"A lineup contains a set of channels that a customer can order from
his provider"

This is the basis of my current XSD spec. A lineup is not intended to
be a complete set of all channels available everywhere on all
platforms (that is not a lineup, that is a channel database). Nor is
it intended to provide a single channel preset for all channels across
all platforms based on past broadcast history or the whims of the
lineup creator.

[1] http://wiki.xmltv.org/index.php/LineupProposal
Users who are fortunate enough to receive TV services from multiple
sources within an integrated solution (e.g. MythTV) would likely want
to have the same channels on each platform numbered/named in the same
way. This is not something that I expect the lineup itself to try to
accomplish - but rather the end-user's TV solution by way of core
functionality or a utility. All a lineup does is inform the TV
solution which channels are available on a given service.

That last bit is important - it is impossible to look at your example
document and determine which channels are available on which service.
How does an XMLTV grabber use your lineup file?
You seem to be expecting miracles, Ben :)

I think most users expect channel numbering to reflect the service(s)
they have access to. When they have more than one, they can choose and
their application (or some glue) does the renumbering.

My top-rated channel BBC Four [2] is available in the UK/Ireland on
the following TV platforms with these channel presets:

Freeview - Channel 9
Freesat - Channel 107
Sky (UK) - Channel 116
Sky (Ireland) - Channel 230
Virgin Media- Channel 107
UPC Ireland - Channel 117
Smallworld Cable - Channel 119


Based on this information, which preset does one include when
following in your proposal [3,4] for this channel?

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_Four
[3] http://wiki.xmltv.org/index.php/LineupProposal2
[4] http://www.bucksch.org/1/projects/various/xmltv/lineup.de.xml
If you follow the definition of a lineup as originally envisioned what
you want is not possible using only a single lineup.
Data duplication within a single lineup is so infrequent that it is
not normalised out. It will be more frequent if multiple lineups are
included in a single document following the XSD. Station elements
could therefore be normalised out of the lineup-entry elements
(perhaps as children of the top level xmltv-lineups element) and
instead referenced by id. Taking this to its logical extreme, all
*-channel elements could also be normalised out, until you are left
with lineup-entry elements that simply reference a station element and
one or more channel elements.

A benefit of the current de-normalised design means each lineup is
immediately human readable and that each lineup-entry element contains
all the information required to configure each EPG entry.


Robert/Karl/Mattias - do you guys want to provide any input in this discussion?

I've got a little bit more work to do on tv_grab_uk_rt to support
filtering subscription packages for pay TV lineups, before lineups are
fully integrated into the grabber. I'm aiming to get it committed to
CVS before the weekend is over for interested UK (and other) users to
play with. I'll also write something up on the wiki so that there is a
least some concrete information available.

Cheers,
Nick