EPG to show year of movies and series episodes

[smcone]

Hi,

I have two requests for a future version:

1- have the program guide show the year of movies
and shows. Many movies have been remade over the years,
and it is not always apparent which movie is which as
program guides don't always list enough details (such as actors, etc) to make a valid determination. Also many TV series repeat episodes for years and the only way to determine if an episode is new and not a repeat is by its'
"Year".

2- Have a "Watch Later" feature in the program guide interface. Some people have commented that "it is of little use", but some people like myself use a "Watch Later"
feature to program a whole day of television viewing.
If this was not a popular feature to have then why is it that every cable box and satellite receiver that I have owned
have this feature in firmware and addressable when using
the electronic program guide?

Thanks

[zehd]

Hi,

I have two requests for a future version:

1- have the program guide show the year of movies
and shows. Many movies have been remade over the years,
and it is not always apparent which movie is which as
program guides don't always list enough details (such as actors, etc) to make a valid determination. Also many TV series repeat episodes for years and the only way to determine if an episode is new and not a repeat is by its'
"Year".

2- Have a "Watch Later" feature in the program guide interface. Some people have commented that "it is of little use", but some people like myself use a "Watch Later"
feature to program a whole day of television viewing.
If this was not a popular feature to have then why is it that every cable box and satellite receiver that I have owned
have this feature in firmware and addressable when using
the electronic program guide?

Thanks

Have you looked at UltraXMLTV ? It will dig up the information you are looking for...

I'm a little confused by 'watch later'. I've used quite a few set top boxes and I don't ever remember 'watch later'

Can you describe a bit better what you want to do, and what you are able to do on your set top box?

[elite]

1- have the program guide show the year of movies
and shows. Many movies have been remade over the years,
and it is not always apparent which movie is which as
program guides don't always list enough details (such as actors, etc) to make a valid determination. Also many TV series repeat episodes for years and the only way to determine if an episode is new and not a repeat is by its'
"Year".

I guess this is down to your EPG provider as zehd points out there are enhances that pull extra info from other sources

2- Have a "Watch Later" feature in the program guide interface. Some people have commented that "it is of little use", but some people like myself use a "Watch Later"
feature to program a whole day of television viewing.
If this was not a popular feature to have then why is it that every cable box and satellite receiver that I have owned
have this feature in firmware and addressable when using
the electronic program guide?

Not quite sure what you're getting at here - You can already record and then watch (play) later

[smcone]

Hi again,

A "Watch Later" would work as follows.

Let's say that you ALSO have an old fashion VCR (tape based) hooked up to your satellite receiver or cable box,
GBPVR does an excellent job in recording on a PC hard drive,
but lets say that you are also using GBPVR to indirectly
control the recording of the VCR. The VCR is simply set to
record 6 hours of whatever the EPG of GBPVR has been programmed for.

In other words, you want GBPVR to switch the cable box
to the correct channel at the correct time BUT NOT do any recording on the PC.

The reason I need or use this function....

For my 80-something parents.
I record VCR tapes with movies and such for their
viewing. Making a DVD for them is out of the question-
they can barely figure out how to PLAY a tape on their VCR.
Them learning how to use a DVD player or programming their vcr and cable box is an impossibility.

Also it is a heck of a lot faster to just record six hours
worth of programs on tape then it is to reformat an mpg
file and burn it on to a DVD disk.

I do realize that I could just program six hours of video
using the EPG program guide and just choose "record",
but like I said, I really don't need to record to my PC
all the time, most of the recordings will be on a VCR,
and everytime "Record" is choosen from the EPG,
it is going to record onto my PC.

A "Watch Later" feature would simply change the channel of the cable box or Sat. receiver WITHOUT making a recording on the PC.

The newer HAUPPAUGE WINTV tuner boards all come with a scheduling program and an online EPG named...
TitanTV and one of the features of TitanTV is also
that of "Watch Later" - any program that is listed can
be clicked on and amoung the choices are "Record"
and "Watch" - if clicked on, the program will either
be recorded at it's time slot or the program will simply
be TUNED-TO at it's time slot.

Any USA person who has a newer WinTV might have used or at least seen the operation of TitanTV with it's "Record-Now", "Record-Later", "Watch-Now" and "Watch-Later"
features.


Thanks and I love this forum and I may add, GBPVR.

Steve

[sub]

Sorry, I probably wont be adding this any time soon. We had it in the past, virtually no one used it, and it wasnt worth the effort of implementing it and maintain it. When I rewrote the user interface (PVRX2.exe), I didnt bother reimplementing this feature.

I've had this feature on my set top boxes in the past, and never found myself wanting to use it.

[zehd]

A "Watch Later" feature would simply change the channel of the cable box or Sat. receiver WITHOUT making a recording on the PC.

Steve

On the several STBs I've used it's either called 'reminder' (a pop-up suggesting it's time to change the channel) or 'auto-tune' (which changes the channel)

Basically the feature seems toi exist to be accompanied with a programmed VCR. But as more providers start to have PVR functionality added to the STB, (On board recording, or ISP hosted recording) that feature is actually migrating to setting recording time, similar to show in GB-PVR.

Honestly, although the feature exists, I don't think many people are using it the way you are, so I can't see that feature being added.

BUT, You may want to use HIP, EventGhost, IR Server or other to send the appropriate channel code to your ST at a certain time. It could also send the record button on your VCR (assuming you have that worked out already)

Once you have the script setup to send a channel to the STB and a record to the VCR, you could have that scheduled with Windows Task Scheduler.

It sound like a lot, but it's not. You would just check the schedule for your time start, your channel and then run the batch file.

Something like that...

[roy]

This is what my TV Listings look like using I-xmltv.

[smcone]

"BUT, You may want to use HIP, EventGhost, IR Server or other to send the appropriate channel code to your ST at a certain time. "

Stupid me, didn't think of searching for a timing program that would control my IR blaster....

Always trying to do things the hard way.

Thanks again to everyone who offered help.

Steve

[smcone]

This is what my TV Listings look like using I-xmltv.

Thank you Roy,

My next project will be to incorporate that skin/program.
Really do need to see what the year is.

Steve

[jksmurf]

Hi,

I have two requests for a future version:

1- have the program guide show the year of movies
and shows. Many movies have been remade over the years,
and it is not always apparent which movie is which as
program guides don't always list enough details (such as actors, etc) to make a valid determination. Also many TV series repeat episodes for years and the only way to determine if an episode is new and not a repeat is by its'
"Year".

Thanks

Not in the PG per se, but Moviewizard does get the info for you and display it in its own screen.

k.