HappyTalk: thanks for the offer, but I've got nowhere to upload my file to. Would it be possible for you to check out your own one and paste the SQL code you
think should work? I'm pretty savvy and have a dummy install to play with so I'm sure could figure it out.
On the subject of the TV db, looks like it's already been highlighted a couple of months ago here
http://forum.team-mediaportal.com/viewtopic.php?t=15633
Which is a relief because I thought my command-line SQL updates were causing the problems! Think the EPG wiki needs to warn that the import can take up to half an hour.
Something still seems off efficiency-wise but this stage of dev isn't the time to make a song and dance about it, and it might be that indexes could help there anyway.