Australian users of MP TV Series (1 Viewer)

[CairnsFella]

Hi all,

As a newbie here, I apologise in advance for my relative ignorance, any transgression of local ettiquette, or any other unintended faux pas etc.

I have spent some time reading within this, and other forums to try and resolve my problems, and whilst I have ascertained a number of partial answers, I have failed to have my issues clarified, so I haope I may ask here.

Basically, to successfully use this plugin with as much automated functionality as possible, I need to have an EPG that contains episode and series numbering (dont mean to sound like Im teaching you something.. just framing my question...)

My issue is that having tries a number of EPG solutions (admittedly half of which I have not got to work... but having had a few working I feel qualified to ask......) I am yet to find a source that includes "any" episode / series data, other than the episode title.

I thought I might be ok with just the title after I managed to get it to parse correctly, but it would seem I definately need to episopde numbering.

Could anyone advise if any such EPG source actually exists. or are all users of this plugin in Aus manually renaming thier files??? (I have also tried a couple of renaming apps with no luck either).

Hoping .....hopppiinngggg.. someone can help.



Dave

 

[aidbish]

HI Dave

It doesn't work like that, most series are ripped from the net and if you want to add a series/episode you have recorded into the db it needs to be renamed to the naming convention

no EPG does this i believe

all my series are like this e.g House - S01E01
where s =series and E = episode.
i find looking at the THETVDB.com helps with the series and epsisode numbers

hope this make sense

 

[CairnsFella]

aidbish,

I very much appreciate your response; which does make sense, however Im not sure my question did as your response is perhaps not directly related to my question.

I believe you are advising that most people obtain the "series" from sources other than direct recording from digital broadcasts.

My question really asks if there are any people that use this plugin with recorded television. If they do, and they have any hope of the process being automated, then the series and episode numbers need to be in the filename. I have seen references to Australian XMLTV guides on posts pertaining to other solutions (e.g. MYTH) that appear to suggest the required numbers do exists on occassion, but generally these posts have been too cryptic (and too dumb) to work out exactly where they are getting them from.

Also, having toyed around with apps like 4therecord, I know I should be able to name the recording appropriately if I were in possession of the info in the EPG to start with. So it's not that I am esking the EPG to actually "do" anything other than to contain the info in the first place...

sorry.. hope I havent muddied the waters further when trying to clarify....

Dave

 

[darro]

My question really asks if there are any people that use this plugin with recorded television.

Hi Dave,

I use this with mosty FTA material, I don't have it fully automated as there generally needs to be some work done anyway.

I generally edit it the TS with VideoReDo, this is pretty easy with the comskip option creating a VRD project file. When I save the edit, I give it a correct name, using thetvdb is as good as any other episode guide site.

I use the naming convention {SeriesName - SXX - EXX - EpisodeName}, I find this works for different folder structures and for other frontend apps.

Finally at the moment I then run the mpg file through handbrake to convert it to an MP4 (H.264) file, this gets a 1.8gb file down to about 400mb and my eyes have trouble telling the difference. I say at the moment as VRD is due to have direct MP4 output in the not too distant future.

This may sound like a bit, but it probably takes me less than 5 mins (of time in front of a computer, probably 2 hours in total)) for an episode. To have a clean copy at such a small size is worth it for me.

I guess finally, I hardly trust the EPG data to have the correct start and finish time, I would probably never trust it to have the right episode details

Cheer
Darro

 

[CairnsFella]

darro,

Thanks for your comments..

Perhaps it is a 'tad' early to call, but I'm beginning to think my assumption that everyone must be getting much better rpg data is somewhat missplaced.

Whilst I dont want to take focus away from my original questions, I am nonetheless curious why there are so many posts regarding EPG's given that they are available with the DVB stream, and for basic information purposes I always found these fine. Personally, I have only been searching for the EPG holy grail for the specific purposes of episode/series data. Given that it seems like such information doesnt exist in EPG form, why are so many people searching for other EPG sources????

 

[darro]

I have been doing this a while, so maybe I am a bit jaded by EPG data in Aus. It has been a while since i looked at the EPG in the DVB stream, but when I looked at the data was pretty messy and inconsistence. I think 7 put MOVIE: in front of all movies, but the other channels did not. I think 9 had everything in upper case, which was such a pleasure to read......., and a few other inconsistancies that made me stay with my current source.

I thought at the time, "oh, they have been forced to provide this data, but no-one said what quality it needed to be"

I guess like I said, I have manual tasks to do to get the file the way I want it......Ah well maybe someday!

Cheers

 

[aidbish]

I have been doing this a while, so maybe I am a bit jaded by EPG data in Aus. It has been a while since i looked at the EPG in the DVB stream, but when I looked at the data was pretty messy and inconsistence. I think 7 put MOVIE: in front of all movies, but the other channels did not. I think 9 had everything in upper case, which was such a pleasure to read......., and a few other inconsistancies that made me stay with my current source.

I thought at the time, "oh, they have been forced to provide this data, but no-one said what quality it needed to be"

I guess like I said, I have manual tasks to do to get the file the way I want it......Ah well maybe someday!

Cheers

Have to agree there
the whole EPG thing here in OZ is a farce, no proper data. (copyrighted what a joke)
god the TV stations cant even start or end programs on the times given, we have to add in padding either side.
I dont see it getting any better in the future, the freeview thing is just a gimmick and until the goverment sort em out it wont change

sorry for going of topic with a rant

aidbish

 

[coopers]

I have a couple of friends that used to use ICETV, which is a paid for TV EPG subscription.

I don't know if it gives you season numbers, etc, or if they are still around after the lawsuits the TV stations were hitting them with for distributing the EPG information.

I mean, seriously, it's a crime to let people know what is going to be on TV.

 

[kiwijunglist]

unfortunately it's never gonna work unless your epg has series and episode #s in it.

 

[CairnsFella]

Update

Thanks for your responses (disheartening as they may be )...

I have now, however, obtained some xmltv data that does indeed have some episode info..............................



However !!

the format I am recieving is

<episode-num system="xmltv_ns">0.25.</episode-num>

but I believe it needs to be <episode-num system="xmltv_ns">0.25.0/0</episode-num> to be recognised (can anyone confirm or deny ?!?!?.

I havent checked with Mediaportal default recording yet as for some reason I thought that 4therecord may look up episode info from the episode name (dont know why I thougth that as I now cant find any comment to that effect).. but as a consequance I have not got the standard recording configuration in effect.

I can advise that manually ......

STOP PRESS ----- STOP PRESS ----- STOP PRESS ----- STOP PRESS ----- STOP PRESS ----- STOP PRESS -----

OK.. Ive been tinkering whilst writing this. Having manually appended the extra 0/0 onto the end of the the episode numbering (using find and replace... sorry.. not a programmer.....) for the record has now picked up the series and episode ID.. and with a bit of tinkering with the parsing expressions in TVSeries (simple tinkering I emphasise) it seems to pick it up... HUUURAAAAHHHHHHHH.

Now I just need to gain some skills in automating the updated xmltv.. dont know how to do that, but any pointers would be immensly appreciated.

Of course I realise that IF the xmltv contains any extra info when there is a multi part series - which is what I understand the extra 'number/number' to be, then it will fall down.. BUT I reckon this has most bases covered when there is any 'usual' episode, series data.

Most chuffed.

Now just to get the computer working as well as it did before I started installing and uninstalling all these epg grabbers etc.