Where does the guide data come from?

Global guide related discussion. All Windows versions.
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spinnaker

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Where does the guide data come from?

#1

Post by spinnaker » Fri Sep 14, 2012 2:04 am

It's sad that there is no current development on WMC. But not too bad, outside of a few annoying bugs, it works pretty well. My concern is the guide. Where does it come from? Do each of the stations provide it in some kind of standard format?

kingwr

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#2

Post by kingwr » Fri Sep 14, 2012 2:24 am

I am wondering what the future of guide data will be as well. If Ceton is going to produce and sell the Q and Echo, they must be very confident in a guide data source out there. But when DirecTV was in dispute with Viacom over Nick channels and such, they disappeared from the guide on my Media Center, and never reappeared after the dispute was settled. As of now, my kids can't watch or record shows from Nick, and I don't know how to get the channels back into my lineup. Hopefully the Q and Echo will have a more robust source for guide data than the one Microsoft defaults to.

richard1980

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#3

Post by richard1980 » Fri Sep 14, 2012 2:36 am

The EPG provider depends on your region. In North America, Zap2it is the provider. I'm not sure about other parts of the world. I'm also not sure where Zap2it gets their data.

If you are not in North America, you can find your EPG data provider by going to Tasks > Settings > TV > Guide > About Guide Listings.

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mark1234

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#4

Post by mark1234 » Fri Sep 14, 2012 9:12 am

In the UK and, at least parts of if not all, Europe the data comes from BDS, which is a company spun out from a former BBC department.

Back in the mists of time I remember a question about guide data being asked on the old TGB, and back in those days we had the odd MS employee visiting and one said that XP MCE2005 would keep it's data for at least as long as Vista SP1 was supported, as they shared the same back end. If you extend that logic, then 7MC should, at a minimum, follow the Windows 7 mainstream support which finishes on 13/1/15.

Couple of questions arise immediately: Does EPG data count for extended support, which ends in 2020? What is the lifecycle for 8MC given that it's no longer part of the core Windows product? Neither 8MC nor Win8 appear on the product lifecycle page yet.

http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/ ... =Windows+7

Now, as a bit of a downer, I don't actually believe that MS would feel compelled to honour the product lifecycle period for the EPG data given it's not free to them, and they know they don't actually have many users.

On the plus side, with 7MC it is possible to load your own EPG data. You can pay for a 3rd party product, Big Screen EPG, or if feeling confident you can use the documentation to do it yourself.

http://bigscreenglobal.com/bgproduct.aspx?PID=BSEV1
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library ... 76338.aspx
Windows Media Centre - Abandoned by Microsoft

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CyberSimian

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#5

Post by CyberSimian » Fri Sep 14, 2012 9:15 am

spinnaker wrote:My concern is the guide. Where does it come from? Do each of the stations provide it in some kind of standard format?
The very-first time that I set up Media Center, I actually took the trouble to read the terms and conditions for the use of the EPG. There is a clause that states that Microsoft reserve the right to start charging for the EPG on one month's notice.

Provision of the EPG costs someone, and it is undoubtedly Microsoft that currently pays for the EPG to be provided in those countries where the downloaded EPG is available. If Media Center is ever withdrawn from marketing, we could reasonably expect that the provision of the EPG would end too, eventually. One example might be the provision of maintenance for obsolete operating systems (Win2K, WinXP, Vista), where Microsoft announce that support will end "n" years in the future.

In the UK, we are lucky enough to have the broadcast EPG, so we are not dependent on the downloaded EPG. The UK broadcast EPG is only 7 days, and much less detailed than the downloaded EPG, but it is perfectly usable. Other countries in the world may not be so lucky.

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

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mark1234

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#6

Post by mark1234 » Fri Sep 14, 2012 9:40 am

CyberSimian wrote:There is a clause that states that Microsoft reserve the right to start charging for the EPG on one month's notice.
I suspect they would have to add some kind of guide purchasing capability to Media Centre for this to happen, and I doubt that would be worth their development effort. Far more likely just to turn it off.
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bobbob

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#7

Post by bobbob » Fri Sep 14, 2012 10:31 am

the Digiguide / BSEPG route is much more reliable than the native route as well. two scheduled tasks that never fail against regular native epg problems as well as not covering all the channels i pipe into MC mean the £20 i spend a year on these two products is very much worth it

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#8

Post by barnabas1969 » Fri Sep 14, 2012 1:00 pm

The link that mark1234 provided to the Microsoft documentation on the MXF format is very detailed. Thanks for the link! If all else fails, it wouldn't be too difficult to gather the data and format it as an MXF file.

spinnaker

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#9

Post by spinnaker » Fri Sep 14, 2012 11:09 pm

richard1980 wrote:The EPG provider depends on your region. In North America, Zap2it is the provider. I'm not sure about other parts of the world. I'm also not sure where Zap2it gets their data.

If you are not in North America, you can find your EPG data provider by going to Tasks > Settings > TV > Guide > About Guide Listings.

I'm guessing MS pays Zapit for the content?

I have not look into other media center software to closely because WMC was SO easy to setup. Whay it is not more popular I have no idea. You could save some nice pocket change even if you just ditched your DVR. I ditched DirtecTV altogether and I have not regretted it.

As I said I have not looked at other media center software but aren't there others out there with DVR capabilities? If so where do they get their guide? Same place? Who pays for that?

winterescape

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#10

Post by winterescape » Sun Sep 16, 2012 1:18 am

spinnaker wrote: I have not look into other media center software to closely because WMC was SO easy to setup. Whay it is not more popular I have no idea. You could save some nice pocket change even if you just ditched your DVR. I ditched DirtecTV altogether and I have not regretted it.

As I said I have not looked at other media center software but aren't there others out there with DVR capabilities? If so where do they get their guide? Same place? Who pays for that?
I have used mediaportal. It is a fantastic open source dvr. In the US, the most popular method of getting the guide data for mediaportal was the program mc2xml. It could be configured for different sources but most use it to get the guide data from Media Center.

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