personal computer's desktop image) and knows what they like to see. It also records these programs so that the viewer no longer has to depend on a broadcaster's time schedule but watch a programme at the moment of choice.
EPGs are typically sent within the broadcast transport stream or alongside it in a special data channel. The ATSC standard for DTV uses tables sent in each station's PSIP, for example. These tables are meant to contain the program start time and title, and additional program descriptive "metadata". In the U.S., these devices receive time signals from local PBS members, so that they can record on time. Most systems, however, rely upon third party "metadata aggregators" (companies such as Tribune TV Data, Gemstar-TV Guide in the U.S. and Europe and Broadcasting Dataservices in Europe), to provide good quality data content. Newer media centres (PC based multi-channel TV recorders) and Digital Video Recorders may use an internet feed for the EPG. This enables two-way interactivity for the user so that media download can be requested via the EPG, or related link, and remote programming of the media centre can be achieved. Examples include IceTV and MythTV.
In Australia, the lack of a seven-day electronic program guide has neccessitated datacast channels such as Seven Guide, Nine Guide, Ten Guide and the defunct SBS Essential to provide program information.
For another example of an EPG system see Guide Plus+.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
[edit] Digital ESGs (Electronic Service Guides)
- EXPWAY FastESG Leader in Mobile TV Electronic Service Guide over a variety of networks - DVB-H/3G/MediaFlo/Wimax.
[edit] Digital EPGs
- TVTV.co.uk
- TV-Browser - Open Source EPG software
- Unique Interactive Electronic Program Guide creation and management for Digital Radio and TV.
[edit] Analog EPGs
Broadcast video formats | |
|---|---|
| Analog broadcast | 525 lines: NTSC • NTSC-J • PAL-M
625 lines: PAL • PAL-N • PALplus • SECAM Defunct systems: Pre-1940 • 405 lines • 819 lines • Baird-Nipkow • MAC • MUSE Multichannel audio: BTSC (MTS) • NICAM-728 • Zweiton (A2, IGR) • EIAJ Hidden signals: Captioning • Teletext • CGMS-A • GCR • PDC • VBI • VEIL • VITC • WSS • XDS |
| Digital broadcast | Interlaced: SDTV (480i, 576i) • HDTV (1080i)
Progressive: LDTV (240p, 288p, 1seg) • EDTV (480p, 576p) • HDTV (720p, 1080p) Digital TV standards (MPEG-2):ATSC, DVB, ISDB, DMB-T/H Digital TV standards (MPEG-4 AVC):DMB-T/H,DVB,SBTVD,ISDB (1seg) Multichannel audio: AC3 (5.1) • Musicam • PCM • LPCM • AAC Hidden signals: Captioning • Teletext • (CPCM/Broadcast flag) • AFD • EPG Digital cinema: UHDV (2540p, 4320p) • DCI |
| Technical issues | 14:9 • MPEG transport • Standards conversion • Video processing • VOD • HDTV blur |
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