No Electronic Program Guide (EPG) (1 Viewer)

[mark069]

I've been using Windows Media Center for over a year and just heard about MediaPortal. Installation went smoothly and channel scan picked up all my channels but the EPG doesn't seem to be working.

The Manual Control menu says "Grabbing EPG" (seems to always be on the same channel) but the EPG never populates.


MediaPortal Version: 1.1.2
MediaPortal Skin: default skin
Windows Version: Windows 7
CPU Type: AMD Athlon X3 2.9 Mhz
HDD: Western Digital 1 TB
Memory: 4 GB
Motherboard: Gigahertz
Video Card: ATI Ratheon HD 4200
Video Card Driver: 4.1
Sound Card: NA
Sound Card AC3:
Sound Card Driver:
1. TV Card: Avermedia Duo
1. TV Card Type: ATSC
1. TV Card Driver: 3.1
2. TV Card:
2. TV Card Type:
2. TV Card Driver:
3. TV Card:
3. TV Card Type:
3. TV Card Driver:
4. TV Card:
4. TV Card Type:
4. TV Card Driver:
MPEG2 Video Codec:
MPEG2 Audio Codec:
h.264 Video Codec:
Satelite/CableTV Provider:
HTPC Case:
Cooling:
Power Supply:
Remote:
TV: Gyration Air
TV - HTPC Connection: HDMI

 

[2BitSculptor]

When using Media Center, Microsoft provided the EPG for free. Media Portal's EPG is geared more toward the European user, where EPG is handled differently from the US. Here in the States, we have two options. Pay for a subscription to Schedules Direct ($20/yr), and use the Schedules Direct plugin for TV Server, or use an EPG scraper like MC2XML to grab the EPG from Microsoft, which then creates a file that the MP EPG can access.

You should be able to find pertinent threads with the Search function.

- Chuck

 

[mark069]

I've been struggling with the EPG talked about in the MP wiki and I don't recall any mention of it not working for US users.

Thank you very much for clarifying this!

 

[wishywashy]

I've have been using mc2xml for my EPG for a while now. If that is the route you take let me know if you have any questions.

 

[mark069]

I am having problems configuring mc2xl correctly. Followed the directions at the bottom of this message.

It never created tvguide.xml but it did create a file called xmltv.xml and a file called mc2xml.dat.

When I run TV Server Configuration, I can see the xmltv plugin box checked but I'm not sure how to "run" this plugin in order to see the mappings tab. Clicking on the xmltv plugin does nothing....

What did I do wrong?




How would I use mc2xml with MediaPortal? *

1. Create a folder for the EPG data (example: c:\mc2xml) and put the mc2xml.exe binary and a copy of xmltv.dtd in that folder (use a GUI file manager or command line)
2. Optionally create an "mc2xml.chl" file listing the channels you want included in your EPG (see above for file format) (make sure that notepad doesn't append a ".txt" extension to this filename)
3. MediaPortal wants the produced .xml file to be called "tvguide.xml", so you must open a DOS box, change to the EPG data directory and specify the output filename on the mc2xml command line.

On the first run of mc2xml on Windows it will ask you to input your Postal/Zip code (ie: "10000"), Country Code (ie: "us"). If not using windows, you must specify this info on the command line.

mc2xml will then ask you to select a lineup number. mc2xml will save this selection to mc2xml.dat and create a tvguide.xml file in this folder. (Delete mc2xml.dat if you selected the wrong lineup, and try again)

* md "C:\mc2xml"
* cd "C:\mc2xml"
* copy "C:\downloads\mc2xml.exe" "C:\mc2xml"
* copy "C:\downloads\xmltv.dtd" "C:\mc2xml"
* notepad "C:\mc2xml\mc2xml.chl"
* mc2xml -c us -g 10000 -o tvguide.xml

4. Start MediaPortal's "TVserver configuration"
5. Go to plugin "XmlTv" (make sure XmlTv plugin box is checked) and select the folder with the newly generated tvguide.xml (example: c:\mc2xml)
6. Go to Tab "Mappings"