Guide Plus

Guide Plus+ (in Europe), TV Guide On Screen, TV Guide Daily, TV Guide Plus+ and Guide Plus+ Gold (in North America) or G-Guide (in Japan) are brand names for an interactive electronic program guide (EPG) system that was used in consumer electronics products, such as television sets, DVD recorders, personal video recorders, and other digital televisions. It offered interactive on-screen program listings that enabled viewers to navigate, sort, select and schedule television programming for viewing and recording. The differing names were only used for marketing purposes. The entire system was owned by Rovi Corporation, the successor to Gemstar-TV Guide International.^{[citation needed]} In 2016, Rovi acquired digital video recorder maker TiVo Inc., and renamed itself TiVo Corporation.

In late 2012, Rovi notified its North American users via the Guide Plus+, TV Guide On Screen, and Rovi Guide message systems that broadcast transmission of the services were ending in November 2012 and was fully discontinued by April 2013.^[1] The service was discontinued in Eurasian markets by the end of 2016.^[2][3]

Technical overview

The system was launched in the United States and Japan in the mid-1990s, and began to be deployed throughout Europe during the 2000s. It was also available for broadcast and cable services in Canada, France, Germany, Spain, the United Kingdom, Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Belgium and Italy.^{[citation needed]}

Companies that manufactured compatible devices included: Channel Master, Hitachi, JVC, Matsushita/Panasonic, Thomson (RCA, GE and ProScan), Samsung, Sharp, Sony, LG Group and Toshiba. Since the service was advertiser-supported, the updated program listings were provided to users free of charge, regardless of whether they received their television signal over the air or via cable or satellite television. Gemstar also produced EPG computer software bundled with analog NTSC TV tuner cards made by ATI Technologies, particularly the TV Wonder and All-in-Wonder lines. ATI later partnered with TitanTV to provide its digital ATSC cards.^{[citation needed]}

The original analog service used the vertical blanking interval (VBI) of host television stations that datacast the service, similar to the manner that closed captioning and teletext were broadcast. This took up to 24 hours to download on the initial setup, because the information was delivered at a low bitrate.^{[citation needed]}

Digital television

The digital service launched in the United States in 2006 using the ATSC digital television standard. After the June 12, 2009, digital television transition, some older systems could no longer download listings.

The Program and System Information Protocol (PSIP) allows stations to send program information. In the U.S., the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) requires broadcast stations, but not cable providers, to provide PSIP data. Implementation varies, and many stations provide incomplete or incorrect listings. ATSC tuners are not required to display a full electronic program guide, only limited information about the current program.^{[citation needed]}

While the TV Guide service also required software installed in a television set or other device, and licensing fees or royalties had to be paid to Rovi, it also offered a more broad solution for broadcast television, more like digital satellite or digital cable.^{[citation needed]}

See also

• NexTView
• VCR+