Table Of Contents
Using the Web-Based Program Guide
Retrieving Scheduled Program Listings
Retrieving On-Demand Program Listings
Retrieving Program Information
Using the Web-Based Program Guide
This chapter describes the web-based program guide (WBPG). It contains the following sections:
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Retrieving Program Information
Overview
WBPG allows IP/TV end users to review available program listings and to view programs directly from their browsers, without having to individually install the IP/TV Viewer application on their local systems. WBPG generates dynamic HTML content based on the programs managed by one or more IP/TV Content Managers, and takes advantage of IP/TV plug-in technology for streaming video programs.
Software Requirements
WBPG supports both the Netscape browser (versions 4.5x through 4.7x) and the Internet Explorer browser (versions 5.x and 6.x).
Netscape users must perform the following tasks:
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Internet Explorer users must perform the following tasks:
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Note
Launching the WBPG
To access the WBPG, click the Program Guide link on the IP/TV Content Manager home page. If you are a first-time user, you are asked to complete a user profile page. (See Figure 5-1.)
Figure 5-1 User Profile Page
The default WBPG home page is illustrated in Figure 5-2.
Figure 5-2 Default Home Page
From the WBPG home page you can perform the following operations:
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Each of these tasks is discussed in the sections that follow.
Setting User Preferences
From the menu bar of the Preferences page, choose Preferences to set user preferences for WBPG. This retrieves the preferences settings for the current user. (See Figure 5-3.)
Figure 5-3 Preferences Page
Table 5-1 describes the options on the Preferences page.
Click the Go button at the top of the form to save any changes you make.
Searching for Programs
From the menu bar of the home page, choose Search to search for any programs of particular interest. You can search scheduled programs by entering the preferred program start and end times, or on-demand programs by specifying the parent category or keywords. (See Figure 5-4.)
Figure 5-4 Search Criteria Page
Figure 5-5 illustrates how the search results are displayed for scheduled programs.
Figure 5-5 Search Result Page for Scheduled Programs
Figure 5-6 illustrates how the search results are displayed for on-demand programs.
Figure 5-6 Search Result Page for On-Demand Programs
Accessing Online Help
From the menu bar of the WBPG home page, choose Help to access content-sensitive online help.
Retrieving Program Listings
The following section describes how to retrieve program listings from the scheduled programs and on-demand programs listings. Scheduled programs can be sorted by program schedule or program name. On-demand programs can be sorted by program name or program length.
Retrieving Scheduled Program Listings
From the menu bar of the WBPG home page, choose Scheduled Programs to review the program listings for the current day. On the Scheduled Program Listing page (Figure 5-7) you can click the tabs at the top of the listing to retrieve the program listings for the current week, the current month (see Figure 5-8), and the current year, or program listings for a specific date.
Figure 5-7 Scheduled Program Listing Page—Daily View (Sorted by Schedule)
Figure 5-8 Scheduled Program Listing Page—Monthly View (Sorted by Schedule)
Retrieving On-Demand Program Listings
From the menu bar of the WBPG home page, choose OnDemand Programs to review on-demand program listings. You can choose to view the listing in either a category hierarchy fashion or a flat structure. Figure 5-9 illustrates the top-level categories. You can click a particular category to retrieve the program under that selected category.
Figure 5-9 On-Demand Program Listing—Category Level
Playing Programs
From either the scheduled program or on-demand program listing, you can view a program by clicking either a Play button or a program name. This launches the appropriate media plug-in to stream the selected program in a separate window, as shown in Figure 5-10.
Figure 5-10 Program Video Window
Retrieving Program Information
To review detailed program information for a selected program, click the information button in the Description field of the scheduled or on-demand program listing. The information is displayed in a separate browser window, as shown in Figure 5-11.
Figure 5-11 Program Information Page
