Electronic program guide
EPGs are transmitted by specialized video character generation (CG) equipment housed within each such provider's central headend facility.
In 1981, United Video Satellite Group launched the first EPG service in North America, a cable channel known simply as The Electronic Program Guide.
When the user found a show they wanted to watch, they would have to turn off the guide and then tune the satellite receiver to the correct service.
[5] This version had a color display and the hardware was based on a custom chip; it was also able to disseminate up to two weeks of programming information.
The joint venture was led by video game veteran, Bruce Davis,[9] and introduced an interactive program guide to the market in late 1995 in the General Instrument CFT2200 set-top cable box.
[11][circular reference] Scientific Atlanta introduced the 8600X Advanced analog Set-top box in 1993 that included an interactive electronic program guide, downloadable software, 2-way communications, and pause/FF/REW for VCR-like viewing.
[13] Inview Technology is one of the UK's largest and oldest EPG producers, dating back to 1996 and currently in partnership with Humax and Skyworth.
EPGs can be made available through television (on set-top boxes and all current digital TV receivers), mobile phones (particularly through smartphone apps), and on the Internet.
Demand for non-interactive electronic television program guides – television channels displaying listings for currently airing and upcoming programming – has been nearly eliminated by the widespread availability of interactive program guides for television; TV Guide Network, the largest of these services, eventually abandoned its original purpose as a non-interactive EPG service and became a traditional general entertainment cable channel, eventually rebranding as Pop in January 2015.
When television IPGs are supported by PVRs, they enable viewers to plan viewing and recording by selecting broadcasts directly from the EPG, rather than programming timers.
Typical IPGs also allow users the option of searching by genre, as well as immediate one-touch access to, or recording of, a selected program.
Such companies include Tribune TV Data (now Gracenote, part of Nielsen Holdings), Gemstar-TV Guide (now TiVo Corporation), FYI Television, Inc. in the United States and Europe; TV Media in the United States and Canada; Broadcasting Dataservices in Europe and Dayscript in Latin America; and What's On India Media Pvt.
Some IPG systems built into older set-top boxes designed to receive terrestrial digital signals and television sets with built-in digital tuners may have a lesser degree of interactive features compared to those included in cable, satellite and IPTV converters; technical limitations in these models may prevent users from accessing program listings beyond (at maximum) 16 hours in advance and complete program synopses, and the inability for the IPG to parse synopses for certain programs from the MPEG stream or displaying next-day listings until at or after 12:00 a.m. local time.
IPGs built into newer television (including Smart TV), digital terrestrial set-top box and antenna-ready DVR models feature on-screen displays and interactive guide features more comparable to their pay television set-top counterparts, including the ability to display grids and, in the case of DVRs intended for terrestrial use, the ability – with an Internet connection – to access listings and content from over-the-top services.
A growing trend is for manufacturers such as Elgato and Topfield and software developers such as Microsoft in their Windows Media Center to use an Internet connection to acquire data for their built-in IPGs.
In developing IPG software, manufacturers must include functions to address the growing volumes of increasingly complex data associated with programming.
