Electronic Program Guide

The electronic program guide (EPG) allows you to see what is currently being shown on the channels you receive. The EPG is color coded, each color represents a different category of show. The colors are determined by the theme currently being used and can be customized by editing the file "ui.xml" in the directory for the theme.

The guide needs data from somewhere. In North America you can get this data from Schedules Direct, in central Europe nexTView is available and in other parts of the world you use XMLTV. mythfilldatabase retrieves the program data and should be run nightly. Starting with version 0.19, the EIT information in digital TV sources such as DVB-T and ATSC can be used to build the program guide.

Navigation

The arrow keys are used to move the highlighted program point around. The keys A, D, S, W perform the same as left, right, down and up. Page Up and Page Down move the channel list up or down a page. Home and End move the highlight left or right by one day. Control-Left and Control Right and < and > move the highlight left or right by one page. The keys 9, 3, 7 and 1 (like a numeric keypad) perform the same as Page Up, Page Down, Home and End.

Recommended remote bindings: Chan Up/Down to Page Up/Down, FFWD/REW to < and >.

Actions

INFO (default key "I") will bring up more information about a show, and allow you to schedule a recording. If you select "Record this showing" while watching Live TV you can "Instant Record" a program.

RECORD (default key "R") will change the current item from Recording/Not-Recording. Successive keypresses cycle through the scheduled recording type list.

Note that for some recordings to succeed, you may need to Edit the resulting recording rule. E.g. for at least some channels in the US, the information available via Schedules Direct for some daily news programs, e.g. BBC World News America, lists each new program with a years-old Original Air Date. Even if one requests MythTV to record all instances of such a program, it will successfully record the program only once, with all later broadcasts being shown with a status of: Record All -- Previously Recorded and a description including: (Repeat Mon Mar 11 1991) (or from 2007, or 2019, ...) in the electronic program guide. If one creates a lineup support ticket with Schedules Direct, they will correctly respond that they are not including the qualifier Repeat for this program. But that is the way MythTV interprets the old original air date. When Schedules Direct does not receive an "EP" record from their upstream provider, they echo the data in the "SH" record which includes these old <previously_shown/> data. When you select such a program in the guide, from the list of five choices (in MythTV fixes/31) select the bottom Edit Recording Rule command button. Once you have selected Record All Showings as needed, select the Schedule Options command button. Change the default Match Duplicates Using Subtitle & Description to Don't Match Duplicates. Select Back. Select Save. Now in the Program Guide this is shown as Record All 0 Will Record instead of prior Record All -- Previously Recorded.

MENU (default key "M") will change the channel. (Live TV mode only)

"X" will change the channel without leaving the EPG causing the preview window to display the new channel. (Live TV mode only)

TOGGLEFAV (default key "?") will mark/unmark the highlited channel as a "favorite".

NEXTFAV (default key "/") will toggle the EPG between showing just "favorites" and all channels. "4" will also do the same thing.

Usability tip: There is a configuration option available in the guide settings to enable SELECT (enter) to change the channel when using the EPG in Live TV mode. With setting on, pressing SELECT with a show highlighted will change the channel if the show is currently on, or about to be on, otherwise it will allow you to schedule a recording. The threshold for determining when to change the channel and when to record is also adjustable in the guide settings.