TVSquad

Come September, MythTV, Media Portal, and GB-PVR users could be stuck staring at a blank screen. That's when Zap2it Labs will stop offering free program guide data in the easily parsed XML format used by those and other PC-based PVR applications.

The developers of CTpvr, another software-based personal video recorder are developing a product that will offer data that is nearly identical to that currently offered by Zap2it. TV listings will include data like genre, cast, crew, advisories, and original air dates.

CTpvr hasn't announced pricing yet, but the company will charge users a monthly or annual fee for access to the data. For that reason alone, I suspect that this system will be used by CTpvr customers, while free and open-source applications like MythTV will look elsewhere.

Several MythTV, XMLTV, and MacProgGuide developers have already come together to form Schedules Direct. The group, previously known as EasyTV Data, is looking at alternatives to the Zap2it Labs data that can be easily plugged into PVR software to provide you with that electronic program guide goodness you've come to rely on.

IceTV offers Australian subscribers access to electronic program guide information. Sounds simple enough, but Australian broadcasters are less than happy about that fact. The country has a law that considers program guide data to be the property of broadcasters, making Australia one of the most PVR-unfriendly countries around, because a good PVR requires access to television listings.

So what does IceTV do? It one-ups things by planning a new service that will allow IceTV subscribers to download TV shows and movies. The company is working with movie studios to secure content, but those deals won't engender any good will from the already annoyed Australian broadcast companies.

The service will initially work with PCs running Windows Vista and Windows XP Media Center Edition. Mac compatibility is being held up due to DRM issues, but should be available in the future.

I've spent a lot of time as a journalist covering City Council sessions in Philadelphia, but I've never sat in on a hearing quite as geeky as this. A Lincoln, Nebraska City Councilman will hold hearings in March on Time Warner's PVRs which as pretty much anyone in the country who uses them can tell you, kinda stink.

Councilman Jonathon Cook -- a Time Warner customer -- says subscribers "are not getting what they paid for," with Time Warner PVRs. Apparently the city's franchise agreement with the cable company allows City Council to hold such hearings. It's entirely clear what actions the city could take against Time Warner in response to the hearings, but if there's one thing I learned during my aforementioned years covering legislative sessions, it's that you don't need actual power to hold a public hearing, you just need the urge to grandstand on a topic.

Lincoln Time Warner customers have complained that a new program guide rolled out by the cable company is both ugly and buggy, and that the cable boxes are slow to react to button presses on a remote control, all of which sound par for the course for generic cable company PVRs.

The Lincoln Journal Star, which reports the story also has a page filled with customer complaints/suggestions for Time Warner.

[via digg]