Clean up Swedish grabbers (1 Viewer)

[vuego]

The new version of WebEPG that comes with MP 1.1.0a has the option to Auto Map channels to WebEPG sources. Most Swedish grabbers are old and outdated and may now be unintentionally used by auto mapping. This is why I wish to clean up so that the user just have to press Auto Map, Grab and then be done

The following grabbers are currently delivered by MP:

• tvguide_boxer_se.xml
• www_comhem_se.xml
• www_dagenstv_com.xml
• www_omtv_se.xml
• www_tv-tabla_com.xml

They all have different problems.

www_omtv_se.xml, www_tv-tabla_com.xml and tvguide_boxer_se.xml should all be removed since the sites doesn't have information about programs stop time. This means that the last show of every night will be several hours long. Not so good if you've set it to record

www_comhem_se.xml doesn't grab stop times either but the information is available at the site.

www_dagenstv_com.xml is the most complete grabber. It grabs stop times and has 176 channels (only missing one from tvguide_boxer_se and three from www_comhem_se so we might want to keep just those channels).

All sites miss information about which programs on SVT HD are really broadcast in HD, and Bobster/Bolibompa "blocks" from SVT2 and SVTB (like 05:30-07:00 Bolibompa, 05:30-05:50 Franklin). This is why I've created a new grabber for svt.se which is the only site I'm aware of that has this information. I also removed those channels from www_dagenstv_com.xml to force the correct Auto Map.


The other problem is the grabbers channel IDs. They all use some cleaver name@site system which I think should link to C:\ProgramData\Team MediaPortal\MediaPortal TV Server\WebEPG\channels\channels.xml somehow. I'm not sure if it's used for anything. I think that with the Auto Map feature we won't need channels.xml and should put the real channel names in the channel ID field...?

This is what I've done, for example:

    <Channel id="tv7@aftonbladet.se" siteId="248" /> 
    <Channel id="comedy@canalplus.se" siteId="298" /> 
    <Channel id="sport@tv4.se" siteId="275" />

Changed to:

    <Channel id="TV7" siteId="248" />
    <Channel id="Canal+ Comedy" siteId="298" />
    <Channel id="TV4 Sport" siteId="275" />

Using channel names from the web site.

This way the Auto Map feature works very well. Just a couple of strange maps like TV3 gets mapped to MTV3 even when there's a TV3 available

What do you think?

 

[anders.malm]

Looks great, is there any possibility to get the Category when grabing the EPG.

 

[arion_p]

The other problem is the grabbers channel IDs. They all use some cleaver name@site system which I think should link to C:\ProgramData\Team MediaPortal\MediaPortal TV Server\WebEPG\channels\channels.xml somehow. I'm not sure if it's used for anything. I think that with the Auto Map feature we won't need channels.xml and should put the real channel names in the channel ID field...?

This is what I've done, for example:

    <Channel id="tv7@aftonbladet.se" siteId="248" /> 
    <Channel id="comedy@canalplus.se" siteId="298" /> 
    <Channel id="sport@tv4.se" siteId="275" />

Changed to:

    <Channel id="TV7" siteId="248" />
    <Channel id="Canal+ Comedy" siteId="298" />
    <Channel id="TV4 Sport" siteId="275" />

Using channel names from the web site.

This way the Auto Map feature works very well. Just a couple of strange maps like TV3 gets mapped to MTV3 even when there's a TV3 available

What do you think?

ChannelId should be a globally unique id for each channel. In order to avoid name collisions the channel@provider.country form has been adopted (there may a comedy@canalplus.se and a comedy@canalplus.fr -- not necessarily the same). Channels.xml maps channelIds to channel names. This is done because there may be multiple grabbers for the same channel and you don't want to repeat the channel name in each grabber.

The automap feature needs improvement but it is not top priority at the moment.
What it does is that it looks for the first channel whose full name is the same as, of fully contains, or is fairly similar to the display name of the channel being mapped. The problem is that each test should be run separately, i.e. first search the entire channel list for an exact match, then try substring match then by similarity (and pick the most similar one). Right now, instead it stops searching the list as soon as one of these conditions are met, that is why you get TV3 mapped to MTV3 (it comes earlier in the list).

So in short, don't dump the channel ids. As for channels.xml I hope to find a better solution for that.

 

[ravenrocks]

Great stuff, I have an unrelated question though, where´s the webepg grabber that automatically grabs at a scheduled time? It used to be in MP Config, but it is no longer there.

 

[arion_p]

ravenrocks: See here:
https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/...vision-23407-rar-69131/index2.html#post497580
and here:
https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/webepg-136/scheduling-webepg-68956/#post497571

 

[vuego]

ChannelId should be a globally unique id for each channel. In order to avoid name collisions the channel@provider.country form has been adopted (there may a comedy@canalplus.se and a comedy@canalplus.fr -- not necessarily the same). Channels.xml maps channelIds to channel names. This is done because there may be multiple grabbers for the same channel and you don't want to repeat the channel name in each grabber.

Hi arion
I'm updating the Channels.xml from MP 1.1.0 Beta 1. Hope it hasn't updated since then so that my new file could get included in SVN. I'm adding new channels and fixing the old ones. Some used the same name for both ChannelID and FullName. I'm also fixing the channel list and grabbers for SE.

I encountered one problem. The site I'm grabbing from has some channels for different countries, i.e. TV3 Sweden and TV3 Norway. They're both called "TV3" in Channels.xml and should probably not be renamed since it'll affect other grabbers. When mapping the channels in WebEPG there will be two TV3 in the selection list. How could the user know which is which?

 

[arion_p]

You can always see the channel id, which would be tv3@provider1.se and tv3@provider2.no respectively.

IMHO, strictly speaking, a grabber should only grab channels of a single country, even if the site from which it grabs data contains data for other countries. In your situation, there should be two grabbers one in each country's subdirectory. The two grabbers should differ only in the channels they grab, the templates etc should be the same.

 

[vuego]

I can only see the channel id in the xml file, not WebEPG. See screenshot.
I followed your recommendation and removed (commented out) the other countries channels that conflicted.


www_omtv_se.xml, www_tv-tabla_com.xml, tvguide_boxer_se.xml
All three should be removed. The sites doesn't specify programs stop time and all channels are available at www_dagenstv_com.xml.

www_comhem_se.xml
The comhem grabber doesn't grab stop times but there's one channel here which is not available at www_dagenstv_com.xml which is why I kept just that channel.

svt_se.xml
This site has the best information and no overlapping blocks but only got 10 channels. All enabled.

www_dagenstv_com.xml
This site has 179 channels but doesn't specify HD programs and got overlapping blocks. I disabled problematic channels (SVT HD, SVT2, SVTB) to force use of svt_se.xml.

channels.xml
Added missing channels: Al Jazeera, Axess TV, BBC Entertainment, BBC Lifestyle, Canal+ Hits Sport Weekend, Canal+ Sport Extra, Channel 1 Russia, Comedy Central, Di TV, Discovery World, Disney XD, Eurosport HD, F Men, Hustler TV, Kanal 10, Kanal 9, MTVN HD, Nickelodeon Europe, Sailing Channel, Silver HD, SVT HD, TV1000 Drama, TV1000 HD, TV3 Puls, TV4 Guld, TV4 HD, TV4 Komedi, TV4 Science Fiction, TV4 Sport, TV7, Viasat Golf, Viasat Hockey, Viasat Motor, Voom HD, Zone Club.
Also updated the Swedish channel list and corrected the FullName entry of several channels.

The Auto map function worked very well for me using these files. Only one channel was mapped wrong

 

[arion_p]

I can only see the channel id in the xml file, not WebEPG. See screenshot.

You are right, it is not shown in the selection tree, which can be a problem. I was actually thinking of the mappings tab of webepg (see screenshot).

The correct place to post grabbers and grabber updates is EPG-Grabbers and tuningdetails
for your efforts.

 

[vuego]

Ahh I see
I still prefer to have only one TV3 in the selection list though. I uploaded the files to the correct forum section. Thanks,.