Beginner's guide to EPG (1 Viewer)

[elsmandino]

Hi

Hi there,

I am a newcomer to Mediaportal and am a bit confused by how EPG is working.

I have a DVB-T card and and a DVB-S2 card, so I am getting both Freeview and Freesat channels. For any duplicate channels I have that are on both Freeview and Freesat, I keep separate - this is because my Freesat channel is better quality and I can select to record on Freesat for any channels that I want to keep (e.g. films) but use the Freeview for recording programs that I will watch and then delete.

My problem is dealing with my EPG - it is pretty messed up.

DVB EPG seems to grab information for only the Freeview channels. WEBEPG then seems to grab the missing date for the freesat channels (it doesn't update any of the Freeview channels as these already have information).

The problem is that firstly, the EPG between the duplicate Freeview channels and Freesat channels is different, even though they are the same channel.

Secondly, WEBEPG cannot complete the EPG for all my Freesat Channels, so I have quite a few channels with no information.

Can anyone give me some beginners advice as to how to get full EPG for every channel and also how to make sure that duplicate channels show the same EPG?

Thanks very much.

 

[porky996t]

Hi Elsmandino,

I too use both Freesat and Freeview, however, I do use DJBlu's and Miroslavs Sky EPG scanner - it is just so easy to use and works really well. You can find it here

If you do use this scanner it would be best to combine the same channels on Freeview and Freesat using the option in TV Server Config, as any duplicates result in blank epg data for the duplicate channels. If you move the priority of your DVB-S card higher up, you should get these better quality channels as first choice - you can set up different recording folders for different cards, but I try to keep it simple for the WAF.

I started to use the Sky EPG data after I had huge problems trying to get a fully populated EPG using the default methods.

HTH,


M.

 

[robbo100]

I have found the XMLTV plugin very useful and simple to set up.

I use XMLTV GUI to download the EPG data from Radio Times and I set it up to save the data to

c:\Program Files\Team MediaPortal\MediaPortal\XMLTV\tvguide.xml

Run the first import to generate the xml file then go into MP TV Server config and enable the XMLTV plugin. Force an import and then click on the mappings tab. (there is a little bug with this button that MP TV Server appears to have frozen, but it is actually processing the data and will unfreeze once complete - it can take 5 minutes so be patient.

Select the TV group you want to map epg data to and then click

Load/Refresh

.

Most will auto-map, but you will need to do some (such as "BBC ONE" vs "BBC1")

Click Save.

Force an Import again (remembering that it might appear frozen again).

Now configure windows task scheduler to run xmlconsole.exe (or a filename like that (can't remember exactly)) once a week to automatically grab your epg data for you and configure the xmltv plugin to grab epg data about 10 mins after the scheduled tasks.

It should all work perfectly!

Robbo

 

[elsmandino]

Thanks very much for that. I didn't realise there were a couple of different options.

I'll give both methods a try and see which one gives me the most data.

I note the SKY EPG link that you kindly sent me has details of the download but are there any accompanying instructions? (or are they included in the download?)

Regards

A

 

[porky996t]

Hi,

You would need the Version 1 Installer (listed on the page I linked to) if you are on MP 1.1.2 (I'm on 1.1.3 and it works fine). The Sky EPG download is a zip file and consists of two installers, one for the TV Server and one for MP itself. They install automatically. You do need to check after installation that the only EPG items checked in the TV Server config panel are the two radio channels named "EPG Audio Background" (this is a Satellite channel that contains the Sky EPG data) and "Freesat Info" (EPG data for Freesat channels). After making sure that only these have been checked, you are good to go. I have found that the EPG seems to populate over 24 hours.

If you have any specific queries re the plug in then it would be best to raise it in that thread.

HTH,



M.

 

[elsmandino]

Thanks so much for that - i'll give it a go. I'll add any more queries to the official thread as suggested.

 

[crazyfool]

Just to throw another option out there I use a program called DVBGuide which grabs the EPG from the signal and it doesn't require an internet connection, I then import that using the XMLTV plugin.