Gary,
re
25 different lineups in your database with 6679 different services. I'm curious if EPG123/Schedules Direct covers all your guide needs?
I had noticed the Client GUI listed 25 different lineups, but more significantly this excludes the one lineup I thought i was receiving, although not the lineup I was trying to select,
so yes there would seem to be a problem, but I do have the Guide for the correct set of channels I receive.
I am expecting around 216 different services, so to receive 6679 services would seem to be excessive.
So it is probably worth back-tracking over my lineup selection and the process I used to select Lineup code GBR-0001317-DEFAULT.
A series of screen images
- Select a Lineup
I started by selecting a Lineup for the Country Great Britain, postal code SL4, but the list of services did not include the FreeView service, so initially I selected YouView .
But then I noticed that at the end of the Country List was the entry Great Britain Freeview, so I canceled the YouView selection and selected Great Britain Freeview.
This option did not allow one to select the PostalCode, instead it listed the transmitters available. I knew my transmitter, but I confirmed using the Web page
http://www.digitaluk.co.uk/channels/channel_listings
and selected the postal code and this displayed the transmitter options and the preferred transmitter - Crystal Palace.
It also showed the services available
[*]FreeView
[*]YouView
[*]BTVision (BTVision is being replaced by YouView)
So I returned to the Lineup selection, and selected Crystal Palace as the Freeview transmitter
But instead of selecting this Freeview service, the Lineup selected was YouView - Carlton/London. This was a bit confusing, but I proceeded to used this.
In the .cfg file it listed the Lineup as <IncludedLineup>GBR-0001317-DEFAULT</IncludedLineup>
A google search suggested this is the Schedules Direct ID for the Crystal Palace Transmitter.
Although the lineup result was not what I expected, it did produce the FreeView guide I wanted, so I am happy with the result.
Now I have looked back at the GUI and in the right plane it lists the 25 Lineups
- Lineups with Schedules Direct
- EPG123 Lineups with Schedules Direct.png (14.31 KiB) Viewed 1026 times
I now see where the 25 different lineups comes from, but I dont understand why they are there.
Also it does not include the YouView service, but does include FreeView Crystal Palace.
It is confusing, and I am not sure if now I should select just the FreeView Crystal Palace, instead of EPG123 Lineups with Schedules Direct.
Why I am importing 6679 different services? I do not know. According to the digitaluk channel listings, for England I should have 216 entries.
the .cfg says <ExpectedServiceCount>261</ExpectedServiceCount>
Should the 261 be 216?, either way these are much less than the 6679 entries in the lineup.
Until today, I had no idea what YouView was, but I thought I should investigate.
Very simply YouView consists of all the FreeView channels plus BT's subscription channels.
The ownership of the services FreeView, YouView, Digital UK, FreeSat are similar.
A key difference with YouView is the inclusion of BT which allows BT to add their broadband subscription channels to the FreeView channels.
Freeview's shareholders - BBC, Sky, Channel 4, ITV and Arqiva
Digital UK's shareholders - BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Arqiva
YouView shareholders – BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5, BT, TalkTalk and Arqiva
Freesat is owned by the BBC and ITV
Perhaps this is why Schedules Direct appear to have combined all the services and channels these owners operate in the UK into one Lineup.
Going back to my experience in selecting the Lineup, I would like to make a couple of suggestions.
[*]It would be more convenient if the entry "Great Britain Freeview" was included below, or above, the "Great Britain" entry, rather than at the bottom all all countries list.
[*]The "Great Britain" entry requests the postal code, yet the list splits the services into the regions of the UK and it does not seem to make any difference as to which postal code is entered.
[*]The "Great Britain Freeview" does not request the postal code, instead it goes straight to listing all the transmitters, and the user would need to know which transmitter serviced the postal code, so it would be better to request the postal code, and present the possible transmitters that can be used, ideally with a marker indicating the default transmitter