Closer integration between WebEPG and My TV (1 Viewer)

[knutinh]

I think that many new users would like a more streamlined setup process where you:

1. Are presented with a large number of Channels (e.g. CNN, MTV etc) from which you choose what channels you will use. This way, channels names will be standardised.

2. Then you either auto-tune or download tunings. Most users will have to tune themselves as there are a large number of cable networks/OTA transmisssions, MP cant put them all in a database.

3. The user manually map every tuned channel to a logic channel name selected in 1. Or delete bad/double channels

4. Using P2P, Lyngsat or some other service, the uniformly named channels can easily be connected to nice channels icons automatically

5. The WebEPG is preconfigured for all the logic channel names, and filters its xml due to the actual channels set up.

6. The user enters MP and has a sensible "all channels" group where all channels have nice icons and EPG info at first attempt, and ideally never gets to know what WebEPG is ;-)

regards
Knut

 

[Callifo]

Considering the amount of countries with individual states with individual regions, the sheer amount of combinations would make that request very very hard. The fact some places dont have EPG's available would make the proceedure pointless.

Distributing channel icon packs would increase the software package size ten fold.

As greater idea it sounds, it would be a lot of work.

 

[knutinh]

Considering the amount of countries with individual states with individual regions, the sheer amount of combinations would make that request very very hard. The fact some places dont have EPG's available would make the proceedure pointless.

Distributing channel icon packs would increase the software package size ten fold.

As greater idea it sounds, it would be a lot of work.

Hmm. My basic idea is "forcing" the user to select a channel name that has a logic value connected to it instead of a text string that only mean something to humans. "MTV", "Mtv", "mtv", "Music Television" etc all mean the same thing. But selecting "MTV" from a menu means that MediaPortal "knowns" what you mean.

When I run WebEPG I have to manually find a text-string that I decide should be MTV. I cant see that it is impossible to have a small xml file describing, say, 1000 pre-defined MP channel names, and what grabber to use for each, possibly as a function of country.

There could be a non-MP robot that has an .xml file with 1000 (MP-defined) channel names and corresponding file-names at lyngsat that would automatically download the needed channels into thumbs\tv directory. Or there could be a "MP thumbs" zipfile circulating on P2P that contained 1000 zipped channel icons named according to the MP convention. Copying those files directly into thumbs\tv should also work.

I dont know what can be done and cant be done with this, or if it is hard to implement. But forcing the user to format this data cant be that hard to implement, it is a matter of defining some channel names in an xml file and changing the setup application where you rename channels to also feature a dropdown menu selecting among the names present in the xml file. Every other aspect of MP could be untouched if and until some clever guy finds a use for that information.

regards
Knut

 

[knutinh]

Or, WebEPG could be integrated into autotune such that for every tuned channel you would go directly into the present WebEPG menu to select a channel-name/epg grabber ID, and this information could be used by other modules, knowing uniquely what the channel name "CNN" means, as well as knowing that every occurence of the channel CNN will be named "CNN".

regards
Knut

 

[mzemina]

Is this thread due to the thought that is too "hard" to define a channel currently?

 

[knutinh]

I just think that it is unnecessary to:
1. Do a channel autotune
2. Write a channel name for every channel
3. Map every channel to a logic channel name in WebEPG
4. Search high and low for channel icons
5. Rename every channel icon to the exact channel name string that you used in 1.

It should be:
1. Do a channel autotune
2. Select a name/grabber ID pair for every channel
3. click "use EPG for all channels"
4. click "download icons for all channels"

regards
Knut

 

[James]

knutinh,

Please try the GUI Settings wizard and give feed back.

/James