multiple guides integrated

[bxs122]

I just need to know if this is doable.

In my MCE setup I have channel guides for OTA to drive two vBox ATSC cards. In addition to the OTA guide I also pull in a DirecTV guide which is supported through an AverMedia Line In and serial cable to a D11 for channel changing.
MCE does a fine job integrating the two guides so as to present one guide from which my wife and I can select recording options for three to record at same time while watching a pre-recorded.

I am not a huge fan of MCE but for the moment it works ... I very much want to use MP as an alternative but before switching out I need to find out if I can do the same thing.
I saw mention of Zap2It so went online, signed up and selected the OTA and DirecTV guides I use ... I guess now I would need the plugIn mentioned for Zap2It which I think will pull the XML for driing an EPG in MP.

Anyone else doing similar? Is there a better approach?

[patrick]

Originally Posted by bxs122

I just need to know if this is doable.

In my MCE setup I have channel guides for OTA to drive two vBox ATSC cards. In addition to the OTA guide I also pull in a DirecTV guide which is supported through an AverMedia Line In and serial cable to a D11 for channel changing.
MCE does a fine job integrating the two guides so as to present one guide from which my wife and I can select recording options for three to record at same time while watching a pre-recorded.

I am not a huge fan of MCE but for the moment it works ... I very much want to use MP as an alternative but before switching out I need to find out if I can do the same thing.
I saw mention of Zap2It so went online, signed up and selected the OTA and DirecTV guides I use ... I guess now I would need the plugIn mentioned for Zap2It which I think will pull the XML for driing an EPG in MP.

Anyone else doing similar? Is there a better approach?

This should work fine with the Zap2It plugin.

Check out the plugin thread:
(original thread) US/Canadian/Mexico EPG Zap2it Plugin Released

Update here:
http://forum.team-mediaportal.com/sh...&postcount=193


HTH,
patrick

[bxs122]

Originally Posted by patrick

This should work fine with the Zap2It plugin.

Check out the plugin thread:
(original thread) US/Canadian/Mexico EPG Zap2it Plugin Released

Update here:
http://forum.team-mediaportal.com/sh...&postcount=193


HTH,
patrick

That does look like it will do the job.
How do I assign which channels are for which card? For example my OTA is for the vBox ATSC while all other channels are for a DirecTV STB.

[patrick]

Originally Posted by bxs122

That does look like it will do the job.
How do I assign which channels are for which card? For example my OTA is for the vBox ATSC while all other channels are for a DirecTV STB.

You can setup you TV card(s) and assign channels to
cards in the MP configuration.exe Television section.

I think will need to Autotune your atsc channels in MP so they
show up and can be found by the zap2it plugin.

In the zap2it plugin you can specify that digital channels (Direct TV)
be automatically added with the external input you specify.

(Note: There is a minor bug in the MP database for ATSC channels
that you may encounter, see the thread I posted before)

Also in that thread look for posts by natrlhy as it looks like you
two have very similar setups (he discovered the ATSC channel bug)

HTH,
patrick

[bxs122]

Originally Posted by patrick

You can setup you TV card(s) and assign channels to
cards in the MP configuration.exe Television section.

I think will need to Autotune your atsc channels in MP so they
show up and can be found by the zap2it plugin.

In the zap2it plugin you can specify that digital channels (Direct TV)
be automatically added with the external input you specify.

(Note: There is a minor bug in the MP database for ATSC channels
that you may encounter, see the thread I posted before)

Also in that thread look for posts by natrlhy as it looks like you
two have very similar setups (he discovered the ATSC channel bug)

HTH,
patrick

good stuff ... thanx

One question ... for the STB in the TV Config panel in MP Configuration do I set the DirecTV channels or do I set the channel the STB is set (e.g. 3 or 4) since the PlugIn I wrote will actually be changing the channel and the STB is connected via the AverMedai S-Video component in.

[patrick]

Originally Posted by bxs122

One question ... for the STB in the TV Config panel in MP Configuration do I set the DirecTV channels or do I set the channel the STB is set (e.g. 3 or 4) since the PlugIn I wrote will actually be changing the channel and the STB is connected via the AverMedai S-Video component in.

I may be a little confused by your question.
Are you saying you have to change the channel one or two external devices?

Example, I have a digital cable box that run to my MP box via svideo
that I use for the digital channels.

When you setup the properties of a channel and you want to
specify an External source, you set "Received by external set top box"
and then set the "set top box" channel and then specify the
"input" (your svideo).

MP will send the "set top box channel" to any MP plugins listening
for external channels to change the channel on the settop box for
you and switch the input on your card over to svideo.


HTH,
patrick

[bxs122]

Originally Posted by patrick

When you setup the properties of a channel and you want to
specify an External source, you set "Received by external set top box"
and then set the "set top box" channel and then specify the
"input" (your svideo).

So when you set the "set top box" channel was it the single value e.g. 3 or 4 ?? Or did you specify all the channels your STB has? My DirecTV STB has some ridiculous amount of channels - the reason for my question is that from the MP side I would think there would be no channels to specific since it is an S-Video line in. Per the remote changing the channel I would guess MP passes this task off to the plugins if the channel change request is not one specified for one of my ATSC boards.

Sorry for all the confusion - I just don't want to have to enter 600 some channels for the S-Video in from my STB then find out I didn't have to.

[patrick]

Originally Posted by bxs122

So when you set the "set top box" channel was it the single value e.g. 3 or 4 ?? Or did you specify all the channels your STB has? My DirecTV STB has some ridiculous amount of channels - the reason for my question is that from the MP side I would think there would be no channels to specific since it is an S-Video line in. Per the remote changing the channel I would guess MP passes this task off to the plugins if the channel change request is not one specified for one of my ATSC boards.

The channels are all the channels the STB has, ex 107, 145, 151, etc.

MP still needs to know the STB channels to pass them to a plugin
to change the STB channel.
Also, all the channels have to be there for you to see the EPG data for them.

Originally Posted by bxs122

Sorry for all the confusion - I just don't want to have to enter 600 some channels for the S-Video in from my STB then find out I didn't have to.

One of the nice things about the zap2it plugin, it will automatically
add/enter all 600 channels for you and set them to external svideo
for you automatically using the naming you specify.
No need for you to enter any of them.
You do have to assign them to the correct card(s).

HTH,
patrick

[bxs122]

Originally Posted by patrick

One of the nice things about the zap2it plugin, it will automatically
add/enter all 600 channels for you and set them to external svideo
for you automatically using the naming you specify.
No need for you to enter any of them.
You do have to assign them to the correct card(s).

HTH,
patrick

Well that is huge -- I thought this was a chore you had to do by hand.

So after I install MP I only need to add the PlugIn, Activate it and it will setup my cards? Specifically the AverMedia for DirecTV via S-Video and the Vboxs for ATSC.

Will try shortly.

BTW, I upgraded the D11 DirecTV Plugin to not show the D11 Display when changing channels.

[patrick]

Originally Posted by bxs122

So after I install MP I only need to add the PlugIn, Activate it and it will setup my cards? Specifically the AverMedia for DirecTV via S-Video and the Vboxs for ATSC.

BTW, I upgraded the D11 DirecTV Plugin to not show the D11 Display when changing channels.

Well, you have to setup your cards.
The zap2it plugin helps with the channels
(You do have to signup for a zap2it account and add your lineups.)

I think you will have to run the autotune for you ATSC channels and
MP itself will add those channels (The plugin will auto-rename them if set to).

Then add, enable and setup the plugin with your zap2it ID, PW, make sure you have auto-add digital channels enabled and select which type of external input (svideo or component) and selected the naming you want,

Start MP and let the plugin dload your lineups and import them to the database(with that many channels it may take 25 minutes).
Hint: Start with the plugin set to download one day of data to make
sure everything goes ok, if all is well you can go back and set it to
more days.

Also, you may have to exit MP and go back to the configuration
Televsion -> TV Channels-> TV Cards: and map each TV Channel to the correct TV Card

Sounds like a lot but natrlhy said it took about 20 minutes start to finish.

Hope I have not forgotten a step

HTH,
patrick


p.s. Unless you are using an SVN version from about today(fixed 10/04/2006)
and you manually edit one of the ATSC channels you will hit the bug I
mentioned earlier.
It will reverse the major and minor channels after you edit it.
If you do just re-edit without changing anything and it will reverse back.