DScaler -- Calibration

| Electronic Program Guide

This DScaler feature allows to display using OSD some information about the TV programmes.
DScaler does not directly collect these data on-line. This task must be done by an external application.

Import an XMLTV file

Using the menu "Import XMLTV File", you can select on your hard drive a XML file and import in DScaler the EPG data contained in that file. That XML file must be compilant with the XMLTV DTD (either 0.5 or 0.6).

To obtain that file, one solution is to use one of the grabbers included in the XMLTV package. A grabber is a script that will access a WEB site proposing the TV programmes, collect data relative to the TV programmes and finally produce a XML file compliant to the XMLTV DTD. This grab can require several hours depending on the number of channels and how many days are grabbed.

One another solution, easier and faster, is to download directly on the WEB that produced file containing EPG data. But of course that file must be available on the WEB for your country (your TV channels).

Import NextViewEPG database

NextViewEPG is an application that collects and displays Electronic Program Guide broadcasted by certain TV channels.

Using the menu "Import NextViewEPG database", you can import in DScaler the EPG data collected by NextViewEPG.

DScaler determines automatically which are the available providers in NextViewEPG and lets the user choose which one to consider when several exist. In order to avoid doing that choice everytime, an advanced DScaler setting allows defining the default provider to be used. Nevertheless, it is not possible to select and merge programmes from several providers

Please note that NextViewEPG, when in acquisition mode, cannot be run at the same time with DScaler because both of the two software are controling your TV card. So the idea is to run sometimes NextViewEPG alone to collect data and when it is done, you exit NextViewEPG (or at least stop acquisition) and then run DScaler to import NextViewEPG database. Depending on the used EPG provider, you could have the description of all the programmes more or less in advance. So run NextViewEPG to collect new data when you have no more EPG data displayed in DScaler or when the description of programmes is missing. EPG providers often distribute the schedule of programmes for several coming days (often 7 days) but the description of programmes description for only coming hours.

Setup

To work correctly, you need to define a link between the channel names you have defined in DScaler and the channel names defined in the XMLTV file you have imported. You can update it using the channel setup dialog box. For each channel, you can enter a name in the field "EPG Name" which is different from the channel name used by DScaler. By default, this is the same and that will probably be ok for most of your channels.

One way to verify the setup is to press the key G to display the EPG information in the OSD and then to go through all your channels one by one, checking that the programme information is displayed for every channel. If no EPG information is found for a particular channel, press the key Ctrl+Shift+G without filtering the channels (ChannelFiltering setting set to OFF in the advanced DScaler settings) and try to find a programme corresponding to that channel. If you find it, that means the channel name displayed in the OSD is different from the channel name defined in DScaler. Open the channel setup dialog box and update the field "EPG Name" with the name you saw in the OSD. If you don't find any programme for that channel, that means that channel is probably not covered by the file you have imported.

When you have finished the EPG setup, you can decide to activate the channel filtering in the advanced settings so that browsing programmes will display only the channels defined in DScaler.

Programme brwosing

Program browsing is available using menus and/or keyboard shortcuts. A new sub-menu dedicated to EPG has been created in the "Actions" menu.

All EPG information are displayed using two different OSD screens.

The first OSD screen allows to display detailed information but only for one particular programme:

- channel name
- start time
- end time
- percentage of completion
- title and sub-title
- description

When you are looking at TV, you can press the key G to display the detailed information of the programme you are currently looking at. If the description does not fully enter in the screen, you can scroll-down and scroll-up the description using the keys Shift+PgDn and Shift+PgUp.

To see the detailed information of the later programme on the same channel, you can press the key Shift+Up. To see the detailed information of the earlier programme on the same channel, you can press the key Shift+Dn. At any time, pressing G allows to come back to the currently scheduled programme.

The second OSD screen allows to display basic information for several programmes:

- channel name
- category
- start time
- end time
- percentage of completion
- title

In that OSD screen, the programme having its title in orange is the programme currently selected and the programme having its time information in blue is the programme you are currently looking at. The percentage of completion is displayed only for the programmes currently scheduled.

To display that OSD screen and select all the programmes scheduled during the coming hour, you can press the key Ctrl+Shift+G. If there are more selected programmes than what can be displayed on screen, several pages are created and you can use the keys Shift+PgDn and Shift+PgUp to go to the next and previous page. At the top right of the screen, you have an information telling you how many programmes belongs to your current selection and which ones are currently displayed on screen. There are two choices of sorting for these programmes, depending on an advanced DScaler setting: either by programme start time (default behaviour), or first by channel order (DScaler order) and then by programme start time.

The programme with the title in orange is the current programme of your selection. You can use the keys Shift+Up and Shift+Dn to change it and go to the next and previous programme of your selection. To switch to the first OSD screen and display the detailed information about that programme, you can press the key G. To return to the previous screen, use the key Ctrl+Shift+G.

At any time, you can switch and show the current programme of your selection. Just press the key Shift+Enter.

Using the new menu, you can select a specific day (from yesterday until six days after today) and a specific start time inside that day. By default, your selection contains all the programmes covering one hour. You can change your selection and shift to the previous or next hour using the keysCtrl+G and Shift+G. For example, if time is 04:15pm, pressing Ctrl+Shift+G shows first programmes covering the time frame between 04:15pm and 05:14pm. Pressing Shift+G will then display programmes covering the time frame betwwen 05:00pm and 05:59pm. Pressing Shift+G again will then display programmes covering the time frame betwwen 06:00pm and 06:59pm. Pressing Ctrl+G will then return to the previous hour and display programmes covering the time frame betwwen 05:00pm and 05:59pm.

To hide one of the EPG OSD screens, just press the key BackSpace. Nevertheless, an advanced DScaler setting allows switching G and Ctrl+Shift+G as toggle keys, meaning a successive action on the key shows and then hides the EPG OSD screen.

Settings

All those settings are defined in the section "EPG" of the ini file and are available in the Advanced Settings dialog box in DScaler.

Setting | Default | Description
--- | --- | ---
nxtvepg.exe | nxtvepg.exe in DScaler directory | This is the path of the NextViewEPG executable.

NextviewProvider

(empty)

This is the NextViewEPG provider used by default when importing programmes from NextViewEPG.
This must be a 4 characters field corresponding to a hexadecimal number that must match either the file "nxtvXXXX.epg" or "nxtvdb-XXXX" in the NextViewEPG directory.
If not (or badly) defined, the different providers are automatically determined and the user decides which one to use.
One particular case is with value "merged". triggering the import of a merged database (the merged database must have been setup first in NextViewEPG).

TimeFrameDuration | 1 (hour) | This value defines the duration in hours of the time frame used by the programme browser.
DefaultSizePerc | 5 | This value defines the size of the font used to display EPG in OSD.
MaxCharsPerLine | 75 | This value defines the maximum number of characters per line for the display of a programme description in the OSD.
ChannelFiltering | OFF (0) | This boolean defines if the XML file must be filtered to take into account only channels defined in DScaler.
Sorting | 0 | This value defines how the programmes are sorted when several are displayed at screen. 0 means a sorting by programme start time. 1 means a sorting first by channel order and then by programme start time.
ToggleButtons | OFF (0) | If set to OFF (0), BackSpace has to be used to hide the EPG screens. If set to ON (1), G and Ctrl+Shift+G are managed as toggle keys and BackSpace is no more necessary to hide the EPG screens.