Schedules Direct is a
non-profit
A nonprofit organization (NPO), also known as a nonbusiness entity, nonprofit institution, not-for-profit organization, or simply a nonprofit, is a non-governmental (private) legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public, or so ...
organization that provides a low-cost
television
Television (TV) is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. Additionally, the term can refer to a physical television set rather than the medium of transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...
program listing service for
open source
Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...
and
freeware
Freeware is software, often proprietary, that is distributed at no monetary cost to the end user. There is no agreed-upon set of rights, license, or EULA that defines ''freeware'' unambiguously; every publisher defines its own rules for the free ...
digital video recorder
A digital video recorder (DVR), also referred to as a personal video recorder (PVR) particularly in Canadian and British English, is an electronic device that records video in a digital format to a disk drive, USB flash drive, SD memory card, SS ...
s.
Developers from several different projects including
MythTV
MythTV is a free and open-source home entertainment application with a simplified "10-foot user interface" design for the living room TV. It turns a computer with the necessary hardware into a network streaming digital video recorder, a digital ...
,
XMLTV XMLTV is an XML based file format for describing TV listings, which has been introduced in 2002. IPTV providers use XMLTV as the base reference template in their systems, and extend it internally according to their business needs.SearchSOA.com XML t ...
, and
GB-PVR founded Schedules Direct in response to
Tribune Media Services
Tribune Content Agency (TCA) is a syndication company owned by Tribune Publishing. TCA had previously been known as the Chicago Tribune Syndicate, the Chicago Tribune New York News Syndicate (CTNYNS), Tribune Company Syndicate, and Tribune Media ...
's (TMS, now
Gracenote
Gracenote, Inc. is a company and service that provides music, video, and sports metadata and automatic content recognition (ACR) technologies to entertainment services and companies worldwide. Formerly CDDB ("Compact Disc Data Base"), Gracenote ...
) decision to shut down its free Data Direct program listing service as of September 1, 2007.
MythTV and other such software use the data to display an
on-screen
An on-screen display (OSD) is an image superimposed on a screen picture, commonly used by modern television sets, VCRs, and DVD players to display information such as volume, channel, and time.
History
In the past, most adjustments on TV set ...
electronic program guide
Electronic programming guides (EPGs) and interactive programming guides (IPGs) are menu-based systems that provide users of television, radio, and other media applications with continuously updated menus that display scheduling information fo ...
(EPG), and to schedule upcoming recordings. Schedules Direct contracts with Gracenote to purchase a license to redistribute its data—which other commercial digital video recorders also use—to Schedules Direct members. Individuals may become Schedules Direct members for $35 a year,
and members may use the listings service with approved open source and freeware applications.
References
External links
Schedules Direct website
Television technology
{{tv-tech-stub