Prevue Guide Forums

I am currently trying to create a C# program that feeds the raw data through serial to the WinUAE program. So far, I have been able to send the channel lineup of my own choosing and any channel listings that I can manually key. I have also setup the reset command by clicking one button and sending the Weather ID.

Upon discovery of the UV Test files that were placed on this forum a while back, I noticed going through the files that there were two different versions of the P command. One was uppercase P and the other lowercase p. The lowercase p had a different setup as to the pattern of data being sent. I am wondering if anyone has been able to look at this aspect of the program listings. I also think that there was another version of the C command as well, since using the regular C command only sets some of the features (like Stereo, Ditto, AltHilite, etc.) but did not set the flag for Movie Summary and Digital PPV.

Speaking of Stereo, if you set the channel up for Stereo, when you send a listing - append the words "In Stereo" at the end of the listing and the words will automatically change to the appropriate headphone symbol. Also, if you use (TV-G) or (PG) at the end of the listing, this will give the appropriate symbol for the rating. The system parses the data sent in the listing and converts the In Stereo or listings information. Same holds true with (CC), the symbol for closed-captions appears.

It's a learning process for me as I am new to C#, but it's been a lot of fun so far.

Thanks,
Steven

Aye we've noticed that there seems to have been new versions of a number of commands, the old versions being capital and the new being lowercase. They're very briefly documented in the wiki. I only reverse engineered the Atari code (still not found any great way of pulling the amiga code) which only used the uppercase ones, although I think we worked out some of the differences in some of the lowercase codes, although I cant find the forum posts at the moment.

I think someone mentioned the (in stereo) thing as well, it started making me wonder about the time offsets as well (when the time a programme starts is inserted into the listings). Maybe the code is clever enough to change them too (discussed here http://www.ariweinstein.com/prevue/view ... rt=60#p834)

I have found some interesting information. When it comes to movie listings, the TV Guide data that was on the disk showed the length of Blair Witch Project as "(1 hr 21 min)". I was viewing a video of the yellow guide from 2000, and I noticed that it showed the length of programs as "(2:51)", without the hrs or min indicators.

So being curious, I tried creating a movie listing and sent it over serial and appended (2:51) at the end. What is amazing is that the ESQ automatically converted the (2:51) to (2 hrs 51 min) on the displayed listing.

I also viewed some videos of early Prevue Guide/Channel and it was showing movie lengths as (2:51), for example. So I am thinking that the Prevue database probably still kept all of their movie lengths in the (x:xx) format and the system automatically changed it to (x hrs xx min), which would then be stored on the data disk.

Now, if I can figure why they changed the Uppercase listings to mixed-case...... LOL.

Thanks,
Steven

That is interesting!

I have found a new discovery. Remember in the curday.dat and nxtday.dat that there are a series of 6 Hex FF characters next to each other right before the channel name. At the time, it was found that they controlled the time that a channel was actively displayed in the grid and also advised Off Air messages. I have found how to send this using the C command. When you are sending the channel lineup data, append after each channel name Hex 14 and then 6 Hex FF chars (or any other combination of chars here), then NUL as usual and update the checksum. This will update curday with the Off Air messages and also will work with the channels that shared channel space (e.g. in the Hawthorne CA listings, the Golf Channel and Weather Channel).

<HEX 55><HEX AA><C><Julian date><HEX 12><Chan Flag 1> SOURCE ID <HEX 11> CHANNEL # <HEX 01> DISPLAY ID <HEX 14> <HEX FF> <HEX FF> <HEX FF> <HEX FF> <HEX FF> <HEX FF> <NUL> <Checksum>

I will bet that some of the other control characters will add additional data to the listing. I really would like to find the one that centers text within the grid.....

Thanks very much,
Steven

That's very cool! I actually specifically remember one of my sources - the original EPG Jr./Sr./Prevue Guide software guy - mentioning that the six-byte channel mask was one of the things that could be sent in a channel command, but I never knew how to do it.

AriX wrote:That's very cool! I actually specifically remember one of my sources - the original EPG Jr./Sr./Prevue Guide software guy - mentioning that the six-byte channel mask was one of the things that could be sent in a channel command, but I never knew how to do it.

AriX, thank the person that sent the test files for this discovery. I was able to find it deep within one of the test files and I tried it in our version of the software and it worked.

Thanks,
Steven

nwgatwcfan wrote:AriX, thank the person that sent the test files for this discovery. I was able to find it deep within one of the test files and I tried it in our version of the software and it worked.

Thanks,
Steven

Ah, great! It's the same guy I will call him up some time and see how he's doing, it's probably been a year since I last talked to him.

nwgatwcfan wrote:I really would like to find the one that centers text within the grid.....

I noticed long ago that it centers a notice if it is only 1 line long.

hey guys, long time no post Anyone make any progress on either a sender to send listings via serial or curday.dat generators? I feel comfortable coming up with the data to feed into the guide, but I'm not all that well versed on the format of the curday.dat or converting from something I can work in (PHP) to output to the binary files needed.