UK SKYTV Set top box

[earthcoder]

Hello all

I am from the UK and i am trying to connect my skybox to my media station using mediaportal

I have installed TV server on my pc
contected my sky box to a PVR150 card
works fine in media portal can record and pause the channel i have on the skybox with no problems, well there a delay with using sky remote to skybox which is rather a pain, hence why i want the following working

how to change channel using the PC instead of the set top box

In channel set up i only have 1 channel which i called SKY Which is set to port: CVBS #1

How can i add all sky TV uk full subscription channels to this list, then i guess map them all to SKY (CVBS #1)

Then set up USBUIRT to change the channel on the skybox when i pick a channel in the EPG

I have searched the forum and wiki's for ages and cant seem to work it out at all.
lots of pages say autoscan for channels but it wont find them on set top box.


about a year ago i used MCE and it did all this for me with no problems... BUT MCE is rubbish!

I hope someone can help and knows what i mean..

[bolders]

Hi mate

Have a look at IR server suite plugin (by and-81). This will enable you to blast IR signals to your STB from Media Portal. I believe that it supports USBUIRT. I use it with an MCE remote and IR blaster to switch my NTL box and it is awsome - I cant recommend it enough. You can teach it the remote commands from your sky remote and do loads of other stuff.

In order to get it to work you will need to enter all you channels into the TV server. This can be time consuming but once youve done it you can export the channel list in case you should ever need to reinstall or upgrade to a new svn for example.

You set up each channel exactly as shown in the second picture you have posted but in the channel box (where you have 4) you enter the sky channel number.

Make sure you map al channels to your PVR 150 card then when you go into TV guide in MP you will see all the channels listed.

In order to get channel data you can use xmltv which when configured will get channel information from radio times. Again this can take some time to setup and figure out how it works but its well worth it - it provides channel information for all but a few of the channels I receive.

There is a fair amount of stuff to figure out to get it to work but its fairly easy once youve done it few times. If you're interested in taking this route its probably best you get the software and have a play. If you get stuck just add to this thread and ill try to help you as much as I can to get it sorted. It would be eaiser for me than trying to explain the entire process here and it will also be easier to explain when you have got something to relate too.

oh btw are you also using a remote or a keyboard to control MP

bolders

[earthcoder]

Thanks, just the info i needed, I will have a play this afternoon, and see if i can get it sorted.

Btw great to see someone reply with a salad fingers av, was quite shocked as i use the same av on all other forums i use, when i saw it i thought did i reply to my own post when i was drunk!, till i saw the name

ill post here if i get stuck, or PM or email if thats ok.

[bolders]

Hi mate

yep thats fine - glad to help


oh yea - I like rusty spoons

bolders

[andyc1864]

Hi earthcoder,

Have you managed to get the radio times xml tvguide? I can't seem to find it on there website and am not really sure where to go. Have you got a url?Followed all of the steps up to that point (thanks bolders).

Thanks

Andy

[bolders]

Hi andy


Not to sure how you are trying to get guide data but i will try to talk you through how I do it. I do not get any data from a website directly. I use xmltv which is run from a command line. You specify where you want to get the guide data from (e.g. radio times) and it goes off and does its thing.

First have you got xmltv downloaded - if not you can get it from here

SourceForge.net: Files

First extract xmltv to its own folder

The next thing you need to do is specify which channels you want data for. I think that xmltv will do this automatically on its first run but I have not done it for a while so can't be certain. However I have a batch file which I run if I want to re-specify which channels I want data for. This will always work and consists of a single line and so its very easy. (dont know how familiar you are with batch files so i will be real basic - sorry if you already know this).

1. Open notepad
2. enter the text
   xmltv.exe tv_grab_uk_rt --configure
3. save file as
   reset channel list.bat (or something which makes sense to you - as long as it has a .bat extension)
4. put the bat file in your xmltv folder

OK now you have to create another bat file which will get xmltv to gather the program data. when this batch file is run it will create a file called tvguide.xml

1. Open notepad again
2. Enter the text
   for /f "tokens=1-5 delims=/ " %%d in ("%date%") do rename "tvguide.xml" tvguide-%%f-%%e-%%d.xml
   xmltv.exe tv_grab_uk_rt --output tvguide.xml
   pause
   
   note that the 1st and 3rd line of text are not really needed -
   The first line of text renames the existing tvguide.xml file, if there is one, by adding the current date to the file name before creating a new tvguide.xml file. I do this because sometimes the radio times site is not functioning. In these instances your existing guide data will be deleted and you will be left with a program data file that is not complete. This will result in the TV guide in media portal being void of any program data. If this happens I just rename the previous data file back to tvguide.xml and all is well again. Be aware tho that there is no code to delete the backups so every now and again its worth going in to delete the older files - mine are about 20MB each so if left long enough you could end up runing out of disk space.
   
   The 3rd line (the pause command) stops the program from finishing until a button is pressed. This is just there so you can check that the process has completed properly. Once you have checked that the script is working properly delete this line. If you dont the program window will not close without manual intervention.
   
   The 2nd line - (this is the important one that does all the work)
   The "xmltv.exe" parameter starts xmltv
   The "tv_grab_uk_rt" parameter specifies that the grab will be done from radio times
   The "--output tvguide.xml" parameter specifies the file name of the output file
3. Save file as Channel Scan.bat (or again something that makes sense to you)
4. move the bat file to the xmltv folder (xmltv.exe should also be in this folder)

Thats it - now run the 1st bat file and follow the instructions on the screen to choose which programs you want data for. Once this has been run a new folder will be created in the xmltv directory called .xmltv. In this folder a file will be created called tv_grab_uk_rt.conf - This is just a list of all the programs you have selected.

Next run the 2nd batch file (channel scan.bat). This will be an automated process which will require no intervetion from you. When it finishes it will ask you to press a button to continue (this is because of the pause command). This will enable you to check that you have got a 100% complete scan and that no erros occured. If all is well remember to delete the pause comand form the batch file.

Finally create a scheduled task from windows control panel that runs channel scan.bat at the time that is good for you - I tend to run mine every day at about 5 in the morning.

That is all there is too it - all you need to do now is point the TV server to where you have your xmltv folder and configure the xmltv plugin. Cant talk you through this at the mo cause my system is down after a bad bios update - new bits commin tomoro tho . So if you get stuck on the xmltv plugin config, in the tv server, i should be able to provide info on tuesday (assuming new build goes well).

Hope this all makes sense

bolders

Ive attached copies of the 2 batch files that I use - as you can see they really are very simple.

[earthcoder]

I managed to get the channels added and updated the guide via webepg

Seems to be working all ok, but cant seem to change channel at the moment, but hopfully have it sorted once i got IR suite set up.

[bolders]

Yea in order to get IR server suite working I had to use a few patches that can be found in this thread

IR Server Suite - Version 1.0.4.1

I am currently using the 1.0.4.1 version and not the 1.4.2 version

I am using the following patches

Microsoft MCE Transceiver 1.0.4.1 - SP1.zip (can be found in post 12 of the above link). I needed this patch to either get the remote signals from my ntl remote to be recognised, when learning, or to get the blaster to transmit commands when using the test function in the plugin setup - i cant remember which of these it was now but im doing a reinstall at the moment so will be able to give you a definate answer when done.


TV3BlasterPlugin - 2008-01-13.zip (can be found in post 34 of above link). My IR blaster did not transmit when changing channels in MP but did transmit when using the test button in the plugin setup. This patch resolved that problem.

The first patch goes into the IR server suite/plugins folder (or something similar to that)
The second patch goes into the TVserver/plugins folder (or something similar)

I can't be sure this will be the same for you as you are using a USBUIRT whereas I use an MCE remote system. However if you still have issues you can make a post in the above link with regard to IR server suite issues - you will undoubtedly get a more comprehensive answer than I can provide (and-81 provides excellent support.)

hope this helps

bolders

a little example of where i use macros - thought you might find it useful or a least give you an idea of the macro functionality.
When watching fullscreen TV I found it annoying that you could not stop it by pressing the stop button - you have to go into another window first. To resolve this I setup a macro that first switched to the TV window and then entered a "b" keystroke. I mapped this macro to the stop button with the condition that TV must be running in fullscreen. very simple but keeps me happy

[andyc1864]

Hi bolders,

Thank you for your detailed walkthrough. I have successfully downloaded and generated the xml file. I am now going home to try it! To say I was way off the mark was an understatement! I will let you know how I get on.

Andy

Hi Bolders,

Sorry, me again. I managed to import the xml file in the TV Server configuration XMLTv plugin. I also managed to map the channels, using Sky 2 as a test. The channel has 'visible in guide' checked. I load up my client Media Portal, but the TV guide shows no data against the channel sky 2. I have had a look through the forum and found references to WebEPG_conf.exe, I have run that on the client and selected "tvserver" as the source and then saved it. Again no data. One thing I did notice when loading the webepg config program again, it seems to set the source back to media portal and not TVServer, almost like it isn't saving.

If you have any suggestions that would be great, sorry if I have missed something really stupid, it feels so close!

Thanks in advance.

Andy

[bolders]

Hi Andy

If you can hold out for another day or so I will be able to give more details - Im just installing new bits into my media pc and reinstalling so i will be going through the process again myself. The nice weather has delayed things a bit tho

I do not use WebEPG and so I am not familiar wih its functionality and cant provide much info on it. Everything I do is setup in the TV server but I can talk you through that process when I get to it.

Can you confirm if you are using the seperate TV server or the inbuilt TV server.
I am using the seperate TV server but im sure I can fire up the inbuilt TV server and have a play if thats what you are using.

bolders