Greetings.  For those of you who don't know me, I'm a MythTV developer  
who has been working with MythWeb and Nuvexport for the last 5 or so  
years.  More recently, I've been working on a method for channel icon  
lookup for MythTV, and as one of the board members for Schedules  
Direct (and currently as COO and a somewhat overstated "lead  
developer").

One of the biggest problems I've had in dealing with channel logos is  
trying to understand exactly what a "channel" is.  After a lot of  
conversations with other developers, and a lot of poking around with  
informational resources like LyngSat and the XML feed from TMS that SD  
members receive, I think that have a relatively good grasp of how to  
identify the four bits of information needed to track channel  
information and its associated artwork.  I'll break these out below  
with a sampling of possible associated fields (which I would consider  
a bare minimum, not a full set).

There are actually two different sources of information about a  
"channel" -- the station itself, and the network or affiliate that it  
might subscribe to.  This distinction applies mostly to north american  
stations, but should also be considered for international versions or  
multiple instances of cable/satellite feeds, as well.

     Network / Affiliate
         Name:   ABC
         Logo

     Station
         Name:       Komo4
         Callsign:   KOMO
         Affiliate:  ABC
         FCC Chan:   4
         City:       Seattle
         State:      WA
         PostalCode: 98109
         Country:    USA
         Timezone:   Pacific (GMT -8)
         Language:   English
         Logo

Once we've identified the station and its potential affiliate, we need  
a way to identify where and how a user might.  TMS calls the virtual/ 
physical local provider a headend, which could be anything from "local  
broadcast" to "Dishnetwork USA", and is basically a grouping point for  
the actual channels that users in a specific geographic area can  
receive from a specific provider type.  The lineups are attached to  
the headend, and link it to the station records.

     Headend
         Name:      Comcast Seattle
         Country:   USA
         State:     WA
         County:    King
         Community: Seattle, South
         Timezone:  Pacific (GMT -8)

     Lineup Channel:
         Headend ID
         Station ID
         Type:           broadcast (e.g. dvb-t, satellite, digital  
cable)
         Channel:        4
         Service Level:  Basic (e.g. PPV, Music)
         Start Date:     (date becomes active on this headend)
         End Date:       (date to be removed from this headend)
         (ATSC:
          Transport ID
          Major Chan
          Minor Chan
          )
         (DVB:
          Transport ID
          Network ID
          Service ID
          )

  * Please keep in mind that these don't represent a database schema  
(that would end up being at least half a dozen tables, probably more),  
just a way to group information for use by end users.

-----

So why have I said all of this?  As a MythTV developer working on  
channel icons, and one working closely with Schedules Direct, I would  
like to start (and probably get SD to sponsor) a new project to  
catalogue station information from around the world to be integrated  
with xmltv so there is no more need for third-party lineup grabbers.

I also know that there has been a little discussion on this list about  
creating some sort of xmltv format to identify channels, and Robert  
Eden and I agreed that "xmltv" would be the best name to group this  
project under.

I see two parts of this project:

  * Create a DTD to identify what a full-lineup record would look like  
(i.e. the thing that
  * Create a wiki-like system that allows users to enter/update all of  
this info

If this is something that the XMLTV community is interested in working  
on, I'd like to know what the rest of you think about this, both as a  
concept and as a project.

-Chris

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