Re: [Xmltv-devel] Roadmap; future file format changes

[Ed A. <ed...@me...>]

>Date: Tue, 24 Sep 2002 22:34:22 +0100 (BST)
>From: Ed Avis <ed...@me...>

>On Tue, 24 Sep 2002, Jerry Veldhuis wrote:
>
>>While we're talking about DTD changes....
>
>> - "live"
>> - "call-in"
>> - "animated"
>> - "if necessary"
>> - "subject to blackout"
>> - "HDTV"
>>
>>I could just rework 'live', 'call-in' and 'animated' as being
>>category strings.
>
>For the time being.  I think we should have some standardized set of
>categories, so they're not dependent on particular English words.  But
>it could take a while to do the job properly - some standards bodies
>have already developed long lists of numbers corresponding to
>different programme types.

We don't have our own set of standard category numbers but we can use
those provided by other bodies.  Now the format distinguishes between
'type of programme' and 'subject matter' so at least 'call-in' and
'animated' don't have to be lumped together quite so much.  'live' is
now an attribute of <timeslot>, as are 'if necessary' and 'subject to
blackout':

<timeslot channel="sports.foo.com" start="20030601120000"
          conditional="blackout" liveness="live">
  <programme><title>Some sporting event</title></programme>
</timeslot>
<timeslot channel="news.foo.com" start="20000101000000"
          conditional="if-necessary" liveness="live">
  <programme><title>The end of the world</title></programme>
</timeslot>

>>'HDTV' should really be an attribute of the video quality.
>
>Yeah, it belongs under <video> I think.  I don't know the best way to
>specify it - should we give the number of scan lines maybe? - perhaps
>it could be like <stereo> is now with a certain number of fixed
>strings.

It's just a string under <quality>, for example

<video>
  <quality>HDTV</quality>
</video>

>>And I have no idea where 'if necessary' and 'subject to blackout'
>>belong,
>
>In a way, they don't belong at all.  They're kind of meta-level
>statements about what is on: a 'subject to blackout' listing is
>really two separate listings, one for those in the affected region
>and one for everyone else.

I think I've kind of resolved this with the <timeslot> element.  It's
still not completely clean but at least the weirdness is confined to
that element.

-- 
Ed Avis <ed...@me...>