[solved] TV service (EPG grabbing while idle) prevents Windows Standby (4 Viewers)

[joecrow]

Another alternative would be to disable the DVB EPG grabber altogether and use EPG Buddy which is (has to be) triggered by the Power Scheduler which if that setting discussed above is left unticked should allow the PC to sleep even if grabbing and give you control over when and how often grabbing takes place. The TV Speilfilme source for EPG Buddy Germany also provides much more info than DVB EPG which is why I am using it. On the negative side it does take quite a bit of setting up the more channels the more work, for my 25 or so DVBT2 ones it was OK but with many more on cable you would have to decide.

 

[framug]

@joecrow :
Maybe for Germany users but, what about rest of the World ?

 

[joecrow]

Maybe for Germany users but, what about rest of the World ?

Not sure but the @horned_reaper is shown as located in Germany and there are several other international sources available for EPG Buddy.

 

[framug]

Yep, I know for @horned_reaper
Need to learn a bit more for EPG Buddy at this time.
Most important is what countries are covered or, not.

 

[horned_reaper]

If you finish watching live TV and press the POWER button on the remote control to "switch off" the HTPC, the HTPC will continue to run if it is overdue for an idle EPG grab and no recording is occurring. However, the HTPC should transition to away mode when you press the POWER button. Away mode stops video output to the TV.

When pressing the Power button, luckily my HTPC goes to Standby even if an EPG scan is running. When it is recording, Standby is refused. I like this behaviour.

Personally, I don't like the HTPC continuing to run when I press the POWER button -- I want it to power off immediately (if it is not recording). This is why I have set up my HTPC to grab the EPG once per day using the idle grabber at a time when the HTPC is not normally in use (at 06:00 for me). I would recommend that you do the same (set "Refresh every" to 1440 minutes or just under).

To my understanding, with "refresh every 1440 minutes" when the HTPC was off for one day, the EPG scan immediately runs at power on. Right?

I agree with @framug that Windows should not sleep or hibernate whilst the idle grabber is working, and this is how MP is behaving.

User opinions and preferences vary here.
I'd vote for making this configurable to the user via a TV Server option.

I don't use "PowerScheduler" to trigger EPG grabbing, so my knowledge here may be imperfect . But my reading of the Wiki is that the settings shown on the "EPG" tab apply only if "PowerScheduler" triggers the EPG grab. The Wiki says this:

If no day is selected, EPG grabbing will not be started by PowerScheduler.​

Now EPG grabbing can occur even when not started by "PowerScheduler", but none of those "PowerScheduler" settings will apply in that case. At least, that is my interpretation.

This sounds like a logical explanation to me. In this case this setting is useless.

 

[framug]

When pressing the Power button, luckily my HTPC goes to Standby even if an EPG scan is running. When it is recording, Standby is refused. I like this behaviour.

Be careful with that.
Sometimes (depending on hardware), in win 10, configure power or stand-by buttons bypass MP and, force Windows going to sleep.

 

[horned_reaper]

Another alternative would be to disable the DVB EPG grabber altogether and use EPG Buddy which is (has to be) triggered by the Power Scheduler which if that setting discussed above is left unticked should allow the PC to sleep even if grabbing and give you control over when and how often grabbing takes place. The TV Speilfilme source for EPG Buddy Germany also provides much more info than DVB EPG which is why I am using it. On the negative side it does take quite a bit of setting up the more channels the more work, for my 25 or so DVBT2 ones it was OK but with many more on cable you would have to decide.

Yes, I consider to use EPG-Buddy instead of DVB EPG but in addition to the higher configuration effort this has some disadvantages:

• Short-dated program changes may not be applied, with bad impact to recording schedules. I assume that DVB EPG is more up-to-date.
• I couldn't find a way to include radio channels

 

[CyberSimian]

When pressing the Power button, luckily my HTPC goes to Standby even if an EPG scan is running. When it is recording, Standby is refused. I like this behaviour.

I have never used MP on Windows 10, so this may be explicable in terms of Windows 10 behaviour.

To my understanding, with "refresh every 1440 minutes" when the HTPC was off for one day, the EPG scan immediately runs at power on. Right?

The idle EPG grabber will run only if the HTPC is not recording and you do not watch live TV.

The intention is to use the 1440 refresh value with "PowerScheduler" set to wake the HTPC at a time when it is not in use (typically very early in the morning, such as 04:00 am). So, this is what happens:

• "PowerScheduler" wakes the HTPC at 04:00 am.
• The EPG grabber runs for around 30 minutes (in your case).
• The database updater runs for a further period (perhaps another 30 minutes).
• "PowerScheduler" returns the HTPC to sleep.

During the day, if you wake the HTPC to watch live TV, or the HTPC wakes to perform a recording, less than 1440 minutes will have passed since the last idle EPG grab, so the grabber won't run. Thus there is nothing to prevent the HTPC returning to sleep when you are no longer using the HTPC and no recording is occurring. The HTPC should return to sleep after a few minutes (depending on the Windows sleep timeout).

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

 

[horned_reaper]

Ah, I see. But this requires the computer to be connected to power and to run some time every night. This I personally don't like. I disconnect all devices from power when not used.

 

[CyberSimian]

What is definitely a bad idea is grabbing from every channel in every MUX.

After reading deeper your post, sorry, missed that. Why ?

To paraphrase Winston Churchill:

TV Server is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.​

​

This morning I did the following test of the EPG grabber:

• Disabled the timeshift grabber.
• Enabled the idle grabber with a timeout of 60 minutes (long enough to grab the complete EPG carousel).
• Selected two TV grabber channels in the same MUX (BBC1 and BBC2).
• Deselected all radio grabber channels.

Here are the screen shots of the settings:



I then watched "Manual Control" to verify that TV Server was indeed grabbing the EPG. Grabbing started with the "BBC1" channel. From the logs, grabbing and database-update took 43 minutes. Then grabbing started for the "BBC2" channel, even though "BBC2" is in the same MUX as "BBC1". Grabbing and database-update took a further 40 minutes (see logs). Curiously, TV Server chose a different tuner for the "BBC2" grab:



I have attached the full logs below (with PowerScheduler lines removed), but here is a summary:

[09:15:05,131] [EPG] [DVB EPG timer] [INFO ] - Grab for card:#7 transponder #1/1 channel: BBC1
[09:15:05,724] [EPG] [DVB EPG timer] [INFO ] - EpgCard: card: 7 starting to grab DVBT:tv: BBC ONE South Freq:498000 ONID:9018 TSID:4163 SID:4163 PMT:0x64 FTA:True LCN:1 BandWidth:8
[09:37:41,303] [EPG] [5        ] [INFO ] - Epg: card:7 received epg for 200 channels
[09:37:41,319] [EPG] [EPG Update thread] [INFO ] - Epg: card:7 Updating database with new programs
[09:58:21,849] [EPG] [EPG Update thread] [INFO ] - Epg: card:7 Finished updating the database.
[09:58:21,911] [Log] [EPG Update thread] [INFO ] - EPG: database updated for #0 BBC1
[09:58:21,911] [EPG] [EPG Update thread] [INFO ] - EpgCard: card: 7 stop grabbing

[09:58:36,404] [EPG] [DVB EPG timer] [INFO ] - Grab for card:#8 transponder #1/1 channel: BBC2
[09:58:38,042] [EPG] [DVB EPG timer] [INFO ] - EpgCard: card: 8 starting to grab DVBT:tv: BBC TWO Freq:498000 ONID:9018 TSID:4163 SID:4287 PMT:0xC8 FTA:True LCN:2 BandWidth:8
[10:16:04,171] [EPG] [4        ] [INFO ] - Epg: card:8 received epg for 200 channels
[10:16:04,171] [EPG] [EPG Update thread] [INFO ] - Epg: card:8 Updating database with new programs
[10:38:40,375] [EPG] [EPG Update thread] [INFO ] - Epg: card:8 Finished updating the database.
[10:38:40,438] [Log] [EPG Update thread] [INFO ] - EPG: database updated for #1 BBC2
[10:38:40,438] [EPG] [EPG Update thread] [INFO ] - EpgCard: card: 8 stop grabbing

What this shows is that TV Server grabs from every grabber channel selected, even if those channels reside in a MUX that has already been grabbed (as in this case). Offhand, I cannot think of any functional reason why TV Server should do this. However, there may be grabber scenarios that mean TV Server is forced to work in this way. Regardless, the recommendation is clear:

Grab from the minimum number of channels that will provide a full EPG.​

​

For DVB-T in the UK, this means grabbing from a single channel.
For DVB-C in Germany, it means grabbing from one channel in each MUX.

-- from CyberSimian in the UK