NZ Freeview EPG via DVB-T - how far in advance?

[time_lord]

Hi Sub (or any others that know the answer )

I had understood that with the NZ Freeview DVB-T broadcast it only transmits the EPG 2 hours in advance (unlike DVB-S which is a week)? This is why we need an external (internet) source to get an EPG of reasonable length?

Anyway, today I've just plugged in a new TV (Sony Z-series, and boy oh boy is it good, cannot get the grin off my face... errr I digress) - it has freeview built in and when I look at the EPG I can skip to the next week. The TV is picking up terrestrial.

So the EPG data IS all there... did I misunderstand something about gbpvr, DVB-T and EPG?

Phil

[psycik]

The epg on your tv is mheg-5 which is kinda like a graphical teletext.

The information that sub grabs is the eit data which is the now next, which on my tv is showable when I it the info button.

[time_lord]

The epg on your tv is mheg-5 which is kinda like a graphical teletext.

Oh... do you mean like a digital form of teletext which is in the digital stream? (Or an ancillary frequency?)

The information that sub grabs is the eit data which is the now next, which on my tv is showable when I it the info button.

Ok, yes I noticed the program info button shows 'now' and 'next'. So how does this vary from the mheg-5 (or is that meant to be mpeg-5) EPG data? Is it simply more detailed (with things like synopsis, etc)? And if this is all and I don't care too much about details, can gbpvr be made to make use of the EPG data that the TV does? (Rather than me having to enable internet updating of the EPG.)

[sub]

The MHEG-5 EPG is an application that is included in the broadcast stream, which the set top box runs when you hit the EPG button. Embedded with in that application are various resources it can use like images, and other data (including the listings).

Unfortunately that application is a custom thing written specifically for Freeview NZ, and has changed a few times, so isnt really worth commiting the time to come up with something custom to try to extract the info from it. It'd require quite a bit of effort to extract, wouldnt be useful for users outside of NZ, and will probably change next week requiring more effort to get it working again.

[time_lord]

Hi Sub, thanks for the info, interesting... could be a nice pet project... ;-)

I guess the mheg-5 application must comply to certain standards or interface(s)... I wonder if Freeview would give me the low-down so that I could build a gbpvr plugin...

[psycik]

somebody I think on geekzone was mentioning there was a 52 page spec that devices wishing to certify themselves for freeview have to go through....your tv would have done it. So maybe finding that might help... Also not sure if someone from the mythtv community has not done it so there may be some source around somewhere.


You know that you can also use the http://epg.pvr.geek.nz/epg/ for epg source?

And while we're here, hey sub, what do you think of the idea of a channel having an epg source, or in xmltv source being able to list multiple urls?? for accessing the Freeview epg files?? there is one per channel..

Maybe if we made it http://url|http://url that you could parse and download the various urls???

[sub]

somebody I think on geekzone was mentioning there was a 52 page spec that devices wishing to certify themselves for freeview have to go through....your tv would have done it. So maybe finding that might help... Also not sure if someone from the mythtv community has not done it so there may be some source around somewhere.

And that 52 pages doesnt include the definition of MHEG-5. It just says that the device needs to implement support for "ISO/IEC 13522-5", which itself is another couple of hundred more pages.

And while we're here, hey sub, what do you think of the idea of a channel having an epg source, or in xmltv source being able to list multiple urls?? for accessing the Freeview epg files?? there is one per channel..

Maybe if we made it http://url|http://url that you could parse and download the various urls???

Sorry, I'm unlikely to do this. Its too big a change. Not really worth the effort to do this. It'd be easier to come up with external utilities to combine sources into one xmltv file.

[sub]

Hi Sub, thanks for the info, interesting... could be a nice pet project... ;-)

I guess the mheg-5 application must comply to certain standards or interface(s)... I wonder if Freeview would give me the low-down so that I could build a gbpvr plugin...

Freeview wouldnt give you the spec, but it can be bought $450 from http://www.iso.org. I dont have a copy unfortunately.

That spec doesnt define high-level application stuff like listings though. It defines a application environment, resources formats, operating instructions the machine MHEG-5 VM must implement, variables etc, system services the set top box must make available to the application etc.

[time_lord]

Heh, $450 for the spec, I don't think I'm that keen... ;-)

I'd have thought that if Freeview wanted to encourage uptake of their service they'd help out a wide range of end-user systems (no matter what shape or form, within reason) and would pass on the spec. However they know that once the govt phases out analog entirely, they have the defacto market... so guess they have no driving force to be that interested.

[sub]

Heh, $450 for the spec, I don't think I'm that keen... ;-)

Yeah, my thoughts exactly.

That said, if I didnt already have a good reliable source of my own listings (Dvb2xmltv getting listings from DVB-S), then I probably would have come up with some way to get them from DVB-T by now...