Program description troncated in TV Guide

[Frederic113]

French xmltv file is quite dense and often the decription field is long.

Here is a sample

[HTML]</programme>
<programme start="20050831224000 +0200" stop="20050901004000 +0200" channel="C111.lesagencestv.com">
<title lang="fr">L'état des choses</title>
<category>Chronique</category>
<length>120 minutes</length>
<desc lang="fr">
Chronique. 1982. Allemagne. (Der Stand der Dinge)
(**), VO
Durée : 120 minutes.

Réalisateur : Wim Wenders
Avec : Patrick Bauchau (Friedrich), Paul Getty III (Dennis), Viva Auder (Kate), Samuel Fuller (Joe Corly), Roger Corman (l'avocat), Isabelle Weingarten (Anna), Rebecca Pauly (Joan), Jeffrey Kime (Mark)
Scénario de : Wim Wenders, Josh Wallace, Robert Kramer
Musique de : Joe Ely, Allen Garfield, Jim Jarmusch, Jürgen Knieper

Résumé :
Un metteur en scène allemand, Friedrich Munro, réalise sur la côte portugaise un remake des «Survivants», d'Allan Dwan. Le tournage s'arrête, faute de pellicule et d'argent. Tandis que Friedrich cherche à contacter Gordon, le producteur, en voyage à Los Angeles pour trouver des fonds, techniciens et acteurs tournent en rond. Chacun s'abandonne avec plus ou moins de bonheur à ses problèmes personnels. Lorsqu'il apprend que Gordon a disparu, Friedrich décide d'aller le chercher outre-Atlantique. Il ne tarde pas à y apprendre que Gordon est devenu un homme à abattre, traqué par des tueurs, et finit par le retrouver, dans le «motor home» de son garde du corps...

Critique :
une intéressante réflexion sur les rapports de l'artiste à son œuvre. Wim Wenders livre ici un film à l'originalité assez déroutante, esthétiquement très réussi mais plutôt lent. AB (31/08/2005)
</desc>
</programme>[/HTML]

Unfortunately, in TV Guide with the Blue skin, the popup window always truncates the description. For instance, in the exemple above I only get:

Chronique. 1982. Allemagne. (Der Stand der Dinge)
(**), VO
Durée : 120 minutes.

Réalisateur : Wim Wenders
Avec : Patrick Bauchau (Friedrich), Paul Getty III (Dennis), Viva Auder (Kate), Samuel Fuller (Joe Corly), Roger Corman (l'avocat), Isabelle Weingarten (Anna), Rebecca Pauly (Joan), Jeffrey Kime (Mark)
Scénario de : Wim Wenders, Josh Wallace,

Which is meaningless because the summary of the movie (entitled by "Résumé") is not displayed.

Is there a way to fix this?
Thanks
Fred

[sub]

Currently the description is limited to 256 characters. This is well beyond this.

[Frederic113]

Any chance to set this as a variable in the future? Or extend the length to 1024 for instance?

[sub]

I do have this on my list of things to do, but I cant promise I'll get to it soon. The truth is that this is relatively low on the priority list, given that the vast majority of users have very short descriptions for all their shows.

Also, if you make skins that are able to accommodate large descriptions, they'll tend to look rather sparse for most people, with big empty sections of screen.

[GoodGuys]

Another option is if you use TVxb to download EPG form the web, you can change its ini file so it only starts the description at the "Resume" word. Of course you lose the other info...
GGF

[perf]

Most of my show descriptions gets truncated, which is frustrating. My EPG source (O2grabber xmltv for Sweden, with some German channels as well)mostly has a description and ends with a list of the actors and the director. Currently I can never see the name of the director.

To take care of the box sizing issue, it is fine if the only box that is bigger is the one you get when you click on a show in the EPG.

/Per

[mikaelgu]

I have an issue with truncated descriptions as well in Finland. Most of them get cut

[reven]

mostly has a description and ends with a list of the actors and the director.

ask whoever made your grabber to fix this, xmltv has special tags for director/actors, this info should be placed into those tags and removed from the description.

[blader_se]

In Sweden, we get long descriptions that get truncted as well.

[perf]

ask whoever made your grabber to fix this, xmltv has special tags for director/actors, this info should be placed into those tags and removed from the description.

I do not think the various original providers of descriptions use any standard format for the list. It is just a part of the text, and it varies by show and by channel. In small countries, noone pays for having someone manually editing and structuring the descriptions sent out by the television stations.

Does GBPVR display director/actor tags?

/Per