Australian TV viewers really have it tough when it comes to Electronic Program Guide (EPG) info.
For some reason the TV networks have all decided that it is not applicable for them to release an EPG so that viewers using PVR’s or Home Theatre PC’s can schedule recordings.

See, I would have thought that it would have been in their best interest to release this info so that people would watch the shows that they air, but I must be missing something.

There is only one (well two really – i will come back to the second option) commercial  EPGs available in Australia. IceTV is an independant company that obtains the listings data themselves and adds value to the standard guide data by adding beter descriptions and titles etc.

The only trouble with this approach is that it is a manual process and they have real humans typing the data out. This can, and often does, lead to errors.

The only other option commercial option currently is to whack down your hard earned on a TiVo.
All the networks got together and agreed on an EPG format and then took the odd step to encrypt it so that no-one else could use it.

Of course, there are a few non-commercial options, as long as you are not going to ask questions as to where the content comes from or if it is legally obtained.
Probably the best option in this genre is called Shepherd .

Shepherd is basically an aggregator of a multitude of EPG’s that are ’scraped’ off the web, and a few embelishments that they obtain along the way.
This seems to me to be the best option that is out there right now for the HTPC users, as it has always been tricky to keep scraping EPGs running. Websites change their display and option often and that breaks a scraper.

Shepherd is different in this respect as it is self updating, meanting that it will often be ‘phoning home’ to see if there are any updated definitions that it can use. This takes all the hard work out of keeping a working EPG.

Realistically though, how hard is it for the networks to just release accurate data in a format that will keep people happy? If there was a free EPG in XML format that had the next 14 days of programming available to anyone who wanted it, and it had title, genre, description, actors, director, producer, creation date, original airdate, classification and if it was a repeat or new content, then how useful would people find it and they would, shock horror, actually use it.

Networks would then get their shows seen even when they pull their usual tricks of mixing up the orders and showing a 7.30pm show one night then moving it the 11.30pm graveyard shift the next. 

Hey, it might even slow down the downloading of shows of the internet.