Thank you for 3PG which is -I think- the most advanced EPG tool available. Also it provides a very nice interface makeover for nearly all Toppy functions (timer, infobox, archive, etc).
However, I hope to receive feedback and would like to bring to your attention the following issue:
- 3PG handles now/next only transponders badly (maybe worse than the original Toppy EPG)
The German services (ZDF, ARD etc) provide an multi-day EPG. Scanning such transponders for the events once a day using 3PG's methods work excellent.
However, there are many FTA services which only adhere to the minimal DVB-S requirement, i.e. the now/next information. Scanning these transponders once a day has no use: the information will be obsolete very quickly.
3PG scans these transponders (I think) at the moment a service within the transponder is selected. This means that -for example- the Grid & Now lists are empty (or out of date) for many services. So the very nice Grid & Now list can hardly be used!
How could this be solved?
EPG content for now/next services is only relevant while using the Toppy. There is no point in scanning beforehand, only at the current time the now/next information for the other services is relevant, so a quick glance a the Grid or Now list can point you to other interesting programs.
Therefore this issue cannot be solved for single tuner systems. After all, while you are watching one channel, the TAP has to turn to other channels in the background to obtain the now/next info.
For two-tuner systems this could be solved with a permanent background scanner:
* I assume assumed the TAP knows if a tuner is free, i.e. no recording on the second tuner while watching to the first tuner.
* Then, introduce an extra scanner flag in the transponderlist for Now/Next Transponders (NNT's), let's say a NNT flag.
* When backupground scanning, ignore NNT flagged transponders. There is no use to scans these transponders in the daily scan.
* Introduce an optional NNT background scanner. If a tuner is free, this scanner only scans the NNT transponders. It starts it task every X minutes for a maximum of Y seconds (or until all now/next informations for all transponder services is obtained).
* This NNT background scanner has to rescan a service only if any of the now events of this transponder has ended (to obtain the next next program) OR when no complete now/next information is present.
* After all NNT transponders have been scanned, wait for the NNT rescan interval to expire.
Such a scanner would call for the following settings (these settings should be unavailable for 1 tuner systems and for 2 tuner loop-trough systems)
- NNT scanning on/off (no use for start- or endtime)
- NNT rescan interval (1-999 minutes)
- NNT max transponder scan (X seconds)
Or is the next/now issue maybe already solved an another way?
