A number of former pay TV users have lamented the lack of a program guide when they switched to free OTA TV. The problem doesn't lie so much with OTA Digital TV as much as it does with the manufacturers of televisions and converter boxes. You see, the Digital TV standards provide for a rich set of features, including an EPG - an electronic program guide. Most TV stations broadcast their EPG info, which is embedded in the DTV signal. The information they provide includes the time, program name and a description. Some stations are very good at providing EPG info, while others fail miserably. Some stations will provide several days of EPG with detailed descriptions, while others provide only a few hours of program names or nothing at all. The worst offenders are LPT - Low Power Television - and independent TV stations. PBS stations generally do the best job with their EPGs.
