nxtvepg - Decoder, Browser and Analyzer for the Nextview Electronic Programme Guide
nxtvepg [ options ] [ database ]
nxtvepg is an X11 and Win32API application to decode, analyze and browse TV programme schedules transmitted on analog TV channels as defined in ETS 300 707: ``Protocol for a TV Guide using electronic data transmission'' by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute.
The Nextview standard was developed for use in TV sets, but the data can be received and used in a PC, too - provided you have a Teletext capable TV tuner card and are lucky enough to have a Nextview content provider in your country.
nxtvepg enables you to obtain free TV programme listings for all of the major networks in Germany, Austria, France and Switzerland. Currently Nextview EPG is transmitted by the following TV networks (note that each of these EPGs cover not only the provider's programme but also that of many other networks):
For up-to-date information check the nxtvepg homepage in the Internet (see the About popup in the Help menu). If you don't receive any of the channels listed above, you can only use the demo mode as described with the -demo command line option.
Summary of command line options:
For M$ Windows users this option may be esp. helpful when nxtvepg is started from inside the Auto start group and Hide on minimize is enabled: nxtvepg then will start almost invisibly in the background, only with an icon in the system tray of the task bar.
If you're using an acquisition daemon, the browser must be configured to use the same directory as the daemon. If the daemon is running on a different host, you need to mount the remote directory, e.g. via NFS.
The daemon always creates a named socket in the /tmp directory (UNIX only) plus optionally a TCP/IP socket to allow connects by browser processes. While connected, the browser receives updates for opened Nextview databases and reports about the acquisition progress; if left unconnected, the browser listing might be incomplete or outdated.
It's important to note that the browser must use the same -dbdir directory, because the daemon forwards only deltas to the database files stored in that directory. For more details see CONFIGURATION: Client/Server.
UNIX Warning: for security reasons it's depreciated to run the daemon with root privileges, because nxtvepg has not been reviewed yet for possible exploits. If you want to start the daemon already during system startup, you should use su(1). Also note that you'll probably need to specify -rcfile because the $HOME environment variable might not be (correctly) defined. Example:
su nobody -c "/usr/local/bin/nxtvepg -daemon \
-rcfile /usr/local/etc/nxtvepgrc"
The only way to stop the daemon is to send it a signal, i.e. kill it with SIGTERM. For more details see CONTROL and FILES.
Three mode keywords are understood: pi to dump programmes (i.e. the complete schedules), ai to dump the provider's network table, pdc to dump the PDC theme table.
The output is written to stdout unless you redirect it into a file or pipe it into another program. Note to Windows users: since nxtvepg is not a console application, no stdout is available, i.e. it's output will be discarded by the operating system unless you redirect it. For example you could enter the following command in the shell (or ``MS-DOS prompt''):
nxtvepg -dump ai -prov dc7 > networks.txt
to write the network table of provider 3sat (CNI 0xdc7) into a file called networks.txt.
After the options you can add a database filename. This is equivalent to specifying -dbdir and -provider. The provider CNI is taken from the file name. If the file name does not have the format as defined in FILES, it's assumed to be a demo database and loaded just as with the -demo option. The database filename argument silently overrides any previously given options.
This is particularily useful for users of graphical file managers (like the Windows Explorer) who can just drag and drop a database file onto the executable. When used on Windows systems the working directory is set to the one that contains the executable, because the Explorer seems to set it to the user's desktop root, so that none of the DLLs and drivers are found.
Note to Windows users: all these options - unless otherwise noted - are available in the Win32 version too. You can supply the options either from a ``MS-DOS'' command prompt or batch file, or by appending them to the executable in a shortcut definition.
Before you can start reading in TV programme schedules (called acquisition from here on), you have to do just a few configurations. Which ones depends on your setup and will be described in this chapter. As long as your browser window contains no data, there's also a recommondation how to get to data in the browser window, highlighted by a yellow background.
This manual describes all features of nxtvepg in detail. You do not have to read all of it at once to operate the software. However it's recommended to skim at least through BASIC BROWSING, DATA ACQUISITION and FILTERING.
Windows users first have to configure the driver for their TV card in the 'TV card input' dialog from the Configure menu (for more in-depth information see also CONFIGURATION: TV card input). UNIX users can skip this section.
The easiest way is to copy the values of your favorite TV application. nxtvepg can read the INI files or registry of the following freeware programs: DScaler, K!TV, MultiDec, MoreTV, FreeTV. After selecting a TV app in the drop-down menu, you need to specify the directory where the software is installed in the entry field below (i.e. the directory which contains the .INI file, except for MoreTV and FreeTV which use the central Windows registry to store their parameters); click the folder icon on the right to get a browser window for directory selection.
Finally press the Load config button. If loading succeeds, the three parameters in the middle box of the dialog window have been set, i.e. input source, tuner type and PLL initialization. Note that the TV application type and directory configured here are also used by the EPG scan and the network name dialog to obtain a channel table.
If nxtvepg cannot load your TV app's configuration, you should open your TV app's card configuration dialog and look up the tuner and PLL settings used there, and then set them manually in nxtvepg. Otherwise the only way to figure out which tuner your card is using is to open your PC case and search for a label on the metal tuner box on the TV card, or try all the tuners in nxtvepg's list.
Some hints for figuring out your settings: if you live in Germany, Austria or Switzerland you probably have a PAL tuner, in France it's one of the SECAM types. (If you select the wrong tuner, you can have either no reception at all or no reception just on a few channels.) The correct value for PLL initialization with PAL and SECAM cards is either No init or 28 MHz. (If you select the wrong value you have no reception at all.)
If you're not sure about your configuration, start with the topmost and then try them one after each other and start an EPG scan inbetween (see below) to check if the tuner works. If you have one of the TV applications listed above make sure to keep the Use TV app freq. button enabled; this way only well known channels are visited, and you can monitor in the output window if there is reception on these channels (however only networks which transmit VPS/PDC can be identified with their network name).
If you have problems see README for more details and a list of error messages from the Windows driver.
Before nxtvepg can start acquiring EPG data, it must be told if the video feed is provided by your TV card's internal TV tuner (if you're connected to your city's TV cable network or a terrestrial antenna) or an external source (usually satellite receivers connected via Composite or S-Video cable). This can be configured in the TV card input dialog in the Configure menu (for more in-depth information see also CONFIGURATION: TV card input).
By default nxtvepg assumes input via TV tuner. This is the preferred mode of operation, since nxtvepg can change channels between multiple Nextview providers, while with an external source you have to switch channels manually (see also DATA ACQUISITION). If you're living in France you should tell nxtvepg to use the French channel table (which implies using the Secam TV norm instead of PAL B/G/I); this information is required for the next step: the EPG scan.
If you cannot use the TV tuner but have instead connected a satellite receiver through the Composite or S-Video input, select the respective setting in the video input drop-down menu. Then close the dialog with Ok and open the aquisition mode configuration dialog from the same menu. There you should change to the external mode: in this mode nxtvepg will switch to the configured video input channel during startup of acquisition, but afterwards expect you to tune in a Nextview provider's channel at the external video source. To load all provider's inventories in the way the EPG scan does, you have to tune in all provider channels (for a list see the intro of this manual or the Internet homepage) and wait until the status line changes from ``starting up'' to ``working on''.
Note that you can also connect your satellite receiver via antenna cable. However this variant is highly depreciated, because the signal is often degraded so much that nxtvepg is not able to decode the EPG data stream any more. But if you still want to go that route, you'd keep the tuner as input source and start an EPG scan to find the channel your receiver is transmitting its signal on. Make sure to disable the Use .xawtv option in the provider scan dialog, unless your satellite receiver's channel (i.e. the frequency onto which the satellite signal is modulated) is defined as an input channel in xawtv. Before you start the EPG scan you need to tune in a Nextview provider's channel. The scan will only find that one provider. If you want to load all providers you have to continue manually as described above. For an acquisition mode it's recommended to stay with Follow browser database. Although nxtvepg will not be able to actually ``follow'' your provider selection with the acquisition since it can't switch the TV channel at your external input, this mode will tell nxtvepg to set the TV tuner onto your receiver's channel (see also ACQUISITION MODES for more details.)
This section only applies if you chose to use your TV card's internal tuner. In this case the next step to get started is to run a provider scan from the Configure menu. During the scan all TV channels are checked for Nextview transmissions and a list of Nextview providers is built from the result.
You can speed up the scan by using a TV application's channel table; in this case the scan is limited to TV frequencies defined in the TV app's channel table. This mode is enabled with the Use TV app freq. table checkbutton. It's checked by default if you have loaded your TV card parameters from a TV application's INI file. If you want to load the channel table from a different application use the TV app. interaction dialog described in the next chapter.
At the end of the scan there's a short summary which tells you how many providers have been found. If there were any, you can close the dialog window and open the provider selection dialog from the Configure menu and select you favorite one. Then wait a little while the provider's TV channel is tuned and data being loaded.
If the provider scan does not find any or not all Nextview provider channels (possibly due to weak reception - this is a very simple scan that does not attempt any fine-tuning) enable the Slow button and try again. If this does not help, you can still add the missing providers manually. set the acquisition mode to external or passive (UNIX only). Then use an external application to tune the channel (Windows users have to stop acquisition first; then start the TV application; then tune the channel; then quit the other application; finally start acquisition again).
In external mode nxtvepg will not touch the tuner and wait infinitly for Nextview reception on the current channel. On Windows (and Linux with bttv drivers version 0.7.50 and earlier) this method has the disadvantage that no channel number or frequency will be known for this provider so you have to tune the provider's channel manually whenever you start acquisition.
Acquisition of a complete database takes about 20 minutes. However programmes that are nearer in the future are available much faster, since they are transmitted more often. The currently running and directly following programmes of all networks are usually available after about 2-3 minutes max.
nxtvepg can cooperate in three ways with TV applications:
The first two are passive features, i.e. only nxtvepg needs to be adapted to the respective TV applications. The third one however requires cooperation of both sides. For this reason the number of TV applications for which the passive features are supported will always be much larger. On Windows the interaction features are still under development and currently only supported by a developer's version of K!TV.
On UNIX only xawtv is supported currently. With xawtv all the features listed above are supported.
On Windows several freeware TV applications are supported for the passive features; you must select which one you're using. If you've loaded TV card settings from a TV app in the TV card input dialog, then the TV app type and path is already configured. Else, or if you want to use a different app as source for the channel table, open the TV app. interaction dialog (see also CONFIGURATION: TV application interaction).
Regarding the third, the active feature: You can check if nxtvepg is able to interact with a specific TV application by starting both, and then opening the TV application interaction dialog in the Configure menu. In the middle of the dialog window the connection status is indicated. In most cases however unsupported TV application will already fail to start with a message like ``TV card already in use'' or ``Couldn't load Bt8x8 driver''. Only with cooperating TV apps nxtvepg is able to automatically free the card when the TV app is started (TV viewing is always given priority over EPG data acquisition.)
After setting up the TV app type and path, you should open the Network name configuration dialog to synchronize network names between nxtvepg and the TV app. Even if interaction is not possible, it may still be a good idea to have the same network names in both applications. See CONFIGURATION: Network names for details.
The browser mainly consists of two windows: the upper one contains a list of programme titles, sorted by start time. All currently running programmes (or rather: all programmes that should be running according to their start time) are marked by a light blue background color. One line in the list is selected by a cursor; the lower window contains the attributes and description for this selected title. The amount of information available here depends entirely on the content provider.
The basic browsing of programme information works very straight-forward. You can either use the mouse or the keyboard cursor keys:
With the mouse, you can click on any title to select it and display its description in the lower window. With a double-click you open a popup window with a summary of all attributes known for that title. See FILTERING on how to use those for filtering. Use the scrollbar to scroll the listing forward to programmes farer in the future.
With the keyboard, use the Cursor up/down keys to select any title. For fast scrolling use the page up/down keys. With the Home key you always get back to the first title. With TAB and SHIFT-TAB you can move the keyboard input focus to other widgets, e.g. to the network and shortcut lists; to apply a selected theme or shortcut as filter press the Space or Return key. The first 10 shortcuts can also be enabled directly from the main window with the digit keys 1-9 and 0. Control-C in the main window opens the context menu; Control-F opens the text search dialog; the Escape key is equivalent to the Reset button. The menus can be accessed by pressing the ALT key together with the underlined character in the respective menu button.
When you resize the main window vertically the difference in height will be added to the info text window at the bottom. You can adjust the proportions between program listbox and the info text with the ``panning'' button inbetween, i.e. by dragging the button you can resize the program listbox.
nxtvepg can interact with TV applications (e.g. xawtv on UNIX; requires initial setup, see GETTING STARTED) to provide a connection in both directions: Firstly you'll find a Tune-TV button in the main window below the clock. When you press it, the network of the currently selected programme will be tuned in the TV application. With the right mouse button you can also pop up a small menu which offers basic TV controls. Secondly, when you change the channel in the TV application, the cursor in the nxtvepg main window will automatically jump onto the programme currently running on that network. For more details see CONFIGURATION: TV application interaction
At the bottom of the window there is a status line which informs you about the state of the browser database and background acquisition. It's basically a very dense summary of the Statistics popups from the Control menu and is especially useful to warn you about the database age or stalled acquisition.
Note: For most providers it holds true that programme content descriptions (i.e. the texts in the lower nxtvepg window) are available only for currently running programmes and those whose start time is very close. This time span for full coverage can be as short as 2 hours, or 3 titles per network. As a consequence you should enable data acquisition as often as possible; consider running the acquisition daemon permanently in the background. For details on the acquisition process see the following chapter.
As long as acquisition is enabled, programme titles are constantly being acquired or updated in the background. You will notice that all incoming programme information is instantly inserted to the programme listing. Every effort is taken to not alter the cursor position or title selection, except if the cursor is on the very first item - then the cursor stays on top.
By default, the acquisition always works for the provider whose database you have loaded into the browser. Therefore, upon program start or whenever you switch providers, the TV tuner is set onto the frequency of the provider's TV channel. Please note that this mode is only possible after a provider scan, because that's the only way to find out the frequencies. Check out ACQUISITION MODES for more sophisticated acquisition strategies.
If you do not choose the TV tuner as input (e.g. if you choose an external source via the Composite or S-Video input sockets), or if the TV tuner is kept busy by another application (UNIX only, e.g. if you watch TV) data is still being acquired, but it's no longer possible to automatically change the TV channel. Hence you are resposible for selecting the channel of the provider who's database you want to load or refresh. If a transmission belonging to a different provider than the one selected in the browser is detected, a second database is automatically opened in the background to store the incoming data.
The transmitted database is constantly in change: Elapsed titles are removed, new titles appended, and the titles closest to the current time updated with an increased amount of description. (The reason that the complete description is not transmitted for all titles is simply that the size of the database has to be reduced - it shall be transmitted in 20 minutes maximum.) So you should start the acquisition as often as possible, about every 2-3 hours, at least a couple of minutes before you browse.
You can monitor the progress of acquisition with the timescale and database statistics windows from the Control menu. See STATISTICS for details.
The acquisition mode configuration dialog enables you to control for which providers data is collected, and in which order. It's mainly intended for users who use more than one provider's database, i.e. in a merged database, or want to optimize startup time. If you're happy with a single provider or don't want to browse immediately after program start, you should keep the default, which is loading data always for the provider selected in the browser.
Please note: when nxtvepg does not control the input channel, it can not automatically take care of updating your databases. Even if the browser database should be completely empty, no data will appear until you tune in the provider's channel manually with an external application. Because of this, passive mode is depreciated.
On Windows systems this mode can be used if your tuner is not known to nxtvepg, i.e. if the EPG scan does not find any channels with all of the available tuner types. In this case tune in the provider channel with a TV application; then quit this application and start nxtvepg. When you view the acquisition statistics from the Control menu, the VPS/PDC code of the tuned channel should appear in the lower half of the window.
Since transmission errors have to be considered, it's not attempted to load every single block of a provider before acquisitions switches to the next. Instead a statistical criterium was defined, that regards the variance in coverage of all networks contained in the database, and the slope of that variance.
Which mode is best for you depends on how you use the browser. As said above, if you're mainly using a single provider, stick with the Follow-UI mode. If you use a merged database, data is automatically loaded for all contained providers. However if you switch manually between multiple providers, you should choose one of the manual acquisition modes.
The Cyclic modes enables you to optimize startup time. While in standard manual mode, the first database is loaded completely before the next one is started, in Cyclic modes you can specify to load only Now data of all providers first. Hence already after a couple minutes you'll have updated Now information for all providers. If you require more look-ahead than the next 2-3 programmes, e.g. the complete evening, use a Cyclic mode that starts with the Near stage.
If you use manual acquisition together with a merged browser database, make sure to put the same provider at top in both lists, i.e. acquisition should always start for the ``master database'' of the merge.
Please note that the time until all databases are complete is longer in the cyclic modes than in standard manual mode. In general, the time used for the Now and Next stages just adds to the time to complete the database.
Also note that the cyclic modes depend on the transmission cycles of the providers. Firstly this means that the time ranges covered by the cycle stages may differ between providers. Secondly, the cycle times may vary. In the worst case the Near cycle runs as long as the cycle for the complete database (e.g. the German provider RTL2). In this case you don't win anything by selecting a mode that contains a Near stage.
There are currently three ways to obtain information about the state of the databases and the acquisition process: the first and most obvious is the status line at the bottom of the main window (only if enabled, see CONFIGURATION). The second one are the timescale popup windows, which visualize for each TV network the time ranges which are covered with TV programme data. The third one are the database statistics popup windows which offer technical details about the database, e.g. which percentage of entries is already loaded etc., both in textual form and as charts.
The latter two windows are available separately for the browser and acquisition databases. (By default both are the same databases, but you can configure background acquisition on multiple databases, see ACQUISITION MODES). All types of statistics are regularily updated while acquisition is running. While connected to an acquisition daemon, all statistics output refers to the acquisition running in the daemon.
The status line separately summarizes the state of the browser database (unless it's a merged database) and the acquisition process. Since there's not much room only the most relevant information is included there, i.e. the kind of information presented depends on the current state.
For the browser database you'll normally just see the name of the content provider network and a percentage that describes how many of the blocks (i.e. TV programmes) in the provider database already have been received.
If more than 10% of the blocks in the database lie in the past, you'll additionally see a note about this percentage of expired blocks. Note that a 100% loaded database may appear completely empty when all blocks are expired. As soon as you start acquisition the fill percentage will drop to 0 because a new inventory will have been loaded which no longer contains the expired blocks.
When acquisition for the browser database stopped more than 60 minutes ago, a note is added to the status line. In this case it may be advisable to start acquisition for this database to load descriptions for programmes that are now included in the ``Near'' time range (see DATA ACQUISITION).
If acquisition is currently not active you'll see a note about that, often together with a reason, e.g. ``no reception'' when you've manually tuned a station that doesn't transmit Nextview.
Else you'll see the name of the content provider network and a percentage that describes the progress of acquisition. Note that this percentage may be different from the overall fill percentage given with the browser database, as it also reflects blocks that have to be reloaded due to version changes.
Additionally there may be a note about the current mode of acquisition, like the current phase for cyclic acquisition modes or ``forced passive'' when nxtvepg is not able to change the channel, maybe due to a TV application running in parallel. See ACQUISITION MODES for details.
You can monitor the progress of acquisition with the timescale windows which can be opened from the Control menu. There's one window for the browser database, and one for the acquisition database. The acquisition window is updated whenenever new EPG blocks are received.
The timescale windows have one scale for each network covered by the selected provider. Each scale begins with the start time of the first TV programme in the database. Depending on how long ago the database was updated, the TV programmes may be partly or entirely in the past. The exact dates are printed in the date scale at top of the window, the current time is additionally marked with a small arrow.
Ranges that are covered by programmes of the respective network in the database are marked in shades of red or blue, uncovered ranges are left black. The different colors reflect the stream in which the data was received, or an error status; the shades age and version. Stream numbers are directly connected with the cycle phases mentioned in ACQUISITION MODES; besides this the difference is not relevant during normal operation.
Programmes for which description texts are currently available are additionally marked by an increased height of the scale in the covered time range. For short-info the area is extended towards the top, for long-info towards the bottom (the distinction between short and long info is only related to the Nextview transmission specification and does not neccessarily relate to the length of the description texts; also note that for the merged database there's no distinction between short and long info because all texts are concatenated into one.)
In front of the scales there are 5 separate boxes, which refer to the first 5 programmes (PI blocks) in the inventory (AI block). They have two purposes: firstly, during acquisition you can see when the 'Now' cycle phase is complete; secondly you can check if the data from the Now cycle is expired (marked orange). If all 5 are orange, it's time to update the database.
There are two popup windows available from the Control menu which contain statistical information about the browser database and the acquisition database and progress. The window is horizontally divided in two parts: the upper part lists static information; the lower part lists dynamic info and is available only while acquisition is active.
The acquisition statistics are updated every time a new AI block (inventory which lists all covered networks and block counts per network; usually transmitted every 10 seconds) is received.
The pie chart on the left on the window visualizes these numbers. The circle represents 100% of the blocks listed in AI. It's divided in stream 1 (red) and stream 2 (blue). The shaded segments represent the blocks that are still missing in the local database. The yellow segments the percentage of expired and/or defective blocks.
When you interpret those values, please remember that blocks may be appended to the transmission cycle when programmes have expired (in a slight violation of the Nextview standard this is done even without changing the database version). So you might see from time to time that the fill percentages take a step back down during acquisition. Also note that expired PI are not accessible from the user interface, however they are included in the database dump from the Control menu.
If a valid VPS/PDC code (Programme Identification Label, PIL) was received together with the CNI it is appended after the CNI in decoded format (i.e. DD.MM HH:MM with day, month, hour and minute). Note: the VPS/PDC codes are used to uniquely identify the current programme on a given network. You can display the codes for all programmes in the database if you enable them (see CONFIGURATION: Select columns).
The diagram at the left displays a history of fill percentages for stream 1 and 2; the meaning of the colors is the same as in the timescale windows.
If you compare databases of different Nextview providers, you will often find that each has one or more nice features, or covers networks, that the others lack. Instead of changing back and forth between several providers all the time, database merging allows to select and combine features or networks from several original databases into one newly created database.
When you select the Merge providers entry from the Configure menu, you will get a dialog with two listboxes: the left one contains a list of all currently available databases. The right one is the list of databases you want to merge. You can add, delete or reorder the entries is this list. When you're done with your selection, press Ok to start the merge and switch the browser to the new database.
By ordering providers in your selection, you assign priorities which are important for conflict resolution. A conflict occurs when programme start and stop times differ between providers. The likelyhood of such conflicts depends on the quality of your providers; theoretically they should never happen except if there are late program changes. In reality, conflicts are not that unlikely, particularily for programmes early in the morning. You should put the most reliable provider in the first position, because conflicting programmes from providers further down will be rejected, i.e. not added to the merged database.
The Configure button in the dialog gives you fine-control over the priority of providers during the merge of all distinct programme attributes. You can even completely remove a provider for an attribute, e.g. if they transmit false data (e.g. the Sound attribute is handled wrong by the German provider 3Sat: they have swapped Stereo and Surround). An exception is the title, where you must not delete any providers.
Attributes that cannot be merged, e.g. editorial rating, are fetched from the first database in the list that contains the attribute for a given programme. An exception are sorting criteria and series, where only the first provider in the list is queried (i.e. even if the first provider does not have a sorting criterion for a given programme, the further databases are not searched) because these types of attributes cannot be mixed between providers (see also FILTERING).
Note: If you use a manual or cyclic acquisition mode, you should take care to include all providers of your merged database in the same order. Else, program changes will not appear in your database until the provider with highest priority is loaded. If you stay with the default Follow-UI, acquisition control will automatically cycle across all merged providers in the correct order.
The Navigate menu contains a tree of filtering options, that's transmitted by the selected provider together with the programme data. Filtering enables to restrict the listing of programme information to those titles matching the selected menu entry.
The extent and content of this menu depends entirely on the provider. Unfortunately most providers supply only a very limited menu, so you'll probably want to define your own filters, as described in the next two chapters.
Any filter selection can always be undone by the Reset menu entry or the reset button in the main window.
On Windows this menu is en entry inside of the Filter menu for technical reasons (the concept of danamically created menu hierarchies seems to be foreign to Windows, so a popup menu has to be used for the Navigate menu).
Similar to Navigate, this menu allows to control which of the programmes in the database are presented in the listing. However here, you are not limited to a preselection of filter options. There's a filter for every kind of attributes that can be attached to a program, e.g. it's network, start time, theme descriptors, ... and many more.
Filters can be undone either singularily by selecting the same filter menu entry again, or globally by clicking on the Reset button or menu entries.
You can combine as many filters as you want to build a complex filter. If you combine two filters of different types, only programmes that match both attributes will be listed (logical AND). If you choose more than one filter of the same type, all programmes that match either attribute will be listed (logical OR).
Examples: If you want to see all programmes listed for either network ARD or ZDF, simply select both networks. If you want to see all movies scheduled on Arte, select network=Arte and theme=movies.
Summary of filter options:
For merged databases only indices 0 and 1 are supported.
You can also permanently add an equivalent network filter menu to the main window by enabling Show networks at the end of the CONFIGURATION menu. Note that selection, order and names of networks are all configurable.
A history of the last 10 searches, including options, are stored and available in the drop-down menu below the search text entry field (opened with the arrow button at the left or one of the up/down cursor keys) and the Title column header menu in the browser.
Note that the main intention of this filter is to support time restrictions in the provider's navigation menus (see NAVIGATE). For manual navigation there are more practical alternatives, e.g. the scrollbar and drop-down menus in the main browser window.
Equivalently to themes, you can assign sorting criteria in different classes to implement a logical AND, i.e. only programmes that have at least one of the sorting criteria specified in every used class will match. Example: to get all programmes that have 0x01 attached plus either 0x10 or 0x11, specify sorting criterion 0x01 in class #1 and 0x10 and 0x11 in class #2. Note that the dialog displays all values in hexadecimal format, i.e. with digits 0-9 followed by a-f.
The Load all used button in the sorting criteria filter dialog fills the selection listbox with a list of all codes that are actually used in the current database. This allows a quick overview which filter criteria will produce any matches.
Note that the interpretation of two filter types depends on the provider: sorting criterion and series. That's because those are just arbitrary numbers which only have a meaning in the context of the provider's navigation menu.
Hint: the filter menu can also be used to examine the filter options that are invoked by the entries in the Navigate menu.
There's a number of predefined filter options in the main window below the clock. These shortcuts enable you to invoke filters by a single click of the mouse. You can freely add or remove entries from this list.
When you want to add a shortcut, either choose an entry from the Navigate menu or define your own filters via the Filter menu, possibly based on one or more already defined shortcuts. When you have found an interesting selection, call Add filter shortcut from the Filter menu. You'll find a new shortcut appended to the list of existing shortcuts. First you'll probably want to enter a description in the entry field at the top of the dialog; default is just ``shortcut #xx''. When you're done just press Save, or Abort if you've changed your mind and don't want to add this shortcut after all.
You can also change descriptions or ordering of existing shortcuts in this dialog. If you want to modify the shortcut list without adding a new one, you can also access the dialog from the Configure menu.
If you want to change the filter settings of an existing shortcut, then invoke the shortcut, modify the settings as you need and then use the Update filter shortcut dialog in the Filter menu to save the new settings of any existing shortcut. You can use the Update & Edit Button to jump to the filter configuration dialog, e.g. if you want to fine-tune the description or ordering.
When you deselect a shortcut, either by selecting another shortcut or clicking on it a second time with CTRL held down, all it's filters will automatically be undone. Hence when you have two themes shortcuts, e.g. ``Movies'' and ``Sports'', and select first Movies, then Sports, you'll see only sports programmes afterwards. However if you had selected theme movies manually, e.g. by the context menu explained in the next chapter, the movies filter might remain set, so that you'd get all programmes of theme movies OR sports. Since that is usually not what one expects, a filter mask has been introduced to the shortcut setting.
The filter mask is defined in the shortcuts dialog with a checkbutton for each filter type. By default, the mask is enabled for every filter type you've included in the shortcut filter setting. When you invoke the shortcut from the main window later, all filters of the given types will be cleared (masked out) before the shortcut filters are added. To return to the above example: if the ``Sports'' shortcut is defined with a themes mask, the manually set movies filter would be cleared before the theme filter is set to sports.
The masking can also be enabled when no filter of that type has been chosen. This can be used to define undo shortcuts. E.g. choose the mask 'Themes' if you want a shortcut that allows to clear all theme-related filters at once. Or enabled all masks for a Reset button (the only difference to the pre-defined Reset button would be that the cursor does not jump to the first Now programme.)
You can invoke several shortcuts in parallel by pressing the CTRL or SHIFT keys when selecting in the listbox - just as you know it from other applications. However the behavior of the combined shortcuts is slightly subtle and might not always match your expectations. That's because the shortcuts are not cleanly separated when processed. Instead all filters of all selected shortcuts are thrown together and then processed as if they belonged all to one shortcut in the way described in FILTERING. This might change in the future if someone convices me there's a real need to.
Another quick way to select and deselect filters is by using the context menu, which is popped up with the right mouse button in the browser window.
This menu consists of three parts: the first entries allow to undo the previously selected filters - either one by one or globally (reset).
The second part offers a number of possible new filter options, which depend on the currently selected title and the already selected filters. The offered filter types include: themes and network of the selected programme title, it's series code, repeat or original transmission suppression (only in cunjunction with series or title text filters) and last but not least the title text.
The title text and series filters allow to check very quickly for repeats of a programme. These filter options are included only if there is a match, i.e. if there's another programme with the same title or series code repectively.
The optional third part is empty by default, but can be used to invoke user-defined external commands on the selected programme. More precisely, you can execute any command with properties of the selected programme (like title or start time) on its command line. The user commands can be added via the Configure menu (see CONFIGURATION: Context menu).
Summary of commands available from the Control menu:
UNIX: When acquisition is switched off, the /dev/vbi device is freed.
Acquisition can also been switched on and off automatically (i.e. from a
shell script) by sending signal HUP (e.g. with the kill(1) command) to
any of the nxtvepg processes or threads. If you're using a daemon for
acquisition (see the next command) you have to send the signal to one of
the daemon processes/threads. To simplify this, the pid of the process
which needs to be signalled is stored in /tmp/.vbi.pid while the device
is in use.
Windows: When acquisition is switched off, the driver is unloaded so that other programs can access the TV card. Note that most Windows driver implementations do not allow for more than one TV card in the PC.
If you attempt to connect, but no daemon is running, you'll be offered the option to automatically start the daemon and retry the connect, provided you have configured server hostname localhost. The daemon will be started with the same database directory and rcfile as the browser.
Note that disconnecting from the daemon or terminating the browser does not stop the acquisition and hence does not free the device. If that's what you want, choose the Enable acquisition command instead, which terminates the daemon. Of course this option only is available if your daemon is running on the same host and with the same user id as the browser process.
When connected to a acquisition daemon, blocks are only dumped if they are new to the database or their content changed (because only those are forwarded by the daemon to the client.)
The array of checkbuttons allows to control which kind of blocks will be written. The programme information blocks (PI) do contain the actual programme descriptions; Defective PI contains those PI which were not accepted into the database because of inconsistencies like a zero or overlapping running time. For an explanation of the other block types please see the ETSI specification 707.
\N which is the MySQL NULL identifier (currently only used for
the VPS/PDC field).
The generated text file can be loaded directly into a relational database. It's not formatted for viewing in a regular text editor. Networks and themes are represented as numerical indices into the network and themes table respectively. Hence these tables are required in addition to the programme table. To load them into a database, you need to export them into different files.
For MySQL you could create the following tables:
CREATE TABLE PI (
netwop smallint(2) unsigned NOT NULL,
Dstart date NOT NULL,
Hstart time NOT NULL,
Hstop time NOT NULL,
vpspdc_pil datetime,
prat tinyint(2) unsigned,
erat tinyint(2) unsigned,
sound enum("mono","2-chan","stereo","surround"),
is_wide BOOL,
is_palplus BOOL,
is_digital BOOL,
is_encrypted BOOL,
is_live BOOL,
is_repeat BOOL,
is_subtitled BOOL,
theme_0 tinyint(3) unsigned,
theme_1 tinyint(3) unsigned,
theme_2 tinyint(3) unsigned,
theme_3 tinyint(3) unsigned,
theme_4 tinyint(3) unsigned,
theme_5 tinyint(3) unsigned,
theme_6 tinyint(3) unsigned,
title varchar(40) NOT NULL,
descr text,
PRIMARY KEY (netwop, Dstart, Hstart)
);
CREATE TABLE AI (
netwop_idx smallint(2) unsigned NOT NULL,
cni smallint(5) unsigned,
lto_mins smallint(5),
daycount smallint(5) unsigned,
alphabet smallint(5) unsigned,
addinfo smallint(5) unsigned,
name text,
UNIQUE netwop_idx (netwop_idx)
);
CREATE TABLE pdc_themes (
theme_idx smallint(3) unsigned NOT NULL,
cat_idx smallint(3) unsigned,
name_eng text,
name_ger text,
name_fra text,
UNIQUE theme_idx (theme_idx)
);
At the top of the dialog window you have to enter the output file name. Click on the little folder button for a file selection dialog.
By default the checkbutton Selected programme only is enabled. In this mode only info on the programme which is currently selected with the cursor will be written. In combination with the Append to file mode this allows to build a document with the programmes that interest you step by step. If you deselect Selected programme only, info on all programmes that match your current filter will be written. Note that this can generate very large files which may take a long time to load into your Web browser. In this mode you may want to set an additional start time filter (see FILTERING) to restrict the number of programmes written.
In the bottommost box you see three radio buttons with which you select the format in which the information will be written. If you select titles you'll get a table in the same configuration as in the titles list in the upper part of the main window. If you select descriptions you'll get roughly the same as in the lower part of the main window. Obviously, if you select titles and descriptions you'll get both, in form of one table with all the titles on top and all descriptions separately below. If you select Add hyperlinks the titles in the table will be linked to the descriptions.
The look of the generated document is almost entirely determined by use of an internal CSS stylesheet. If you don't like the look you can override it with your own stylesheet. Save it to a file named nxtvhtml.css and put it in the same directory as the generated HTML file. For more information on HTML and style sheets see http://www.w3.org/
Summary of commands available from the Configure menu:
Open the provider selection dialog. This dialog lists all TV channels from which Nextview data can be received. When you select a channel name on the list, you'll see the name of the Nextview service that's transmitted there and a list of all networks covered by it on the right.
If you leave the dialog with Ok, the selected provider's database will be loaded into the browser. If the database hasn't been updated for a long time, the programme list might initially be empty, but if you have selected ``Follow-UI'' acquisition mode, the provider's TV channel will be tuned to update the database content (see ACQUISITION MODES for more details.)
To remove obsolete providers (i.e. such which have ceased to provide Nextview service or which you can no longer receive), you should start a provider scan in refresh mode. You cannot remove active providers because nxtvepg would add them back automatically in the next scan or when their TV channel is tuned externally.
Open a dialog that allows to merge several databases into one. See MERGED DATABASES for details.
Open a dialog that allows to control the background acquisition process. See ACQUISITION MODES for more details.
Open a dialog that allows to start a scan across all TV channels for Nextview transmissions. You should perform this search at least once, firstly to find out which providers are available in your area, and secondly to determine the frequencies of all provider's TV channels. They are required for most acquisition modes, and due to driver limitations often not available without a scan (e.g. on Windows or Linux with bttv driver <= 0.7.50). See also GETTING STARTED and the subsequent chapter on TV card configuration.
Check the Slow button if you have bad reception on some channels. In slow mode the scanner will not require a stable video signal and wait twice as long as normal for everything, i.e. up to 4 seconds for a VPS/PDC channel identification and up to 90 seconds for EPG for known providers or if potential data packets were found. Note that you can change this setting while the scan is running.
The Use TV app. button is automatically checked if an xawtv configuration file is found in your home directory (on UNIX) or a TV application was set up in the TV app. interaction dialog (or initially in the TV card input dialog). Instead of searching all possible channels in all bands, nxtvepg then just checks the TV channels defined there, which saves a lot of time.
Use the Refresh only mode if you deleted your database files (or if you upgrade from an incompatible software version) or if you want to find and remove obsolete providers. In this mode only the channels on which Nextview data was received before are checked (the frequencies are kept both in the databases and your rc/ini file). This allows you to regain your complete provider list very quickly. If no data transmission is found on a provider's channel, a Remove this provider will be added to the output window, which you can use after the scan has finished to remove the database and any information recorded about the provider.
The scan will visit every physical TV frequency (or subsets thereof if you use one of the options described above) and check for a TV signal. If one is detected within 150 ms or if at least one teletext packet was received, the scan waits up to two seconds for a valid VPS/PDC channel identification. At the same time it receives packets from all potential EPG teletext page addresses. If a VPS/PDC code is read that belongs to one of the known EPG providers or valid data packets have been received (which does not necessarily mean it's EPG, because other services could use the same encoding) the scan waits up to 45 seconds for EPG inventory messages (BI and AI blocks). You can watch these proceedings in the message output window.
Even though the scan tries very hard, it can not warrent that every EPG provider is found every time. For example some providers do have pauses of more than 45 seconds in their EPG transmission; or they might have technical problems. So the safest way is to check the nxtvepg WWW homepage (see About in the Help menu) for a list of known EPG providers. If you receive the channels where they transmit, repeat the scan until they are found, e.g. at different times of the day. If you find new providers not listed on the web site, please let me know.
Open a dialog where the driver for the TV card can be configured. This dialog looks very different on Windows and UNIX platforms, because on UNIX the driver is part of the operating system, whereas on Windows it's part of the application and has to be configured separately for every application.
On Windows systems you must at least specify which type of tuner is on your card, and how the PLL needs to be initialized. You can copy these settings from a number of supported TV applications, which can be selected at the top of this dialog (please note that the TV application selected here is not neccessarily used for TV app. interaction; see CONFIGURATION: TV application interaction). Please refer to GETTING STARTED for a detailed description on how to configure these parameters.
Windows only: if you experience data loss due to heavy system load, you can raise the acquisition thread priority. Default is normal, i.e. the same as for all user applications.
The remaining three configuration options apply to both UNIX and Windows: firstly choose which video input source to use, i.e. where you have connected an input signal cable to the TV card: Tuner or Television refer to input via antenna cable (also known as RF cable, i.e. terrestrial reception or cable TV); Composite refers to a cinch video cable as used by satellite receivers or cheap video records; S-Video is an variant of Composite with improved image quality (often wrongly called S-VHS cable since it's mostly used by S-VHS video recorders) and easily recognized by the Sub-D connectors (called ``Hosidenstecker'' in German).
See DATA ACQUISITION about the consequences of not using the TV tuner as input. On Windows: in rare cases the descriptions of input sources in the TV card popup may be wrong (due to creative wiring of the Bt8x8 chip on your TV card) so that you may find your TV tuner for example on ``Composite 1''. This is an open point in the driver interface implementation; feel free to complain to me.
If you live in France, select the French frequency table (which implies the Secam L TV norm) to be used for the EPG scan; the default is a frequency table for Germany, Austria and Switzerland and the PAL B/G/I TV norm. Other countries are not supported, since there currently are no Nextview providers. If you live in an area where you receive both PAL and Secam stations, you should perform the EPG scan twice with different channel tables.
If you have more than one TV tuner card, you can also choose which one to use, just like with the -card command line option. On Linux you get a popup menu with TV card names as supplied by the driver. On Windows you only can choose cards by an index; the relation between index number and cards is undefined, i.e. which card has index 0 depends on the driver implementation and may differ between applications using different drivers.
Windows only: at the very bottom of the dialog window there's a checkbutton which allows to enable logging during driver startup and shutdown. The output is appended to a file named dsdrv.log in the nxtvepg working directory. Enable this option if you're not able to start the driver and cannot find out why. But first see the explanation of driver error messages in the README file. Note that the logging option is not remembered across program starts, i.e. to make use of it you have to enable the acquisition via the Control menu and not by restarting nxtvepg.
Opens a dialog that allows to configure the connection between acquisition daemon (called ``server'' here) and GUI. The connection allows to forward all newly acquired EPG data from the daemon to the GUI and to monitor the daemon's acquisition progress.
The dialog contains settings of which some refer to the server-side only, some to the client-side only and some to both server and client. To avoid confusion, there are three radio buttons at the top of the dialog which allow to grey out items that do not refer to the client or server respectively.
Note: on Windows currently only TCP/IP is supported, i.e. you have to enable this option if you want to start the daemon.
Note: on systems that support it, TCP/IP sockets are created in the IPv6 domain (PF_INET6) by default. On some systems (e.g. NetBSD) you cannot connect via IPv4 to an IPv6 server and vice versa, i.e. you need to use the same domain on both ends. If your client only supports IPv4, you can force your server to create an IPv4 socket by binding to an IPv4 address. If you fail to connect to a local IPv6 server via the IPv4 loopback address 127.0.0.1, use the IPv6 equivalent ``::1''.
The following settings are available: ``no logging'' disables logging; ``error'' enables logging of internal errors that lead to an immediate exit of the daemon; ``warning'' additionally enables logging of unexpected events, i.e. internal errors which do not lead to exit; ``notice'' additionally enables logging of server status changes, i.e. startup and shutdown; ``info'' additionally enables logging of connection establishment or shutdown.
Note that while network mode is enabled configuration of acquisition mode and TV card input has no effect and no EPG scan is possible. If you use the same rc/ini file for daemon and GUI the changed settings will however be used by the daemon upon the next start.
Opens a dialog that allows to configure the interaction between a TV application and nxtvepg. On UNIX this menu entry is available only when a .xawtv configuration file is found in your home. On Windows you should at least configure your TV application type and path here if you're using one of the supported applications; this is a recommended step during the initial installation, as described in GETTING STARTED.
The first four (only three on UNIX) options allow to switch interaction features on or off. If you want to improve startup time on UNIX, turn them all off; in this case nxtvepg does not need to search for the xawtv toplevel window (which can take up to several seconds if you have many applications running or a slow connection to your X server.) By default all interaction features are enabled.
On UNIX the display format can be selected by the following radio buttons:
With Separate popup nxtvepg will generate a small popup window and put it right beneath the xawtv window. The blue area in the small bar on top represents how much of the (nominal) running time lies in the past. With Video overlay the info will be handed to xawtv and displayed as subtitles (please note that this option only works properly with XFree86 version 4 and the XVideo extension). If you prefer a proportional font add the following line to ~/.Xdefaults:
xawtv.vtx.label.font: -*-helvetica-bold-r-*--14-*-*-*-*-*-iso8859-*
and execute xrdb -load ~/.Xdefaults afterwards. Note that this will affect subtitles too. Future versions of xawtv will hopefully allow for dynamic font selection. Video overlay, 2 lines is the same except that it writes running time and title in separate lines and additionally contains the percentage of expired running time. (Not recommended with xawtv versions older than 3.48 as there was a bug in displaying lines of different width.) With Xawtv window title the info will be sent to xawtv and displayed in the window title. Except for this last option, you can configure the desired display duration with the slider at the bottom of the dialog. A duration of zero means the display will never be removed.
Windows only: in the middle of the dialog there's one line that indicates the current TV application connection status. It contains the name of the connected application or not connected. You can connect to different applications than configured below, but if the network names are not synchronized with nxtvepg, the interaction will not work optimally (i.e. nxtvepg might not be able to identify all networks, and hence not be able to provide programme titles).
Windows only: in the lower part of the dialog window you can configure the type and path of your preferred TV application. This information is used to access the TV app's channel table (i.e. TV tuner frequencies and station names) during an EPG provider scan (see CONFIGURATION: Provider scan) and in the network name configuration dialog (see CONFIGURATION: Network names). After you've changed the setting, you can press the Test button to check if nxtvepg can parse the channel table correctly. It will complain if it fails to open the file or registry key and if no channels are found. After the test was successful, you shoud open the network names configuration dialog and synchronize network names with nxtvepg.
If your TV application is not supported, choose none. (If it's a freeware application feel free to mail me a download URL and I will consider supporting it. However I will not support proprietary closed-source software, unless on request by the author.)
Note that not all of the TV applications listed in the popup menu can currently interact with nxtvepg. The interaction requires modifications in the TV applications; it's up to the respective authors if they want to implement these. (If you are an author of a TV app, feel free to mail me if you want to add EPG support to your application; a demo application and reference implementation source code are available on the nxtvepg home page.)
Note that there's a similar configuration in the TV card input dialog. However that one is only used to load the hardware settings during initial setup (i.e. when you press Load Config in that dialog). In most cases you'll use the same TV app for both purposes, but you don't have to.
Open the browser listbox column configuration dialog. It allows to select which attributes are displayed for the listed programmes. In the listbox on the left you find a list of all available categories, e.g. title, running time & date, TV network name, rating, sound and picture format, i.e. mostly the same attributes that are available for filtering.
The listbox on the right contains the types currently selected for display. The topmost entry appears on the left side of the listbox. Press Apply to refresh the browser listbox with the new column selection and save the new configuration to the config file.
Note: you can change the width of each column by moving the mouse pointer to the very right of the menu button above each column (provided column headers have not been disabled in the Configure menu) and then dragging the border to a new position while keeping the left mouse button pressed down.
Open the network selection dialog. It allows to permanently suppress TV networks in a provider's listing, e.g. if you can not receive the channel. You can also change the order of the networks, e.g. to put your favorite networks at the top of the filter menus.
This window has two lists: on the left you'll find all networks that are covered by the provider in their original order, on the right those that are selected for the programme listing in your preferred order. By default, both lists will have exactly the same content. If you want to exclude networks, select them in the right list and press Delete. You can always include them again by selecting them in the left list and pressing Add. You can change the order in the right list by selecting one or more networks and pressing the up or down arrows.
If you want the same selection and order for all providers, you can simply copy your order and selection with the copy popup menu; this menu contains a list of all known providers. Note that if you copy from a provider with less (or different) networks, those networks that are missing in the other provider's database appear at the end of the network selection in the right listbox.
At the bottom of the dialog window there's an entry field that allows to limit the program listing for a network to a given time frame. For example if you receive Arte only from 19:00 until 07:00 o'clock, select Arte either in the left or right list, then enter ``19:00'' and ``07:00'' in the fields (make sure to always use 4 digits and the separating colon). Programmes that fall completely outside that window will not appear in the browser window. If you want to undo the limitation, enter 00:00 until 00:00 or any other equal time values.
Note: you can also operate this dialog (and all other dialogs with similar listbox selections) with he keyboard: use the TAB key or the mouse to move the keyboard input focus to the left or right listbox. Use the cursor up/down keys to select an item; hold down SHIFT to select multiple items. In the left list, press Return to add a network to the right list. In the right list, press the Delete key to remove a network, or press CONTROL and the up/down cursor keys to change the selected items' position in the list.
Open the network names configuration dialog. It's main purpose is to synchronize the network names between nxtvepg and your TV application. This is required because the network name is used in communication when you use the Tune TV remote controls, and as well for channel change notifications by the TV applications. For many networks there will be no need to change anything, but for some there exist different variants, e.g. in Germany ``Super RTL'' vs. ``S-RTL'' or ``MDR3'' vs. ``MDR''.
If you're not using UNIX, you first need to select which TV application you want to synchronize with and where the configuration files are located. This is done in the TV app. interaction dialog in the Configure menu (see CONFIGURATION: TV application interaction).
Another use of this dialog is to make network naming consistent across all Nextview providers. The names you specify here will be used in the programme listbox and all filter menus, independently of the provider.
On the left side of the dialog you find a list of all networks of all known Nextview providers. The names used here are the ones you configured before, or if you haven't done so yet, the names that match the station names of your TV application best. Unmatched names are marked red. If no TV application is configured, each network's name is taken from the first Nextview database which covers this network, in order of your provider selection history.
On the right side, you're offered four ways to change the name: topmost is a simple entry field where you can type in an arbitrary name. Below is a popup menu which contains all network names defined in your TV app.'s channel table. Below is a button which contains the one name in your TV app.'s channel table which resembles the current string in the entry field most, or none. It's marked red until it's identical to the entry field. You can copy the name to the entry field by clicking the button. Below is a listbox with the original names used in the various provider databases. When you select a name from the menu or the listbox, it will be copied into the entry field and the network name list on the left. If you want to save the changed list, leave the dialog with Save, else use Abort.
Note: if you receive channels that carry multiple networks, e.g. in Germany ``Arte / Kinderkanal'', it's recommended to include all networks' names in the network name on side of the TV application, separated by a slash. The slash is recognized as separator by nxtvepg and all resulting segments can be used as network names.
Open the context menu configuration dialog which allows to add references to external commands to the context popup menu. (See also CONTEXT MENU.) At the top of the dialog window there is a list of all currently defined command titles. When you open the dialog for the first time, it'll be empty.
Below the list there are two text input fields which allow to modify or
create new commands. The field labeled Title defines the text which will
be included to the popup menu. The field labeled Command defines the
command line to be executed when the entry is selected in the popup menu, with
possible placeholders enclosed in ${} which are replaced by parameters of the
currently selected programme in the browser listbox. After the substitution
and after appending an ampersand '&' sign to allow asynchronous execution
(UNIX only), the command line is passed to a shell via the system(3) function.
When you press the menu button Copy Example a list pops up which contains a few example commands which can be copied into the title and command entry fields. To save a new or modified title and command, you have to press either the New or Update button and leave the popup with Ok. Use Delete to remove an entry from the listbox; the buttons with up/down arrows to change the ordering. Use Clear to clear the entry fields, e.g. before you create a new entry.
The following is a list of formal variables (i.e. placeholders) which are substituted in the command line with parameters of the selected title upon invocation of the external command. The meaning of the variables should be self-explanatory, except possibly for CNI, which is a hexadecimal network code; and e/p_rating which are editorial and parental rating respectively.
${title}
${network}
${start}
${stop}
${relstart}
${duration}
${CNI}
${description}
${themes}
${VPS} or ${PDC}
${e_rating}
${p_rating}
${sound}
${format}
${digital}
${encrypted}
${live}
${repeat}
${subtitle}
The keywords can be followed by a colon and an output format specification. In case of the start, stop and VPS/PDC times, all options defined in the strftime(3) manpage are available; default is %H:%M-%d.%m.%Y (hour, minute, day, month, year). In case of relative start time and duration, you can choose between minutes (default) and seconds by appending ``m'' or ``s''. For themes you can choose between numerical and textual output by appending ``n'' or ``t''. For all other variables the modifiers are currently ignored.
On UNIX the substrings which replace the formal variables are enclosed in single quotes to protect them from interpretation by the shell. Single quotes inside the substituted string are correctly escaped.
Example: The command line
plan ${start:%d.%m.%Y %H:%M} ${title}
could for example result in
plan '22.08.2001 13:05' 'Käpt'\''n Blaubärs Seemannsgarn'
to be passed to the Bourne Shell (/bin/sh).
On Windows there's a special prefix !wintv! which tells nxtvepg to
send this command line to a connected TV application (see
CONFIGURATION: TV application interaction). For example
!wintv! setstation ${network}
would create a command that switches the TV app's channel to that of the currently selected programme (i.e. the same what the Tune TV button does). When no TV application is connected, such entries are automatically disabled.
Open the filter shortcut dialog to rename, reorder or delete shortcuts. You have to press the Update button to save any changes for a shortcut and then close the dialog with Save. See FILTER SHORTCUTS for more details.
Select the language for programme themes (i.e. content category, see FILTERING) in the main window and the filter menu. By default it's set to default, in which case the language is derived from the selected provider's database. Please note that the language of the menus, help etc. currently can not be changed from English.
Toggle visibility of the shortcut listbox.
Toggle visibility of the network filter listbox.
Toggle visibility of the status line at the bottom of the browser window.
Toggle visibility of the browser listbox column header menu bar.
Windows only: When this option is enabled, the main window's entry in the task bar is removed when it's minimized or when the program is started with the -iconic command line switch. Instead an icon is added to the system tray in the task bar. A double-click on the tray icon deiconifies the main window. A click with the right mouse button opens a little popup menu. The entries in this menu have the same meaning as the equally named ones in the control menu (see CONTROL).
The device is only kept open during a provider search. Else, it's just opened shortly to set the input source and tuner frequency. If the device is busy (e.g. while you watch TV), acquisition starts on the currently selected channel and automatically follows any externally controlled changes (this will be reported, e.g. in the status line at the bottom of the browser window, as forced passive acquisition mode).
kill -HUP `cat /tmp/.vbi0.pid`
Note that the daemon is not kept alive when acquisition is disabled, so that sending HUP equals sending TERM. You can restart acquisition by starting a new daemon. The browser attempts to reconnect every 10 seconds when the connection was broken, but you can also trigger an immediate reconnect be signalling it a HUP.
To restart acquisition in non-daemon mode, signal again with HUP, either to the acquisition slave process or the browser process.
For in-depth information about Nextview please refer to the specifications ETS 300 707 (data structures and basic principles), ETS 300 708 (transmission protocol) and ETR 288 (code of practice). These specs are available from http://www.etsi.org/
You can also have Nextview directly inside your television set - check out the catalogues of Grundig, Loewe, Metz, Sony, Philips, Thompson or Telefunken. However be aware that not all models do support the same set of Nextview features.
Under Windows there's a risk of system crash (``blue screen'') when the application is terminated by force, e.g. via the task manager. This is unavoidable because in this case there's no chance to stop the driver and hence the TV card continues to capure data into RAM. In normal operation this should be very unlikely because all software exceptions (e.g. page faults) and shutdown messages are caught and the driver then stopped before the exit.
Feel free to mail any bug reports to me, but please make sure that (a) you have the latest version of this software, (b) it's not already in the TODO file and (c) it's not just an error in your provider's EPG transmission. And please note that I've got no telepathic capabilities, so be comprehensive in describing your problem. See the README file for instructions on which information must be included in a bug report.
Thorsten ``Tom'' Zoerner, Erlangen, Germany.
Email: tomzo (at) users (dot) sourceforge (dot) net
Many thanks to Thierry Ménétrier for his valuable feedback; to Matthieu for the French translation of PDC theme descriptors; to E-nek for the DScaler driver port and cooperation in develepment of the TV application interaction; to John Adcock for the DScaler driver; to Jan Schuster for beta testing nxtvepg 0.7.0; to Mario Kemper for the NetBSD port and early beta testing; to ``Mario's brother'' for beta testing the first Windows port; to Gerd Knorr for xawtv and maintaining the Debian and SuSE nxtvepg packages; to Ralph Metzler for his teletext decoder; to Edgar Toernig for the Latin-1 conversion tables in alevt; and last but not least to the authors of bttv and v4l for their excellent work, and the authors of the Cygwin GNU and XFree86 port, without which nxtvepg would never have been ported to M$ Windows.
Copyright (C) 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Thorsten Zoerner. All rights reserved.
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License Version 2 as published by the Free Software Foundation, e.g. at http://www.fsf.org/
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. See the file COPYRIGHT for more details.