2021-01-05, 04:56 AM
Hi. here is my suggestion. Based on using the hardware tuners I have bought in the past or watching channels directly on a ASTC television.. I perceive that they are grabbing the epg data OTA while you are watching a channel. They dont require me to run an update program.
Some cheapies show you only the current show, most show you at least the next show for a channel or a little more. They also have all the data in hand for channels in a group like 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4 if you are watching one of these channels. I suppose this comes about because you have watched anyone of the channels in the group for a minimum required data cycle.
Depending on how much you paid for the tuner or tv some even save the epg data from the channel you were watching and add it to a database of epg that have been collected from channels you surfed past... provided you lingered long enough for the data stream to come in. Thus over a period of say an hour and you flicking channels and pausing the dvb epg gets built up. This is challenging to kluge into a standalone hardware device and drives the price up. Npvr already has generous computing and storage resources to work with as it runs on a PC.
A scheme like this for npvr would be helpful as it would mitigate the perceived need for multiple TOTAL epg updates per day. Generally one has a few favourite channels and wants to watch and record shows from these channels in the next few hours after looking at the tv guide. The hubub about total updates for all channels for weeks or months has more to do with a special niche of users and with our greed for data and not so much our need for all this data as offered by paid service providers. So grabbing data from astc ota and updating a channel while it is being watched is a pretty good way to take advantage of free OTA epg. I would propose that NPVR invest some time looking into how this can be done on the fly as this this data is being refreshed continuously by the broadcasters and is free.
Ota epg has improved immensly in North America from the early days of ASTC. From what I see all the major american networks are supplying a minimum of 9.5 hours of data through their affiliates, some at least 22 hours regularly. Canadian networks 2 to 3.5 days of data.
Some cheapies show you only the current show, most show you at least the next show for a channel or a little more. They also have all the data in hand for channels in a group like 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4 if you are watching one of these channels. I suppose this comes about because you have watched anyone of the channels in the group for a minimum required data cycle.
Depending on how much you paid for the tuner or tv some even save the epg data from the channel you were watching and add it to a database of epg that have been collected from channels you surfed past... provided you lingered long enough for the data stream to come in. Thus over a period of say an hour and you flicking channels and pausing the dvb epg gets built up. This is challenging to kluge into a standalone hardware device and drives the price up. Npvr already has generous computing and storage resources to work with as it runs on a PC.
A scheme like this for npvr would be helpful as it would mitigate the perceived need for multiple TOTAL epg updates per day. Generally one has a few favourite channels and wants to watch and record shows from these channels in the next few hours after looking at the tv guide. The hubub about total updates for all channels for weeks or months has more to do with a special niche of users and with our greed for data and not so much our need for all this data as offered by paid service providers. So grabbing data from astc ota and updating a channel while it is being watched is a pretty good way to take advantage of free OTA epg. I would propose that NPVR invest some time looking into how this can be done on the fly as this this data is being refreshed continuously by the broadcasters and is free.
Ota epg has improved immensly in North America from the early days of ASTC. From what I see all the major american networks are supplying a minimum of 9.5 hours of data through their affiliates, some at least 22 hours regularly. Canadian networks 2 to 3.5 days of data.