Schedules Direct US/Canadian/Mexico EPG Plugin (Updated August 2010) (4 Viewers)

[2BitSculptor]

The SD plugin is much better at automatically matching OTA channels. It's a completely different story for cable (which is what Lyfesaver74 is dealing with).

I fully appreciate that. I do not have cable or sat, so I cannot chime in with any help, but I will, myself, recommend SD for OTA. Is it a problem with the plugin, or a problem with the way the Schedules Direct site handles access to channel IDs. (I honestly don't know enough in that area)

 

[Lyfesaver74]

Think it is a mixture of both SD and the plugin's limits.

 

[Paul Jackson]

I'm having a trouble with a particular series, "The Mysteries of Laura", which is mentioned in this thread https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/...pdated-august-2010.26951/page-87#post-1104081 . All the episodes are matching to the TVDB as season number 1 episode number 2. There is an entry for next week's episode. The episode should actually be season number 2 episode number 4.

I emptied out EPG and did a full refresh of the guide database to make sure there was nothing lingering but that did not change anything. I don't know if it has to do with the fact that every single episode title "The mysteries of the…". One thing I could try is to change the title of season number 1 episode number 2 to be something else and see if it then updates in the database to be the same season but episode 3. I'm a little leery on doing that because it's a global database and might mess up other users.

Any ideas would be appreciated.

I ultimately don't care if it returns the correct episode for this particular show but media portal will skip the show because it thinks it already recorded the same episode. So if there is a way to make media portal just go ahead and re-record the same episode over again, that would be a valid work around for me.

Thanks

 

[Paul Jackson]

I looked at the code and found that it attempts at as best as possible to find an episode match for a particular series. One section tries to find a match by looking at the first 12 characters of the episode name. I would say normally this is a good idea because the data source for the TV DB and schedules direct might differ slightly which might yield additional words on either episode name. However, for my particular show that I record, "the mysteries of Laura", it does not work because every episode name space starts with "the mysteries of" which would ultimately make it match on the same episode number for every show.

I modified and rebuilt the code to skip the section where it attempts to match the first 12 characters on only for the mysteries of Laura. I have included a copy of the file I built for anyone else that is having this problem. To install it just shut down the TV service and replace the DLL. I would only recommend using this if you are someone that records "the mysteries of Laura". The modification I made was very minor but it is hardcoded. It is by no means the best solution but is good for a workaround for right now until I or someone else comes up with a better solution.

 

[theG03]

Sorry for this noob question, but every link i find to configure the plugin are broken. I alredy installed it but i whant to know how to get the information in my tv guide.

 

[mm1352000]

@theG03
Here's a link to the old wiki content:
https://web.archive.org/web/2014100...m/p/mp-schedulesdirect/wiki/GeneralConfigWiki

It's really just a short description of some of the settings, so I doubt it will help you.

If you've scanned in your channels, signed up for an SD account on the SD website, configured your lineup(s), installed the plugin, entered your user name and password but you don't have guide data for your channels... then I suggest you describe your setup (which tuners you have, whether you receive analog cable, digital cable, satellite, OTA etc.) and tell us what you have and haven't done already.

 

[SVoyager]

A quick question for a problem I could use some help with. Not sure if the issue is the plugin or the data schedule direct has or something else.

The issue is that, sometimes, french letters appear wrong on the program guide.
Ex of the issue: PlanÃ''te Terre
Show's description: Les forÃts saisonniÃ''res: Découverte des plus... etc.

It should read instead: "Planète Terre"
Description: Les forêts saisonnières: Découverte des plus...

The problem is intermittent tho. Sometimes it will show fine, other times it becomes a mess like that, not quite sure why.
I am running the latest version of MP1 (1.12.0). My setup consists of a standalone server with the plugin installed and 2 individual clients, all running 1.12.0 . As for the plugin, it is version 1.3.0.1 and it is not showing any available updates.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!!

 

[2BitSculptor]

The problem is likely the data from SD, or the windows language filter (?), not the plugin. The plugin doesn't make any language assumptions or spelling changes.

 

[SVoyager]

Thanks for the info, I'll check with SD to see if it is known on their side. As for the windows language filter, not quite sure what that is but it sounds like it would not be an intermittent issue if that was from some bad windows config?[DOUBLEPOST=1446669769][/DOUBLEPOST]Just did some extra searches on SD's side and I think it is something known on their end. For those interrested, here is a link to their forum post about it:
http://forums.schedulesdirect.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2635
Last post is feb 2015 so I'll try to see if they have any updates.

I wonder however if it could be fixed with the plugin here. The issue might be on their end but if the wrong characters are always the same for its equivalent, could it be possible to have it fixed here? say, whenever there is a ( Ã'' ) replace it with a ( è ), etc. (that is assuming that the wrong character remains the same everytime. Reading about the issue on their forums seems like its some random db fluke that could be spewing out random bad characters)

 

[benicehavefun]

Step-by-Step on Using the SD Plugin with Analog/Clear QAM Cable TV in addition to Satellite in the U.S.

I know there have been some past questions about using this SchedulesDirect plugin with tuners other than the Hauppauge HD-PVR, HD-PVR2 or Colossus. Since I currently have cable TV available with both analog and Clear QAM channels to supplement my usual dual HD-PVR setup (connected to DirecTV receivers), I thought I would dig in to what's needed to make it work.

The good news is that it is possible, and doesn't require too much work (famous last words):

The first step is to add your new channel line-up using the SchedulesDirect website. I'd highly recommend using the "edit" feature on the website, once you've added the new lineup, to get rid of any channels you don't care about. This reduces the amount of data you receive when an EPG update is performed and reduces the number of channels created by the plugin. In my case, there are about 60-80 channels that I might ever watch and care to see listed in my guide.

Once that was done, I went to "TV Server Configuration" on my HTPC and selected one of my HDHomeRun Dual tuners and did a "Clear QAM Cable" scan using the "QAM Standard" setting (this was correct here in Phoenix AZ on Cox Cable). Once this was complete, I deleted any channels found that I wasn't going to receive guide data for based on my channel selections on the SD website. Next, I mapped the remaining found channels to the other HDHomeRun Dual tuner AND also to the two ATSC/QAM tuners on my Hauppauge 2250 hybrid card (don't forget to group each of the digital tuners with the corresponding analog tuner on this card to create two "Hybrid" tuners on the "Hybrid Cards" tab under "TV Servers/[Your Server Name]", so that MePo knows it can't use analog AND Clear/QAM on an individual tuner at the same time).

The next trick is to force the SchedulesDirect plugin to do a full guide update and create your new channels. In the same TV-Server Configuration interface we've been using, go to "Plugins/SchedulesDirect EPG Client" and select the "Advanced" tab. Change the "Video/Audio inputs for new channels" to "Tuner", which will save you time if you're going to add any analog cable channels. Tick the box for "Force full guide update on next TV-Service startup". Now, go to the "Manual Control" section and click the "Refresh DVB EPG", which will dump all of your current guide data. BTW, if you've reduced the amount of data you're getting from SchedulesDirect using the technique described above, you may want to get the full 13 days of EPG data from the plugin by selecting the "Configuration" tab back in the SD plugin. Return to the Manual Control section and click the "Stop Service" button, followed by the "Start Service" button after a short pause.

Once the SD plugin has created your new channels, you'll need to map the created channels to one of your HD-PVR or Colosuss tuners (I realize neither of these tuner types will actually be able to tune to these channels, but it allows us to do the next step -- and we'll delete these as valid tuners later!) The next trick is to use "TV Combinations" under the "TV Channels" section to combine the matching, mapped channels created by the SD plugin with the Clear QAM channels found during earlier scan. Use your HD-PVR/Colussus as the source "Card" in the TV Combinations section, and match each channel to the corresponding DIGITAL channel in the "Similar Channels on Other Cards" box. In my case all of the correct channels were pretty far down in the rankings -- all at around a 20% match, but hey, whatever. Don't worry about any analog channels at this point, you should only be combining Clear QAM digital channels. Once you've combined all the Clear QAM channels, you'll want to edit them one-by-one under "TV Channels" and delete the "Analog" line item that shows under "Tuning Details". If you're doing this correctly, that should leave you with an "ATSC" line item in that same section. By first combining the SD created channels with your scanned channels and then deleting the analog tuner detail created by the plugin, you've successfully matched your EPG data with your actual channels.

Any analog channels you may have, can now be mapped to your analog tuners. In my case it's the two dual use tuners on my Hauppauge 2250 hybrid card. (You did group the analog/Clear QAM tuner pairs to create two Hybrid Card entries right?) You might want to spot check a few of your analog channel tuning details to be sure your "Crossbar Parameters" are set to "Tuner". They should be, provided you set the "Video/Audio inputs for new channels" option mentioned two paragraphs up. BTW, you may want to set this option back to whatever input you normally use on your HD-PVR/Colossus now, so that new channels added by SchedulesDirect will be created automatically for your settop box video capture setup.

It took me a fair bit of trial-and-error to figure this all out, so just thought I'd share the process...