Community Wishlist/Wishes/Wikidata-based TV radio channel lists
Wikidata-based TV/radio channel lists
Description
On French Wikipedia, it is possible to add providers, media, and channel numbers to a TV or radio station's infobox.
This is very cumbersome, as well as being tied to a specifc page location.
I would like to be able to add this information in a structured way to Wikidata so that the different projects can choose to display it in different places.
As many of the sources are PDFs, it would be great if they could be ingested by Wikidata.These lists many times also contain logos.
French Wikipedia also contains pages dedicated to full channel lists of some providers.
It is probably a good idea that wikipedia also optionally stored the resolution of the channel (1-seg, SD, HD, FullHD, UHD, 8K) and in which package it is included, which could be scraped from many PDFs. The channel number might include a period (ISDB). Different cable or satellite providers in the same country might use different standards. For satellite, it would be good be able to provide a country list instead of just something vague like North Africa.
Some PDFs contain both TV and radio channels. Radio could be FM via analog cable, DVB-C, DAB/DAB+ via cable, IP.
Some providers have a PDF for each package, so the wikidata for the provider should be able to track multiple sources (PDF via URL, no direct upload).
Some providers offer both DSL and fibre, some others offer both cable and fibre, with availability differing.. Maybe with specific packages and channel numbers. Some are wireless (WiFi, cellular) (French Wikipedia calls the IPTV parameter "diffusion ADSL" so everything is lumped together). There are encrypted DTT providers.
Satellite signals can be unencrypted or use different ciphers. The same longitude coordinate might contain a small constellation with satellite name postfixes.
Some providers show no channel numbers and have bad remotes without keypads or back keyboards. Some have bad radio interfaces which can only be navigated via the TV screen, or if it's possible to connect the radio via a split cable to the TV or tuner have some channels encrypted.
With some cable providers it is possible to get a conditional access card for the TV to avoid using a decoder, but the package may differ. For some channels, a card might not be needed to connect the TV directly to the cable,
Some operators stream some channels to their decoders instead of using cable TV protocols. When internet stops working, these channels stop but the real cable channels might still work. I have not seen any operator providing this information so the only way to obtain it would be from users. Real and streaming cable channels might be assigned without any apparent logic, although there could be some ranges reserved on an operator basis for unencrypted or actual cable channels.
An operator might have different channel numbers for some channels according to region. These might also be listed in separate PDFs (maybe in different languages). The channel language might also vary and availability of the original one can depend on the operator.
Some cable TV channels might be analog, others digital.
Assigned focus area
Unassigned.
Type of wish
Feature request
Related projects
Wikipedia, Wikidata
Affected users
editors
Other details
- Created: 18:17, 18 July 2024 (UTC)
- Last updated: 12:30, 19 July 2024 (UTC)
- Author: Trigenibinion (talk)