Episode name - not being collected (2 Viewers)

[Anthony Vaughan]

Hi CyberSimian

Thank you for getting back to me.

I think there are few issues that seem to affect UK users more than others. For example, UK programs quite often get 'New: ' prefixed to the program name and then half way through the series the 'New: ' is removed having the consequence that, depending on which series option was selected, further programs are not recorded.

Despite asking how we change the EPG source within MediaPortal, it is somewhat frustrating not to receive an answer that would be of practicable help.

It seems to me that the best way for me to resolve these issues is to fix them outside of the MediaPortal code. One caveat here, I am using SQL Server to store my program, recordings and schedules, so it's quite a simple matter for me to do this and I may not be able to help other UK users if they don't use SQL Server. Anyway, I've fixed the 'New: ' issue.

I am happy to pay for an EPG tool so long as I can use it programmatically.

If you want to know more about how I get on, then email me at tony.vaughan@safehelp.com. I'm happy to share whatever I come up with.

Tony

 

[CyberSimian]

UK programs quite often get 'New: ' prefixed to the program name and then half way through the series the 'New: ' is removed having the consequence that, depending on which series option was selected, further programs are not recorded.

Yes, I have experienced this too. There is some hope that this problem may disappear in MP2, as I believe that mm is hoping to implement true "series linking", using the series ids and programme ids that are present in the UK broadcast EPG (this is something that my Humax PVR can do now!).

Vista WMC uses programme titles to identify episodes in a series (different from Win 7), and so suffers the same problems as MP when titles change slightly. But what is also annoying with Vista is that the titles are case sensitive when identifying episodes in a series, but not when scheduling a keyword recording! Still, that is all in the past; I won't be returning to WMC.

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

 

[Anthony Vaughan]

Hi CyberSimian

I hope it is fixed in MediaPortal in future. I need to fix it now though and MP2 is no use to me at present..

I really liked WMC in Vista, because the database was open and I was able to resolve all of the issues to do with Microsoft's obsession with limiting the number of allowed tuners, which involved quite a bit of registry manipulation, as well as allowing me to manipulate channels using a better screen interface than WMC could deliver.

Sadly, Microsoft blocked access to the database in Windows 7/8 and my ability to fix issues was restricted to a limited number of features. Pretty sad considering Microsoft changed the way they accessed EPGs, region wide rather than transmitter specific, resulting in loads of duplicate channels per tuner that I had to write loads of code to fix.

I think MediaPortal-1 is excellent, it sticks to EPG by transmitter, but it does have some irritating shortfalls for UK users and I am keen to resolve them.

I'll try the EPG tool you suggested and let you know if it helps.

Tony

 

[pünktchen]

Maybe that would help: EPGCleaner https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/threads/tweaking-dvb-epg.125136/

 

[Anthony Vaughan]

I'll have a look at EPGCleaner.

Thanks for the contribution.

Tony

 

[Anthony Vaughan]

Hi CyberSimian

I have found two EPG providers that have episode information for UK channels:

• DigiGuide - this is a GUI provider that appears to provide everything - episode name, series number and episode number;
• DVBGuide - this is a command line provider that doesn't seem to provide as reliable information.

DigiGuide has an annual subscription and I haven't had time yet to find out how to save the EPG as a file.

For DVBGuide, the EPG is stored into a xml file either in XMLTV or Media Center format.

DVBGuide provides info as follows:

<title lang="en">NCIS</title>
<desc lang="en">Minimum Security: Drama series. A sailor&apos;s death from ingesting emeralds leads the agents to Guantanamo Bay, where they must thwart a terrorist&apos;s plot to kill one of their own. (S1 Ep 8)</desc>

The episode name is stored in the desc field before the colon and the series and episode numbers are stores in the brackets at the end of the desc field.

I often found the DVBGuide had no episode name when DigiGuide did.

I have found that I can process the MediaPortal database to remove unwanted prefixes (like New) and think I can do the same to add in the episode information, though the former was quite easy the latter will take more time.

Tony

 

[Anthony Vaughan]

Hi CyberSimian

Aha! Now I have seen the format of DVBGuide downloaded, lo and behold, the description in the MediaPortal database for the UK EPG does have the same format as I delineated above; episode name before the colon and series and episode data in brackets.

I should be able to extract the episode data and update the program columns appropriately without having to use an external EPG provider.

Tony

 

[CyberSimian]

I should be able to extract the episode data and update the program columns appropriately without having to use an external EPG provider.

With the broadcast EPG, some programmes do have the episode title at the start of the description, with the series and episode numbers at the end. But this does seem to vary from channel to channel, and from programme to programme within one channel. It may even vary from one week to another! Nevertheless, some is better than none.

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

 

[Anthony Vaughan]

I will only find out by trying. The thing is that the description data provided by WebEPG is identical to that provided by DVBGuide.

MediaPortal could do this as well but I can't wait for the whole development turnaround and am happy to do it for myself.

I'll report back on how well it works.

Tony

 

[Anthony Vaughan]

Hi CyberSimian

Well, that was fun. I think I have managed to get all of the episode information out of the existing EPG data that I'm going to. Irritatingly, there are several ways that the episode information is stored, usually by channel, which you will be able to see by running DVBGuide and looking at the XMLTV file.

One thing that used to drive me mad was when the programme name would be truncated with '...' at the end. This used to happen under WMC as well. Once you look at the XMLTV file it becomes obvious that the length of the title is restricted to quite a short length and the rest of the title is moved to the beginning of the description field. I dealt with that first. The problem was that the title overflow in the description field can be terminated by one if three characters. So far, I have found the following characters: '?', '.' and ':'. The description field must be tested for the presence of these characters in that order and the text to the left of the terminator, the overflow, can be moved to the title field - the length of the title after doing this is perfectly workable in my view.

Quite often the description field starts with the episode number and total number of episodes; e.g. 5/16. This can be stripped out and placed in the episodeNum field. Annoyingly, the other series information in the description field I mentioned above, (S1 Ep 8), is not in a fixed format. It can be of the format 'Ep8' or 'Ep 8', so it is necessary to use Regex to match and extract that data. Also, sometimes the S1 Ep8 is not in brackets and sometimes it is. Additionally, there may be Ep information without any S data. Therefore, I search for the Ep data then work backwards to see if there is any series information.

Anyway, after I did all this, 4,300 out of 13,539 had series/episode data. Many of the programs without that data are news type or teleshopping programs that don't really have episode names or series/episode data. Overall, now I am a very happy bunny.

Tony