Information on new HD Channels & response to FreeTV's EPG Announcement

Started by Daniel Hall at IceTV, November 19, 2007, 02:14:29 PM

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Kirben

Quote from: dgaust on January 10, 2008, 09:47:14 AM
After all, there is only 50 hours of individual programming, and I know when it is (and I daresay Ice do as well by know). Even if they didn't know what shows were going to be broadcast when, just allow us to choose the SD listings to be displayed in the HD channels.

No please don't go back to showing the inaccurate TV guide data, as it will just cause people to have various recording issues again. Especially for movies/series which are mistakenly marked as been shown in HD. Since it still requires checking another TV guide, to be sure the content is actually been shown on the SevenHD or TenHD channels.

Quote from: dgaust on January 10, 2008, 09:47:14 AM
Or even better, do a copy of SD over to the HD channels, but remove the timeslots that commonly have HD programs shown in them. That'll leave a lot of data that we can use.

Unfortunately I expect that would have the same legal issues, as actually providing a proper TV guide for SevenHD and TenHD channels.

prl

I wrote a perl script to fetch and preprocess TF7000HDPVRt IceTV files to do a Copy SD to HD, but I allowed for a few features that seem to be missing from the IceTV function:

  • Individual configuration for each defined "copy service x to service y"
  • Only copied an "from" entry when it didn't overlap with an existing "to" entry
  • Copying of entries could be filtered by name (e.g. to prevent ABC 7:30 News being copied from SD to HD)
  • Filtering on time ranges (for when I had worked out when the HD service was displaying their loop rather than upscaled SD)
  • And last, and I think most importantly, I marked the title (with a configurable string) so that I could tell in the guide whether the HD EPG entry was a genuine HD entry from IceTV, or a copied SD entry that couldn't necessarily be relied on
It's more difficult to do this with the Beyonwiz, because it fetches the EPG data direct from a wired-in URL. I would have thought the last one would be very easy for IceTV to implement.
Peter
Beyonwiz T4 in-use
Beyonwiz T2, T3, T4, U4 & V2 for testing

IcedCoffee

Quote from: Kirben on January 10, 2008, 10:01:49 AM
Quote from: dgaust on January 10, 2008, 09:47:14 AM
After all, there is only 50 hours of individual programming, and I know when it is (and I daresay Ice do as well by know). Even if they didn't know what shows were going to be broadcast when, just allow us to choose the SD listings to be displayed in the HD channels.

No please don't go back to showing the inaccurate TV guide data, as it will just cause people to have various recording issues again. Especially for movies/series which are mistakenly marked as been shown in HD. Since it still requires checking another TV guide, to be sure the content is actually been shown on the SevenHD or TenHD channels.


I agree with dgaust.  People that do not wish to do this due to the recording issues you mention can simply uncheck the copy SD to HD option and they will continue to get what they get now.  This at least allows those of us that wish to take the risk, the option to do so.

Kirben

Quote from: IcedCoffee on January 10, 2008, 12:01:44 PM
I agree with dgaust.  People that do not wish to do this due to the recording issues you mention can simply uncheck the copy SD to HD option and they will continue to get what they get now.  This at least allows those of us that wish to take the risk, the option to do so.

No, the current SD to HD option, applies to several other channels (ABC, Nine, SBS) too. Which would force inaccurate TV guide data for SevenHD and TenHD channels onto those users.

Unless a separate SD to HD option was added, specifically for the SevenHD and TenHD, as suggested elsewhere.

dgaust

There is always to option of adding an additional setting to allow people to copy the SD channels across, which I did mention elsewhere, you're following me :D.

In any event, I would assume there would be fewer complaints about getting the occasional incorrect show, than no data at all. Remember it is only 50 hours a week where different programming is broadcast, and generally in the same time slots.

And Kirben, I don't think you can copyright nothing, which is exactly what would be happening if Ice left the known HD timeslots blank but the rest was data from the SD channels.

Kirben

Quote from: dgaust on January 10, 2008, 12:41:04 PM
And Kirben, I don't think you can copyright nothing, which is exactly what would be happening if Ice left the known HD timeslots blank but the rest was data from the SD channels.

Well leaving those time slots blank, would show IceTV are aware of the programming differences on SevenHD and TenHD channels. IceTV seem overly paranoid about anything, that could possibly cause any legal issues, so would need a way, to know that information legally I expect.

dishy

Quote from: Gary on January 05, 2008, 02:12:27 PM
IceTV have worked out a combination of ways to compile the information in order to avoid any claims of infringement.

I think that's the wrong way to go. The only way to get legal precedent is to actively infringe, and then get sued over it, and destroy them with quality legal reasoning.

Anyway, if they write their own descriptions of the shows, I don't see how there can be any possible infringement. That would be the only "creative" content that differentiates the source of the data.

dishy

Quote from: Kirben on January 10, 2008, 12:16:36 PM
Unless a separate SD to HD option was added, specifically for the SevenHD and TenHD, as suggested elsewhere.

I requested this same feature from IceTV support, and was told it "isn't possible". Which strikes me as a ridiculous excuse, because it's just software. An abstracted digital environment, which one can manipulate in any way.

There are no laws of electronics or software that prevent such a thing from being possible - so I think they meant "we couldn't be bothered implementing this feature".

Daniel Drysdale at IceTV

Technically you are correct, there are very fews "laws" governing computing.

In this case the design of the guide system does not allow what you have requested to be done without a significant amount of work and since we are talking about a band-aid that would be in place for just a few weeks we are not prepared to commit the necessary resources or mess up our proven system with a kludge.

We understand the frustration you are all feeling at the moment with the unfortunate delay that is necessary to legally provide you with guide for 7HD & TEN HD, as we have stated several times we have a plan in place that we are currently working through, we want to get the guide to you as quickly as we can but our hands are tied. Considering that we still have the appeal from channel Nine pending in court we would be foolish to do anything even bordering on "grey" with respect to copyright.
Cheers,

Dan
Software Manager @ IceTV

IcedCoffee

Quote
No, the current SD to HD option, applies to several other channels (ABC, Nine, SBS) too. Which would force inaccurate TV guide data for SevenHD and TenHD channels onto those users.

Unless a separate SD to HD option was added, specifically for the SevenHD and TenHD, as suggested elsewhere.

Point taken - as well as the point made later that it is probably not worth the effort for Ice to do a temporary Kludge to add a separate option since the solution is supposedly a few weeks away.  Had they considered the kludge in November however.. it would have given them and us three months of a better option than is currently available. 

I am still intrigued as to how by watching weeks of programming, they can then suddenly be able to predict the future.  I can kind of see that they can predict the next episode in a tv series as they can look at overseas guides that describe episodes (although there have been many times that 7, 9 and 10 have messed up the order of the episodes.)   When it comes to predicting movies, how is it possible to know what the networks are going to screen by guessing?  They have to read it off some guide unless the networks put out some sort of press release of what movies are to be shown in a form which is not copyrighted.

What a ridiculous situation we in Australia find ourselves in ;-)  I as a user can manually look at any tv guide online and manually program my DVR,DVD Rec or VHS machine with that info, but it is not permissible for me or anyone else (Ice) to write a program that extracts that freely available info to automatically program my DVR.  However a judge has ruled that if the same info is compiled by people watching and predicting the info it is then OK.  Sigh.

prl

Quote from: IcedCoffee on January 10, 2008, 05:08:11 PM
...
What a ridiculous situation we in Australia find ourselves in ;-)  I as a user can manually look at any tv guide online and manually program my DVR,DVD Rec or VHS machine with that info, but it is not permissible for me or anyone else (Ice) to write a program that extracts that freely available info to automatically program my DVR.  ...
That's (from my limited understanding) exactly one of the sorts of things that copyright law is intended to give the copyright owner control over - the making of derivative works, i.e. making a new version based on the original. The information isn't "freely available". It's copyrighted.
Peter
Beyonwiz T4 in-use
Beyonwiz T2, T3, T4, U4 & V2 for testing

IcedCoffee

Quote from: prl on January 10, 2008, 05:53:36 PM
That's (from my limited understanding) exactly one of the sorts of things that copyright law is intended to give the copyright owner control over - the making of derivative works, i.e. making a new version based on the original. The information isn't "freely available". It's copyrighted.

OK I kind of walked into that :D - I'll elaborate a bit more...
Yes from my limited understanding that is the situation however I believe it is relevant where there is copyright material in the first place.     A list of data eg telephone book, list of people who got married, died, born etc is arguably not copyright as it is factual information in the public domain.  A factual news story that appears in a newspaper is a copyright article in the sense that the writer has composed the words around the facts, however the facts themselves are not copyrighted.  If a murder happened, it happened and anyone can write an article about it listing all the facts.  Since the tv list of what is on is a factual list, I don't IMHO think that should be copyrightable.  That is what I meant by comparing my use of the list in an EPG form to that of manually using the list to program the device.  If one is legal then so should the other be.

Certainly the layout of the program is copyright, but then the EPG layout is distinctly different to the listings produced by the networks.  I can see an argument where the descriptions of the program are copyright however, it doesn't seem to me that the local networks write their own descriptions of most of the programs as most are the same as that listed on US sites so if anyone holds copyright in those descriptions it should be the US writers.  Unfortunately it seems that in Aus a legal precedent was set whereby a telephone book's list of phone numbers was considered to be copyright - an opposite precedant was set in the US.

It also seems to me that the info is "freely available" in that it is available from numerous sources not just the network list themselves but the numerous online and offline publications, as well as a listing on the digital guide channels that list the shows of the day and of course by turning on a TV and watching it you will see the program being screened. There is no copyright notice on most if not all of these lists.

From US copyright law "Copyright protects the particular way an author has expressed himself; it does not extend to any ideas, systems, or factual information conveyed in the work.  http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html

In Australia we have "Fair Dealing" provisions.  A quote from this is If you simply restate public information in your own words, you will not infringe copyright.  http://www.copyright.org.au/pdf/acc/infosheets_pdf/G079.pdf

THis of course is all academic as Ice have taken a position,  Channel 9 have sued and lost but are appealing and Ice's method of compilation it seems is such that they are attempting to compile the info independantly.

dgaust

Quote from: IcedCoffee on January 10, 2008, 07:34:31 PM

OK I kind of walked into that :D - I'll elaborate a bit more...
Yes from my limited understanding that is the situation however I believe it is relevant where there is copyright material in the first place.     A list of data eg telephone book, list of people who got married, died, born etc is arguably not copyright as it is factual information in the public domain.

Actually I think Telstra won a court decision that said that the White Pages was copyrightable material. So a compilation of facts is copyrightable. In most countries it ain't, but in little old backward Oz it is.

IcedCoffee

Quote from: dgaust on January 10, 2008, 08:48:06 PM
Actually I think Telstra won a court decision that said that the White Pages was copyrightable material. So a compilation of facts is copyrightable. In most countries it ain't, but in little old backward Oz it is.
Yeah unfortunately I think that was the precedent I referred to later in my post regarding a list of numbers.  I am still not convinced that it fully translates to the general case that a "list of facts" is copyright though. Consider the example I gave of a newpaper article.  Clearly though for us, we find ourselves in Aus in this strange - I say ridiculous- situation.  As far as I know we are the only country in the world to have copyright in TV listings. 

Oh well, we have a lot of other good things going for us in Aus so the occasional anomaly is to be expected and I guess tolerated.  It still would be nice if we fell into line with the rest of the world though.

Interestingly Tivo will be launched later this year and according to the SMH it will support all the channels.  I wonder if that could lead to an argument that the networks, in only allowing the guide for Tivo and not other providers, are engaging in anti-competitive behaviour.

pvogel

Quote from: IcedCoffee on January 10, 2008, 09:03:48 PM
I am still not convinced that it fully translates to the general case that a "list of facts" is copyright though...

It depends on how the list of facts was compiled. Example: If you were interested in butterflies and had a theory that butterfiles which live in warmer climates have brighter colours, so you put together a list of butterflies sorted by climate preference, you have created a list of facts. Each fact on its own is not copyright but the list is, and I think most people would agree that if I've spent a lot of effort doing the work to make the list, I should have ownership of it. However if someone creates an idential list by their own efforts, good luck to them. So long as they didn't copy my list, I have no claim.  Ownership includes having the right to say you cannot copy my list, whether by hand or digitally.

PV