#108 DTD Request

[Delphi]

This is the comment to the category tag:

<!-- Type of programme, eg 'soap', 'comedy' or whatever the
equivalents are in your language. There's no predefined set of
categories and it's okay for a programme to belong to several.
-->

I think you should mention (maybe even recommend?) the ETSI 300 468 standard.

The link is:

http://www.etsi.org/deliver/etsi_en/300400_300499/300468/01.09.01_60/en_300468v010901p.pdf

Go to page 39

The language is English so it makes sence to have something like:

<category lang="en">squash</category>
<category lang="en">tennis/squash</category>

even if the (overall) language in the xmltv file is not English.
Each of them could then easily be categorized as ID 68.

The upper is just a request to a comment. For the DTD itself I suggest considering adding the following to the credits tag:

organizer
screenplay

TIA

[Geoff]

Hi, you have 2 points there:
1. Recommendations to category values
2. Add 'organizer' and 'screenplay' as children of <credits>

 
Re 1: it's hard to be prescriptive about what values grabbers should use. The grabber can only use what is given to it by the data source and the quality (and accuracy) of the data sources varies greatly. While some massaging of the source's category value may be possible, it's not practical to invent a comprehensive (or accurate) list of categories for a programme when none is supplied.

No list of categories will ever be complete, and will always suffer from the author's regional bias.

Also, take the case of my own PVR which can have an unlimited number of categories for a programme. To restrict it to just the values in the ETSI document would be a severe backward step, particularly for film genres.

 
Re 2: when writing grabbers I've found you can usually map any role you want to use onto one of the existing ones, and if you can't then you probably don't want it on your PVR anyway :-)

I don't think I've ever seen "organizer" in a programme's credits, but perhaps you could map this to "presenter" or "producer" depending on their level of involvement?

There might be a use to having "screenplay" but I generally just use "writer" for this since I don't really need any more detail than that when viewing a TV schedule.

(it should really be "screenplayer" anyway since "screenplay" is the thing not the person ;-) )

[Delphi]

Hi Geoff, thanks for the answer.

Re 1: I am not using any grabber. I pay a fee once a year (TimeFor) so I can download

an XMLTV file twice every 24 hours. The XMLTV format is popular outside the world of

grabbers.

I did not mean that any restrictions to category should be implemented. The category

from Timefor is very bad and in this case the ETSI document values would be a big step forward. I agree that ETSI should not be recommended in general (but could be inspirational for some XMLTV providers). However EPG-category from DVB antenna data is the integer values in the ETSI document. Settop boxes can use them to display a category in a preferred language.

My PVR uses these values. I just think the ETST 300 468 standard should be mentioned as a possibility. It is after all a part of the DVB standard. It should ofcourse be made very clear that it is not a requirement. It can never be, this would violate backward compatibility of the DTD.

Re 2: The reason for this part is that I get some weird things from TimeFor:

<actor role="Organizer">Lisbeth Dilling</actor>
<actor role="Screenplay">Fay Weldon</actor>

It would be easier for me to convince the guys from Timefor if I could show them the right way to do it.

You are right, credits allways refers to a person. I think (using my high scool english and google ;-)) it should then be screenwriter which could be mapped to writer.

organizer is a good idea to add, I think. If screenwriter is the correct term this

would be nice as well.

EDIT:

Re 1:
Maybe something like

<category system="etsi">68</category>

could be an idea?