WebEPG - Merging channels

[SweMart]

Hi,

I have a small problem with WebEPG. Our local swedish DVB-T provider are making two channels share the same channel slot. Anything before 18.00 is "Barnkanalen" and everything after 18.00 is "Kunskapskanalen". The channel name is "Barn/Kunskapskanalen" in MP Setup->Channels.

The swedish WebEPG grabber has listings for both channels but they need to be combined, is there any way of doing this by editing the grabber XML or something?

Currently I'm solving this be running a small Perl script that changes the channelnames in tvguide.xml after WebEPG has finished. It would be cool if this could be solved directly in WebEPG

Cheers,
Martin

[Avigrace]

There is a button called 'Combine' in the media portal configuration channel listings. I never really knew what it was for but maybe it's something to do with what you need.

[James]

At the moment this is not possible.

The Combine channel feature in MP is for joining Analog and Digital channels to use the same EPG.

/James

[CHli]

This would be cool because I have the same kind of problem with Arte / France 5 which share the same channel.

[Hawkeye]

I would like to have this too because I've got this with "Kinderkanal" and "ZDF Doku".

[Broceliande]

There is a solution : Duplicate the channel
For example , with Arte / France 5
I consider you already have Arte in your channel list
(SweMart you will have to rename the 1st channel to Barnkanalen)
Go to MP setup , television/channels
Select Arte in the list and hit 'Edit'
Note every values needed to configure the second channel
( depends if you use analog or DVB-T )
Now click the 'Add' button to create a new channel, that you will name France 5.
Report all needed values.
Now in webEPG_conf , add the new channel and set the right grabber/channel for France 5.
SweMart, don't forget to rename the Original channel to Barnkanalen
Save all
Now in MP Guide, You have the 2 channels :
- Arte , with arte Programs
- France 5, with France 5 Progs

Now you can record the programs with the right names, and shedule recordings on each channel.
You just have to be carefull of wich channel is displayed at the time you sheduled the recording.
Hope it will help

[Hawkeye]

Originally Posted by Broceliande

There is a solution : Duplicate the channel
For example , with Arte / France 5
I consider you already have Arte in your channel list
(SweMart you will have to rename the 1st channel to Barnkanalen)
Go to MP setup , television/channels
Select Arte in the list and hit 'Edit'
Note every values needed to configure the second channel
( depends if you use analog or DVB-T )
Now click the 'Add' button to create a new channel, that you will name France 5.
Report all needed values.
Now in webEPG_conf , add the new channel and set the right grabber/channel for France 5.
SweMart, don't forget to rename the Original channel to Barnkanalen
Save all
Now in MP Guide, You have the 2 channels :
- Arte , with arte Programs
- France 5, with France 5 Progs

That's the way I do it right now.

Originally Posted by Broceliande

Now you can record the programs with the right names, and shedule recordings on each channel.
You just have to be carefull of wich channel is displayed at the time you sheduled the recording.
Hope it will help

And this is what annoys me. I don't want to have two channels for what is actual one...

[James]

Hi guys,

Just added this feature. Will be in the next SVN build.

To use it you will need to add the following section to the WebEPG.xml configuration file:

<section name="MergeChannels">
    <entry name="Count">1</entry>
  </section>
  <section name="Merge1">
    <entry name="Channels">2</entry>
    <entry name="DisplayName">Arte + Kika</entry>
    <entry name="Channel1">kika.de</entry>
    <entry name="Start1">06:00</entry>
    <entry name="End1">19:00</entry>
    <entry name="Channel2">arte-tv.com</entry>  
    <entry name="Start2">19:00</entry>
    <entry name="End2">06:00</entry>
  </section>

At the moment it only works via manual configuration.

DisplayName - in this Merge section is the one that will be used for matching with the MP channel. The display names for the base channels (as set in the config program) will not be used. So these can be anything.

Channel1 - this needs to be the same as the ChannelID in the ChannelMap section.

You can merge more then 2 channels, this is not limited. There is no checking on the start/end times of each channel to be merged.

The rule is "channel start < program start < channel end". Feed back on weather is good or maybe "channel start <= program start < channel end" would be better?

Feedback bugs/comments here.

/James

[CHli]

yeesss thanks James

[SweMart]

Many thanks! It seem to work 100%.

Two things that took me a while to understand:
1) I had to add both indivual channels using WebEPG-conf.exe.
2) Opening up WebEPG-conf.exe again and saving seem to remove the manually added entries in the .xml.