Implemented grabbing the EPG while timeshifting

[gemx]

Just updated TvServer to be able to grab the epg while timeshifting in the background.
You can enable this in SetupTV->General settings->EPG (see screenshot below).
It is disabled by default.
Be aware of some important considerations before trying:
- Make a backup of your db
- It is tested but might cause some timing issues while watching tv
- Only use either this feature OR grabbing the epg while idle (normal method). Otherwise you could end up with double entries.

This feature is available from rev. 15760
Consider this as a testversion for this feature.
If you are not interested in this feature or not sure you have to do nothing at all. As long as you don't enable this checkbox everything works as before.
If you enable/disable this checkbox and leave setuptv be sure to restart the TvService (just to be sure).
Now, i am awaiting your feedback
Be sure to include all TvService logfiles if you post a bugreport

[kuehnch]

A very interesting feature. First, many thanks for this! - i will give it a try to generate feedback

But there is one thing, that i do not understand yet... Is it possible, to select the channels, for which the EPG has to be grabbed/stored? Or, in other words: does this feature make use of the epg-grabber-settings?
I make use of the Clickfinder-plugin to get high quality epg-data - but tvmovie does not offer epg-content for every channel. That means, that the internal epg-grabber should grab only epg for these channels, that are not supported by clickfinder.

What do you think about a feature that allows you to select a epg-data-source for each channel (Datasources: EPG-Grabber, External (Clickfinder, XMLTV...)?

[gemx]

Well, you have the possibility to select the epg source for each channe yet although a bit hidden.
For DVB-EPG you can select the channels in SetupTV to grab for and each Server Plugin that can grab epg also has a channel mapping, so basically you can do this already.
The timeshifting epg grabber always grabs epg for the channel you are currently timeshifting because i thought that the channels you are watching are automatically the channels you also want epg for but it looks like i was wrong.
I will change this behaviour to only grab the channels that are selected to grab.
Also i will add 2 radio buttons to select either "Grab EPG while idle" OR "Grab EPG while timeshifting".
Would that solve your issues?

[kuehnch]

Hello,
some feedback first: no problems so far with the "realtime-epg-grabbing". Tested the whole day - works great and as expected! Many thanks again - i like it.

Your solution to resolve the problem that results from the overlapping of epg-sources seems to be sufficient yet. A positive result from this is also, that the epg-grabber-settings become not splitted (epg-grabber-settings section and general-settings).

One existing glitch (that has nothing to do with epg-grabbing while timeshifting) results from the PREMIERE-EPG feature, that requires the deactivation of the "store data only for selected channels"-checkbox - but thats a special case...

[StaticMan]

Removed

[misterd]

I updated today my TvServer installation to recent SVN and tested the new feature. It's really great.

It's working like a charm here. I only got a small stutter (~1 sec) when a lots of informations are transferred from filter to server. This happened when grabbing epg on ZDF where I received detailed informations for 126 channels.

But the best feature of the timeshift grabber is that it doesn't consider the time of the last update for a channel and always updates the informations of a channel.

I recognized only one small side-effect. If you change from one tv card to another one, than the first one is still grabbing epg until timeout or when the grabbing is completed. There were no errors generated, but I should that I have separated the channels of each card to access them directly.

If you need logs, I will try to reproduce the situations again.

MisterD

[Roberdin]

Originally Posted by gemx

- Only use either this feature OR grabbing the epg while idle (normal method). Otherwise you could end up with double entries.

Could I just ask why is this the case? Surely newer EPG information (however it was collected) simply overwrites older information?

Otherwise, a useful idea.

[K0mmaT1A]

Works perfectly, it was really missing from mp.
Just a couple of things that could make it perfect,

It would be nice to have an option to force epg update from dvb, so you could download only the titles and times from internet (so it doesn't take time) and then have realtime update of the full descriptions from dvb. If you download only the titles, tvserver sees channels as epg-updated and descriptions don't get grabbed. Or if there was a way to update only the channels that are missing full descriptions...

And secondary there should be an option to language priority, now if you have 2 languages selected tvserver prefers english, but english should be optional if the dvb doesn't contain epg in the selected language on the server or on the mp client. You have big fans in other countries!