1NXTVEPG(1) Nextview EPG Decoder NXTVEPG(1)
2
6 nxtvepg - Receiving, Browsing and Analyzing Nextview EPG data
7
9 nxtvepg [ options ] [ database ]
10 nxtvepgd [ daemon options ] [ database ]
12
14 nxtvepg is an X11 and Win32 application to receive, analyze and browse
15 TV programme schedules transmitted on top of Teletext as defined by the
16 European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) in ETS 300 707:
17 "Protocol for a TV Guide using electronic data transmission".
18 nxtvepgd is a stripped-down version of nxtvepg which only performs data
20 acquisition as a background daemon process.
21 The Nextview EPG standard was developed for use in TV sets, but the
23 data can be received and used in a PC, too - provided you have a Tele‐
24 text capable TV tuner card and are lucky enough to have a content
25 provider in your country.
26 nxtvepg enables you to obtain free TV programme listings for all of the
28 major networks in Germany, Austria, France, Belgium and Switzerland.
29 Currently Nextview EPG is transmitted by the following TV networks
30 (note that each of these EPGs cover not only the provider's programme
31 but also that of many other networks):
32 · In Germany and Austria: Kabel1 (coverage: apx. 32 networks)
34 · In Switzerland: SF1, TSR1, TSI1, TV5 (coverage: apx. 37 networks)
36 · In France: Canal+, M6, TV5 (coverage: 8 networks)
38 · In Belgium: M6, TV5 (coverage: 32 networks)
40 · In Turkey: TRT family (coverage: apx. 17 networks)
42 For up-to-date information check the nxtvepg homepage in the Internet
44 (see the About popup in the Help menu). If you don't receive any of the
45 channels listed above, you can only use the demo mode as described with
46 the -demo command line option.
47 Since version 2.8.0 nxtvepg also allows to extract EPG data from tele‐
49 text or import from external XMLTV sources. Note when importing data
50 you need to take care to respect copyright, same as when exporting
51 data. In particular, the German law does not permit "Web scraping",
52 i.e. extraction of programme information from Internet sources without
53 prior permission of the content provider.
54
56 Summary of command line options:
57 -display display
59 UNIX only: The display on which the user interface will be placed,
60 for example localhost:0.0. Default: taken from environment vari‐
61 able DISPLAY. For more info see the X manual page section Display
62 Names
63 -tvdisplay display
65 UNIX only: The display on which the TV application window is
66 searched, e.g. on a remote host or different screen on a station
67 with multiple monitors. Default: same as the main window's dis‐
68 play.
69 -geometry geometry
71 Specifies the position of the main window, e.g. -geometry -0+0 to
72 put the main window in the upper right corner of the visible
73 screen. The size of the window cannot be changed.
74 -iconic
76 Start with the main window iconified (i.e. minimized).
77 For M$ Windows users this option may be esp. helpful when nxtvepg
79 is started from inside the Auto start group and Hide on minimize is
80 enabled: nxtvepg then will start almost invisibly in the back‐
81 ground, only with an icon in the system tray of the task bar (see
82 also "CONFIGURATION: Show/Hide").
83 -rcfile path
85 Specify an alternate configuration file. Default: on UNIX
86 $HOME/.nxtvepgrc, on Windows nxtvepg.ini in the current directory.
87 -dbdir directory
89 Specify an alternate directory for the databases. Default: On UNIX
90 /usr/tmp/nxtvdb, on Windows the current directory. Note that the
91 database management is not equipped for concurrent writing, so if
92 you have more than one TV tuner card in your system or network,
93 relocate the directory into the users' homes.
94 If you're using an acquisition daemon, the browser must be config‐
96 ured to use the same directory as the daemon. If the daemon is
97 running on a different host, you need to mount the remote direc‐
98 tory, e.g. via NFS.
99 -card index
101 Specify which TV card hardware to use, if you have more than card.
102 Default: index 0. On Linux the given index is appended to the
103 device names, i.e. /dev/vbi and /dev/video (see also "FILES"). On
104 Windows index "n" means the n-th card found while scanning the PCI
105 bus for cards with a supported capture chip (e.g. Brooktree Bt878,
106 Bt878A, Bt848, Bt849, Philips SAA7134, Conexant 23881). If you
107 have more than one TV card with the same chip, the order between
108 those is undefined, but still constant (i.e. the order is deter‐
109 mined by the driver, not nxtvepg)
110 -dvbpid number
112 UNIX only. Also only available when nxtvepg was configured at com‐
113 pile time (i.e. in the Makefile) to use the ZVBI library
114 (<http://zapping.sourceforge.net/ZVBI/index.html>) for acquisition.
115 This option enables data acquisition from a DVB device. The chan‐
117 nel must be tuned with an external application. The PID is the
118 identifier of the data stream which contains Nextview EPG data.
119 The PID also must be determined by external means. DVB support is
120 still experimental and not officially supported. In particular,
121 the EPG scan and acquisition modes which would require channel
122 changing are not supported.
123 -provider CNI
125 Select a provider by its hexadecimal CNI (Country and Network Iden‐
126 tifier), e.g. -provider d92 for Kabel1. You can find out the
127 provider's CNI during a provider scan or from the database file
128 names. Use keyword merged to dump a merged database (or use code
129 FF as required by earlier versions of nxtvepg.) Note before you
130 can use a merged database you have to configure it, see "MERGED
131 DATABASES". Default if this option is omitted: the last provider
132 selected during the previous session.
133 -noacq
135 Start with acquisition disabled. The acquisition can still be
136 started later from the Control menu (see "CONTROL: Enable acquisi‐
137 tion").
138 -daemon
140 Start without graphical user interface and silently perform acqui‐
141 sition "in the background." This option is implied when running
142 nxtvepgd. (The daemon-only executable is slightly more efficient
143 since it's smaller and uses less libraries than the GUI executable
144 and hence needs less memory.)
145 If no other options are given the same provider and acquisition
147 mode as configured with the GUI will be used. If the -provider
148 option is given acquisition will work for this provider only (note
149 the difference to non-daemon mode, where that option selects the
150 browser database). The -daemon option cannot be combined with the
151 -noacq or -demo options.
152 The daemon always creates a named socket in the /tmp directory
154 (UNIX only) plus optionally a TCP/IP socket to allow connects by
155 browser processes. While connected, the browser receives updates
156 for opened Nextview databases and reports about the acquisition
157 progress; if left unconnected, the browser listing might be incom‐
158 plete or outdated.
159 It's important to note that the browser must use the same -dbdir
161 directory, because the daemon forwards only deltas to the database
162 files stored in that directory. For more details see "CONFIGURA‐
163 TION: Client/Server".
164 UNIX warning: for security reasons it's depreciated to run the dae‐
166 mon with root privileges, because nxtvepg has not been reviewed yet
167 for possible exploits. If you want to start the daemon already
168 during system startup, you should use su(1). Also note that you'll
169 probably need to specify -rcfile because the $HOME environment
170 variable might not be (correctly) defined. Example:
171 su nobody -c "/usr/local/bin/nxtvepg -daemon \
173 -rcfile /usr/local/etc/nxtvepgrc"
174 For terminating the daemon process, see the -daemonstop option
176 below. Alternatively you can stop the daemon via the graphical
177 user interface by disabling enable acquisition in the control menu.
178 -daemonstop
180 With this option, a background acquisition process is searched and
181 terminated if found; then the program exits. Note you need permis‐
182 sion to send signals to the daemon process to be able to stop it
183 (i.e. it must run with the same user ID). This option is meant to
184 allow controlling acquisition by scripts which start and stop
185 acquisition automatically after a given time.
186 Note if the daemon is running on the same host and uid, it can also
188 be stopped by deselecting Enable acquisition in the Control menu
189 while being connected to the daemon. For more details see "CON‐
190 TROL" and "FILES".
191 -nodetach
193 UNIX only: In daemon mode this option prevents the process actually
194 making itself a daemon, i.e. it doesn't fork and stays connected to
195 the terminal. Also all log messages starting with level warning are
196 sent to standard error out (e.g. configuration errors that lead to
197 an immediate exit). This mode is intended for debugging purposes
198 only.
199 -acqpassive
201 In daemon mode this option overrides the acquisition mode setting
202 in the configuration file and forces acquisition into passive mode
203 (see "ACQUISITION MODES"). The configuration file is not changed,
204 so that you can use different acquisition strategies for daemon and
205 GUI.
206 -acqonce phase
208 In daemon mode this option will automatically stop acquisition and
209 terminate the daemon after the given phase has been completed for
210 all providers. Phases are the same as defined in "ACQUISITION
211 MODES", i.e. now, near and full. Note it's not useful to use this
212 option in acquisition mode follow-ui because acquisition restarts
213 after each provider change. This option is only useful with a
214 fixed list of providers.
215 If you want to run another program from inside a script after
217 nxtvepg has finished, use the -nodetach option (UNIX only) Then
218 the shell which is processing the script will usually wait for
219 nxtvepg to terminate before starting the next command. On Windows
220 there's no simple way to achieve this (because non-console applica‐
221 tions are always run in the background), so you need to use a
222 script language which supports instructions which wait until a run‐
223 ning program (namely nxtvepg) has finished.
224 -dump mode
226 When started with this argument, nxtvepg will only export the
227 entire programme database, then exit. This argument must be com‐
228 bined with -provider to specify which database shall be exported.
229 To export the database in XML format, use keyword xml as mode. In
231 this case the last mode (i.e. XMLTV DTD version) which was used via
232 the main menu is used. To export the database in another mode, use
233 xml5, xml5ltz or xml6. For more details see "CONTROL: Export as
234 XMLTV".
235 To export programme data into a HTML document, use keyword html as
237 mode. The same options as configured in the HTML export dialog are
238 applied (unless you are using the daemon executable nxtvepgd to
239 perform the export.) For details see "CONTROL: Export as HTML".
240 The number of exported programmes can be limited by adding a number
241 after the keyword, separated by a colon (e.g. "-dump html:50".)
242 However the format of the programme list is currently not config‐
243 urable via command line options.
244 To export the database into a plain text file (e.g. for import into
246 an SQL database) three mode keywords are supported: pi to dump pro‐
247 grammes (i.e. the complete TV schedules), ai to dump the provider's
248 network table, pdc to dump the PDC theme categories table. For
249 more details see "CONTROL: Export as text".
250 For debugging purposes there's also a mode raw which prints all
252 data in the database in a format which is closely related to the
253 internal data structures. This output should not be used for data
254 export. For more details see "CONTROL: Dump raw database".
255 The output is written to stdout unless you redirect it into a file
257 or pipe it into another program. See also option -outfile
258 -outfile path
260 This option allows to redirect output from -dump or any other modes
261 which print to stdout by default. It also works in normal operation
262 modes, but the created file will be empty. nxtvepg will abort if
263 the specified file already exists to avoid inadvertantly overwrit‐
264 ing other files. If you're using the option inside a script or
265 batch file you should add a command to remove the target file
266 before invoking nxtvepg.
267 This option is especially helpful for M$ Windows users, since out‐
269 put written to stdout is discarded by the operating system because
270 nxtvepg is not a "console application". This means for exmaple, if
271 output of the above -dump mode is not to be discarded, you must
272 either use this option or redirect output as explained below.
273 Note: instead of using this option you can also redirect output
275 with the ">" or "|" operators in UNIX shells or under M$ Windows at
276 the MS-DOS command prompt. For example you could use either of the
277 following:
278 nxtvepg -dump ai -prov d92 > networks.txt
280 nxtvepg -dump ai -prov d92 | more
281 to write the network table of provider Kabel1 (CNI 0xd92) into a
283 file named networks.txt, or pipe it to the paging program "more"
284 respectively.
285 -remctrl command
287 This option can be used to remote control an other, previously
288 started GUI instance of nxtvepg, i.e. to send the given command to
289 the other process and then exit.
290 The following commands are available: quit to terminate the other
292 nxtvepg process; iconify to minimize the window; deiconify to undo
293 a previous minimization; raise to deiconify the other window and to
294 bring it to the top (in case it's obscured by other windows); acqon
295 to start acquisition; acqoff to stop acquisition.
296 -clock mode
298 When started with this argument, nxtvepg will acquire the current
299 date and time from teletext and then terminate. To specify from
300 which channel to acquire date and time use the -prov option option.
301 (If you want to use a channel which is not an Nextview EPG
302 provider, you'd have to use an external application to tune the
303 channel before you invoke nxtvepg; with the exception of Linux'
304 v4lctl setstation command this mode is unsupported though and may
305 not work, depending on the external application you're using it
306 with.)
307 Important restriction: nxtvepg is able to retrieve the clock only
309 from channels where the so-called teletext packet 8/30/1 is trans‐
310 mitted, which contains date, time and local time zone offset in a
311 binary format. nxtvepg will never attempt to retrieve times from
312 teletext header lines. All Nextview EPG providers transmit packet
313 8/30/1, and a few other networks do too (e.g. ARD and ZDF in Ger‐
314 many.)
315 With mode print the date and time will be read and printed. The
317 output is written to stdout unless you redirect it into a file or
318 pipe it into another program. See option -outfile for details.
319 With mode set the time is set as system time, provided the calling
321 user has the necessary priviliges (e.g. you'd need to be root on
322 UNIX; since it's depreciated to run nxtvepg with root priviliges,
323 it's recommended to first print the time into a file and then pass
324 it to date).
325 UNIX users should also note that the set mode does not update the
327 battery powered hardware clock (aka Real Time Clock RTC), so the
328 correction will probably be lost with the next reboot. To update
329 your RTC, call hwclock --systohc or your operating system's equiva‐
330 lent after nxtvepg. Some Linux distributions automatically take
331 care of this during shutdown.
332 -provscan country
334 When started with this argument nxtvepg will start scanning all TV
335 channels in the given country's frequency band for Nextview EPG
336 providers. Countries are specified by their top-level Internet
337 domain names (e.g. de, at, ch, fr, be) When the scan is finished,
338 nxtvepg updates the provider list stored in the configuration file
339 and terminates itself. The scan is performed in the same way as
340 described in "GETTING STARTED: Search for Nextview providers" and
341 "CONFIGURATION: Provider scan", just without the graphical user
342 interface.
343 During the scan nxtvepg reports progress to stdout unless you redi‐
345 rect it into a file or pipe it into another program. See option
346 -outfile for details.
347 -demo path
349 Load database given by path and enter demo mode. In this mode all
350 entries of the database are shifted into the presence, i.e. just
351 far enough so that none are expired. Hence the entries' dates and
352 times are not for real and acquisition or database reselection is
353 not possible.
354 -help
356 List all available command line options.
357 After the options you can add a database filename. If it's a regular
359 nxtvepg database, this is equivalent to specifying options -dbdir and
360 -provider (if such options are provided, they are silently overridden
361 in this case.) If it's a nxtvepg database, but the file name does not
362 have the format as defined in "FILES", it's assumed to be a demo data‐
363 base and loaded just as with the -demo option. Last but not least,
364 it's also possible to name an XML file with XMLTV data.
365 This is particularily useful for users of graphical file managers (like
367 the Windows Explorer) who can just drag and drop a database file onto
368 the executable. When used on Windows systems the working directory is
369 set to the one that contains the executable, because the Explorer seems
370 to set it to the user's desktop root, so that none of the DLLs and
371 drivers are found.
372 Note to Windows users: all these options - unless otherwise noted - are
374 available in the Win32 version too. You can supply the options either
375 from a "MS-DOS" command prompt or batch file, or by appending them to
376 the executable in a shortcut definition.
377
379 Before you can start reading in TV programme schedules (called acquisi‐
380 tion from here on), you have to do just a few configurations. Which
381 ones depends on your setup and will be described in this chapter. As
382 long as your browser window contains no data, there's also a recommen‐
383 dation how to get to data in the browser window, highlighted by a yel‐
384 low background.
385 This manual describes all features of nxtvepg in detail. You do not
387 have to read all of it at once to operate the software. However it's
388 recommended to skim at least through "BASIC BROWSING", "DATA ACQUISI‐
389 TION" and "FILTERING".
390 TV card Setup on M$ Windows
392 Windows users first have to configure the driver for their TV card in
394 the "TV card input" dialog via the Configure menu (for additional
395 information see also "CONFIGURATION: TV card input"). UNIX users can
396 skip this section.
397 First you need to decide which driver to use: For TV cards with Brook‐
399 tree Bt8x8 or Philips SAA713x capture chips, the dsdrv driver should be
400 preferred. For TV cards with Conexant CX2388x capture chips the WDM
401 drivers should be preferred. Generally, the internal driver is more
402 reliable as it is optimized for teletext data acquisition while the
403 vendors' WDM drivers usually are optimized for video and sometimes
404 don't support teletext at all. On the other hand, the dsdrv driver
405 doesn't support all TV cards and sometimes there are conflicts when a
406 WDM driver is installed for the same card (see also description of
407 option "Stop conflicting WDM drivers...")
408 By default nxtvepg doesn't include support for WDM. The reason for this
410 separation is that the use of WDM is still experimental. Hence you
411 need to obtain a separate package with an interface library (VBIAcqWDM‐
412 Drv.dll) You should unpack the contents of this package into the same
413 directory as the nxtvepg executable. If you don't have the library
414 you'll see an error message stating "Failed to load WDM interface
415 library" when switching to a WDM source.
416 If you chose to use a WDM driver, you can skip the next chapter and
418 continue with the video input configuration.
419 Note if both WDM and dsdrv drivers fail to work with nxtvepg, a third
421 option may be to run nxtvepg in parallel to K!TV. In this case the
422 capturing is done inside of the TV application and teletext data is
423 simply forwarded via shared memory to nxtvepg.
424 Dsdrv driver configuration on M$ Windows
426 To start driver configuration, press the Configure card button in the
428 middle of the "TV card input" dialog window, which will open another
429 dialog. If this button is disabled, this means no supported TV capture
430 chips were found in your system. (You'll also see an error message
431 popup stating "PCI scan failed"; see also the README file for more
432 details on driver error messages.) In this case your only option is to
433 use the WDM driver (see the previous chapter.)
434 First press the Autodetect button to the right of the dialog window;
436 this will read certain parameter values from non-volatile memory on
437 your card (EEPROM) to determine the manufacturer and model. Optimally
438 this will allow to derive all required parameters automatically. If
439 this succeeds, all your card's parameters will be set and you're done
440 and can close the configuration dialog with Ok. If you wish you can
441 still override automatically derived values (e.g. tuner type) with the
442 options described below.
443 If you get a message that says the card, but not the tuner, could be
445 determined you can skip the next paragraphs and continue with the man‐
446 ual tuner selection.
447 If your card type could not be automatically determined, search and
449 select your card type in the listbox at the left and then press the
450 Pick from list button or double click on the listbox entry. Note: The
451 card list is identical to the DScaler TV application (also very similar
452 to K!TV); the same is true for the tuner list. Hence if you're unsure,
453 the easiest way is to look up your configuration in DScaler and just
454 copy it here.
455 For certain card types, the card is queried for the tuner type after
457 manual card selection. If this fails, you'll get a message and have to
458 select the tuner manually.
459 To configure a tuner type, open the tuner selection popup menu by
461 clicking on the Configure button and select one of the entries. For
462 many cards the tuner type is printed on the outside of the retail pack‐
463 aging. Yet a better way is to read the tuner type from the metal
464 shielding box on the card itself.
465 Some hints for figuring out your settings: For many cards the selected
467 card type is not relevant to nxtvepg (i.e. only tuner and for Bt878
468 cards the PLL). Hence if you don't find your card in the list don't
469 worry, just use any PAL or SECAM card entry in the list and set the
470 other parameters manually. To check your configuration start an EPG
471 scan. Before you do so you must leave the configuration sub-menu with
472 OK so that the changes are applied. For your convenience, you can open
473 the card configuration dialog with a button in the EPG scan dialog win‐
474 dow.
475 Hints for tuner selection: If you live in Germany, Austria or Switzer‐
477 land you probably have a PAL tuner, in France it's one of the SECAM
478 types. If you select the wrong tuner, you can have either no reception
479 at all (the EPG scan will just run through and suggest to check your
480 antenna) all or no reception just on a few channels.
481 For cards built around a Brooktree chip (Bt878 et.al.) the type of PLL
483 initialization also needs to be set. This setting is directly tied to
484 your card selection, hence usually you will not need to set it manu‐
485 ally. Usually the correct value for PLL initialization with PAL and
486 SECAM cards is either No init or 28 MHz. (If you select the wrong value
487 you have no reception at all.)
488 Video input configuration
490 Before nxtvepg can start acquiring EPG data, it must be told if the
492 video feed is provided by your TV card's internal TV tuner (if you're
493 connected to your city's TV cable network or a terrestrial antenna) or
494 an external source (usually satellite receivers connected via Composite
495 or S-Video cable). This can be configured in the TV card input dialog
496 in the Configure menu (for more in-depth information see also "CONFIGU‐
497 RATION: TV card input").
498 By default nxtvepg assumes input via TV tuner. This is the preferred
500 mode of operation, since nxtvepg can change channels between multiple
501 Nextview providers, while with an external source you have to switch
502 channels manually (see also "DATA ACQUISITION"). If you're living in
503 France you should tell nxtvepg to use the French channel table (which
504 implies using the Secam TV norm instead of PAL B/G/I); this information
505 is required for the next step: the EPG scan.
506 If you cannot use the TV tuner but have instead connected a satellite
508 receiver through the Composite or S-Video input, select the respective
509 setting in the video input drop-down menu. Then close the dialog with
510 Ok and open the aquisition mode configuration dialog from the same
511 menu. There you should change to the external mode: in this mode
512 nxtvepg will switch to the configured video input channel during
513 startup of acquisition, but afterwards expect you to tune in a Nextview
514 provider's channel at the external video source. To load all provider's
515 inventories in the way the EPG scan does, you have to tune in all
516 provider channels (for a list see the intro of this manual or the
517 Internet homepage) and wait until the status line changes from "start‐
518 ing up" to "working on".
519 Note that you can also connect your satellite receiver via antenna
521 cable. However this variant is highly depreciated, because the signal
522 is often degraded so much that nxtvepg is not able to decode the EPG
523 data stream any more. But if you still want to go that route, you'd
524 keep the tuner as input source and start an EPG scan to find the chan‐
525 nel your receiver is transmitting its signal on. Make sure to disable
526 the Use .xawtv option in the provider scan dialog, unless your satel‐
527 lite receiver's channel (i.e. the frequency onto which the satellite
528 signal is modulated) is defined as an input channel in xawtv. Before
529 you start the EPG scan you need to tune in a Nextview provider's chan‐
530 nel. The scan will only find that one provider. If you want to load
531 all providers you have to continue manually as described above. For an
532 acquisition mode it's recommended to stay with Follow browser database.
533 Although nxtvepg will not be able to actually "follow" your provider
534 selection with the acquisition since it can't switch the TV channel at
535 your external input, this mode will tell nxtvepg to set the TV tuner
536 onto your receiver's channel (see also "ACQUISITION MODES" for more
537 details.)
538 Search for Nextview providers (EPG scan)
540 This section only applies if you chose to use your TV card's internal
542 tuner. In this case the next step to get started is to run a provider
543 scan from the Configure menu. During the scan all TV channels are
544 checked for Nextview transmissions and a list of Nextview providers is
545 built from the result.
546 You can speed up the scan by using a TV application's channel table; in
548 this case the scan is limited to TV frequencies defined in the TV app's
549 channel table. This mode is enabled with the Use TV app freq. table
550 checkbutton. This button will be disabled until you've selected a TV
551 application in the TV app. interaction dialog described in the next
552 chapter. You can open this dialog by pressing the button at the bottom
553 of the EPG scan dialog window.
554 At the end of the scan there's a short summary which tells you how many
556 providers have been found. If there were any, you can close the dialog
557 window and open the provider selection dialog from the Configure menu
558 and select you favorite one. Then wait a little while the provider's
559 TV channel is tuned and data being loaded.
560 If the provider scan does not find any or not all Nextview provider
562 channels (possibly due to weak reception - this is a very simple scan
563 that does not attempt any fine-tuning) enable the Slow button and try
564 again. If this does not help, you can still add the missing providers
565 manually. set the acquisition mode to external or passive (UNIX only).
566 Then use an external application to tune the channel (Windows users
567 have to stop acquisition first; then start the TV application; then
568 tune the channel; then quit the other application; finally start acqui‐
569 sition again).
570 In external mode nxtvepg will not touch the tuner and wait infinitly
572 for Nextview reception on the current channel. On Windows (and Linux
573 with bttv drivers version 0.7.50 and earlier) this method has the dis‐
574 advantage that no channel number or frequency will be known for this
575 provider so you have to tune the provider's channel manually whenever
576 you start acquisition.
577 Acquisition of a complete database takes about 20 minutes. However pro‐
579 grammes that are nearer in the future are available much faster, since
580 they are transmitted more often. The currently running and directly
581 following programmes of all networks are usually available after about
582 2-3 minutes max.
583 Configuring a TV application
585 nxtvepg can cooperate in the following ways with TV applications:
587 · Loading the TV application's channel table: use of the TV tuner
589 frequencies can significantly speed up the EPG scan (already men‐
590 tioned above.) The TV app's channel names are used by the Network
591 name dialog in the Configure menu (see "CONFIGURATION: Network
592 names") to synchronize network names between nxtvepg and the TV
593 application.
594 · Interaction between nxtvepg and the TV application, to provide you
596 with convenience features like an on-screen display of the current
597 programme title after channel changes, changing the channel from
598 inside nxtvepg with the TuneTV button, and background Nextview data
599 acquisition while you're watching TV.
600 The first one is a passive feature, i.e. only nxtvepg needs to be
602 adapted to the respective TV applications. The second one however
603 requires cooperation of both sides. For this reason the number of TV
604 applications for which the passive features are supported will always
605 be much larger. On Windows the interaction features are currently only
606 supported by K!TV.
607 On UNIX xawtv, xdtv (former xawdecode), zapping and tvtime are sup‐
609 ported currently. All the features listed above do work with any of
610 them.
611 On Windows several freeware TV applications are supported for the pas‐
613 sive features; you must select which one you're using. If you've
614 loaded TV card settings from a TV app in the TV card input dialog, then
615 the TV app type and path is already configured. Else, or if you want
616 to use a different app as source for the channel table, open the TV
617 app. interaction dialog (see also "CONFIGURATION: TV application inter‐
618 action").
619 Regarding the second feature, i.e. the "active" one: You can check if
621 nxtvepg is able to interact with a specific TV application by starting
622 both, and then opening the TV application interaction dialog in the
623 Configure menu. The connection status is indicated in the middle of
624 the dialog window. On Windows nxtvepg should already display an error
625 message when it's started while an unsupported TV application is run‐
626 ning, complaining "Capturing is already enabled in the TV card" or
627 another driver error message. Only with cooperating TV apps nxtvepg is
628 able to automatically free the card when the TV app is started (TV
629 viewing is always given priority over EPG data acquisition.)
630 Important: On Windows you must not run nxtvepg with acquisition enabled
632 at the same time as a TV application. If you ever accidentially do
633 that, immediately terminate both applications. When two applications
634 access the TV card hardware at the same time, the resulting conflicts
635 can crash your system.
636 After setting up the TV app type and path, you should open the Network
638 name configuration dialog to synchronize network names between nxtvepg
639 and the TV app. Even if interaction is not possible, it may still be a
640 good idea to have the same network names in both applications. See
641 "CONFIGURATION: Network names" for details.
642
644 The browser mainly consists of two windows: the upper one contains a
645 list of programme titles, sorted by start time. All currently running
646 programmes (or rather: all programmes that should be running according
647 to their start time) are marked by a light blue background color. One
648 line in the list is selected by a cursor; the lower window contains the
649 attributes and description for this selected title. The amount of
650 information available here depends entirely on the content provider.
651 The basic browsing of programme information works very straight-for‐
653 ward. You can either use the mouse or the keyboard cursor keys:
654 With the mouse, you can click on any title to select it and display its
656 description in the lower window. Use the scrollbar to the left to
657 scroll the listing forward to programmes farer in the future, or the
658 weekday scale on the right to jump to a specific time and date.
659 With the keyboard, use the Cursor up/down keys to select any title.
661 For fast scrolling use the page up/down keys. With the Home key you
662 always get back to the first title. With TAB and SHIFT-TAB you can move
663 the keyboard input focus to other input elements, e.g. to the network
664 and shortcut lists; to apply a selected theme or shortcut as filter
665 press the Space key. The first 10 shortcuts can also be enabled
666 directly from the main window with the digit keys 1-9 and 0. Control-C
667 in the main window opens the context menu; Control-F opens the text
668 search dialog; the Escape key is equivalent to the Reset button. The
669 menus can be accessed by pressing the ALT key together with the under‐
670 lined character in the respective menu button.
671 You can restrict the programme selection in many ways to make it easier
673 to find what interests you. For example, you can restrict the list to
674 programmes of a certain network; or you can restrict the list to movies
675 only. This process is called filtering and explained in detail below,
676 see "FILTERING". For the most common filter options there's a list of
677 Shortcuts at the left of the main window. Note you can freely modify
678 this list, see "FILTER SHORTCUTS".
679 Since version 2.5.0 nxtvepg offers two different layouts for the TV
681 schedules: By default programmes of all channels are combined in a sin‐
682 gle list sorted by start time, i.e. one big table. Alternatively pro‐
683 grammes can be separated so that each network has it's own column.
684 This format is very similar to most paper-based TV magazines. In this
685 layout you can scroll both vertically by start-time and horizontally by
686 networks.
687 When you resize the main window vertically the difference in height
689 will be added to the info text window at the bottom. You can adjust
690 the proportions between program listbox and the info text with the
691 "panning" button inbetween, i.e. by dragging the button you can resize
692 the programme list.
693 nxtvepg can interact with TV applications (e.g. xawtv on UNIX; requires
695 initial setup, see "GETTING STARTED") to provide a connection in both
696 directions: Firstly you'll find a Tune-TV button in the main window
697 below the clock. When you press it, the network of the currently
698 selected programme will be tuned in the TV application. This also
699 works with a double-click on the programme or pressing the Return key.
700 By clicking the right mouse button above the Tune-TV button you can
701 also pop up a small menu which offers basic TV controls. Secondly,
702 when you change the channel in the TV application, the cursor in the
703 nxtvepg main window will automatically jump onto the programme cur‐
704 rently running on that network. You can manually trigger this reaction
705 by pressing "i" on your keyboard. For more details see "CONFIGURATION:
706 TV application interaction"
707 At the bottom of the window there is a status line which informs you
709 about the state of the browser database and background acquisition.
710 It's basically a very dense summary of the Statistics popups from the
711 Control menu and is especially useful to warn you about the database
712 age or stalled acquisition.
713 Note: For most providers it holds true that programme content descrip‐
715 tions (i.e. the texts in the lower nxtvepg window) are available only
716 for currently running programmes and those whose start time is very
717 close. This time span for full coverage can be as short as 2 hours, or
718 3 titles per network. As a consequence you should enable data acquisi‐
719 tion as often as possible; consider running the acquisition daemon per‐
720 manently in the background. For details on the acquisition process see
721 the following chapter.
722
724 As long as acquisition is enabled, programme titles are constantly
725 being acquired or updated in the background. You will notice that all
726 incoming programme information is instantly inserted to the programme
727 listing. Every effort is taken to not alter the cursor position or
728 title selection, except if the cursor is on the very first item - then
729 the cursor stays on top.
730 By default, the acquisition always works for the provider whose data‐
732 base you have loaded into the browser. Therefore, upon program start or
733 whenever you switch providers, the TV tuner is set onto the frequency
734 of the provider's TV channel. Please note that this mode is only pos‐
735 sible after a provider scan, because that's the only way to find out
736 the frequencies. Check out "ACQUISITION MODES" for more sophisticated
737 acquisition strategies.
738 If you do not choose the TV tuner as input (e.g. if you choose an
740 external source via the Composite or S-Video input sockets), or if the
741 TV tuner is kept busy by another application (UNIX only, e.g. if you
742 watch TV) data is still being acquired, but it's no longer possible to
743 automatically change the TV channel. Hence you are resposible for
744 selecting the channel of the provider who's database you want to load
745 or refresh. If a transmission belonging to a different provider than
746 the one selected in the browser is detected, a second database is auto‐
747 matically opened in the background to store the incoming data.
748 The transmitted database is constantly in change: Elapsed titles are
750 removed, new titles appended, and the titles closest to the current
751 time updated with an increased amount of description. (The reason that
752 the complete description is not transmitted for all titles is simply
753 that the size of the database has to be reduced - it shall be transmit‐
754 ted in 20 minutes maximum.) So you should start the acquisition as
755 often as possible, about every 2-3 hours, at least a couple of minutes
756 before you browse.
757 You can monitor the progress of acquisition with the timescale and
759 database statistics windows from the Control menu. See "STATISTICS" for
760 details.
761
763 The acquisition mode configuration dialog enables you to control for
764 which providers data is collected, and in which order. It's mainly
765 intended for users who use more than one provider's database, i.e. in a
766 merged database, or want to optimize startup time. If you're happy with
767 a single provider or don't want to browse immediately after program
768 start, you should keep the default, which is loading data always for
769 the provider selected in the browser.
770 Passive
772 UNIX only: In this mode the software never accesses the video
773 device and never changes the input channel or tuner frequency.
774 It's useful if you want to set up the source with command line
775 tools like v4lctl. If you're using applications which keep the
776 video device busy (e.g. a TV application) you don't need this mode,
777 because when nxtvepg detects an unsolicited channel change, it
778 automatically switches to the passive mode for as long as the video
779 device remains busy.
780 Please note: when nxtvepg does not control the input channel, it
782 can not automatically take care of updating your databases. Even if
783 the browser database should be completely empty, no data will
784 appear until you tune in the provider's channel manually with an
785 external application. Because of this, passive mode is depreciated.
786 External
788 This is the recommended mode for Composite or S-Video input
789 sources. Only the input source will be set; the tuner is not
790 touched. Hence the provider channel has to be selected either
791 externally (e.g. in a satellite receiver connected to the Composite
792 or S-Video input sockets) or by a different application (e.g. TV
793 application, UNIX only), just like in passive mode.
794 On Windows systems this mode can be used if your tuner is not known
796 to nxtvepg, i.e. if the EPG scan does not find any channels with
797 all of the available tuner types. In this case tune in the provider
798 channel with a TV application; then quit this application and start
799 nxtvepg. When you view the acquisition statistics from the Control
800 menu, the VPS/PDC code of the tuned channel should appear in the
801 lower half of the window.
802 Follow-UI
804 This is the default mode: the acquisition always works for the
805 provider you have selected for the browser (i.e. user interface).
806 If you change the provider in the browser window, acquisition fol‐
807 lows by tuning the new channel. Of course this requires to have
808 performed an EPG scan at least once, so that the tuner frequencies
809 of all providers are known. When you use a merged database in the
810 browser, acquisition works on each of the merged providers, one
811 after another, just like in the mode described next.
812 Manually selected (Cyclic: All
814 This mode enables you to manually select for which providers the
815 acquisition should work. If you select more than one provider, they
816 are loaded one after another, in your specified order. Warning: if
817 you choose a provider for the browser that's not on the list, no
818 data will be loaded into the browser, even if it's completely
819 empty.
820 Since transmission errors have to be considered, it's not attempted
822 to load every single block of a provider before acquisitions
823 switches to the next. Instead a statistical criterium was defined,
824 that regards the variance in coverage of all networks contained in
825 the database, and the slope of that variance.
826 Cyclic: Now - Near - All
828 Like the previous mode, this one enables you to specify a list of
829 providers to load data for. However they are not just loaded com‐
830 pletely one after another. Instead, a 3-staged round-robin is
831 implemented. In the first stage, only Now data is loaded, i.e. the
832 currently running and next 2-3 programmes. When this has been com‐
833 pleted for all providers, the next stage begins, which loads Near
834 data, i.e. all programmes running in the next 12-24 hours. When
835 that was completed, the final stage loads the outstanding blocks
836 for all providers. See below for an explanation what this mode is
837 good for.
838 Cyclic: Now - All
840 This is the same as the previous mode, except that the Near stage
841 is skipped.
842 Cyclic: Near - All
844 This is the same as the mode before the previous one, except that
845 the Now stage is skipped.
846 Which mode is best for you depends on how you use the browser. As said
848 above, if you're mainly using a single provider, stick with the Follow-
849 UI mode. If you use a merged database, data is automatically loaded for
850 all contained providers. However if you switch manually between multi‐
851 ple providers, you should choose one of the manual acquisition modes.
852 The Cyclic modes enables you to optimize startup time. While in stan‐
854 dard manual mode, the first database is loaded completely before the
855 next one is started, in Cyclic modes you can specify to load only Now
856 data of all providers first. Hence already after a couple minutes
857 you'll have updated Now information for all providers. If you require
858 more look-ahead than the next 2-3 programmes, e.g. the complete
859 evening, use a Cyclic mode that starts with the Near stage.
860 If you use manual acquisition together with a merged browser database,
862 make sure to put the same provider at top in both lists, i.e. acquisi‐
863 tion should always start for the "master database" of the merge.
864 Please note that the time until all databases are complete is longer in
866 the cyclic modes than in standard manual mode. In general, the time
867 used for the Now and Next stages just adds to the time to complete the
868 database.
869 Also note that the cyclic modes depend on the transmission cycles of
871 the providers. Firstly this means that the time ranges covered by the
872 cycle stages may differ between providers. Secondly, the cycle times
873 may vary. In the worst case the Near cycle runs as long as the cycle
874 for the complete database (e.g. the German provider RTL2). In this case
875 you don't win anything by selecting a mode that contains a Near stage.
876
878 There are currently three ways to obtain information about the state of
879 the databases and the acquisition process: the first and most obvious
880 is the status line at the bottom of the main window (only if enabled,
881 see "CONFIGURATION"). The second one are the timescale popup windows,
882 which visualize for each TV network the time ranges which are covered
883 with TV programme data. The third one are the database statistics popup
884 windows which offer technical details about the database, e.g. which
885 percentage of entries is already loaded etc., both in textual form and
886 as charts.
887 The latter two windows are available separately for the browser and
889 acquisition databases. (By default both are the same databases, but you
890 can configure background acquisition on multiple databases, see "ACQUI‐
891 SITION MODES"). All types of statistics are regularily updated while
892 acquisition is running. While connected to an acquisition daemon, all
893 statistics output refers to the acquisition running in the daemon (see
894 "CONTROL: Connect to acq. daemon")
895 Status line
897 The status line separately summarizes the state of the browser database
899 (unless it's a merged database) and the acquisition process. Since
900 there's not much room only the most relevant information is included
901 there, i.e. the kind of information presented depends on the current
902 state.
903 For the browser database you'll normally just see the name of the con‐
905 tent provider network and a percentage that describes how many of the
906 blocks (i.e. TV programmes) in the provider database already have been
907 received.
908 If more than 10% of the blocks in the database lie in the past, you'll
910 additionally see a note about this percentage of expired blocks. Note
911 that a 100% loaded database may appear completely empty when all blocks
912 are expired. As soon as you start acquisition the fill percentage will
913 drop to 0 because a new inventory will have been loaded which no longer
914 contains the expired blocks.
915 When acquisition for the browser database stopped more than 60 minutes
917 ago, a note is added to the status line. In this case it may be advis‐
918 able to start acquisition for this database to load descriptions for
919 programmes that are now included in the "Near" time range (see "DATA
920 ACQUISITION").
921 If acquisition is currently not active you'll see a note about that,
923 often together with a reason, e.g. "no reception" when you've manually
924 tuned a station that doesn't transmit Nextview.
925 Else you'll see the name of the content provider network and a percent‐
927 age that describes the progress of acquisition. Note that this percent‐
928 age may be different from the overall fill percentage given with the
929 browser database, as it also reflects blocks that have to be reloaded
930 due to version changes.
931 Additionally there may be a note about the current mode of acquisition,
933 like the current phase for cyclic acquisition modes or "forced passive"
934 when nxtvepg is not able to change the channel, maybe due to a TV
935 application running in parallel. See "ACQUISITION MODES" for details.
936 Timescale popup windows
938 You can monitor the progress of acquisition with the timescale windows
940 which can be opened from the Control menu. There's one window for the
941 browser database, and one for the acquisition database. The acquisition
942 window is updated whenenever new EPG blocks are received.
943 The timescale windows have one scale for each network covered by the
945 selected provider. The left end of the scales refers to the start time
946 of the oldest TV programme in the database. Depending on how long ago
947 the database was updated and the current expiry removal delay (see
948 "FILTERING: Expired Programmes Display"), some or all TV programmes may
949 lie in the past. The exact dates are printed in the date scale at the
950 top of the window, the current time is additionally marked with a small
951 arrow labeled "now".
952 Ranges that are covered by programmes of the respective network in the
954 database are marked in shades of red or blue, uncovered ranges are left
955 black. The different colors reflect the stream in which the data was
956 received, or an error status; the shades age and version. Stream num‐
957 bers are directly connected with the cycle phases mentioned in "ACQUI‐
958 SITION MODES"; besides this the difference is not relevant during nor‐
959 mal operation.
960 red:
962 PI blocks received in stream 1, i.e. cycle phase 'Near'.
963 blue:
965 PI blocks received in stream 2, i.e. cycle phase 'All'.
966 dark red or blue:
968 PI blocks from an earlier database version.
969 orange:
971 expired PI blocks from stream 1 or an earlier database version.
972 cyan:
974 expired PI blocks from stream 2 and the current database version.
975 yellow:
977 invalid PI blocks (overlapping or zero run-time, block number not
978 in the range given in inventory, etc.)
979 gray:
981 missing PI blocks. Note that the range can only be roughly esti‐
982 mated, as the time range a block covers is not known until the
983 actual block is available.
984 black:
986 time range which is not covered by the provider.
987 Programmes for which description texts are currently available are
989 additionally marked by an increased height of the scale in the covered
990 time range. For short-info the area is extended towards the top, for
991 long-info towards the bottom (the distinction between short and long
992 info is only related to the Nextview transmission specification and
993 does not neccessarily relate to the length of the description texts;
994 also note that for the merged database there's no distinction between
995 short and long info because all texts are concatenated into one.)
996 In front of the scales there are 5 separate boxes, which refer to the
998 first 5 programmes (PI blocks) in the inventory (AI block). They have
999 two purposes: firstly, during acquisition you can see when the 'Now'
1000 cycle phase is complete; secondly you can check if the data from the
1001 Now cycle is expired (marked orange). If all 5 are orange, it's time
1002 to update the database.
1003 Database statistics
1005 There are two popup windows available from the Control menu which con‐
1007 tain statistical information about the browser database and the acqui‐
1008 sition database and progress. The window is horizontally divided in two
1009 parts: the upper part lists static information; the lower part lists
1010 dynamic info and is available only while acquisition is active.
1011 The acquisition statistics are updated every time a new AI block
1013 (inventory which lists all covered networks and block counts per net‐
1014 work; usually transmitted every 10 seconds) is received.
1015 Last AI update:
1017 The (local) time when the last inventory block was received. Since
1018 this block has to be transmitted on a regular basis it tells you
1019 when acquisition was active for this database.
1020 Database version:
1022 The version number is incremented by the provider every day or
1023 after content changes. A version change forces a complete reload
1024 of the database.
1025 Blocks in AI:
1027 How many blocks are transmitted in total. This number is taken from
1028 the provider's AI block, i.e. the inventory. Additionally listed
1029 separately for stream 1 and 2 (swo).
1030 Block count db:
1032 How many blocks are in the local database. At maximum this can be
1033 the number of blocks given in the AI block.
1034 Current version:
1036 How many blocks are in the local database and have the latest ver‐
1037 sion.
1038 Filled:
1040 Percentage of blocks in the database in respect to the total given
1041 in the AI block, i.e. "Block count db" divided by "Blocks in AI".
1042 The second percentage in the line only reflects blocks of the cur‐
1043 rent version and hence the degree of completeness of acquisition.
1044 Expired stream:
1046 Number of programme blocks which have a stop time that's in the
1047 past but are still registered in the provider's inventory (AI).
1048 When acquisition is stopped, this number can be large. During
1049 acquisition expired programmes are usually stripped by the provider
1050 with the start of every cycle, i.e. usually every 20-25 minutes.
1051 The percentage given here is in respect to the actual number of
1052 blocks in the local database (all versions), not the AI.
1053 Expired total:
1055 Total number and percentage of expired blocks in the database.
1056 This value depends on the expire "cut-off time" configured by the
1057 user, i.e. on how long expired blocks are kept until they are
1058 removed from the database. Normally such blocks disappear from the
1059 programme list, but this can be changed with the expire time filter
1060 in the Filter menu (see also "FILTERING").
1061 Defective blocks:
1063 Number of blocks with invalid or overlapping start time. These
1064 blocks do not show up in the browser (as it would be impossible to
1065 handle if there is more than one "now" entry for a network). The
1066 percentage given here is in respect to the actual number of blocks
1067 in the local database (all versions), not the AI.
1068 The pie chart on the left on the window visualizes these numbers. The
1070 circle represents 100% of the blocks listed in AI. It's divided in
1071 stream 1 (red) and stream 2 (blue). The shaded segments represent the
1072 blocks that are still missing in the local database. The yellow seg‐
1073 ments the percentage of expired and/or defective blocks.
1074 When you interpret those values, please remember that blocks may be
1076 appended to the transmission cycle when programmes have expired (in a
1077 slight violation of the Nextview standard this is done even without
1078 changing the database version). So you might see from time to time that
1079 the fill percentages take a step back down during acquisition. Also
1080 note that expired PI are not accessible from the user interface, how‐
1081 ever they are included in the database dump from the Control menu.
1082 Acquisition statistics
1084 Acq. runtime:
1086 How long the acquisition has been continuously running for this
1087 database. This timer is reset upon provider or database version
1088 changes or when an external channel change is detected.
1089 Channel VPS/PDC:
1091 The VPS/PDC code that has last been received on the currently tuned
1092 channel. Usually this will be the same as the provider CNI given
1093 in the database statistics, but you might see different values here
1094 when you manually tune in a different channel with an external
1095 application.
1096 If a valid VPS/PDC code (Programme Identification Label, PIL) was
1098 received together with the CNI it is appended after the CNI in
1099 decoded format (i.e. DD.MM HH:MM with day, month, hour and minute).
1100 Note: the VPS/PDC codes are used to uniquely identify the current
1101 programme on a given network. You can display the codes for all
1102 programmes in the database (if you enable them in "CONFIGURATION:
1103 Select attributes") or pass them to external applications (see
1104 "CONFIGURATION: Context menu configuration")
1105 TTX data rate:
1107 The rate at which teletext data lines are received on the current
1108 channel in baud, i.e. bits per second. Each teletext line counts
1109 as 45 bytes.
1110 EPG data rate:
1112 Same as TTX data rate, however only teletext lines that belong to
1113 the page which transmits Nextview are counted.
1114 EPG page rate:
1116 The per second average of received teletext pages with carry
1117 Nextview data. Many provider transmit one page per second during
1118 the day and up to 1.5 or 2 pages per second during the night.
1119 AI recv. count:
1121 The number of AI blocks received since acquisition start. As long
1122 as this counter remains at zero, no data is added to the database
1123 (because the AI block is mandatory to identify the provider.)
1124 AI min/avg/max:
1126 The minimum, average and maximum distance between reception of AI
1127 blocks. The average should usually be 10 seconds. The maximum
1128 should not be much higher or else an EPG scan might have a hard
1129 time finding this provider; also the acquisition start-up time
1130 would be higher because at first an AI block must be awaited.
1131 PI rx repetition:
1133 The average of the number of times each block in the AI was
1134 received since start of the acquisition. Divided in Now, stream 1
1135 and stream 2. This value is used by acquisition control in the
1136 termination criterium for acquisition phases, if the acquisition
1137 mode is cyclic.
1138 Decoder quality:
1140 Reception and loss statistics: Count of received EPG teletext pages
1141 and count of complete EPG pages missing in the sequence. Count of
1142 received teletext packets (usually 23 per page) and missing pack‐
1143 ets. Note: page and packet loss is usually caused by decoding
1144 errors in packet and page headers (which carry a 50% redundancy so
1145 this is a strong indication of weak signal quality) or when a TV
1146 application running in parallel interferes with capture configura‐
1147 tion (i.e. when not all required lines in VBI can be received)
1148 Next is the number of received and dropped blocks. Blocks are usu‐
1150 ally assembled from data received in several teletext packets and
1151 have to be dropped if packets or pages inbetween are missing.
1152 Blocks may also be dropped due to decoding or check-sum errors
1153 (above note regarding these errors applies here too)
1154 The final line lists the number of decoded text characters (e.g.
1156 programme titles and descriptions) and how many decoding errors
1157 were detected. Forward error protection used for text is pretty
1158 weak, so you may see errors here even with relatively good signal
1159 quality. With bad signal quality the actual error rate might be
1160 higher then displayed, since the protection cannot detect double-
1161 bit errors.
1162 Acq mode:
1164 The current acquisition mode as configured by the user, or forced
1165 passive if nxtvepg failed to switch the channel.
1166 Network variance:
1168 The variance of block coverage across all networks. This value is
1169 used by acquisition control in the termination criterium for acqui‐
1170 sition phases, if the acquisition mode is cyclic. It's calculated
1171 by separately counting the number of blocks in the database for
1172 each network; then for each network calculating the percentage of
1173 available blocks in regard to expected blocks; then calculating the
1174 average and finally variance of these percentages.
1175 The diagram at the left displays a history of fill percentages for
1177 stream 1 and 2; the meaning of the colors is the same as in the
1178 timescale windows.
1179
1181 If you compare databases of different Nextview providers, you will
1182 often find that each has one or more nice features, or covers networks,
1183 that the others lack. Instead of changing back and forth between sev‐
1184 eral providers all the time, database merging allows to select and com‐
1185 bine features or networks from several original databases into one
1186 newly created database.
1187 When you select the Merge providers entry from the Configure menu, you
1189 will get a dialog with two listboxes: the left one contains a list of
1190 all currently available databases. The right one is the list of data‐
1191 bases you want to merge. You can add, delete or reorder the entries is
1192 this list. When you're done with your selection, press Ok to start the
1193 merge and switch the browser to the new database.
1194 By ordering providers in your selection, you assign priorities which
1196 are important for conflict resolution. A conflict occurs when programme
1197 start and stop times differ between providers. The likelyhood of such
1198 conflicts depends on the quality of your providers; theoretically they
1199 should never happen except if there are late program changes. In real‐
1200 ity, conflicts are not that unlikely, particularily for programmes
1201 early in the morning. You should put the most reliable provider in the
1202 first position, because conflicting programmes from providers further
1203 down will be rejected, i.e. not added to the merged database.
1204 The Configure button in the dialog gives you fine-control over the pri‐
1206 ority of providers during the merge of all distinct programme
1207 attributes. You can even completely remove a provider for an attribute,
1208 e.g. if they transmit false data (e.g. the Sound attribute was at some
1209 time handled wrong by the former German provider 3Sat: they did swap
1210 stereo and surround). An exception is the title, where you must not
1211 delete any providers.
1212 Attributes that cannot be merged, e.g. editorial rating, are fetched
1214 from the first database in the list that contains the attribute for a
1215 given programme. An exception are sorting criteria and series, where
1216 only the first provider in the list is queried (i.e. even if the first
1217 provider does not have a sorting criterion for a given programme, the
1218 further databases are not searched) because these types of attributes
1219 cannot be mixed between providers (see also "FILTERING").
1220 Note: If you use a manual or cyclic acquisition mode, you should take
1222 care to include all providers of your merged database in the same
1223 order. Else, program changes will not appear in your database until the
1224 provider with highest priority is loaded. If you stay with the default
1225 Follow-UI, acquisition control will automatically cycle across all
1226 merged providers in the correct order.
1227
1229 The Navigate menu contains a tree of filtering options, that's trans‐
1230 mitted by the selected provider together with the programme data. Fil‐
1231 tering enables to restrict the listing of programme information to
1232 those titles matching the selected menu entry.
1233 The extent and content of this menu depends entirely on the provider.
1235 Unfortunately most providers supply only a very limited menu, so you'll
1236 probably want to define your own filters, as described in the next two
1237 chapters.
1238 Any filter selection can always be undone by the Reset menu entry or
1240 the reset button in the main window.
1241 On Windows this menu is en entry inside of the Filter menu for techni‐
1243 cal reasons (the concept of danamically created menu hierarchies seems
1244 to be foreign to Windows, so a popup menu has to be used for the Navi‐
1245 gate menu).
1246
1248 Similar to Navigate, this menu allows to control which of the pro‐
1249 grammes in the database are presented in the listing. However here,
1250 you are not limited to a preselection of filter options. There's a
1251 filter for every kind of attributes that can be attached to a program,
1252 e.g. it's network, start time, theme descriptors, and so on.
1253 Filters can be undone either singularily by selecting the same filter
1255 menu entry again, or globally by clicking on the Reset button.
1256 You can combine as many filters as you want to build a complex filter.
1258 If you combine two filters of different types, only programmes that
1259 match both attributes will be listed (logical AND). If you choose more
1260 than one filter of the same type, all programmes that match either
1261 attribute will be listed (logical OR). Note some filter types also
1262 support multiple "classes" which allow logical AND within a category;
1263 this is explained in more detail in the filter types list below.
1264 Examples: If you want to get all programmes listed for either network A
1266 OR B, simply select both networks in the filter list. If you want to
1267 see all movies scheduled on A, i.e. all programmes which run on network
1268 A AND are flagged as movies, select network A and theme "movie - gen‐
1269 eral".
1270 Filter Types
1272 The following filter types are available:
1274 Theme categories
1276 Restrict the listing to programmes that have any of the given theme
1277 categories attached to them (logical OR). The Nextview standard
1278 contains a list of 76 predefined themes, which are structured into
1279 11 main categories and subcategories. A programme can have up to 7
1280 theme descriptors attached.
1281 If you want to restrict the listing to programmes that have more
1283 than one of the given themes (logical AND) you need to specify them
1284 in different theme classes. For example: to get a listing of all
1285 programmes which are both Sci-Fi and Comedy, select theme category
1286 Sci-Fi, then switch to a different theme class, and select theme
1287 category Comedy. The actual class numbers do not matter, you just
1288 need to use two different ones (i.e. you can use either #1 and #2
1289 or #5 and #6 etc.)
1290 Series
1292 Restrict the listing to programmes that belong to any of the
1293 selected series. A series code always implies a network specifica‐
1294 tion (even if the same programme is transmitted on different net‐
1295 works).
1296 Note: This filter type is only available for providers that assign
1298 series codes; also not all series may have a code assigned. For
1299 other ones you can use text search among programme titles.
1300 When series and theme or likewise series and text searches are com‐
1302 bined, programmes which match either of both filter types are
1303 listed. This is an exception from the general rule of combining
1304 different filters with a logical AND.
1305 Networks
1307 Restrict the listing to programmes of one or more given networks.
1308 The filter is disabled when all checkbuttons are deactivated.
1309 You can also add a network filter listbox to the main window by
1311 enabling one of the Show networks checkbuttons in the Show/Hide
1312 sub-menu of the Configuration menu (see "CONFIGURATION:
1313 Show/Hide"). Also note that selection, order and names of networks
1314 are all configurable, in particular you can permanently suppress
1315 uninteresting networks from the list.
1316 Text search
1318 Restrict the listing to programmes who's title or description (or
1319 either if both options are enabled) contain one of the given char‐
1320 acter sequences. If you enable the match complete text option, an
1321 exact match will be required, i.e. a search for "heute" will not
1322 match on "heute journal" (intended for title-only searches, as
1323 started from the context menu). If you enable option match case,
1324 character case is relevant, i.e. a search for "heute" will not
1325 match on "Heute Abend".
1326 You can search for more than one text at the same time; you'll get
1328 all programmes that contain any of the given texts (logical OR).
1329 The listbox above the text entry field lists all currently active
1330 texts. You can double click on the options in the list to toggle
1331 them between "yes" and "no" (i.e. option enabled or disabled). The
1332 entries also have small context menus which allow to remove single
1333 texts or toggle options.
1334 Press Click here to open... to open a small dialog which allows to
1336 swiftly add a large list of texts (e.g. a list of your favorite
1337 movie titles.) You can paste text for example from a text editor
1338 into the dialog or load them directly from a file. Each line in
1339 the text fields will be added as a separate search when you press
1340 OK and all new entries will have the same options. Blanks at the
1341 beginning or end of lines are automatically removed and lines
1342 starting with # are skipped when loading from a file.
1343 A history of the last 50 searches (manually entered ones only)
1345 including options, are stored and available in the drop-down menu
1346 below the search text entry field (opened with the arrow button at
1347 the left or one of the up/down cursor keys) and the last 10
1348 searches are also available in the Title column header menu in the
1349 programme list (the latter in "single list" layout only).
1350 Note: use of this search filter type is depreciated for permanent
1352 series searches saved in shortcuts if your provider supports series
1353 identifiers (see above). In this case should use those instead
1354 because the numerical identifiers have a better protection against
1355 transmission errors. A text search can fail due to a single
1356 erronous character.
1357 Features
1359 Restrict the listing to programmes that match all given attributes
1360 (logical AND), i.e. sound format, picture format, analog/digital,
1361 encrypted yes/no, live/new/repeat and subtitles yes/no.
1362 If you want to allow more than one value of the same attribute
1364 (e.g. picture format wide OR Pal+) you have to put them into dif‐
1365 ferent feature classes (e.g. first select format wide, then set
1366 filter class to 2, then select format PAL+)
1367 Parental Rating
1369 Restrict the listing to programmes that are suitable for children
1370 of the given age or elder, e.g. when you select 14, you get all
1371 programmes that are recommended for chilren of age 0 to 14.
1372 Note you can use inverse searches (see below) to find programmes
1374 which are recommended only for children above a certain age. For
1375 example, if you invert a parental search with age 14, you'll get
1376 all programmes that are recommended for children of age 16 or
1377 older.
1378 Editorial Rating
1380 Restrict the listing to programmes that are rated (by the content
1381 provider) to have at least the given quality. The range of rating
1382 values is 1 to 7.
1383 Note that some providers do not use all values, e.g. only 1, 3, 5
1385 (thumb down, middle, thumb up.) For that reason only the first
1386 provider's ratings are used when merging databases (see also
1387 "MERGED DATABASES")
1388 Start time
1390 Restrict the listing to programmes whose start time lies in the
1391 interval and whose start falls onto the given date or weekday.
1392 Following options are available: If you enable Start at current
1394 time the interval start is fixed to the actual time when the filter
1395 is set and the value given as stop time is interpreted as duration,
1396 i.e. it's added to the interval start. If you enable Stop at end
1397 of day the interval end is fixed to 23:59 of the same day.
1398 For the date you can chose between the following modes: Ignore
1400 date: the filter allows programmes that start on any day (in the
1401 time window given above). Relative date: allow only programmes
1402 that start N days from today, i.e. for zero: today, for 1: tomorrow
1403 etc. Weekday: allow programmes starting at the given day of the
1404 week (the scale runs from Saturday until Friday.) Day of month:
1405 allow only programmes starting the Nth day of any month (the scale
1406 runs from 1 to 31.)
1407 Note that the main intention of this filter is to support time
1409 restrictions in the provider's navigation menus (see "NAVIGATE") or
1410 shortcuts. For manual navigation there are more practical alterna‐
1411 tives, e.g. the weekday scale and drop-down menus in the main
1412 browser window above the time and date columns (not available in
1413 grid layout.)
1414 Program index
1416 Restrict the listing to programmes who's index is in the given
1417 range. The currently running programme of each network is given
1418 index zero, the following programme of each network index one etc.
1419 The three most important combinations are available as radio but‐
1420 tons: now (range 0-0), next (range 1-1) and now or next (range
1421 0-1).
1422 For merged databases only indices 0 and 1 are supported.
1424 Duration
1426 Restrict the listing to programmes whose duration (i.e. difference
1427 between start and stop time) lies in the given range. When the
1428 maxium is set to zero, the filter is switched off.
1429 You can specify the time values either by use of the scales or by
1431 entering a value in the format MM:HH into the text fields and
1432 pressing the Return key.
1433 Expired Programmes Display
1435 Unlike all other filter options this one is used to enlarge the set
1436 of matching programmes. It allows to include expired programmes
1437 (i.e. those with a stop time in the past) into the list; they will
1438 be marked with a yellow background (you can change that color, see
1439 ".Xdefaults" and "nxtvepg.ad" in "FILES".) With the sliders you
1440 can set how many days plus hours to shift the expire time thresh‐
1441 old. By default the threshold is zero so that expired programmes
1442 immediately disappear from the list.
1443 Note you cannot add more programmes than are stored in the data‐
1445 base; usually programmes are removed after 4 hours. There's a sec‐
1446 ond tab called Configure in the dialog which allows to change the
1447 delay after which expired programmes are automatically removed.
1448 Press the Update button to set the new value. If it's lower than
1449 before, programmes will immediately be removed from the database;
1450 this operation cannot be undone (unless the progammes are still
1451 registered in the provider inventory, which may be the case if you
1452 haven't updated the database in a long time. In this case you may
1453 get a confusing warning that programmes are about to be removed
1454 although they won't.)
1455 Sorting Criteria
1457 Restrict the listing to programmes that have any of the given sort‐
1458 ing criteria attached to them; every programme can have 0..7 sort‐
1459 ing criteria attached to it. They work very much like theme
1460 descriptors however their meaning is not predefined by the Nextview
1461 standard. The content provider can use arbitrary numbers to repre‐
1462 sent an attribute. Attributes usually are themes that are not in
1463 the predefined catalog, e.g. current events like the Olympic Games,
1464 but could also be not content related at all. The meaning of these
1465 numbers is usually defined by the provider's navigation menus (see
1466 "NAVIGATE").
1467 Equivalently to themes, you can assign sorting criteria in differ‐
1469 ent classes to implement a logical AND, i.e. only programmes that
1470 have at least one of the sorting criteria specified in every used
1471 class will match. Example: to get all programmes that have 0x01
1472 attached plus either 0x10 or 0x11, specify sorting criterion 0x01
1473 in class #1 and 0x10 and 0x11 in class #2. Note that the dialog
1474 displays all values in hexadecimal format, i.e. with digits 0-9
1475 followed by a-f.
1476 The Load all used button in the sorting criteria filter dialog
1478 fills the selection listbox with a list of all codes that are actu‐
1479 ally used in the current database. This allows a quick overview
1480 which filter criteria will produce any matches.
1481 VPS/PDC
1483 Restrict the listing to programmes that have a valid VPS/PDC start
1484 time label attached (VPS/PDC allow to start a video recording at
1485 the exact time a programme starts even when delayed; the labels are
1486 broadcasted currently in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Eng‐
1487 land). Additionally you can filter for programmes with a label
1488 which differs from the actual start time; these are usually pro‐
1489 grammes whose start time changed or which were scheduled later
1490 (usually the VPS/PDC label then is the actual start time minus one
1491 minute)
1492 Note that the interpretation of two filter types depends on the
1494 provider: sorting criterion and series. That's because those are just
1495 arbitrary numbers which only have a meaning in the context of the
1496 provider's navigation menu.
1497 Hint: the filter menu can also be used to examine the filter options
1499 that are invoked by the entries in the Navigate menu.
1500 Inverting filters
1502 Near the end of the filter menu there's the Invert sub-menu which
1504 allows to invert the outcome of filtering. There are two levels of
1505 inversion: global and individual.
1506 When you select global inversion, you'll get exactly the programmes
1508 that otherwise would have been filtered out (except for programmes
1509 which are permanently filtered out by your network and air-time selec‐
1510 tion). In other words, all programmes which match your current filter
1511 setting are removed from the list. Note: due to the way filter short‐
1512 cuts are merged when more than one is selected at the same time, it's
1513 in most cases not recommended to use global invert for filter shortcuts
1514 unless you change the combination rule (see "FILTER SHORTCUTS: Shortcut
1515 combination modes".)
1516 The invert menu also allows to individually negate certain filter types
1518 (there are also invert buttons in some filter sub-menus which have the
1519 same function). The logic of combining flters is the same as without
1520 inverting, i.e. there's a logical OR between filters of the same type
1521 (e.g. network A OR network B) and a logical AND between different fil‐
1522 ter types (e.g. network A AND theme category movie).
1523 Example 1: If you want all programmes which are neither categorized as
1525 sports nor as children's programmes, select theme filters sport and
1526 children's and then invert the current theme filter (usually class #1;
1527 you can equivalently use the global invert if themes are the only fil‐
1528 ter).
1529 For the theme and sorting criterion filters it's possible to invert
1531 only parts of the selection, so that you can require that a programme
1532 has a certain attribute and at the same time require that it doesn't
1533 have another attribute.
1534 Example 2: If you want all programmes which are movies but NOT adult
1536 movies, select theme category Movie, switch the theme class to 2,
1537 select theme adult and then invert theme class 2.
1538 Note: although the Feature filter offers the use of different classes
1540 so support a logical OR, the inversion is not based on classes. This is
1541 due to the fact that there's a logical OR between feature classes (in
1542 contrast to the logical AND between theme classes).
1543
1545 There's a number of predefined filter options in the main window below
1546 the clock. These shortcuts enable you to invoke filters by a single
1547 click of the mouse. You can freely add, change or remove entries in
1548 this list.
1549 When you want to add a shortcut, first set the filters up in the way
1551 you want to save them, i.e. either choose existing shortcuts or select
1552 an entry from the Navigate menu and/or add filters from the main or
1553 context menus. When you have found an interesting selection, invoke
1554 Add filter shortcut from the shortcuts menu.
1555 This will open the shortcut edit dialog (which will be described in
1557 detail below) with your new shortcut at the start of the list at the
1558 left. You should change the shortcut label in the field at the top
1559 right; by default it's just "new shortcut". The label will be dis‐
1560 played in the shortcut list in the main window. When you're done press
1561 Save, or Abort if you've changed your mind and don't want to add this
1562 shortcut after all. If you want to define multiple shortcuts you can
1563 leave the Edit dialog open and save just once when you're done with all
1564 changes.
1565 You can invoke several shortcuts in parallel by moving the mouse with
1567 the left button pressed or by pressing the CTRL or SHIFT keys when
1568 selecting in the main winddow's shortcut listbox. See the chapter
1569 below for possible side-effects when combining shortcuts.
1570 The shortcut list has a small context menu which shows when you click
1572 with the right mouse button into the shortcut list. If offers faster
1573 access to the same commands which are available in the main menu plus a
1574 Delete command; the shortcut above which you press the mouse button is
1575 pre-selected for the chosen operation.
1576 When you Update a shortcut and your current filter setting contains
1578 different filters than the previously stored setting, you'll be asked
1579 if the filter mask should be automatically adapted (e.g. if your filter
1580 previously searched for theme category 'movie' but your current filter
1581 consists of a text search). See below for more details on filter
1582 masks; unless you have manually edited this shortcut's mask before, you
1583 can safely press "Yes".
1584 Editing Filter Shortcuts
1586 To change names and/or organisation of your shortcuts, open the edit
1588 dialog (e.g. via the main menu.) On the left of the dialog window
1589 there's a list of all your shortcuts. In the middle there's a row of
1590 command buttons which operate on the shortcut selected at the left
1591 (explained below). At the right there's an editable field with short‐
1592 cut name, a read-only display of the filter settings currently assigned
1593 to the shortcut, and popup menus to change the filter's mask and combi‐
1594 nation rules (also explained in detail below.)
1595 The buttons with up/down arrows will move the selected shortcut up or
1597 down. The buttons with arrows pointing to the upper left and lower
1598 right are used to move a shortcut entry out of or into a sub-folder
1599 respectively.
1600 The Delete button removes the selected shortcut from the list (the
1602 deletion won't affect the main window until you press Save, so you can
1603 leave the dialog with Abort to undo the operation.)
1604 The Invoke button will apply the shortcut's filter setting to the main
1606 window just as selecting the shortcut in the main window's list. You
1607 can then change the filter settings via the filter menus. Use the
1608 Update button to assign the main window's filter settings to the edited
1609 shortcut.
1610 You should be careful with the update button since it's easy to over‐
1612 write the wrong shortcut. If you notice such a mistake, you can undo
1613 the change either by leaving the edit dialog with the Abort button or
1614 selecting the respecting shortcut in the main window and assigning the
1615 original settings via Update.
1616 Filter Masks
1618 When you deselect a shortcut, either by selecting another shortcut or
1620 clicking on it a second time with CTRL held down, all it's filters will
1621 automatically be undone. Hence when you have two themes shortcuts, e.g.
1622 "Movies" and "Sports", and select first Movies, then Sports, you'll see
1623 only sports programmes afterwards. However if you had selected theme
1624 movies manually, e.g. by the context menu explained in the next chap‐
1625 ter, the movies filter might remain set, so that you'd get all pro‐
1626 grammes of theme movies OR sports. Since that is usually not what one
1627 expects, a filter mask has been introduced to the shortcut setting.
1628 The filter mask is defined in the shortcuts dialog with a checkbutton
1630 for each filter category. By default, the mask is enabled for every
1631 filter category you've included in the shortcut filter setting. When
1632 you invoke the shortcut from the main window later, all filters of the
1633 given categories will be cleared (masked out) before the shortcut fil‐
1634 ters are added. To return to the above example: if the "Sports" short‐
1635 cut is defined with a themes mask, the manually set movies filter would
1636 be cleared before the theme filter is set to sports.
1637 The masking can also be enabled when no filter of that category has
1639 been chosen. This can be used to define undo shortcuts. E.g. choose the
1640 mask 'Themes' if you want a shortcut that allows to clear all theme-
1641 related filters at once. Or enabled all masks for a Reset button (the
1642 only difference to the pre-defined Reset button would be that the cur‐
1643 sor does not jump to the first Now programme.)
1644 Shortcut combination modes
1646 By default when combining multiple shortcuts, all filters of all
1648 selected shortcuts are simply thrown together (i.e. "merged") and then
1649 processed as if they belonged all to one shortcut. The same combina‐
1650 tion rules apply as described in "FILTERING".
1651 For example, if one shortcut searches for movies, another one subti‐
1653 tles, the combination will search for programmes which are movies AND
1654 have subtitles. Also, if you have one shortcut which filters for
1655 movies and one that filters for your favorite series, the combination
1656 will filter for all programmes which are either movies OR among your
1657 favorite series.
1658 For such simple shortcuts which consist of a single filter type this
1660 behavior is usually intuitive. When combining complex filters the
1661 result of merging however might not match your expecations. For exam‐
1662 ple, if you have a shortcut "movies on network A" and one "series on
1663 network B" merging would result in "either movies or series on either
1664 network A or B", i.e. the list would also include movies on network B.
1665 Hence the shortcut edit dialog has a Combination rule option where you
1667 can change the mode into OR or AND. If you put a shortcut into this
1668 mode, it's filters will be handled separately from all others.
1669 The only drawback is that the shortcut's filters will not be editable
1671 via the filter menus. If you ever want to change the filter settings
1672 without creating them from scratch, use the Invoke and Update buttons
1673 in the edit dialog (see "FILTER SHORTCUTS: Editing Filter Shortcuts".)
1674 Shortcut update dialog
1676 When you select the Shortcut Update command in the main menu, there
1678 will be a small dialog with a list of all shortcuts. The filter set‐
1679 tings of the shortcut you select in this list will be overwritten with
1680 the currently active filter setting once you press the Update button.
1681 You can also use the Update & Edit button to jump directly into the
1682 filter edit dialog (see further above in this chapter)
1683 Note that while the shortcut edit dialog window is open, updates (as
1685 well as deletions or additions) will only affect the temporary list in
1686 the edit dialog window until you press the it's Save button. Also the
1687 list offered for shortcut updates consists of the shortcuts as they are
1688 defined in the temporary list. This allows to test your changes before
1689 you commit them.
1690 Note that a faster way to change a single shortcut is to use the con‐
1692 text menu, since it allows to skip this intermediate dialog.
1693
1695 By default the TV schedule contains for each programme "basic"
1696 attributes like its date, starting time, title, TV network in a pre-
1697 defined textual format. By using composite attributes you can custom‐
1698 ize the TV schedule according to your personal preferences. For exam‐
1699 ple you could (1) alter the display format of pre-defined attributes
1700 (e.g. use colors for highlighting), (2) add new attributes, for example
1701 with images as markers for favorite programmes and/or (3) compact dis‐
1702 play by combining several attributes into one.
1703 Composite attributes replace single attributes in the display (e.g.
1705 only the theme category column.) Newly created composite attributes
1706 will be appended to the list of pre-defined attributes. You can then
1707 configure your programme list as a mixture of pre-defined and composite
1708 attributes (see "CONFIGURATION: Select attributes")
1709 Composite attributes are created and edited via the Attribute composi‐
1711 tion dialog in the Configure menu (see "CONFIGURATION: Attribute compo‐
1712 sition")
1713 The "heart" of attribute composition is a list of filter shortcuts and
1715 reminder groups, which you build as a subset of your personal filter
1716 shortcuts and/or reminder groups (see also "FILTER SHORTCUTS" and
1717 "REMINDERS".)
1718 Whenever nxtvepg displays a composite attribute in the browser, it
1720 matches the programme's actual attributes (e.g. theme categories or
1721 assigned reminders) against the shortcuts and reminder groups associ‐
1722 ated which the respective composite attribute, in the given order (top
1723 to bottom in the dialog's list - so order is important). If a match is
1724 found, the text, image or attribute which was assigned to that specific
1725 shortcut match is displayed in the column with the format specified for
1726 this match. If none match (and there's no *no match* entry, see
1727 below), nothing is displayed in place of the composite attribute.
1728 Note in this context matching means that a shortcut's filters are tried
1730 against the TV programme, i.e. a programme "matches" a filter when it
1731 would remain displayed when you enable that filter shortcut in the main
1732 window. A reminder group is considered matching when the respective TV
1733 show is programmed as a reminder in that group (or matches a shortcut
1734 which is assigned to the given reminder group - but let's ignore that
1735 for now to avoid confusion.)
1736 Example: to create a personalized version of the Editorial rating (ER)
1738 column, you could create three shortcuts: one with the ER filter set to
1739 ">=6", one with ">=4" and one with ">=2"; then you'd create a new user-
1740 defined column and insert the three shortcuts in this order; to the
1741 first shortcut match you'd assign the text "great", to the second "ok"
1742 and to the third "bad". As a result you'd have a column where the
1743 numerical ratings are replaced with your texts.
1744 There is also a special entry at the end of the dialog's shortcut list
1746 called *no match*. It acts as a catch-all (i.e. wildcard) if none of
1747 the shortcuts in the column matches the current programme entry. In
1748 the above example this would be all programmes with an ER below 2 or
1749 without a rating.
1750 The catch-all is particularily useful to overlay standard columns with
1752 alternate texts for selected programmes. To stay with the ER example,
1753 you could define a column with two shortcut entries: ">=6" and
1754 "*no-match*". To the ">=6" shortcut match you could assign an image
1755 marker; to all other the "ER" attribute. Hence programmes with an ER
1756 >=6 (i.e. all "great" programmes) would have an image displayed and
1757 hence clearly stand out from all other programmes, which get the regu‐
1758 lar content of the ER column (i.e. the numerical rating or an empty
1759 column for unrated programmes).
1760 You can also use this machanism to combine several columns into one, to
1762 keep the listing compact. For example you can combine the ER column
1763 with the theme column, so that for movies with ER >= 6 the text "great
1764 movie" is displayed, for all others the regular theme description.
1765
1767 Reminders allow to mark TV shows which interest you and have nxtvepg
1768 mark them in the programme list and display a message or execute an
1769 external command when they start. You can select either individual
1770 programmes in the programme list or complete filter shortcuts, e.g. for
1771 TV series.
1772 To set a new reminder simply select it with the cursor in the programme
1774 list and choose Add reminder for selected title from the Reminder menu.
1775 The same command is also available in the context menu, i.e. by click‐
1776 ing on the selected title with the right mouse button. To remove the
1777 reminder, simply select the title again and choose Remove reminder for
1778 selected title.
1779 By default nxtvepg will display a message popup for every reminded pro‐
1781 grammme 5 minutes before and directly at the start time. You can
1782 change this in the Configure reminder groups... dialog described in a
1783 separate chapter below.
1784 If you want to set a reminder for an entire series, you need to create
1786 a filter shortcut first which matches the series (either by searching
1787 by series ID or by title). To reduce the overhead you can create a
1788 shortcut which matches all your favorite series and set a reminder for
1789 this collection. To assign a reminder to the shortcut use the Edit
1790 reminder list described in the next chapter.
1791 Note you can add a single reminder for entries which already match a
1793 shortcut reminders. This allows to assign an additional, specific
1794 action for that TV show (if you use different groups.) Additionally
1795 you can suppress handling of reminders for individual shows; this
1796 option if offered in the Reminder and context menus when applicable.
1797 This option may help to get around excessively complex or restrictive
1798 shortcut filters.
1799 By default nxtvepg has (in the single list layout) a column titled Mark
1801 which contains a red dot for all programmes which have a reminder reg‐
1802 istered, i.e. both single programmes and those which match shortcuts
1803 with associated reminders. You can also set a filter which will dis‐
1804 play only programmes with reminders in the proramme list by selecting
1805 Show reminder matches from the Reminder menu.
1806 Edit reminder list
1808 Opens a list of all reminders. Single programmes and shortcuts are
1810 listed in separate "tabs"; switch between them by clicking on the but‐
1811 tons at the top.
1812 The single programmes list is sorted by start time and network. When
1814 you double-click on a reminder, the respective network will be filtered
1815 for in the programme list and the cursor jumps onto the programme (if
1816 it's present in the current database.) To delete a reminder click on
1817 the Delete button or press the delete key on your keyboard. You can
1818 also select the reminder's "group" (see below) either by selecting a
1819 group in the popup menu from the Set group menubutton or by clicking
1820 with the right mousebutton into the group column.
1821 The list will normally not contain reminders for programmes which are
1823 already expired. You can use the Display popup menu at the right to
1824 change that. You can also include "suppressed" reminders, i.e. entries
1825 which where created via the respective entry in the main menu to
1826 supress shortcut matches; those will appear with the virtual suppress
1827 group in the list.
1828 When you switch to the Shortcuts tab, you'll see a list of all short‐
1830 cuts for which you have added reminders. The first time you open the
1831 dialog it will be empty. You can add shortcuts by selecting them from
1832 the popup menu at the right. Equivalently to single programmes you can
1833 change the group or delete the reminders again. All changes to the
1834 lists are immediately saved and the markers in the programme list
1835 updated.
1836 All changes you make in this dialog take effect immediately.
1838 Reminder group configuration
1840 Opens a configuration dialog for reminder groups. Every reminder is
1842 assigned to exactly one group which determines which actions are exe‐
1843 cuted at the programmes' start time. Having groups allows to change
1844 actions (and especially: disable them if you're not in the mood to
1845 watch TV) easily without having to edit every single reminder. When
1846 you create a new reminder with the simple "add reminder" menu command
1847 it will be assigned to group zero.
1848 By default nxtvepg has only one group which pops up a message 5 minutes
1850 before and directly at the start time. You can change this by select‐
1851 ing the group in the list at the left and then modifying the parameters
1852 at the right. Or create a new reminder by clicking New. You can also
1853 change ordering of groups (only available for your convenience; except
1854 for group zero ordering is not relevant.) The Show buttons sets a fil‐
1855 ter for the programme list so that only programmes matching reminders
1856 in the same group as the currently selected shortcut are displayed.
1857 At the top of the parameter input section is the Label entry field. It
1859 allows to give the group a name, which is then used in the reminder
1860 lists and in reminder confirmation messages. Below is a checkbutton
1861 called Temporarily disable all group events. While enabled all actions
1862 for that group are suppressed, i.e. you'll get no popup messages and
1863 scripts are not executed. Note this setting only applies to the current
1864 session and is reset when nxtvepg is restarted (you should clear the
1865 action lists if you want to disable reminder messages permanently.)
1866 The programmes are still marked in the listbox though.
1867 Further below is an entry field where you can give a list of comma sep‐
1869 arated values which define at which offsets reminder messages are dis‐
1870 played; offsets are substracted from the start time, i.e. when you
1871 enter "5" a message will appear 5 minutes before the programme's nomi‐
1872 nal start time. You can use negative values (e.g. "-5") if you want
1873 reminders to appear later than the start time. In addition you can set
1874 start times for commands. Commands are silently executed in the back‐
1875 ground, unless you enable Ask before executing script.
1876 Note configuration changes (including group additions or deletions) are
1878 not applied before you leave the dialog with OK.
1879 Reminder Messages
1881 Once the nominal start time of a "reminded" programme (minus the con‐
1883 figured time offset) is reached, a message window will appear. If
1884 there's more than one message triggered at the same time, or if you
1885 leave the window open and reminders for additional programmes are trig‐
1886 gered, they will all be collected in this window; in this case there's
1887 a cursor which determines to which reminders the controls explained
1888 below apply. When you press Ok all messages are marked as "done" and
1889 will not appear again. With a double-click or the Tune-TV button you
1890 can switch the channel of a connected TV application to the selected
1891 programme, just as in the main programme list.
1892 For message windows there's several buttons which allow to control fur‐
1894 ther reminder processing. Suppress will prevent any subsequent mes‐
1895 sages for the programme. (Note that this is not the same as suppress‐
1896 ing reminders in the main menu, since here you supress only messages
1897 but the programme remains marked as reminder). Repeat allows to sched‐
1898 ule additional reminder messages at arbitrary time offsets. Note that
1899 messages configured for the group are suppressed until the manual repe‐
1900 tition but will re-appear afterwards.
1901
1903 A quick way to select and deselect filters is by using the context
1904 menu, which opens when clicking with the right mouse button onto a pro‐
1905 gramme entry in the main browser window.
1906 This menu consists of several parts, separated by horizontal lines,
1908 which depend on the currently selected programme and hence are not
1909 always present.
1910 Undo currently selected filters
1912 The first section holds entries which allow disable currently
1913 selected filters either one by one or globally (reset). See also
1914 "FILTERING: Filter Types"
1915 Add new filters
1917 The second section offers a number of possible new filter options,
1918 which depend on the currently selected title and the already
1919 selected filters. The offered filter types include: themes and
1920 network of the selected programme title, it's series code, repeat
1921 or original transmission suppression (only in cunjunction with
1922 series or title text filters) and last but not least the title
1923 text.
1924 The title text and series filters allow to check very quickly for
1926 repeats of a programme. These filter options are included only if
1927 there is a match, i.e. if there's another programme with the same
1928 title or series code respectively.
1929 Add reminder
1931 This menu entry will add a reminder for the currently selected pro‐
1932 gramme. The reminder will have the default reminder group. To
1933 create reminders in different groups use Add reminder into group in
1934 the reminder main menu (see also "REMINDERS")
1935 User-defined entries
1937 The optional fourth section is empty by default, but can be used to
1938 invoke user-defined external commands on the selected programme.
1939 More precisely, you can execute any command with properties of the
1940 selected programme (like title or start time) on its command line.
1941 The user commands can be added via the Configure menu (see "CONFIG‐
1942 URATION: Context menu configuration").
1943
1945 Summary of commands available from the Control menu:
1946 Enable acquisition
1948 Toggles acquisition on or off. When you start the browser, acquisition
1950 is automatically enabled (although failure to do so is silently
1951 ignored). You can suppress automatic start with the -noacq command
1952 line switch. Switching off acquisition allows other applications (e.g.
1953 a teletext decoder) to use the TV card while you browse the database,
1954 if you have only one TV card.
1955 You will get an error message if the device is already busy by a dif‐
1957 ferent application (there are some applications which cooperate well
1958 with nxtvepg, but if in doubt you should quit all other video related
1959 applications before starting acquisition) or if you don't have permis‐
1960 sion to access the device (UNIX, see also "FILES") or to start the
1961 driver (Windows). If you're experiencing problems that might be hard‐
1962 ware or Operating System related, test with a TV application or tele‐
1963 text decoder first, because these usually allow for easier debugging
1964 (e.g. due to the visible TV image). See also "GETTING STARTED".
1965 UNIX: When acquisition is switched off, the /dev/vbi device is freed.
1967 Acquisition can also been switched on and off automatically (i.e. from
1968 a shell script) by sending signal HUP (e.g. with the kill(1) command)
1969 to any of the nxtvepg processes or threads. If you're using a daemon
1970 for acquisition (see the next command) you have to send the signal to
1971 one of the daemon processes/threads. To simplify this, the pid of the
1972 process which needs to be signalled is stored in /tmp/.vbi.pid while
1973 the device is in use.
1974 Connect to acq. daemon
1976 Connect to or disconnect from an acquisition daemon, running in the
1978 background on the same host, or somewhere else in the network. The
1979 address of the daemon and other parameters are configured in the
1980 Client/Server menu (see "CONFIGURATION: Client/Server"). By default
1981 the daemon is started on the local host. The main advantage of using
1982 the daemon is that you can keep running acquisition permanently in the
1983 background, even if you terminate the browser, or on UNIX even the X11
1984 server (i.e. the windowing system). On M$ Windows the daemon is termi‐
1985 nated when you log off.
1986 If you attempt to connect, but no daemon is running, you'll be offered
1988 the option to automatically start the daemon and retry the connect,
1989 provided you have configured server hostname localhost. The daemon
1990 will be started with the same database directory and rcfile as the
1991 browser.
1992 Note that disconnecting from the daemon or terminating the browser does
1994 not stop the acquisition and hence does not free the device. If that's
1995 what you want, choose the Enable acquisition command instead, which
1996 terminates the daemon. Of course this option only is available if your
1997 daemon is running on the same host and with the same user id as the
1998 browser process.
1999 Dump stream
2001 UNIX only: The contents of all incoming Nextview blocks are dumped to
2003 stdout in a free text format. This is mainly intended for developers,
2004 but it may also help to debug reception problems, because in the dump
2005 you'll find any block that could be decoded without hamming errors,
2006 even before an inventory block (AI) has been received. This may help if
2007 you have very bad reception, because it may take a long time until a
2008 error-free copy of the usually large AI block is received.
2009 When connected to a acquisition daemon, blocks are only dumped if they
2011 are new to the database or their content changed (because only those
2012 are forwarded by the daemon to the client.)
2013 Dump raw database
2015 Open a dialog that allows to dump all blocks in the database to stdout
2017 (UNIX only) or into the named file in a raw text format, which is actu‐
2018 ally the same as with the Dump stream command. This feature is mainly
2019 intended for developers. To understand all the infos in the text dump,
2020 you'll have to look at the source in epgui/epgtxtdump.c in the nxtvepg
2021 source package.
2022 The array of checkbuttons allows to control which kind of blocks will
2024 be written. The programme information blocks (PI) do contain the actual
2025 programme descriptions; Defective PI contains those PI which were not
2026 accepted into the database because of inconsistencies like a zero or
2027 overlapping running time. For an explanation of the other block types
2028 please see the ETSI specification 707.
2029 You can also export the database in this format via the command line by
2031 using option "-dump raw". In this case the options last used in the
2032 dialog are effective.
2033 Note that the data can also be exported directly from the command line
2035 by using -dump raw (see "OPTIONS")
2036 Export as text
2038 Open a dialog that allows to export the complete database into a text
2040 file. Each line in the file will represent one item in the database.
2041 The item's different fields are separated by TAB characters; the line
2042 is terminated by a single new-line character (no line feed character,
2043 even on Windows). In some cases missing values are represented by "\N"
2044 which is the MySQL NULL identifier (currently only used for the VPS/PDC
2045 field).
2046 The generated text file can be loaded directly into a relational data‐
2048 base. It's not formatted for viewing in a regular text editor. Net‐
2049 works and themes are represented as numerical indices into the network
2050 and themes table respectively. Hence these tables are required in
2051 addition to the programme table. To load them into a database, you
2052 need to export them into different files.
2053 For MySQL you could create the following tables:
2055 CREATE TABLE PI (
2057 netwop smallint(2) unsigned NOT NULL,
2058 Dstart date NOT NULL,
2059 Hstart time NOT NULL,
2060 Hstop time NOT NULL,
2061 vpspdc_pil datetime,
2062 prat tinyint(2) unsigned,
2063 erat tinyint(2) unsigned,
2064 sound enum("mono","2-chan","stereo","surround"),
2065 is_wide BOOL,
2066 is_palplus BOOL,
2067 is_digital BOOL,
2068 is_encrypted BOOL,
2069 is_live BOOL,
2070 is_repeat BOOL,
2071 is_subtitled BOOL,
2072 theme_0 tinyint(3) unsigned,
2073 theme_1 tinyint(3) unsigned,
2074 theme_2 tinyint(3) unsigned,
2075 theme_3 tinyint(3) unsigned,
2076 theme_4 tinyint(3) unsigned,
2077 theme_5 tinyint(3) unsigned,
2078 theme_6 tinyint(3) unsigned,
2079 title varchar(40) NOT NULL,
2080 descr text,
2081 PRIMARY KEY (netwop, Dstart, Hstart)
2082 );
2083 CREATE TABLE AI (
2085 netwop_idx smallint(2) unsigned NOT NULL,
2086 cni smallint(5) unsigned,
2087 lto_mins smallint(5),
2088 daycount smallint(5) unsigned,
2089 alphabet smallint(5) unsigned,
2090 addinfo smallint(5) unsigned,
2091 name text,
2092 UNIQUE netwop_idx (netwop_idx)
2093 );
2094 CREATE TABLE pdc_themes (
2096 theme_idx smallint(3) unsigned NOT NULL,
2097 cat_idx smallint(3) unsigned,
2098 name_eng text,
2099 name_ger text,
2100 name_fra text,
2101 UNIQUE theme_idx (theme_idx)
2102 );
2103 Note that the database can also be exported directly from the command
2105 line by using -dump pi, -dump ai or -dump pdc (see "OPTIONS")
2106 Export as XMLTV
2108 Open a dialog that allows to export the complete database in XML for‐
2110 mat, as defined by the xmltv.dtd version 0.5 (see <http://xmltv.org/>)
2111 The generated file contains both the channel table and the complete TV
2112 schedule, including any networks you might have suppressed from the
2113 listing inside nxtvepg.
2114 Hint: If you want to restrict the amount of exported data, configure a
2116 merged database. This is possible even for a single provider. This
2117 way you can exclude certain networks or attributes, e.g. to omit theme
2118 categories from the output (see the "Configure" sub-menu in the merge
2119 configuration dialog.)
2120 Some TV applcations are known to not parse XMLTV timestamps correctly.
2122 As a work-around for such buggy applications, there's an option which
2123 allows to export dates and times in local time instead of UTC (also
2124 known as Greenwhich Mean Time or GMT.) If all programme data appears
2125 shifted by one or two hours in your TV app's schedule, try this option.
2126 Note that the database can also be exported directly from the command
2128 line by using the -dump xml switch (see "OPTIONS").
2129 Export as HTML
2131 Opens a dialog that allows to export the complete database or selected
2133 programmes into a file in HTML format (Hypertext Markup Language) which
2134 can then be loaded into a WWW browser, e.g. Netscape or Opera. This is
2135 particularily useful if you want to print out TV descriptions.
2136 At the top of the dialog window you have to enter the output file name;
2138 if you don't include an extension, .html is automatically appended.
2139 Click on the little folder button to the right for a file selection
2140 dialog. Press the Export button to create the HTML document and Dis‐
2141 miss to close the dialog window.
2142 By default the checkbutton All matching programmes, but max ... is
2144 enabled. In this mode all programmes that match current filter setting
2145 will be exported, but only up the given number of programmes. It's rec‐
2146 ommended to limit the number of programmes because else very large HTML
2147 documents are created which may take a long time to load into your Web
2148 browser.
2149 Use mode Selected programme only to export only the programme which is
2151 currently selected in the main window. In combination with the Append
2152 to file mode this allows to incrementally build a document with exactly
2153 your programmes of interest.
2154 In the box below there are three radio buttons with which you can
2156 select the output format. If you choose Write titles you'll get a table
2157 in the same configuration as in the programme title list in the main
2158 window. If you want to have different column types, you can build a
2159 separate column configuration by selection Different columns than main
2160 window and then pressing the Configure button to select which column
2161 types to display.
2162 If you select Write descriptions you'll get for each exported programme
2164 a feature summary and description, similiar to the info in the lower
2165 part of the main window.
2166 If you select Write titles and descriptions you'll get the title table
2168 on top and all descriptions separately below. In this mode you can
2169 select Add hyperlinks to titles to add hyperlinks from titles in the
2170 table to the descriptions.
2171 The look of the generated document is almost entirely determined by use
2173 of an internal CSS stylesheet. If you don't like the look you can over‐
2174 ride it with your own stylesheet. Save it to a file named nxtvhtml.css
2175 and put it in the same directory as the generated HTML file. For more
2176 information on HTML and style sheets see <http://www.w3.org/>. If your
2177 column configuration contains images (see "COMPOSITE ATTRIBUTES"), you
2178 have to put them into a subdirectory called images; also your browser
2179 has to support the PNG image format.
2180 View statistics/timescales
2182 The following four commands are used to open windows with statistics
2184 about the databases and acquisition progress. See "STATISTICS" for
2185 details.
2186 View timescales
2188 Toggles the timescale window for the browser database. The window
2189 reflects for each network included in the selected database, which
2190 time ranges are covered by programme information. If acquisition is
2191 working on the database, you can watch how more and more of the
2192 scales get covered. See also "STATISTICS: Status line"
2193 View statistics
2195 Toggles the browser database statistics window, which informs you
2196 about number of program entries in the database, fill percentage,
2197 expiration percentage, date of last update etc. If the acquisition
2198 is working on the same database, it also contains information about
2199 state and progress of acquisition. See also "STATISTICS: Timescale
2200 popup windows".
2201 View acq timescales
2203 Toggles the timescale window for the acquisition database. This
2204 entry is only available if the acquisition uses a different data‐
2205 base than the browser (e.g. when using a manual or cyclic acquisi‐
2206 tion mode, see "DATA ACQUISITION")
2207 View acq statistics
2209 Toggles the acquisition statistics window, which informs you about
2210 state and progress of acquisition. If the acquisition control mech‐
2211 anism switches to a different database, the acq statistics window
2212 will automatically follow.
2213 Quit
2215 Close all windows and terminate the application. If you have started
2217 acquisition as a daemon, it will not be terminated (see "CONTROL: Con‐
2218 nect to acq. daemon").
2219
2221 Summary of commands available from the Configure menu:
2222 Select provider
2224 Open the provider selection dialog. This dialog lists all TV channels
2226 from which Nextview data can be received. When you select a channel
2227 name on the list, you'll see the name of the Nextview service that's
2228 transmitted there and a list of all networks covered by it on the
2229 right.
2230 If you leave the dialog with Ok, the selected provider's database will
2232 be loaded into the browser. If the database hasn't been updated for a
2233 long time, the programme list might initially be empty, but if you have
2234 selected "Follow-UI" acquisition mode, the provider's TV channel will
2235 be tuned to update the database content (see "ACQUISITION MODES" for
2236 more details.)
2237 To remove obsolete providers (i.e. such which have ceased to provide
2239 Nextview service or which you can no longer receive), you should start
2240 a provider scan in refresh mode (see "CONFIGURATION: Provider scan")
2241 You cannot remove active providers even if you're not interested in
2242 their EPG information, because nxtvepg would add them back automati‐
2243 cally in the next scan or when their TV channel is tuned externally.
2244 Merge providers
2246 Open a dialog that allows to merge several databases into one. See
2248 "MERGED DATABASES" for details.
2249 Acquisition mode
2251 Open a dialog that allows to control the background acquisition
2253 process. See "ACQUISITION MODES" for more details.
2254 Teletext grabber
2256 Note this is still an experimental feature. Support is still limited to
2258 German networks and configuration options are limited.
2259 Open a dialog which allows to enable and configure the teletext EPG
2261 grabber. The grabber works by cyclically tuning all TV channels, load‐
2262 ing the TV overview teletext pages (e.g. 301-309 in Germany) and build‐
2263 ing a small database from them. For titles which contain references to
2264 other teletext pages, the grabber loads these pages too and extracts
2265 descriptions from them. Finally the grabber's output is written into
2266 separate files in XMLTV format.
2267 The main intention of the grabber is to improve on the data provided by
2269 Nextview EPG. The main disadvantage of teletext compared to Nextview
2270 is the long time it takes to grab teletext. The cause for the long
2271 duration is that most TV networks use sub-pages in their TV-schedules,
2272 so that it takes several cycles until all parts of a given page are
2273 loaded, usually at least 90 seconds. Assuming only 30 TV networks, the
2274 total load time is already 45 minutes. Another difficulty encountered
2275 by the teletext grabber is the lack of a standardized format for the
2276 schedules. Hence the data extraction cannot always work correctly. In
2277 particular the capabilities to extract theme categories and additional
2278 attributes are very limited. But these disadvantages can be compen‐
2279 sated by merging teletext EPG with a Nextview EPG database (see "MERGED
2280 DATABASES")
2281 To be able to use the grabber, you have to install a programm called
2283 "Perl" on your PC. Perl is included within virtually every UNIX and
2284 Linux installation, so you probably already have it if you use one of
2285 these operating systems. If not, you'll probably find it in section
2286 "programming languages" on your distribution's CD or DVD. M$-Windows
2287 users have to download and install Perl manually (from
2288 <http://www.activestate.com/Products/ActivePerl/?mp=1> or
2289 <http://www.cygwin.com/>) and then specify the path to perl in the con‐
2290 figuration dialog. (Alternatively you can extend your "PATH" environ‐
2291 ment variable so that perl.exe is automatically found.)
2292 By the default, the grabber is disabled since it's still experimental.
2294 To enable it, check the box at the top of the configuration dialog. If
2295 you haven't configured a TV application yet you'll get an error mes‐
2296 sage, since the grabber requires a TV channel table. The grabber will
2297 retrieve EPG data starting with the first channel listed in the TV
2298 app's channel table, and then switch through one-by-one. Currently you
2299 cannot change the order or skip any programmes, but you can limit the
2300 number of channels in the configuration dialog.
2301 Note: When acquisition mode "Cyclic: Now - All" is selected (see
2303 "ACQUISITION MODES") the grabber uses an optimized strategy during the
2304 "Now" stage in which waiting times are minimized by changing the order
2305 in which EPG data is read. This way the grabber requires about 15-20
2306 seconds per channel in average. In the "Full" stage the grabber waits
2307 for the time given after capture duration in the configuration dialog;
2308 by default that's 90 seconds (such a large value is required because
2309 programme descriptions are often transmitted on so-called "sub-pages"
2310 which are not included in every teletext cycle.)
2311 To use the grabbed data you have to wait until each channel has been
2313 visited at least once. After that you should see an XML file for each
2314 TV channel in the nxtvepg directory (named "ttx-XXX.xml" where XXX is
2315 the TV channel name.) These files will appear in the provider selection
2316 and merge dialogs and can then be used just like Nextview EPG
2317 providers.
2318 Provider scan
2320 Open a dialog that allows to start a scan across all TV channels for
2322 Nextview transmissions. You should perform this search at least once,
2323 firstly to find out which providers are available in your area, and
2324 secondly to determine the TV frequencies of all EPG providers. Those
2325 are required for most acquisition modes, and due to driver limitations
2326 often not available without a scan (e.g. on Windows or Linux with bttv
2327 driver <= 0.7.50). Note that the provider scan only works if you use
2328 the internal tuner as input source. See also "GETTING STARTED" and the
2329 subsequent chapter on TV card configuration.
2330 If you live in France, select the French frequency table (which implies
2332 the Secam L TV norm) to be used for the EPG scan; else use the default
2333 frequency table which covers common cable network frequencies in West‐
2334 ern Europe with the PAL TV norm. Other countries are not supported,
2335 since there currently are no Nextview providers. If you live in an
2336 area where you receive both PAL and SECAM stations, you should perform
2337 the EPG scan twice with different channel tables.
2338 The Use TV app. button is automatically checked if an xawtv configura‐
2340 tion file is found in your home directory (on UNIX) or a TV application
2341 was set up in the TV app. interaction dialog. Instead of searching all
2342 possible TV channels or frequencies in all bands, nxtvepg then just
2343 checks the TV channels defined there, which usually saves a lot of time
2344 and is also more reliable.
2345 Check the Slow button if you have bad reception on some channels. In
2347 slow mode the scanner will not skip channels with "unstable" video sig‐
2348 nal (i.e. no PLL H-lock within 0.150 seconds) and wait twice as long as
2349 normal for everything, i.e. up to 4 seconds for a VPS/PDC channel iden‐
2350 tification and up to 90 seconds if potential EPG data packets were
2351 found. Note that you can change this setting while the scan is run‐
2352 ning.
2353 Use the Refresh only mode if you deleted your database files (or if you
2355 upgrade from an incompatible software version) or if you want to iden‐
2356 tify or remove obsolete providers. In this mode only the channels on
2357 which Nextview data was received before are checked (the frequencies
2358 are kept both in the databases and your rc/ini file). This allows to
2359 regain your complete provider selection very quickly. If no data trans‐
2360 mission is found on a provider's channel, a Remove this provider button
2361 will be added to the output window, which you can use after the scan
2362 has finished to remove the database and any information recorded about
2363 the provider. Note that removal will fail if the database is currently
2364 in use, so you may have to stop acquisition and select a different
2365 provider.
2366 Technical background information on how the EPG scan works: The scan
2368 will visit every physical TV frequency (or subsets thereof if you use
2369 one of the options described above) and check for a TV signal. If one
2370 is detected within 150 ms or if at least one teletext packet was
2371 received, the scan waits up to two seconds for a valid VPS/PDC channel
2372 identification. At the same time it receives packets from all poten‐
2373 tial EPG teletext page addresses. If valid data packets have been
2374 received (which does not necessarily mean it's EPG, because other ser‐
2375 vices could use the same encoding) the scan waits up to 45 seconds for
2376 EPG inventory messages (BI and AI blocks). You can watch these proceed‐
2377 ings in the message output window.
2378 Even though the scan tries very hard, it can not warrent that every EPG
2380 provider is found every time. For example some providers do have pauses
2381 of more than 45 seconds in their EPG transmission; or they might have
2382 technical problems. So the safest way is to check the nxtvepg web site
2383 (see About in the Help menu) for a list of known Nextview EPG
2384 providers. If you receive TV channels for which a provider is listed,
2385 repeat the scan until they are found, e.g. at different times of the
2386 day. If you find new providers not listed on the web site, please
2387 write a note in the discussion forum on the web site.
2388 TV card input
2390 Open a dialog where the TV card hardware parameters can be configured.
2392 This dialog contains more options on Windows than on UNIX platforms
2394 because on UNIX the driver is part of the operating system, whereas on
2395 Windows it's part of the application and has to be configured sepa‐
2396 rately for every application. Hence, before you can use nxtvepg you
2397 must firstly decide between using the internal "dsdrv" driver and the
2398 card vendor's WDM driver; secondly, if using "dsdrv", you need to con‐
2399 figure the driver for your hardware in the Configure card sub-dialog.
2400 Please refer to "GETTING STARTED" for a detailed description of these
2401 steop.
2402 Video source allows to choose which video input source to use, i.e.
2404 where you have connected an video input cable to the TV card: Tuner or
2405 Television refer to input via antenna cable (also known as RF cable,
2406 i.e. terrestrial reception or cable TV); Composite refers to a cinch
2407 video cable as used by satellite receivers or cheap video records;
2408 S-Video is an variant of Composite with improved image quality (often
2409 wrongly called S-VHS cable since it's mostly used by S-VHS video
2410 recorders) and easily recognized by the Sub-D connectors (called "Hosi‐
2411 denstecker" in German). Depending o your hardware you may only see a
2412 sub-set of these input types, or additional ones (e.g. Radio, which
2413 will obviously not work as input for nxtvepg.)
2414 Note if you don't choose a TV tuner as input nxtvepg will not be able
2416 to automatically switch to your EPG provider's channel. See also "DATA
2417 ACQUISITION".
2418 If you have more than one TV tuner card, you can also choose which one
2420 to use, just like with the -card command line option (see "OPTIONS")
2421 The popup menu will list all card types as configured in the driver.
2422 Note that changing the card may also affect the input selection, in
2423 particular if the cards use a different ordering for input types.
2424 The slicer quality option selects between different algorithms by which
2426 teletext is extracted from the analog video signal. The simple algo‐
2427 rithm works only for excellent TV reception, but has the advantage of
2428 using very little CPU resources. The elaborate algorithm (copied from
2429 zapping's libzvbi and originally developed for the Linux teletext
2430 viewer alevt) is much more error tolerant. When you select automatic
2431 acquisition will always start with the simple algorithmm but switch to
2432 the elaborate one when the transmission error rate is above recommended
2433 limits (see also "STATISTICS: Acquisition statistics").
2434 Windows only: at the bottom of the dialog window there are additional
2436 options, which you only need to try if acquisition does not work cor‐
2437 rectly.
2438 If you experience data loss due to heavy system load, you can raise the
2440 acquisition thread priority (may require special privileges on certain
2441 Windows versions.) Default is normal, i.e. the same as for all user
2442 applications.
2443 The second checkbutton allows to enable logging during driver startup
2445 and shutdown. The output is appended to a file named dsdrv.log in the
2446 nxtvepg working directory. Enable this option if you're not able to
2447 start the driver and cannot find out why. But first see the explana‐
2448 tion of driver error messages in the README file. Note that the log‐
2449 ging option is not remembered across program starts, i.e. to make use
2450 of it you have to enable the acquisition via the Control menu and not
2451 by restarting nxtvepg.
2452 The third option currently only applies to CX23881 based cards: it
2454 allows to disable a vendor's WDM driver for the same card. This is a
2455 work-around for the fact that CX23881 WDM drivers are known to access
2456 the TV card even while no application is using them. You should only
2457 use it as a last resort, i.e. when you can't get the card to work at
2458 all. It's still an experimental feature, some users have reported that
2459 their card configuration was lost or WDM drivers remained disabled even
2460 after nxtvepg was stopped (in both cases other applications will proba‐
2461 bly not work properly anymore.) You can verify if the WDM drivers are
2462 cause of acquisition problems by de-installing them, rebooting and then
2463 trying nxtvepg again (note nxtvepg doesn't require any vendor supplied
2464 drivers.)
2465 Client/Server
2467 Opens a dialog that allows to configure the connection between browser
2469 and an acquisition daemon (i.e. a separate instance of nxtvepg which is
2470 running in server mode, see -daemon command line switch in "OPTIONS")
2471 The daemon allows to forward all newly acquired EPG data to one or more
2472 connected browsers and to monitor the it's acquisition progress.
2473 The dialog contains settings of which some refer to the server-side
2475 only, some to the client-side only and some to both server and client.
2476 To avoid confusion, there are three radio buttons at the top of the
2477 dialog which allow to grey out items that do not refer to the client or
2478 server respectively. Note: for server configuration changes to take
2479 effect, the daemon must be restarted. If it's running locally, you can
2480 do this via the Control menu (see "CONTROL: Connect to acq. daemon")
2481 Enable remote control
2483 Note: this feature is not yet implemented. By enabling remote-
2484 control you can stop acquisition, change acquisition mode, TV
2485 card parameters or any parameters configured by this dialog in
2486 a running daemon via the network connection.
2487 Enable TCP/IP
2489 By enabling connections via the TCP/IP network protocol, you
2490 allow connections from remote hosts. Since there's currently
2491 no access control in nxtvepg, these hosts can be anywhere in
2492 your network, or anywhere in the world if you're connected to
2493 the Internet. If you don't have a firewall which prevents
2494 incoming connections of untrusted hosts, this mode is highly
2495 depreciated, because nxtvepg is not in any way secured against
2496 malicious client connections.
2497 Note: on Windows currently only TCP/IP is supported, i.e. you
2499 have to enable this option if you want to start the daemon.
2500 Server hostname
2502 Client-side only: this setting identifies the host on which the
2503 daemon is running. You can enter either a hostname in "dot.com"
2504 format or an IP address in "127.0.0.1" format. If you set it
2505 to localhost the connection is automatically established via
2506 UNIX domain sockets (i.e. pipes), which is more efficient than
2507 TCP/IP. You can still use TCP/IP locally if you set it to the
2508 name of your local host, as returned by hostname(1).
2509 Server TCP port
2511 If TCP/IP is enabled, this setting tells server and client
2512 which port to use. You can enter an arbitrary number between
2513 1024 and 65535 here, but you have to make sure no other server
2514 is using the same port. Make sure you configure the same port
2515 number for client and server. The default is 7658.
2516 Bind IP address
2518 If TCP/IP is enabled and your server host has more than one IP
2519 address, you can select here on which one to listen for incom‐
2520 ing connections. Make sure you use the same IP address as
2521 server hostname on client-side, or a hostname that resolves to
2522 that IP address. This setting is optional; if you leave the
2523 field blank (default) the server will bind to all IP addresses.
2524 Note: on systems that support it, TCP/IP sockets are created in
2526 the IPv6 domain (PF_INET6) by default. On some systems (e.g.
2527 NetBSD) you cannot connect via IPv4 to an IPv6 server and vice
2528 versa, i.e. you need to use the same domain on both ends. If
2529 your client only supports IPv4, you can force your server to
2530 create an IPv4 socket by binding to an IPv4 address. If you
2531 fail to connect to a local IPv6 server via the IPv4 loopback
2532 address 127.0.0.1, use the IPv6 equivalent "::1".
2533 Max. connections
2535 This setting limits the number of client connections the server
2536 will allow. Once the limit is reached the server will reject
2537 further connection attempts.
2538 Log filename
2540 If you enable log generation by the following option, you can
2541 choose here where the log will go. Make sure the file is
2542 writable to the uid under which the daemon process is running.
2543 The file opened and closed for each appended log line (usually
2544 there's very low traffic into that file) so you can operate on
2545 it (e.g. truncate it) without restarting the daemon.
2546 File min. log level
2548 Here you can choose if log information should be written to a
2549 file. If you run nxtvepg with TCP/IP disabled, you don't need
2550 to use logging; but if you allow remote connections you should
2551 keep log files at "info" level to be able to check which hosts
2552 connect to your server.
2553 The following settings are available: "no logging" disables
2555 logging; "error" enables logging of internal errors that lead
2556 to an immediate exit of the daemon; "warning" additionally
2557 enables logging of unexpected events, i.e. internal errors
2558 which do not lead to exit; "notice" additionally enables log‐
2559 ging of server status changes, i.e. startup and shutdown;
2560 "info" additionally enables logging of connection establishment
2561 or shutdown.
2562 Syslog min. level
2564 Here you can enable or disable logging to UNIX syslog and Win‐
2565 dows application event logging (application name is nxtvepg
2566 daemon; this feature is not supported by Windows 95). See UNIX
2567 man pages syslogd(8) and syslog.conf(5) or the Windows event
2568 log help for details about the syslog facility. The log levels
2569 you can choose here are the same as described in the previous
2570 paragraph for logging to files.
2571 Note that while network mode is enabled configuration of acquisition
2573 mode and TV card input has no effect and no EPG scan is possible. If
2574 you use the same rc/ini file for daemon and GUI the changed settings
2575 will however be used by the daemon upon the next start.
2576 TV application interaction
2578 Opens a dialog that allows to configure the interaction between a TV
2580 application and nxtvepg. You should at least configure your TV appli‐
2581 cation type and path here if you're using one of the supported applica‐
2582 tions; this is a recommended step during the initial installation to
2583 speed up the EPG provider search, as described in "GETTING STARTED".
2584 The first four (only three on UNIX) options allow to switch interaction
2586 features on or off. If you want to improve startup time on UNIX, turn
2587 them all off; in this case nxtvepg does not need to search for the
2588 xawtv toplevel window (which can take up to several seconds if you have
2589 many applications running or a slow connection to your X server.) By
2590 default all interaction features are enabled.
2591 General enable
2593 Windows only: the option allows to disable or re-enable the alloca‐
2594 tion of communication resources, and implicitly to switch off or on
2595 all interaction features. While disabled, nxtvepg will be invisible
2596 for the TV application. The use of this option is depreciated, as
2597 nxtvepg won't automatically free the driver when the TV application
2598 is started, and nxtvepg will fail to start acquisition when a TV
2599 appliaction is running. Use this option only if you suspect com‐
2600 patibility problems between the TV app and nxtvepg, e.g. if one
2601 application hangs or crashes during startup if the other is already
2602 running. (Not that such behavior is to be expected, but it's better
2603 to be prepared for anything.)
2604 Tune TV button
2606 This option hides or shows the equally named button below clock in
2607 the nxtvepg main window. If you're not interested in remote-con‐
2608 trolling the TV application, switch it off.
2609 Note the button has a little context menu which opens with right
2611 mouse button. It contains several remote controls; which one actu‐
2612 ally work depends on the TV application.
2613 Cursor follows channel changes
2615 While this option is enabled, nxtvepg will monitor TV channel
2616 changes. Whenever such a change is detected, the cursor in the pro‐
2617 gramme listbox will be set onto the title currently running on that
2618 network. During EPG acquisition VPS/PDC is used to exactly deter‐
2619 mine the current programme (only on networks which support
2620 VPS/PDC); however if the nominal running time is in the past it's
2621 currently not possible to display the programme in the listbox.
2622 This info may however be sent to the TV app (see next option).
2623 If you have just a network filter enabled, it will be switched to
2625 the new network so that you'll get a complete listing of that net‐
2626 work's programmes, starting with the currently running one. This
2627 works even when you have excluded this network in the network
2628 selection configuration. If there are more or other filters than
2629 network enabled, then they will remain unchanged. If the current
2630 programme on the new network does not match this filter setting,
2631 then neither cursor nor listbox content will be changed.
2632 Display EPG info in TV app
2634 While this option is enabled, nxtvepg will monitor TV channel
2635 changes. During EPG acquisition VPS/PDC are also monitored to
2636 determine newly starting programmes. VPS/PDC also allows to detect
2637 channel changes on an external input source, e.g. a satellite
2638 receiver connected via the Composite socket.
2639 After a change of channel or current programme title, the info
2641 about the currently running title will be displayed in the TV
2642 application. On Windows it's entirely up to the TV application how
2643 this information is displayed.
2644 On UNIX the display format can be selected by the following radio
2646 buttons:
2647 With Separate popup nxtvepg will generate a small popup window and
2649 put it right beneath the xawtv window. The blue area in the small
2650 bar on top represents how much of the (nominal) running time lies
2651 in the past. With Video overlay nxtvepg will generate a similar
2652 popup, however it's placed on top of the video image (please note
2653 that this option only works properly with XFree86 version 4 and the
2654 XVideo extension; use the xvinfo command to check if your server
2655 supports this feature). You can change fonts and colors in this
2656 popup via X resources (see "FILES" for details.) Video overlay, 2
2657 lines is the same except that it writes running time and title in
2658 separate lines and additionally contains the percentage of expired
2659 running time. With Xawtv window title the info will be sent to
2660 xawtv and displayed in the window title. Except for this last
2661 option, you can configure the desired display duration with the
2662 slider at the bottom of the dialog. A duration of zero means the
2663 display will never be removed. Finally, with Use external applica‐
2664 tion an arbitrary external application can be invoked to display
2665 the information. Title and runtime information can be passed on the
2666 command line, in the same way as for external commands in the con‐
2667 text menu (see "CONFIGURATION: Context menu configuration")
2668 In the middle of the dialog there's one line that indicates the current
2670 TV application connection status. It contains the name of the con‐
2671 nected application, or not connected either if no TV application is
2672 running or if it doesn't support interaction with nxtvepg (see also
2673 "GETTING STARTED: Configuring a TV application".) You can connect to
2674 different applications than configured below, but if the network names
2675 are not synchronized with nxtvepg, the interaction will not work opti‐
2676 mally (i.e. nxtvepg might not be able to identify all networks, and
2677 hence not be able to provide programme titles).
2678 In the lower part of the dialog window you can configure type and path
2680 of your preferred TV application. This information is used to access
2681 the TV app's channel table (i.e. TV tuner frequencies and station
2682 names) during an EPG provider scan (see "CONFIGURATION: Provider scan")
2683 and in the network name configuration dialog (see "CONFIGURATION: Net‐
2684 work names").
2685 After you've changed the setting, you can press the Test button to
2687 check if nxtvepg can parse the channel table correctly. It will com‐
2688 plain if it fails to open the file or registry key and if no channels
2689 are found. After the test was successful, you shoud open the network
2690 names configuration dialog and synchronize network names with nxtvepg.
2691 If your TV application is not supported, choose none. (If it's a free‐
2693 ware application feel free to mail me a download URL and I will con‐
2694 sider supporting it. However I will not support proprietary closed-
2695 source software, unless on request by the author.)
2696 Note that not all of the TV applications listed in the popup menu can
2698 currently interact with nxtvepg. The interaction requires modifica‐
2699 tions in the TV applications; it's up to the respective authors if they
2700 want to implement these. (If you are an author of a TV app, feel free
2701 to mail me if you want to add EPG support to your application; a demo
2702 application and reference implementation source code are available on
2703 the nxtvepg home page.)
2704 Select attributes
2706 Open the programme attribute display configuration dialog, which allows
2708 to select which attributes are displayed for the listed TV programmes.
2709 In the listbox on the left of the dialog window there's a list of all
2710 available attribute categories, e.g. title, running time, weekday, TV
2711 network name, ratings, ... i.e. mostly the same which are available for
2712 filtering. You can create your own attributes to extend this list with
2713 the dialog described in the next chapter.
2714 The listbox on the right contains the types currently selected for dis‐
2716 play. The topmost entry appears on the left side of the listbox.
2717 Press Apply to refresh the browser listbox with the new column selec‐
2718 tion and save the new configuration to the config file.
2719 In the "single list" layout (see "CONFIGURATION: List layout") each
2721 attribute has it's own column in the TV schedule and and associated
2722 filter menu in the button on top of the column (provided column headers
2723 have not been disabled, see "CONFIGURATION: Show/Hide".) You can
2724 change the width of each column by moving the mouse pointer to the very
2725 right of the menu button and then dragging the border to a new position
2726 while keeping the left mouse button pressed down.
2727 In the "spearate network columns" layout attributes are printed beneath
2729 each other in separate lines in the TV schedule's network columns,
2730 unless you select No new line after element while the respective
2731 attribute is selected in the right listbox. Empty rows are automati‐
2732 cally suppressed, e.g. in contrary to the "single list" layout the num‐
2733 ber of attributes actually displayed may vary. This is particularily
2734 useful for user-defined attributes, e.g. you could specify that theme
2735 categories are only printed for movies to keep the listing more com‐
2736 pact.
2737 Attribute composition
2739 Open the configuration dialog for composite attributes, which allows to
2741 create new column types for the "single list" TV schedule layout (see
2742 "CONFIGURATION: List layout") or new rows respectively in the "spearate
2743 network columns" layout, which can afterwards be selected in addition
2744 to the predefined attribute types (e.g. "Title" and "Theme") as
2745 described in the previous chapter.
2746 For a general description of composite attributes see "COMPOSITE
2748 ATTRIBUTES". This chapter only describes usage of the configuration
2749 dialog. This chapter also assumes you're familiar with the concept of
2750 filter shortcuts (see "FILTER SHORTCUTS") and reminders (see
2751 "REMINDERS")
2752 The dialog consists of three sections: at the top to the right there is
2754 a drop-down menu which lists all currently defined composite
2755 attributes. Here you select which attribute definition you want to
2756 edit. Below to the left is a list of shortcuts and reminder groups and
2757 4 buttons to edit the list. On the right side of the shortcut list
2758 there are various controls for defining how programmes matching short‐
2759 cuts or reminder groups should be displayed.
2760 Note that there are dependencies between those sections: when you
2762 change to a different attribute definition with the drop-down menu at
2763 the top, the rest of the dialog is immediately updated to display the
2764 current definition of the composite attribute (you'll get a warning if
2765 there any unsaved changes in the previous assignments). Also, when you
2766 select a shortcut in the listbox, the display attributes at the right
2767 are updated.
2768 To create a new composite attribute, you will start by selecting the
2770 Create new definition command in the menu at the top right of the dia‐
2771 log window. You should give the label right away, so that you can keep
2772 your definitions apart, see "CONFIGURATION: Select attributes". You
2773 should also assign a column header text (only used in the "single list"
2774 layout), which will appear above the programme list in the main windiw;
2775 you'll probably use a shorter text here than in the label.
2776 Then you add one or more filters to the list by use of the Add shortcut
2778 or Add reminder drop-down menus to the left of the listbox. New entries
2779 are always appended at the end of the list, but you can change the
2780 ordering by use of the up/down arrow buttons. To remove a shortcut or
2781 reminder group from the list, first select it then click the Delete
2782 button or key. Note: ordering is important when a programme is matched
2783 by more than one shortcut, or if you mix shortcuts with reminder
2784 groups, because the display format will be determined by the first
2785 matching entry in the list, strting at the top (see also "COMPOSITE
2786 ATTRIBUTES".)
2787 At the right of the shortcut list there are controls which defines
2789 what's displayed in the programme list depending on a shortcut or
2790 reminder match (for programmes which don't match any of the given
2791 shortcuts nothing will be displayed, unless you have a *no match*
2792 entry.) By default a match is displayed as the name of the matching
2793 shortcut or reminder group, but you can easily change that with the
2794 controls to the right of the listbox. The choices are: freely defined
2795 but static text, one of the pre-defined images or one of the pro‐
2796 gramme's attributes (i.e. if you select Time the programme's start time
2797 will be displayed).
2798 In case you chose to use text (including attributes), you can select
2800 bold, underlined or overstrike font and the text color. For all types
2801 you can also select a background color. Colors can be applied either
2802 just to the user-defined attribute itself, or the entire column (in
2803 single list layout; or the entire element in grid layout) The resulting
2804 appearance is shown in a Text sample above the controls. These display
2805 options can be configured separately for every shortcut match. An
2806 exception is the entire-column background color; if such a format is
2807 found in multiple attributes, the last one counts.
2808 When you want to try out your attribute definition, press the Apply
2810 button at the bottom. The definition is saved and the browser content
2811 is updated. If the attribute is not currently used in the browser,
2812 you're offered in a popup message to automatically append the attribute
2813 to the TV schedule. You can later change it's position by using the
2814 Select attributes configuration dialog.
2815 There's also a Delete button at the bottom which allows to remove obso‐
2817 lete definitions. If the composite attribute is still displayed in the
2818 browser, it's automatically removed. Note that a deletion cannot be
2819 undone, i.e. the information is lost irrecoverably.
2820 Select networks
2822 Open the network selection dialog. It allows to permanently suppress TV
2824 networks in a provider's listing, e.g. if you can not receive the chan‐
2825 nel. You can also change the order of the networks, e.g. to put your
2826 favorite networks at the top of the filter menus.
2827 This window has two lists: on the left you'll find all networks that
2829 are covered by the provider in their original order, on the right those
2830 that are selected for the programme listing in your preferred order. By
2831 default, both lists will have exactly the same content. If you want to
2832 exclude networks, select them in the right list and press Delete. You
2833 can always include them again by selecting them in the left list and
2834 pressing Add. You can change the order in the right list by selecting
2835 one or more networks and pressing the up or down arrows.
2836 At the bottom of the dialog window there's an entry field named Air
2838 times that allows to limit the program listing for a network to a given
2839 time frame. For example if you receive Arte only from 19:00 until 07:00
2840 o'clock, select "Arte" either in the left or right list, then enter
2841 "19:00" and "07:00" in the fields (make sure to always use 4 digits and
2842 the separating colon). Programmes that fall completely outside that
2843 window will not appear in the browser window. If you want to undo the
2844 limitation, enter 00:00 until 00:00 or any other equal time values.
2845 Note: you can also operate this dialog (and all other dialogs with sim‐
2847 ilar listbox selections) with he keyboard: use the TAB key or the mouse
2848 to move the keyboard input focus to the left or right listbox. Use the
2849 cursor up/down keys to select an item; hold down SHIFT to select multi‐
2850 ple items. In the left list, press Return to add a network to the
2851 right list. In the right list, press the Delete key to remove a net‐
2852 work, or press CONTROL and the up/down cursor keys to change the
2853 selected items' position in the list.
2854 Network names
2856 Open the network names configuration dialog. It's main purpose is to
2858 synchronize the network names between nxtvepg and your TV application.
2859 This is required because the network name is used in communication when
2860 you use the Tune TV remote controls, and as well for channel change
2861 notifications by the TV applications. For many networks there will be
2862 no need to change anything, but for some there exist different vari‐
2863 ants, e.g. in Germany "Super RTL" vs. "S-RTL" or "MDR3" vs. "MDR".
2864 If you're not using UNIX, you first need to select which TV application
2866 you want to synchronize with and where the configuration files are
2867 located. This is done in the TV app. interaction dialog in the Config‐
2868 ure menu (see "CONFIGURATION: TV application interaction").
2869 Another use of this dialog is to make network naming consistent across
2871 all Nextview providers. The names you specify here will be used in the
2872 programme listbox and all filter menus, independently of the provider.
2873 On the left side of the dialog you find a list of all networks of all
2875 known Nextview providers. The names used here are the ones you config‐
2876 ured before, or if you haven't done so yet, the names that match the
2877 station names of your TV application best. Unmatched names are marked
2878 red. If no TV application is configured, the network names used by
2879 your currently selected EPG provider are used.
2880 On the right side, you're offered four ways to change the name: topmost
2882 is a simple entry field where you can type in an arbitrary name. Below
2883 is a popup menu which contains all network names defined in your TV
2884 app.'s channel table. Below is a button which contains the one name in
2885 your TV app.'s channel table which resembles the current string in the
2886 entry field most, or none. It's marked red until it's identical to the
2887 entry field. You can copy the name to the entry field by clicking the
2888 button. Below is a listbox with the original names used in the various
2889 provider databases. When you select a name from the menu or the list‐
2890 box, it will be copied into the entry field and the network name list
2891 on the left. If you want to save the changed list, leave the dialog
2892 with Save, else use Abort.
2893 Note: if you receive channels that carry multiple networks, e.g. in
2895 Germany "Arte / Kinderkanal", it's recommended to include all networks'
2896 names in the network name on side of the TV application, separated by a
2897 slash. The slash is recognized as separator by nxtvepg and all result‐
2898 ing segments can be used as network names.
2899 Context menu configuration
2901 Open the context menu configuration dialog which allows to change the
2903 order of automatically generated menu entries or to extend the popup
2904 menu with user-defined external commands (for a general description of
2905 the context menu see "CONTEXT MENU").
2906 At the top of the dialog window there's a list of titles of all cur‐
2908 rently defined menu items. When you open the dialog for the first
2909 time, you'll see only pre-defined "pseudo commands" (such as "Add pro‐
2910 gramme filters".) These don't show up like that in the context menu,
2911 they just represent menu commands which are automatically inserted in
2912 their place at run-time, depending on the currently selected programme
2913 entries and current filter settings (e.g. to add a filter for the net‐
2914 work of the curently selected programme.)
2915 As usual, you can change the ordering of items in the list by selecting
2917 an item and then clicking the buttons with up/down arrows. To remove
2918 an entry, select it and press Delete. If you make an error you can
2919 leave the dialog with Abort; changes aren't applied and saved until you
2920 leave the dialog with Ok.
2921 The Add new menu button allows to insert a new menu item below the cur‐
2923 rently selected one:
2924 External command
2926 Start an external application with the given command line parame‐
2927 ters. This is equivalent to typing a command into a UNIX shell or
2928 using Run command in the Windows Start menu. Command line parame‐
2929 ters may use variable substitution as described below. To allow
2930 sharing the same nxtvepg configuration file on UNIX and Windows,
2931 there are different types, i.e. UNIX or Windows. Commands are only
2932 included in the context menu if the platform matches the command
2933 type.
2934 The dialog's entry field labeled Title defines the text which will
2936 be included to the popup menu. The field labeled Command defines
2937 the command line
2938 TV application remote command
2940 Send the given command line to an attached TV application, e.g. to
2941 switch TV channels. Variable substitution can be used here, too.
2942 How the command is sent depends on the TV application; when no TV
2943 app. is connected, such entries are automatically disabled (see
2944 also "CONFIGURATION: TV application interaction") For example
2945 setstation ${network}
2947 would create a command that switches the TV app's channel to that
2949 of the currently selected programme (i.e. the same what the Tune TV
2950 button does). You should refer to the documentation of your TV app
2951 to see which commands it supports.
2952 Menu title and Menu separator
2954 These can be used to organize the menu contents into groups. In
2955 case of menu titles, the dialog's entry field labeled Title defines
2956 the text which will be included to the popup menu.
2957 Add/Undo programme filters
2959 This menu entry will be replaced by automatically generated com‐
2960 mands to manipulate filter settings. See "CONTEXT MENU" for
2961 details.
2962 Add/remove reminder
2964 This menu entry will be replaced by automatically generated com‐
2965 mands to manipulate the reminder list. There are two versions of
2966 the entry: if you select the extended version, an additional entry
2967 will be included which allows to select reminder groups (only use‐
2968 ful if you're using multiple groups, see also "REMINDERS".)
2969 When you press the menu button Add Example a list pops up which con‐
2971 tains a few example commands which can be copied into the title and
2972 command entry fields.
2973 As mentioned above, external commands and TV app. remote commands allow
2975 to include placeholders enclosed in ${} which are replaced by
2976 attributes of the programme selected in the browser listbox at the time
2977 the context menu command is invoked. The following is a list of such
2978 formal variables The meaning of the variables should be self-explana‐
2979 tory, except possibly for CNI: this is a hexadecimal network code, and
2980 e/p_rating: these are editorial and parental ratings respectively.
2981 ${title}
2983 ${network}
2984 ${start}
2985 ${stop}
2986 ${relstart}
2987 ${duration}
2988 ${CNI}
2989 ${description}
2990 ${themes}
2991 ${VPS} or ${PDC}
2992 ${e_rating}
2993 ${p_rating}
2994 ${sound}
2995 ${format}
2996 ${digital}
2997 ${encrypted}
2998 ${live}
2999 ${repeat}
3000 ${subtitle}
3001 Start and stop time related keywords can optionally be followed by
3003 either a plus or minus sign and a time offset. The offset value is
3004 assumed to be given as minutes. For relstart and duration the preci‐
3005 sion can be changed by means of the format (see below.) Example: to
3006 print the start time minus 5 minutes (e.g. to start a recording 5 min‐
3007 utes earlier) use "${start-5:%H:%M}"
3008 The keywords can optionally be followed by a colon and an output format
3010 specification. Options depend on the type of variable substitution:
3011 Start, stop and VPS/PDC times
3013 All options defined in the strftime(3) manpage are available;
3014 default is %H:%M-%d.%m.%Y (hour, minute, day, month, year).
3015 Relative start time and duration
3017 You can choose between minutes (default) and seconds by appending
3018 "m" or "s".
3019 Theme categories
3021 You can choose between numerical and textual output by appending
3022 "n" or "t". Use command line option -dump pdc to get a list of
3023 theme categories (see "OPTIONS".)
3024 For all other variables modifiers are currently ignored.
3026 On UNIX the resulting substrings which replace the formal variables are
3028 always enclosed in single quotes, because the command line is passed to
3029 a system shell for execution (/bin/sh, i.e. the Bourne Shell by means
3030 of the system function; see also system man pages sh or bash) and there
3031 are many characters with special meaning. Single quotes inside he sub‐
3032 stituted string are correctly escaped.
3033 Example: The command line
3035 plan ${start:%d.%m.%Y %H:%M} ${title}
3037 could for example on UNIX systems result in
3039 plan '22.08.2001 13:05' 'Käpt'\''n Blaubärs Seemannsgarn'
3041 On Windows only single- and double quotes and spaces characters are
3043 escaped with a backslash. Hence the above example would result in:
3044 plan 22.08.2001\ 13:05 Käpt\'n\ Blaubärs\ Seemannsgarn
3046 Note if you want to prevent the backslash inbetween date and time (if
3048 the called program doesn't understand it), you can simply use two sepa‐
3049 rate substitutions for date and time. Example:
3050 plan ${start:%d.%m.%Y} ${start:%H:%M} ${title}
3052 Themes language
3054 Select the language for programme themes (i.e. content category, see
3056 "FILTERING") in the main window and the filter menu. By default it's
3057 set to automatic; in this case the language is derived from the
3058 selected provider's database. Please note that the language of the
3059 menus, help etc. currently can not be changed from English.
3060 Show/Hide
3062 Toggle visibility of various components in the main window:
3064 Show shortcuts
3066 Toggle visibility of the shortcut listbox at the left of the pro‐
3067 gramme list. When you unmap both the shortcuts list and the net‐
3068 work list below, the clock and reset buttons are also unmapped so
3069 that you get only the programme list.
3070 Show networks (left)
3072 Maps or unmaps the network filter listbox below the shortcuts list,
3073 or below the clock if you've unmapped the shortcuts list.
3074 Show networks (middle)
3076 Maps or unmaps the network filter listbox between shortcuts listbox
3077 and programme list.
3078 Show layout button
3080 Maps or unmaps the Grid layout checkbutton below the shortcuts or
3081 network list in the main window (see also "CONFIGURATION: List lay‐
3082 out"). If you're permanently using one or the other layout, you
3083 will probably want to unmap this button. (It's mainly present to
3084 make users who upgrade from older versions aware of this new
3085 option.)
3086 Show status line
3088 Maps or unmaps the database and acquisition status line at the bot‐
3089 tom of the browser window.
3090 Show column headers
3092 Maps or unmaps the browser listbox column header menubar, i.e. the
3093 row of menu buttons above the programme list in single list layout.
3094 Show weekday scale
3096 Maps or unmaps the weekday scale to the right of the programme
3097 list. (Note you can configure the looks, i.e. font, colors, width
3098 and date format via the resource file "nxtvepg.ad" or ".Xdefaults"
3099 on UNIX, see "FILES")
3100 Hide on minimize
3102 Windows only: When this option is enabled, the main window's entry
3103 in the task bar is removed when it's minimized or when the program
3104 is started with the -iconic command line switch. Instead an icon
3105 is added to the system tray in the task bar. A double-click on the
3106 tray icon deiconifies the main window. A click with the right
3107 mouse button opens a little popup menu. The entries in this menu
3108 have the same meaning as the equally named ones in the control menu
3109 (see "CONTROL").
3110 List layout
3112 Select layout of the programme list in the main window:
3114 Single list for all networks
3116 This is the original layout (the only layout until nxtvepg version
3117 2.4) in which all programmes of all networks are presented in a
3118 single list, sorted by start time.
3119 Separate columns for each network
3121 In this layout programmes are still sorted by start time, but pre‐
3122 sented in separate columns for each network. Schedules of differ‐
3123 ent networks are aligned, so that programmes which run at the same
3124 time are approximately at the same height.
3125 You can join several columns in a single column via the Control
3127 menu (meant for networks which share the same channel; use this in
3128 conjunction with air times restriction as described in "CONFIGURA‐
3129 TION: Select networks".) The control menu is part of the drop-down
3130 menu below the button at the top of the column. This menu also
3131 holds commands to increase or decrease the number of visible col‐
3132 umns.
3133 In both layouts you can select which types of attributes are printed
3135 for each programme by clicking on the icon in the button row at the top
3136 of the list (unless column header buttons are hidden.)
3137
3139 Files used on UNIX systems
3140 $HOME/.nxtvepgrc
3142 Configuration file where all personal settings are stored. Per
3143 default this is created in your home directory, but a different
3144 path and file name can be specified with the -rcfile option (see
3145 "OPTIONS").
3146 /usr/tmp/nxtvdb/nxtvdb-####
3148 Directory containing one file for each provider's database. The
3149 path can be changed with the -dbdir command line option (see
3150 "OPTIONS"). Note that the path can also be configured during com‐
3151 pilation of the software, so if you downloaded a binary version of
3152 this package the path may be different. The current default set‐
3153 ting can be queried with the -help command line switch.
3154 The last 4 digits of the file names are the hexadecimal CNI (Coun‐
3156 try and Network Identifier) of the provider.
3157 /usr/share/nxtvepg/xmltv-etsi.map
3159 This file is used when importing EPG data from XMLTV file to map
3160 XMLTV channel identification strings (i.e. the name given in the
3161 <channel id="..."> XML tags) to ETSI channel identification num‐
3162 bers. If a file with the same name is in the current working direc‐
3163 tory, that one is used instead.
3164 /dev/vbi0, /dev/vbi1, etc.
3166 Device files from which Nextview data is being read during acquisi‐
3167 tion. The index postfix can be specified with the -card command
3168 line option (see "OPTIONS"). You must have read/write access to
3169 these files; by default this is not the case for many Linux distri‐
3170 butions for security reasons (since you might have connected a Web‐
3171 Cam and mike and someone could spy on you from remote). However on
3172 a single-user system it's safe to make them world-readable and
3173 writable, i.e. in a root shell enter:
3174 chmod 666 /dev/vbi
3176 Alternatively you can make yourself a member of a group in
3178 /etc/groups which has access to the devices or create such a group.
3179 /dev/video0, /dev/video1, etc.
3181 On Linux kernel series 2.4 and earlier (i.e. before revision #2 of
3182 the video4linux API) these device files are used to select the
3183 input source (e.g. TV tuner or one of the composite or S-Video
3184 sockets) and tuner frequency for VBI reception, unless you choose
3185 the passive acquisition mode. The index postfix can be specified
3186 with the -card command line option. This device must be readable
3187 and writable.
3188 The device is only kept open during a provider search (see "CONFIG‐
3190 URATION: Provider scan"). Else, it's just opened shortly to set
3191 the input source and tuner frequency. If the device is busy (e.g.
3192 while you watch TV), acquisition starts on the currently selected
3193 channel and automatically follows any externally controlled changes
3194 (this will be reported, e.g. in the status line at the bottom of
3195 the browser window, as forced passive acquisition mode, see "STA‐
3196 TISTICS: Status line").
3197 Note: it's mandatory that the video device has the same index as
3199 the VBI device. If you have a video device at index 0 which does
3200 not support teletext (a webcam, for example) the VBI device belong‐
3201 ing to video device #1 may appear at index 0. You should force the
3202 driver to assign device index #1 to the VBI index. On Linux this
3203 is possible by using insmod parameters in /etc/modules.conf, e.g.
3204 for bttv:
3205 options bttv video_nr=1 vbi_nr=1
3207 /dev/v4l/vbi0, /dev/v4l/video0
3209 If you have enabled devfs in your Linux kernel, the VBI and video
3210 devices will appear in a subdirectory. nxtvepg automatically
3211 detects the existance of this directory and will search the devices
3212 there instead of the regular paths.
3213 /dev/dvb/adapter0/demux0
3215 This device is used when option -dvbpid is present.
3216 /tmp/.vbi0.pid, /tmp/.vbi1.pid, etc.
3218 This file contains the PID of the nxtvepg process (or the acquisi‐
3219 tion slave process unless threading is used) whenever a VBI device
3220 is kept open. The process can be forced to free the device by send‐
3221 ing it signal SIGHUP, e.g. from a wrapper script around a teletext
3222 decoder. An example which works with all shells:
3223 kill -HUP `cat /tmp/.vbi0.pid`
3225 Note that the daemon is not kept alive when acquisition is dis‐
3227 abled, so that sending HUP to the daemon equals sending TERM. You
3228 can restart acquisition by starting a new daemon. The browser
3229 attempts to reconnect every 10 seconds when the connection was bro‐
3230 ken, but you can also trigger an immediate reconnect be sending the
3231 GUI process SIGHUP.
3232 To restart acquisition in non-daemon mode, signal again with
3234 SIGHUP, either to the acquisition slave process or the browser
3235 process.
3236 /tmp/nxtvepg.0
3238 This non-regular file (socket) is created by the daemon to allow
3239 local client connections via UNIX domain sockets. The same socket
3240 can be used for more than one client connection. It's deleted when
3241 the daemon terminates (unless the daemon crashes or receives an
3242 uncatchable signal like the infamous signal 9 aka KILL). See also
3243 "CONTROL: Connect to acq. daemon".
3244 $HOME/.xawtv
3246 This file belongs to the TV viewer xawtv. It's not required or cre‐
3247 ated by nxtvepg. But if it exists, it will be used in the EPG scan
3248 (for a fast scan mode where only the channels defined in this file
3249 will be checked) and in the network name configuration dialog. See
3250 also "CONFIGURATION: TV application interaction".
3251 $HOME/.Xdefaults
3253 This file is usually loaded into the X server at startup (or during
3254 login) by use of the xrdb command. It contains a series of parame‐
3255 ter assignments called X resource definitions for any number of
3256 applications. Note: depending on your X11 startup scripts this
3257 file may have a different name, e.g. .Xresources. The file could
3258 be used to change the "look" of almost every element in every dia‐
3259 log window (within limits, because some options are hard-coded) or
3260 the look of entire widget classes, like menus or buttons. However
3261 that's highly implementation dependent and generally not very use‐
3262 ful, hence depreciated.
3263 Defaults for all officially supported options are listed in the so-
3265 called "app-defaults" file Nxtvepg.ad which is usually installed in
3266 /usr/X11/lib/X11/app-defaults (the .ad extension is omitted during
3267 installation.) You should not change values there however, because
3268 they would be overwritten when you install new versions. Instead
3269 copy changed lines into your .Xdefaults file (without the leading
3270 comment ! sign.) Note you have to restart nxtvepg for changes to
3271 take effect. When X11 is already running you can override individ‐
3272 ual settings with xrdb like this:
3273 echo "nxtvepg*text_bg: #E9E9EC" | xrdb -merge
3275 Color values can specified either symbolically (e.g. "red") or as
3277 hexadecimal RGB values in #RRGGBB format. A special case are the 7
3278 colors for weekday background colors in the main window's date
3279 scale: it's resource value consists of a comma separated list of 7
3280 colors.
3281 Fonts must be specified as triplets of family, size (use negative
3283 values to specify the size in pixels and positive values for sizes
3284 given in points) and appearance (only "normal" or "bold" are recom‐
3285 mended). Lines starting with a ! sign are treated as comment and
3286 hence ignored. Entries that do not adhere to this syntax are
3287 silently discarded.
3288 Files used on Windows systems
3290 nxtvepg.ini
3292 Configuration file where all configuration and personal preference
3293 settings are stored. By default this is created in the working
3294 directory, but a different path and file name can be specified with
3295 the -rcfile option (see "OPTIONS").
3296 xmltv-etsi.map
3298 This file is used when importing EPG data from XMLTV file to map
3299 XMLTV channel identification strings (see UNIX section above for
3300 details.)
3301 Nxtvepg.ad
3303 Allows to change the application's appearance, i.e. colors and text
3304 fonts. The format and content of the file is identical to the
3305 .Xdefaults file described in the UNIX section.
3306 nxtv____.epg
3308 One file for each provider's database is created in the working
3309 directory or the one given with the -dbdir command line option (see
3310 "OPTIONS"). The last 4 digits of the file base names are the hexa‐
3311 decimal CNI (Country and Network Identifier) of the provider. You
3312 must not change the name of this file, or nxtvepg will refuse to
3313 load the database.
3314 vbi_map.dat
3316 This hidden file is used to set up shared memory to allow informa‐
3317 tion exchange between nxtvepg and an attached TV application. It's
3318 automatically removed when nxtvepg terminates and should never be
3319 accessed (i.e. being written to or removed) by external applica‐
3320 tions. The file is not created when TV app. interaction is dis‐
3321 abled (see "CONFIGURATION: TV application interaction").
3322
3324 For in-depth information about Nextview please refer to the specifica‐
3325 tions ETS 300 707 (data structures and basic principles), ETS 300 708
3326 (transmission protocol) and ETR 288 (code of practice). These specs are
3327 available from <http://www.etsi.org/>
3328 You can also have Nextview directly inside your television set - check
3330 out the catalogues of Grundig, Loewe, Metz, Sony, Philips, Thompson,
3331 Telefunken or Quelle Universum. However be aware that not all models do
3332 support the same set of Nextview features.
3333
3335 Under Windows there's a risk of system crash ("blue screen") when the
3336 application is terminated by force, e.g. via the task manager. This is
3337 unavoidable because in this case there's no chance to stop the driver
3338 and hence the TV card continues to capure data into RAM. In normal
3339 operation this should be very unlikely because all software exceptions
3340 (e.g. page faults) and shutdown messages are caught and the driver then
3341 stopped before the exit.
3342
3344 Feel free to mail any bug reports to me, but please make sure that (a)
3345 you have the latest version of this software, (b) it's not already in
3346 the TODO file and (c) it's not just an error in your provider's EPG
3347 transmission. And note that I've got no telepathic capabilities, so
3348 please be comprehensive in describing your problem. See the README file
3349 for instructions on which information must be included in a bug report.
3350
3352 Th. "Tom" Zoerner "tomzo (at) users (dot) sourceforge (dot) net"
3353 The best way to provide feedback is via the discussion forum at the
3355 nxtvepg homepage.
3356 Many thanks to Néo for providing the installer for MS-Windows releases
3358 and for the French translation of several web pages; to Kurt Lettmaier
3359 and Olaf Nöhring for the German translation of the manual; to Thierry
3360 Ménétrier and Peter Rolf for their valuable feedback and suggestions;
3361 to Simon Barner for the FreeBSD port; to Matthieu for the French trans‐
3362 lation of PDC theme descriptors; to E-nek for the DScaler driver port
3363 and cooperation in develepment of the TV application interaction; to
3364 John Adcock for the DScaler driver; to Jan Schuster for beta testing
3365 nxtvepg 0.7.0; to Mario Kemper for the NetBSD port and early beta test‐
3366 ing; to "Mario's brother" for beta testing the first Windows port; to
3367 Gerd Knorr for xawtv and maintaining the Debian and SuSE nxtvepg pack‐
3368 ages; to Ralph Metzler for his teletext decoder; to Edgar Toernig for
3369 the Latin-1 conversion tables in alevt; and last but not least to the
3370 authors of bttv and v4l for their excellent work, and the authors of
3371 the Cygwin GNU and XFree86 port, without which nxtvepg would never have
3372 been ported to M$ Windows.
3373
3375 Copyright (C) 1999 - 2008 by Th. Zoerner. All rights reserved.
3376 Additional copyrights apply to portions of the code herein. Please see
3378 file COPYRIGHT and source file headers for details.
3379 This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
3381 under the terms of the GNU General Public License Version 2 as pub‐
3382 lished by the Free Software Foundation, e.g. at <http://www.fsf.org/>
3383 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
3385 WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of mer‐
3386 chantability or fitness for a particular purpose. See the file COPY‐
3387 RIGHT for more details.
3388nxtvepg 2.8.1 (C) 1999-2008 Tom Zoerner NXTVEPG(1)