Talk:Electronic program guide

Provide an orientation
Contributors need an orientation, and a framework into which they can put their contribution (or withhold until they understand the overall framework that their own understanding fits. Many contributors merely understand their own limited environment, and presume to generalize.  For example, mine is limited to a northern Virginia broadcast TV EPG on a digital converter.  If I were to extrapolate, I might presume that most broadcasters are as careless as mine about accuracy, and reliability.  It often takes weeks for changes in the program broadcasts to be reflected in the EPG.  Some broadcasters provide nothing but the call sign & the channel #, with "No description".  I don't suppose there is one clearinghouse for this information, but that viewers must contact each stationhouse manager to inform them of persistent malfunctions, because the station staff probably do not monitor their own EPG as well as they do their video(if at all). It might be a limit of my receiving set, but only the next few (2-6) hours of programming is available in the EPG. There are also websites that provide parallel and analogous information in a table format, which could be printed for planning purposes: http://epguides.com/grid Wikidity (talk) 01:43, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

Make article less US specific
The article talks about ATSC and PSIP whereas many countries are using DVB building the EPG from the EIT(schedule) SI data. If the article is going to be specific about how US systems build the EPG, would it not be sensible to include information about how DVB systems build their EPG? MendipBlue 15:05, 22 November 2006 (UTC)


 * —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Gonkyhead (talk • contribs) 16:58, 5 January 2007 (UTC).

Make article include Digital Radio
The article should also consider the EPG broadcast using the Eureaka 147 standard (and possible HD-Radio standard). gonkyhead 16:58, 05 January 2007 (UTC)

Wrong link
The link "TV-Browser - Open Source EPG software" leeds to a web page, which has nothing to do with EPG.


 * as it shows a picture of EPG software available to download. I'd tell you more, but it's in German and I don't have the energy to use Babel Fish. --69.123.165.15 02:16, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
 * TV-Browser is a GPL Java based EPG software, providing German, Swedish and British channels for free. The software itself also has English localization, see its English wiki.

"In Australia, the lack of a seven-day electronic program guide..."
"In Australia, the lack of a seven-day electronic program guide has neccessitated datacast channels such as Seven Guide, Nine Guide, Ten Guide and the defunct SBS Essential to provide program information." On my MythTV the EPG works fine when getting info from the DTV card. --211.28.35.33 (talk) 19:33, 23 February 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree it isn't credible, and as it isn't verifiable either I have removed it. Thanks, SqueakBox 19:39, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Digital EPG
EPGs can be utilized in a non-displayed format as the article itself cites: hence I changed "on-screen guide" to "digital" '' Ð ’ n  —Preceding undated comment was added at 10:16, 24 December 2008 (UTC).

American or British English?
According to the "first kind of English used" rule (ENGVAR) the article should be in British English, but the article title is in American. I have no preference either way. But it would be nice if a decision was made. 118.90.28.56 (talk) 00:57, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

EPG vs. IPG
I have reverted some edits by 96.229.210.15, who started changing "EPG" into "IPG" without any previous discussion. As for now the complete article is named Electronic program guide (="EPG") and sources are also referring to "EPG" and not to "IPG". I cannot find good reason for changing "EPG" into "IPG". If there is any, let's first discuss! Mentalmoses (talk) 15:34, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Added SuperGuide early interactive EPG history
The article jumps from non interactive displays to cable boxes with a decade plus gap in development. The SuperGuide system was available during this time. Regarding the references, I have scanned images of these references but don't know what to do with them should these references need to be verified.. The show guides and magazines are all out of print and hard to find. --PeteHallenbeckEfland (talk) 17:47, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Merge proposal
I am requesting that the article Electronic Content Guide be merged into the article Electronic program guide due to the former's redundancy with this article. I placed this on the discussion page of the Electronic Content Guide (which is an unreferenced, orphan article) as well, but to get an actual consensus, I have also placed the merge proposal here on this talk page. (TVtonightOKC (talk) 10:57, 13 March 2011 (UTC))

Needs "data quality" or "data sources" section
It would be helpful if the article provided additional details on where and how Program Guide information comes from would be appropriate in this section.

The service provided with over-the-air HDTV systems in the US, via the Program and System Information Protocol for example, typically is either blank or does not describe the programming being broadcast.

rhyre (talk) 08:32, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

Spam captions
Both of the images in the lead appear to be there purely to spam the creators. Is there content in the article that can used to explain why these were chosen instead of just advertising? -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom  17:32, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Recent reversions
I have just undone an unsourced paragraph from another user who appears to have a potential conflict of interest related to Inview. I have also announced my own potential conflict of interest (related to AT&T) so I don't mean to step on any toes. However, I was following up on another editor (TheRedPenOfDoom) who performed similar reversions. At a minimum, content that states opinions about the difficulty of use or proper solution for EPG remote problems should be sourced. When that is resolved we can talk about whether the proposed edits slant too much in any direction. Thank you for your understanding. 12.153.112.21 (talk) 17:39, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Agree, that while potentially "true", without actual reliable third party sources to support the "facts", it is just WP:OR. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom  18:01, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Use of Bold Typeface
Why so much use of bold in this article? I have not seen this on any other Wikipedia page, so it doesn't seem to conform to the usual style of Wikipedia.

Should the bolded words be changed to the standard typeface? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Marchino61 (talk • contribs) 03:13, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

External links modified
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"(EPG's)" listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect (EPG& and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 April 4 until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Steel1943 (talk) 19:09, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

"Episode list" listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Episode list and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 August 15 until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Steel1943 (talk) 21:03, 15 August 2022 (UTC)