Web Based EPG

As the number of available channels is increasing, new ways to help users find programs they want to se has developed. Instead of using a paper based TV-guide or the teletext, users can use an electronic program guide to find the shows they are interested in. The Swedish existing web based EPG (Electronic program guide) that where found, are all very similarly regarding both interface and functions, and the overall function is the one that shows what is on all the channels, right this second. The channel information for these channels can be found in several companies, but the most interesting is TVData, Infomedia and Avisa. To connect the database containing the channel information with the server holding the EPG, a database driver is required. The most suitable for this among the JDBC drivers, are the Native-API partly-Java driver and for ODBC, the Two-tier-architecture. Before constructing an EPG, a decision regarding which platform to chose, needs to be made. The evaluated platforms are the web based, OpenTV and MediaHighway. When comparing web based EPG with EPGs from OpenTV and MediaHighway. There are more advantages for using web based tools when creating an EPG, like no licence and that the developing language is well known. But OpenTV and MediaHighway are better prepared against a large increase of users. Since they broadcast there contents all the time. New products that already contain an EPG, are products like TiVo and ReplayTV. These products can be seen as the future VCR as they have several interesting functions and store all the movies on an internal hard disk. Since the products from TiVo and ReplayTV have very similarly functions and price. It will in my opinion be how user-friendly their interfaces for their different functions are, that will separate these two. These products that can be seen as local-on-demand also have more advantages compared with server based video-on-demand.Validerat; 20101217 (root