Managing EPG
Introduction
Icareus Playout updates EPG data (the Electronic program guide) by reading data from Data Sources and writing to an EPG database. The data source determines the form of the data, for example if it's a specific kind of XML data and sometimes also the mechanism of how the data is received, for example as a file or as a transport stream (TS). The purpose of the EPG data is ultimately to output the EPG on a transport stream, which lets viewers see the EPG guide on their devices and see what programs or events are currently shown and which are scheduled to be shown in future.
This page is describes how to input EPG data into an Icareus Playout system. The output of the EPG happens by writing EIT P/F and EIT Schedule tables into a transport stream. In addition Playout has a license feature to do EPG export a to other systems and there is also an EPG API which allows other systems to request EPG data from Playout.
Supported Data Sources
Icareus Playout supports many data sources and we often add support for
new data sources, based on customer requirements. Each data source has its own license feature, meaning that the Playout license on the server has to have the feature for the specific source to be supported on that server. In addition to the specific data source(s), the server must also have the EPG Server license feature to use EPG. Below is a list of supported data sources in alphabetic order. Most of the data sources are described in more detail on their own Helpdesk page.
Data source license feature name | Helpdesk page |
BarcoXML Data Source | |
Barrowa Data Source | |
BTS Data Source | |
CanalPlus Data Source | |
CASIS Data Source | |
CSV Data Source | |
DekTec ASI input Data Source | |
| DekTec IP input Data Source | |
DVB-EPG Data Source | |
EPG Sales Data Source | |
Harris BCM Data Source | |
Icareus Data Source | |
Jade Data Source | |
Mediadata.org Data Source | |
Nagra Data Source | |
Nagra-Nielsen Data Source | |
NIC IP input Data Source | |
Polymedia Data Source | |
TitanTV Data Source | |
Tribune Media Services Data Source | |
Turksat Data Source | |
TV-Anytime Data Source | |
TVListing Data Source | |
TVPPOLONIA Data Source | |
XMLTV Data Source |
Configuration of the EIT source for a DVB service
Service specific configuration
In Playout Web, on the DVB Services page, one can configure the EIT source for each service. This happens by selecting the service, clicking the EIT source tab and selecting the EIT source to use in the drop down menu. The menu contains all data sources that the Playout license supports. Below is an image where the IcareusOne service's data source is being selected in the EIT source menu.
First select which data source to use in the EIT source menu. Then select whether to use default parameters (Use default) or not. To configure a service with default parameters, see the Configuration of default EIT source parameters section below. When Use default is not selected the service has its own EIT source configuration. In this case remove the Use default check mark. Fill in the source parameters for the service, selecting e.g. the folder from which this service's EIT events will be updated.
Icareus recommends configuring the Remote source folder setting by adding a slash and the service id to the path, e.g. you can use the folder /opt/playout/ftp/update/xmltv/1 for the service with id 1.
Different data sources can have a different set of EIT source parameters. For example for XMLTV, please see the page https://helpdesk.icareus.com/portal/en/kb/articles/xmltv.
Make all the needed changes and click the Save button for the settings to take affect.
Once the EIT source parameters for the service have been configured and saved Playout will start to update EPG for the service. Once data has been ingested the EIT events ingested can be seen under the service's EIT events tab.
Configuration of default EIT source parameters
It's possible to use a default EIT source configuration for each service. In this case, once the EIT source has been selected, and Use default is on, the parameters are saved by clicking Save.
The default parameters are configured in the Playout
Web user interface on the page Settings > EIT.
There's a General tab which allows configuration of global EIT parameters which are active for all services and data sources.
Changes take affect after clicking the Save button.
In addition to the General settings, many data sources can have a default configuration. In this case there's a tab under EIT settings with the name of the data source, e.g. XMLTV.
To activate the default settings, first click Use remote source update, which lets you enter additional configuration data. When activated, the default settings are used for all services that are configured to use this data source's default settings.
Below, XMLTV default settings have been enabled and the source folder /opt/playout/ftp/update/xmltv is configured the default location for updating EPG from XMLTV files. This allows multiple services to use the same source folder.
In the case of XMLTV, Playout adds EPG events from an XMLTV source file to the service whose name matches exactly the programme channel for that specific event.