What is xmlTV required for? (1 Viewer)

[TheBatfink]

Maybe an ignorant question but I see lots of people saying they use webEPG + xmlTV. Well I use webEPG and have a fully populated EPG so I'm happy at the moment, but its pretty clear xmlTV has some use beyond this. I'm just getting into finally tightening up the config of my MePo properly now for TV use and I'm curious what xmlTV does or can do for me so that I get the most out of my setup

So what does it do extra than just using webEPG?

Thanks!

 

[arion_p]

Historically, WebEPG would output an xmltv format tvguide which would then be imported throught XmlTV import plugin.
This is not necessary anymore as (since 1.1.0) WebEPG can import directly into TVServer's database.

However XmlTV still has it's uses as there are several XmlTV grabbers for which there is either no WebEPG equivalent or the XmlTV grabber has more data/is more accurate than the WebEPG one.

Also for US users the best option is to use mc2xml + xmltv plugin (we have no working WebEPG grabber for US channels )

 

[TheBatfink]

Thanks for the information. Makes sense. As webEPG is currently working fine for me I'll not try to fix what isn't broke then!

Thanks
Batfink

 

[robbo100]

I use XMLTV plugin to import RadioTimes EPG data downloaded using the XMLTVGUI application. I tried WebEPG but it was much more difficult for me to configure and seemed to want to populate all the duplicate channels for all the different broadcast regions (eg. it populated all of the different regional ITV1 channels). Clearly populating every possible channel with EPG data is what it is supposed to do, but I prefer to only give EPG data to the channels in my "favourite" channel group, otherwise if you select an item to record the user is given a list of 10 different versions of ITV1 which the programme is available on which is confusing for the wife.

The XMLTV plugin keeps things simple and easy to control - please don't get rid of it!!!!

Robbo100

 

[TheBatfink]

Yeah I can understand that as well! I have taken to populating all the channels I actually use (such as a single ITV1 etc) into groups so I can easily filter out none used channels (ie not in any groups) and then totally deleting the hundreds of channels in the TV server which I don't use or can not access etc. So these simply aren't there any more.

When I did it I thought to myself it might not be the best idea as rescanning is likely to just add them all back but theres so much junk channels a scan grabs over DVB-T and DVB-S2 that I wasn't really sure what the best plan of action should be.

I found lots of missing channels on the radio times listing in webEPG so went with mydigiguide. Probably just a slightly out of date listing in the grabber. I may have a dabble with xmltv after all just to see which I prefer.