[TV] Integrated Program Guide Data Source (1 Viewer)

ChairmanMao

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mm1352000,

I think the underlying issue here is that MP is targeted at non-US/non-Canada users. That's fine -- every product has a target market, and it's hardly unusual for an open source project to have to conserve its resources by choosing what opportunities to address. Particularly if expanding the scope means supporting an entirely different TV system :).

My problem is that I live in the US. And if I suggest to my wife that we need to move to Europe so we can easily and reliably record TV shows I suspect I'll run into some challenges :).

I did, BTW, get the guide data loaded into the program using mc2xml. A little convoluted -- rename an XML file so MP can access it? -- but reasonably straightforward.
 

Vasilich

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the underlying issue here is that MP is targeted at non-US/non-Canada users
I guess the problem is that we have very few developers/contributors from USA. Either the TV things in USA are much more complicated comparing to the rest of the world, or US developers aren't interested in open source projects (particularly in Mediaportal development).
 

mm1352000

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    I did, BTW, get the guide data loaded into the program using mc2xml. A little convoluted -- rename an XML file so MP can access it? -- but reasonably straightforward.
    If you got guide data with mc2xml, you should be good to go.
    You can change the file name generated by mc2xml:
    -o <filename> set output file (default = "xmltv.xml")
    http://mc2xml.hosterbox.net/

    Then all you'd have to do is use windows batch/scheduler to schedule mc2xml to run daily (or whatever).
    ... or am I missing something?
     

    RonD

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    A few comments about the USA EPG frustration. I've tried to help with Setup Guide documentation to give some idea how to use the options but understand the frustrations of a new MePo user. Anytime I want to do testing, rescan my channels, try a different EPG setup, etc I know it will take 15+ minutes to restore my normal mc2xml/xmltv EPG setup. I've never tried Schedules Direct so I can't comment on that option. I also use ATSC/OTA (Over The Air) and I can't comment on QAM or CableCard difficulties.

    One key problem is the mismatch between the Channel Names MePo sees when it does a channel scan and the "Guide Channel Names". For the most part MePo ScannedNames match what I see with a USA ATSC TV set, but most of the ScannedNames don't match the GuideNames. This is true for WebEPG/imdb, xmltv/mc2xml (zap2it), and xmltv/WebGrab+Plus (tvguide). I did a fresh channel scan and mc2xml download, the following is an example of the mismatch

    Code:
    2.1     KTVUDT    2001    KTVU-HD
    2.2     KTVUDT2   2002    KTVU-SD
    4.1     KRONDT    4001    KRON-HD
    4.2     KRONDT2   4002    KRON-SD
    4.3     KRONDT3   4003    KRONSD2
    5.1     KPIXDT    5001    KPIX-DT
    7.1     KGODT     7001    KGO-HD
    7.2     KGODT2    7002    LIVWELL
    7.3     KGODT3    7003    LWSD
    9.1     KQEDDT    9001    KQED-HD
    9.2     KQEDDT2   9002    KQED+
    9.3     KQEDDT3   9003    WORLD
    11.1    KNTVDT   11001    KNTV HD
    11.2    KNTVDT2  11002    Cozi Television (COZI-TV)

    The first 2 columns are the ATSC channel numbers and Channel Name from the guide webpage, these names match the mc2xml download names. The last 2 columns are the MePo scanned channel number and channel names, these match what I see on a ATSC TV with a few exceptions (COZI-TV is wrong).

    If I use xmltv with PartialMatch=OFF, none of the channels match. If I use PartialMatch=ON, channels with the same basename are mapped to the first GuideChannel, KTVU-HD=KTVUDT (good), KTVU-SD=KTVUDT (wrong), etc and I need to manually fix many/most channels. The other channels, LIVWELL=KGODT2 etc all need to be fixed. With my mc2xml OTA lineup there are about 120 GuideChannels, with a Cable/Digital lineup there are about 650 GuideChannels. Its all doable, but lots of grumpy NSFW words are used while groping through the 120/650 GuideChannels to fix the mis-mapped channels.

    To be honest I'm not sure what to suggest to improve/fix this problem. The 2 sets of Channel Names don't really match and I don't see an easy fix. The 1st column of ATSC channel numbers (2.1 etc) are not in the default mc2xml download and can't be used to match the MePo Channels. One workaround is the user can manually edit/tweak the MePo ChannelNames to match the GuideNames, but that causes a different set of NSFW grumpy words.

    Similar problem happen with WebGrab+Plus, WebEPG etc. So much for venting but I figured I'd show an example of EPG mapping problems. The attached text file has the complete list for my OTA channels.
     

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    mm1352000

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    Thanks Ron

    The examples certainly help my understanding of the problem. The information - name and channel number - that you see TV Server grabbing is all that we have available, so at least on that side we can't do any better.

    I think SchedulesDirect attempts to match on the channel number or callsign, hence it usually has a better hit rate. Can't speak for mc2xml et. al.

    mm
     

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