1: The Quest channel / 2: EPG Updates (1 Viewer)

[groovybaby]

Help Please, I have a couple of issues.

Query 1: Regarding the Quest channel:
Last week, I set it to record a program and it failed to record.
When I checked the channel the next day, I'd just got a black screen.
But programs were still listed in my EPG on No:11
It's been listed on No:11 for over a year and working fine.

NB: I've notice that the channel numbers in the EPG don't always match those published in the Program guides.

I checked online but couldn't find any mention that this channel had moved.
But I did a rescan, and now the channels is working fine, but now it's listed as No:12,
which matches the correct channel number.

However: The EPG is still also listing Quest on the old (non working) No:11 position, so how do I remove this from the EPG?

Query 2: EPG Updates.
Often, when there's a program change, the EPG doesn’t react to the change, so the program I wish to record either isn’t shown at all...
Or if the program has been re-scheduled at a different time, it's not shown at this revised time in the EPG.

But my old bespoke PVR's EPG has been updated accordingly.

A resent example is relating to the World Cup.
At the time of publication, the TV guides don't know whether it will be on BBC1 or ITV, so they publish dual-times.
But when it comes to the actual day of transmission, the MP EPG has not been updated.

Many thanks.

 

[CyberSimian]

The EPG is still also listing Quest on the old (non working) No:11 position, so how do I remove this from the EPG?

You need to use "TV Server Config". On the "TV Channels" panel, you will find that there are two entries for "Quest" -- the old one and the new one. Simply delete the old one. When this happens in the future, you can select a channel and click the "Preview" button on the panel. If the channel is working, a small preview screen appears showing the channel. If the channel is not working, some sort of error message is displayed in a pop-up.

In the case of this change to "Quest", I think that the channel moved from one MUX to another. This causes various ids to change, and "TV Server" cannot recognise that the channel has moved (so you end up with both the old and the new channels after a rescan). When rescanning, you should normally enable "Channel movement detection" to avoid this duplication of channels wherever possible.

Often, when there's a program change, the EPG doesn’t react to the change

But when it comes to the actual day of transmission, the MP EPG has not been updated.

You have not specified how you obtain the EPG. If you use the broadcast EPG (this is what I use), you can enable either the TV Server "idle" grabber, or the TV Server "timeshift" grabber. Unfortunately, these need somewhat contradictory settings.

In principle I use the idle grabber in the morning at 06:00 hours, for a duration of 40 minutes (this is 30 minutes of grab time plus 10 minutes of contingency). The idle grabber is suitable provided that you are not watching or recording a programme at your chosen grab time. Grab from a single channel ("BBC1 HD" is recommended); do not select more than one channel. See this page in the Wiki for further details.

If you want to obtain last-minute updates, you need to use the timeshifting grabber, and set a suitable grab repetition interval, and a suitable grab duration (perhaps 1 hour and 2 minutes respectively). However, TV Server will grab from the selected channel(s) only when you watch or record one of those channels. So to be sure of getting the last-minute EPG changes, you would have to select all of your channels, and watch or record something. This conflicts with the optimum setting for the idle grabber (and will dramatically slow-down the idle grabber). Also, a grab duration of 2 minutes is insufficient to collect the entire EPG, although it will collect the EPG for the next few hours (including the last-minute changes).

My solution is to use the timeshift grabber (not the idle grabber), and schedule a daily recording of "BBC Radio 1" at 06:00 hours for a duration of 40 minutes. This then still works on the rare occasions when the HTPC is in use for watching or recording, and I can manually record from that channel if I want to obtain last-minute updates. I could instead schedule another daily recording at (say) 18:00 hours for a short duration to obtain the last-minute updates for that evening. The downside is that I need manually to delete these recordings, but being radio recordings they are of minimal size (in comparison to TV recordings).

-- from CyberSimian in the UK