Editing Electronic program guide (section)

==Current applications==
<!-- Deleted image removed: [[File:TV Guide Interactive.jpg|thumb|upright=1.4|''[[TV Guide Interactive|i-Guide]]'', a [[TV Guide]] IPG for North American [[digital cable]] boxes from 2007.]] -->
Interactive program guides are nearly ubiquitous in most broadcast media today. EPGs can be made available through television (on [[set-top box]]es and all current digital TV receivers), [[mobile phone]]s (particularly through [[smartphone]] [[mobile app|apps]]), and on the Internet. Online TV Guides are becoming more ubiquitous, with over seven million searches for "TV Guide" being logged each month on [[Google]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Looking for TV Genius? |url=http://www.tvgenius.net/resources/white-papers/online-tv-guide-optimisation/ |website=TV Genius |publisher=Red Bee Media |access-date=October 23, 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111213050201/http://www.tvgenius.net/resources/white-papers/online-tv-guide-optimisation/ |archive-date=December 13, 2011 }}</ref>

For television, IPG support is built into almost all modern receivers for digital cable, [[Satellite television|digital satellite]], and over-the-air [[digital television|digital broadcasting]]. They are also commonly featured in digital video recorders such as [[TiVo]] and [[MythTV]]. Higher-end receivers for [[digital radio|digital broadcast radio]] and digital [[satellite radio]] commonly feature built-in IPGs as well.

Demand for non-interactive electronic television program guides – television channels displaying listings for currently airing and upcoming programming – has been nearly eliminated by the widespread availability of interactive program guides for television; TV Guide Network, the largest of these services, eventually abandoned its original purpose as a non-interactive EPG service and became a traditional general entertainment cable channel, eventually rebranding as [[Pop (American TV channel)|Pop]] in January 2015. Television-based IPGs provide the same information as EPGs, but faster and often in much more detail. When television IPGs are supported by [[digital video recorder|PVR]]s, they enable viewers to plan viewing and recording by selecting broadcasts directly from the EPG, rather than programming timers.

The aspect of an IPG most noticed by users is its [[graphical user interface]] (GUI), typically a grid or table listing [[channel (broadcasting)|channel]] names and program titles and times: web and television-based IPG interfaces allow the user to highlight any given listing and call up additional information about it supplied by the EPG provider. Programs on offer from [[virtual channel|subchannel]]s may also be listed.

Typical IPGs also allow users the option of [[Search engine (computing)|searching]] by genre, as well as immediate one-touch access to, or recording of, a selected program. Reminders and [[Parental controls|parental control]] functions are also often included. The IPGs within some [[DirecTV]] [[Integrated receiver/decoder|IRD]]s can control a VCR using an attached [[infrared]] emitter that [[emulator|emulates]] its remote control.

The latest development in IPGs is personalization through a [[Recommender system|recommendation engine]] or [[semantics]]. Semantics are used to permit interest-based suggestions to one or several viewers on what to watch or record based on past patterns. One such IPG, [[iFanzy]], allows users to customize its appearance.

Standards for delivery of scheduling information to television-based IPGs vary from application to application, and by country. Older television IPGs like [[Guide Plus]]+ relied on analog technology (such as the [[vertical blanking interval]] of analog television video signals) to distribute listings data to IPG-enabled consumer receiving equipment. In Europe, the [[ETSI|European Telecommunications Standards Institute]] (ETSI) published standard ETS 300 707 to standardize the delivery of IPG data over [[DVB|digital television broadcast signals]]. Listings data for IPGs integrated into digital terrestrial television and radio receivers of the present day is typically sent within each station's [[MPEG transport stream]], or alongside it in a special [[data]] stream. The [[ATSC standards|ATSC standard]] for digital terrestrial television, for instance, uses tables sent in each station's [[Program and System Information Protocol|PSIP]]. These tables are meant to contain program start times and titles along with additional program descriptive metadata. [[Time signal|Current time signals]] are also included for [[on-screen display]] purposes, and they are also used to set timers on recording devices.

Devices embedded within modern digital cable and satellite television receivers, on the other hand, customarily rely upon third-party listings metadata aggregators to provide them with their on-screen listings data. Such companies include [[Tribune Content Agency|Tribune TV Data]] (now [[Gracenote]], part of [[Nielsen Holdings]]), Gemstar-TV Guide (now [[TiVo Corporation]]), FYI Television, Inc. in the United States and Europe; TV Media in the United States and Canada; Broadcasting Dataservices in Europe and Dayscript in [[Latin America]]; and What's On India Media Pvt. Ltd in [[India]], [[Sri Lanka]], [[Indonesia]], the [[Middle East]] and [[Asia]].

Some IPG systems built into older set-top boxes designed to receive terrestrial digital signals and television sets with built-in digital tuners may have a lesser degree of interactive features compared to those included in cable, satellite and IPTV converters; technical limitations in these models may prevent users from accessing program listings beyond (at maximum) 16 hours in advance and complete program synopses, and the inability for the IPG to parse synopses for certain programs from the MPEG stream or displaying next-day listings until at or after 12:00&nbsp;a.m. local time. IPGs built into newer television (including [[Smart TV]]), digital terrestrial set-top box and antenna-ready DVR models feature on-screen displays and interactive guide features more comparable to their pay television set-top counterparts, including the ability to display grids and, in the case of DVRs intended for terrestrial use, the ability – with an Internet connection – to access listings and content from [[over-the-top content|over-the-top]] services.

A growing trend is for manufacturers such as [[Elgato]] and [[Topfield]] and software developers such as [[Microsoft]] in their [[Windows Media Center]] to use an Internet connection to acquire data for their built-in IPGs. This enables greater interactivity with the IPG such as media downloads, [[Season ticket|series recording]] and programming of the recordings for the IPG remotely; for example, [[IceTV]] in Australia enables TiVo-like services to competing DVR/PVR manufacturers and software companies.

In developing IPG software, manufacturers must include functions to address the growing volumes of increasingly complex data associated with programming. This data includes program descriptions, schedules and [[Television content rating system|parental television ratings]], along with flags for technical and access features such as display formats, [[closed captioning]] and [[Audio description|Descriptive Video Service]]. They must also include user configuration information such as favorite channel lists, and multimedia content. To meet this need, some set-top box software designs incorporate a "database layer" that utilizes either proprietary functions or a [[commercial off-the-shelf]] [[embedded database]] system for sorting, storing and retrieving programming data.<ref>{{cite web|title=Programming Guide Manages Networked Digital TV|url=http://www.eetimes.com/in_focus/communications/OEG20021127S0035|author=Andrei Gorine|website=EE Times|date=December 2002|access-date=August 15, 2008|archive-date=21 August 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080821152630/http://www.eetimes.com/in_focus/communications/OEG20021127S0035|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Hybrid Data Management Gets Traction In Set-Top Boxes |url=http://www.embedded.com/columns/technicalinsights/209601833?_requestid=19509 |archive-url=http://arquivo.pt/wayback/20160523201602/http://www.embedded.com/columns/technicalinsights/209601833?_requestid=19509 |url-status=dead |archive-date=2016-05-23 |author=Steve Graves |website=Embedded.com |date=July 2008 |access-date=August 15, 2008 }}</ref>