For your delectation and delight, here’s a little gallery of images, showing the EPG (Electronic Programme Guide) on fifteen different Freeview HD products. This is what you’ll be using to find what you want to watch, unless you’re still buying a printed TV guide. Perhaps, with some of these, you probably should…
Awesome gallery! The EPG is one of the most important elements to me (with the Topfield MyStuff TAP setting the visual & configurablity standard).. the ones with the ads look awful !! Steer well clear!!
Nice gallery. It’s interesting to see them together. The Bush and the Sharp look like they are using the same provider for their PVR design – Bush taking up the option of a PIG (picture in guide) but both look sensible
What engine do all these EPGs run on? Native applications? MHEG? Web based?
I would imagine they’re mostly native apps. The EPG data is broadcast as standard DVB-SI information, and then it’s up to the individual makers to display it however they want.
Without dissassembling the code for a particular box, it’s hard to say exactly what means each one uses for displaying the data, but I don’t think that’s really important anyway.
The most important thing is that they use the broadcast information. How it gets on to the screen is not important, as long as the end result is easy to use and navigate.
EPG is one of the most important elements for me too. Why do most manufacturers get it so wrong? Why is the programme synopsis, which is concise to start with, usually truncated even when there is plenty of screen space for the whole thing? I don’t want to have to push another button to see the whole of the info. It’s never more than 2 short sentences for heaven’s sake.
I would value a list of those EPGs that show the whole programme synopsis.
Another requirement with so many terrible channels around is ease of deleting them, and re-ordering the remainder.
Oh and which ones disable sound & picture? Do they all? Do the mini images on some of the ones above show the channel currently being viewed or the channel being looked at on the EPG?