UK - BBC2 EPG suddenly has several programs daily with 'No information' (2 Viewers)

[Anthony Vaughan]

Ah. so the manual operation clears existing programs while the normal process doers not. It might be a good idea for MediaPortal to warn the user that the manual process will clear existing programs, because users might click Refresh EPG, not realizing that they will lose their current programs.

I think I have only one more question: when 'store only selected channels' is NOT selected, will the grabber retrieve programs for all channels or only the channels selected in the TV Channels section?

Tony

 

[HTPCSourcer]

when 'store only selected channels' is NOT selected, will the grabber retrieve programs for all channels or only the channels selected in the TV Channels section?

For all channels, and you should therefore select only one channel.

 

[CyberSimian]

when 'store only selected channels' is NOT selected, will the grabber retrieve programs for all channels or only the channels selected in the TV Channels section?

I think that I know what is behind this question, because I had the same thought when I first started using MP.

I thought: there are many channels on Freeview that I will never watch. I don't want them occupying space in the SQL database, as this will make the database both larger in size, and slower to access. So I will enable "Store only selected channels". Job done!

But this has the side effect that I described earlier -- "TV Server" then processes the EPG one channel at a time. Although the SQL database might be smaller, the total amount of processing performed is much larger (because instead of receiving the EPG all at once for "n" channels, "TV Server" receives the EPG "n" times, once for each channel). Although the EPG in the broadcast datastream is ordered, from our point of view the entries are essentially random, with all of the programmes from all of the channels intermingled.

The channels that appear in the EPG are different from the channel(s) used to receive the EPG. So you can easily omit the "adult" channels from the EPG if there are "younger folk" in your household who might use the HTPC.

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

 

[kenwonders]

I think there was a temporary problem with all EPG for BBC2, my DVB-S2 EPG feed had the same empty programs too. I refreshed and proper channels appeared, so I guess it was wrong a few days ago.

 

[Anthony Vaughan]

Yes, what I am concerned about is that, when I cannot limit which channels will be grabbed, the size of the program table will be much larger and containing many channels I will never watch. In fact, my program table went from ~15,000 records to ~30,000 records.

However, CyberSimian, I do get your point about the way that using 'store only selected channels' would duplicate processing exponentially.

Therefore, I guess it is better to take the hit of having more Program records, though it would be nice to use the TV Channels list to ignore unwanted channels, though I guess it would be necessary to do a lookup for each incoming record to do a comparison on channel.

I have also noticed that, since I have switched OFF PowerScheduler and WebEPG, the media machine seems to be running much faster for all other tasks. I am amazed that PowerScheduler and WebEPG would have such a dramatic effect on performance to the media machine.

Tony, a convert to broadband EPG.

 

[joecrow]

Yes, what I am concerned about is that, when I cannot limit which channels will be grabbed, the size of the program table will be much larger and containing many channels I will never watch. In fact, my program table went from ~15,000 records to ~30,000 records.

Not sure if this addresses your concern but you can limit the channels displayed and how they are ordered in the EPG by deselecting or deleting (I can't remember which sorry) the unwanted channels and re-ordering the desired channels in the TV Server Config/TV Channels list. This won't, I guess, change what is grabbed and loaded into the SQL but at least you can limit what you see in the EPG.

 

[Anthony Vaughan]

Hi CyberSimian

The TV Server list does determine which channels are visible in the guide but does not delimit which channels are grabbed.

I've developed a windows service to maintain the MpTvDb database to remove redundant data and to manipulate various other aspects like the program name when it includes 'New:' in the name. I'm going to add removing all program records that belong to channels that are not visible in the guide. That way I'll be able to keep the program table to an optimal size.

Tony

 

[Anthony Vaughan]

Hi CyberSimian

Hope you are well.

One further question about DVB EPG. On the following screen:

when 'Always try to update existing entries' is set ON, will MediaPortal all update entries irrespective of whether the item has changed?

The reason I need to know this is because I have other software that changes program names to get rid of phrases like 'New:' and any changes will revert back to the published value if the EPG refreshes everything. It would be nice to be able to get late changes but not if the unchanged programs are updated as well.

BTW, we are suddenly getting BBC ONE programs with titles that do not match the EPG being displayed by our broadcast TV EPG. I don't understand how that can happen when I'm using the DVB EPG to get the EPG. Do you have any ideas?

Tony

 

[Owlsroost]

when 'Always try to update existing entries' is set ON, will MediaPortal all update entries irrespective of whether the item has changed?

Yes, that is correct (AFAIK)

BTW, we are suddenly getting BBC ONE programs with titles that do not match the EPG being displayed by our broadcast TV EPG. I don't understand how that can happen when I'm using the DVB EPG to get the EPG

Have you got any examples of that i.e. what are the differences?

 

[JJDoherty]

...BTW, we are suddenly getting BBC ONE programs with titles that do not match the EPG being displayed by our broadcast TV EPG. I don't understand how that can happen when I'm using the DVB EPG to get the EPG. Do you have any ideas?

I did notice this over the weekend, while the Six Nations game between England and Wales was being broadcast on BBC1 NI HD the EPG was displaying some other program, same with the Ireland vs Italy game on UTV, if I remember correctly. I put it down to a mistake in the EPG being broadcast on the DVB EPG stream.