Channel 4 HD have withdrawn from Freesat UK - EPG solution? (1 Viewer)

[CyberSimian]

I just unticked them all except RTÉ One and did a rescan. All EPG listings appeared as usual .

DVB-T systems do vary around the world, but if the broadcaster provides an EPG (as distinct from providing only "now and next"), the minimum that he could provide for each MUX would be the EPG for all of the channels in that MUX. If that were the case, you would need to select one channel from each MUX in order to receive a full EPG. (Not necessary in the UK, since each MUX contains the EPG for itself and all other MUXes.)

Your screen shots show relatively few DVB-T channels. So few, in fact, that they could probably all be contained in a single MUX (depends on how much compression of the datastream the broadcaster uses). So perhaps Ireland has only one MUX.

Finally, the DVB-T radio channels are part of the MUX too. So I think that you could deselect all radio channels. This seems counter-intuitive, but the radio EPG will be grabbed at the same time as the TV EPG, from the MUX containing the TV channel that you have selected ("RTE One"). I mention this as I wasn't sure whether you had changed your radio selections as well as your TV selections.

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

 

[ninja 12]

DVB-T systems do vary around the world, but if the broadcaster provides an EPG (as distinct from providing only "now and next"), the minimum that he could provide for each MUX would be the EPG for all of the channels in that MUX. If that were the case, you would need to select one channel from each MUX in order to receive a full EPG. (Not necessary in the UK, since each MUX contains the EPG for itself and all other MUXes.)

Your screen shots show relatively few DVB-T channels. So few, in fact, that they could probably all be contained in a single MUX (depends on how much compression of the datastream the broadcaster uses). So perhaps Ireland has only one MUX.

Finally, the DVB-T radio channels are part of the MUX too. So I think that you could deselect all radio channels. This seems counter-intuitive, but the radio EPG will be grabbed at the same time as the TV EPG, from the MUX containing the TV channel that you have selected ("RTE One"). I mention this as I wasn't sure whether you had changed your radio selections as well as your TV selections.

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

Hi ,

There are two muxes for Irish DVB-T .

The TV channels are split between the two , and all the radio channels are on MUX 1 .

Some info here if you're interested - Saorview - Wikipedia

Earlier I unticked all the radio stations except RTÉ Radio One and the EPG is working fine , I'll untick that one as well when I get a chance and see how the radio EPG goes .

Thanks

 

[Gazlad]

I just checked in on this and realised there'd been a whole other conversation!

Good to read through though. It gives me definitive answers to some questions that I've had for some time but just haven't had the time to test out for myself.

I only use DVB-S so looks as though I can just have the freesat info channel selected. I guess that stopping all the unecessary EPG scanning may preserve the life on my card a little too.

Thanks both for your input. Much appreciated.

Sent from my STF-L09 using Tapatalk

 

[Ronski]

@CyberSimian

I'm in the UK and my guide was working perfectly up until the Channel 4 HD change, when that disappeared I used XmlTv to just import 4 HD, but I've been having issues with other channels since then.

I'm in the UK and only have DVB-S, I've tried to copy @ninja 12 settings, but still didn't get a guide. I've also tried disabling XmlTv import.

If I understand correctly from earlier in this thread I don't need to select any channels on the TV Epg grabber - I can leave everything unchecked.

On the Radio Epg grabber the only channel checked is Freesat Info

Going to Manual Control I can see that it states grabbing EPG, but it didn't seem to work or was I just being too inpatient giving it only 20 minutes or so?

For now to get a guide back I've currently set XmlTv to grab all the channels we watch.

 

[Gazlad]

@CyberSimian

I'm in the UK and my guide was working perfectly up until the Channel 4 HD change, when that disappeared I used XmlTv to just import 4 HD, but I've been having issues with other channels since then.

I'm in the UK and only have DVB-S, I've tried to copy @ninja 12 settings, but still didn't get a guide. I've also tried disabling XmlTv import.

View attachment 197358

If I understand correctly from earlier in this thread I don't need to select any channels on the TV Epg grabber - I can leave everything unchecked.

On the Radio Epg grabber the only channel checked is Freesat Info

View attachment 197359

Going to Manual Control I can see that it states grabbing EPG, but it didn't seem to work or was I just being too inpatient giving it only 20 minutes or so?

View attachment 197360

For now to get a guide back I've currently set XmlTv to grab all the channels we watch.

Hi Ronski,

I'm the OP but got it sorted thanks to advice.

I have the same setup (DVB-S in UK). The only difference I can see is that I have all the channels selected on DVB EPG and just use web EPG for C4 HD. (Xmltv is disabled)

I did consider disabling all channels and just using Freesat info but I probably won't bother now given your experience.

It's been working fine for me ever since.

 

[joecrow]

As I understand it and it works for me here in Germany, you need to grab only one channel per "provider", see screenshots attached. If you only have a single "provider" in the UK and Ireland then any channel should be fine. Gabbing multiple channels from the same provider will just waste CPU time duplicating the info.

 

[CyberSimian]

Going to Manual Control I can see that it states grabbing EPG, but it didn't seem to work or was I just being too impatient giving it only 20 minutes or so?

I have never used satellite TV, so I cannot speak from personal experience. But the screen shots that you have shown look correct to me -- that is how I understand the EPG grabbing should be defined for satellite. Some points:

(1) For the "EPG grabbing while idle" setting, the "Timeout" is set to "10 minutes". This is the period of time for which TV Server will grab the EPG. With terrestrial TV in the UK, 10 minutes is about right to grab a complete EPG (all channels for 7 days). But it does vary. Sometimes the EPG is complete after less than 10 minutes, while at other times the EPG is still incomplete after 10 minutes.

I don't know how long it takes on average to grab a complete EPG for satellite. So you could try increasing the timeout value to something larger -- 20 to 30 minutes perhaps.

(2) The "Freesat Info" radio channel provides info only for Freesat channels (TV and radio). I believe that on satellite there are other channels that you can receive that are not part of Freesat. If you watch any of those, there won't be any info for them in the Freesat EPG. So you would need to obtain an EPG for those from a different source.

(3) If "Channel 4 HD" is no longer part of Freesat, how do you receive it? Is it still broadcast from satellite?

(4) Do you receive any part of the Freesat EPG, or does it remain completely empty if you don't use XmlTv?

(5) If XmlTv works for you, there is no reason to stop using it unless there is some disadvantage associated with it (e.g. less-detailed info, the need to connect to the internet, it costs real money, ...).

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

 

[Ronski]

Thanks for the replies, I may just not have given it enough time, as I have a guide for ITV 2 but did not set that in XmlTv, I've currently turned off XmlTV so channel 4 will lose its listing, but I'll see what happens to the others when that happens.

I'm not quite sure whats going on with CH4 HD, but it is still transmitted, just no guide data.

When I originally setup Mediaportal some years back I was using XmlTv, at some point for some reason I stopped using it, I think possibly when Radio Times stopped the scrapping of it's data. I currently have the grabber set to UK_Bleb whatever that is, I presume this This week's UK television & radio but that says ITV is not available.

Anyway for now it's working, and I'll see what happens in a week or so, thanks.

 

[Jasmeet_181]

As I understand it and it works for me here in Germany, you need to grab only one channel per "provider", see screenshots attached. If you only have a single "provider" in the UK and Ireland then any channel should be fine. Gabbing multiple channels from the same provider will just waste CPU time duplicating the info.

Most list BSkyB as the provider here and the channels only carry now and next data. Freesat (Hufman encoded DVB EPG I think) and Sky (OpenTV) each have their own data channel for their basic 7 day EPGs, TVE3 only supports the use of Freesat Info.

I believe that on satellite there are other channels that you can receive that are not part of Freesat.

Yes, the channels that say Manual in the Freesat (UK) column are FTA but not on Freesat
Master list of digital television channels (UK and Ireland) – TVCL – TV Channel Lists

(3) If "Channel 4 HD" is no longer part of Freesat, how do you receive it? Is it still broadcast from satellite?

I'm not quite sure whats going on with CH4 HD, but it is still transmitted, just no guide data.

It's still available FTA on satellite and is on the Sky EPG, Channel 4 didn't want to pay Freesat's increased fees for HD channels and also withdrew All4.
C4HD on Freesat - Channel 4 - 4viewers
Freesat defends new charging policy

 

[Ronski]

Well a week on and I still have an EPG except CH4 HD as I turned off XMLTV, so the lack of CH4 guide is expected.

I think what might be happening is I have XMLTV set to delete the guide on import, which is recommended, but I suspect it's deleting the entire EPG rather than just CH4 HD.

Delete old programs before import (Recommended)
Tick this option if you want the contents of your EPG to be deleted before a new tvguide.xml is imported. A reason for doing this is that some TV guide sources may have programmes listed 14 days in advance, however the TV companies may not have confirmed all their schedules this far forward so the guide might contain entries such as To be confirmed or Film to be confirmed. These will be loaded into the EPG database and MediaPortal sees them as a normal programme. This is not too much of a problem while they are 10-14 days off, but as current days age off a large proportion of your EPG may end up as To be confirmed. The normal XMLTV import will only add new EPG entries where none exist in the database. It will not update existing ones. Deleting all the old programs before import ensures that the EPG data in the database is up to date as the tvguide.xml being imported.

XMLTV is set to update the guide at 7pm, right when we're most likely to be looking at the guide, so perhaps it's just not updating quick enough.

So I think I have two options.

1. Set XMLTV to update in the early hours of the morning
2. Untick delete guide.

I think option one may be preferable, and see how it goes.

@ninja 12 and @Gazlad I see that you are using webEPG for CH4 HD which also has a delete option, what are your settings for delete and scheduled time for grabbing?