Fixing the sports plugin

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DavidinCT

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#61

Post by DavidinCT » Mon Mar 13, 2017 1:08 pm

jachin99 wrote:I think you might be right. At this point, I'm wondering if the one part that does work, I.E. the On now tab can be left in place, and the other features we want can be added on. I downloaded the WMC SDK, and all of microsoft's documentation on WMC development is still up. The SDK comes with a how to in order get a basic app going. Its programmed in C# if I am reading the Docs right, and on Microsoft Virtual academy, there is a basic course on developing in C#. I'm guessing those are the basic tools I need to get started.

If you were able to get at least the sports strip to show, have you tried hooking that machine up to the internet and a tuner to see if your On now, and On later tabs work?
What features should I or we add if we move forward with this?
I don't really know anyone that can help make this so if you do, or if anyone wants to chime in, then that would be helpful
The only way I got it re-show up was with Media Center studio. On my HTPC, MCS wont run. I know why but, I cant fix it (hex edits done to WMC files to fix a few issues).

I have seen it before on this machine, so, if you get the Sports strip up with a tuner, it should show.

Personally, I jsut wanted to get the scores part working again. It was a nice feature where if I missed games due to life (work, wife needed me to do something, etc), I could pop in and in under 5 seconds I can see the score/current score for all types of games.
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#62

Post by jachin99 » Mon Mar 13, 2017 2:16 pm

How can I figure out why and how MCS is brining it back?

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#63

Post by DavidinCT » Mon Mar 13, 2017 7:16 pm

jachin99 wrote:How can I figure out why and how MCS is brining it back?
What do you mean ? ON my HTPC(that has my CC tuners), it wont run because I modfied system files...
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#64

Post by jachin99 » Tue Mar 14, 2017 2:13 pm

I'm not really talking about any one machine in particular. I' would like to know how I can get the sports strip to show up on a stock, out of the box WMC setup. I'm thinking if I can see exactly what MCS is doing to give me my sports strip back, then maybe I can write a program that would allow others to easily install it without sharing any folders that are specific to my machine, I.E. my program data folder. I know crash mentioned that debugger for ceton so maybe I can use it but I'm just trying to listen to suggestions.

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#65

Post by vaju0503 » Tue Mar 14, 2017 3:23 pm

I just recently restored my WMC machine with a fresh install of windows 7 and it still has the sports strip on it and it's fully up to date with windows update. It does not however contain any data.

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#66

Post by jachin99 » Tue Mar 14, 2017 3:44 pm

What version of windows 7 do you have? Does on now work? mine displays a message but if i choose a sporting event from the top, it will start playing it so you might have to do that

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#67

Post by DavidinCT » Tue Mar 14, 2017 5:46 pm

jachin99 wrote:What version of windows 7 do you have? Does on now work? mine displays a message but if i choose a sporting event from the top, it will start playing it so you might have to do that
You get sports at the top ? I have it showing on 4 machines (VMs) and I get the same exact results when I click on "Scores", with NO sport types listed...(it used to back in the day when it actually worked)

PS in case your wondering, the Color is from a theme called DIM... one of my favorate themes
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#68

Post by jachin99 » Tue Mar 14, 2017 5:56 pm

Sorry, I should clarify,my scores page shows the exact same thing, but at the bottom of the On now screen, there is still a working RSS feed, and I can tune to and watch the sports programs listed on that page. Maybe I should post a screenshot of what I have later so that you can see exactly what I mean.

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#69

Post by DavidinCT » Tue Mar 14, 2017 6:06 pm

jachin99 wrote:Sorry, I should clarify,my scores page shows the exact same thing, but at the bottom of the On now screen, there is still a working RSS feed, and I can tune to and watch the sports programs listed on that page. Maybe I should post a screenshot of what I have later so that you can see exactly what I mean.
No need, I know how it worked. I have been using WMC from the XP days and always updated, I was a beta tester for WMC for Vista and Windows 7.... so trust me, I know how it...used to work.

I just was not sure what you were refering to. As the Scores would show the Sports on the top as well.

THe ON NOW only will show if you have a TV tuner installed but, if you have the sports strip enabled (showing scores etc), it will show with that tuner...
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#70

Post by jachin99 » Tue Mar 14, 2017 8:01 pm

If you would still like to help, I haven't come up with a solution to quickly show scores but, I'm starting to wonder if I can create a second lineup in EPG 123, have that program create a unique sports.MXF file and fix the on later portion also. This would get the plugin about halfway to working. I know the basics about how I would do that but I'm still learning how to actually accomplish it.

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#71

Post by Crash2009 » Tue Mar 14, 2017 11:39 pm

vaju0503 wrote:I just recently restored my WMC machine with a fresh install of windows 7 and it still has the sports strip on it and it's fully up to date with windows update. It does not however contain any data.

There might be a geographic reason. What country are you in?

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#72

Post by vaju0503 » Wed Mar 15, 2017 1:08 am

I'm in the states

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#73

Post by Crash2009 » Wed Mar 15, 2017 5:11 am

vaju0503 wrote:I'm in the states
so much for my geo-hunch.

What kind of Win7 are you using Home-Pro-Ultimate-Other? What tuner are you using?

I seem to remember seeing this Sports thing during an install, then I go on to setup WMC and its gone.

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#74

Post by vaju0503 » Wed Mar 15, 2017 11:17 am

Win 7 Ultimate 64 bit with my SD HDHomerun prime

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#75

Post by DavidinCT » Wed Mar 15, 2017 2:15 pm

jachin99 wrote:If you would still like to help, I haven't come up with a solution to quickly show scores but, I'm starting to wonder if I can create a second lineup in EPG 123, have that program create a unique sports.MXF file and fix the on later portion also. This would get the plugin about halfway to working. I know the basics about how I would do that but I'm still learning how to actually accomplish it.
It's a nice place to start, I dont know as I dont use EPG 123 and not sure if that is possable. I guess find some feed and dunp it in there and see what happens...
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#76

Post by jachin99 » Wed Mar 15, 2017 2:46 pm

i sent a PM to the creator of EPG123 asking for help, and I emailed, and PMed Leewcraft hoping to get some kind of direction on his sports bar plugin but he hasn't been active on this board or the AVS forums for quite a while so I don't expect much back. As long as I can creep forward just a little more each day I might eventually get somewhere. As far as creating that guide data, I'm still a ways from being able to create the mxf file on my own. If I do create something that works, then I might need testers, and so far its just you, me and crash. If you could get a WMC running on EPG123 connected to the internet, then you will be ready for anything I might some day have to offer. This is the setup I am assuming many users will have.

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#77

Post by DavidinCT » Wed Mar 15, 2017 3:41 pm

jachin99 wrote:i sent a PM to the creator of EPG123 asking for help, and I emailed, and PMed Leewcraft hoping to get some kind of direction on his sports bar plugin but he hasn't been active on this board or the AVS forums for quite a while so I don't expect much back. As long as I can creep forward just a little more each day I might eventually get somewhere. As far as creating that guide data, I'm still a ways from being able to create the mxf file on my own. If I do create something that works, then I might need testers, and so far its just you, me and crash. If you could get a WMC running on EPG123 connected to the internet, then you will be ready for anything I might some day have to offer. This is the setup I am assuming many users will have.
I'm still using ROVI for guide data and although it has some issues time to time, it is free still. I am tempted to move but, I have not been pushed over the edge yet....YET.

It would be awesome if there was a way to get this working and an eazy way to re-enable it it so it shows up for other people but, at this point, I would 100% worrry about data before making it show up.

There was a c2r file, where you could export recorded series and just click on them to add them... Known as "Click to record"... it was all XML based, not sure if that will help..

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/librar ... 15457.aspx

something different but, XML formatted files seem to be the WMC way (looking over MCL files, etc)
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#78

Post by jachin99 » Wed Mar 15, 2017 6:10 pm

I took a look at that but it looks like it is geared towards creating a list that WMC looks to for recording schedules. I need something that parses guide data, and displays it if it matches the Sports genre. c2r looks like it goes off of a series name, and it needs time info, duration info etc. c2r looks like it needs manual entry by the user, or through the api of an external program. Of course I'm new to all of this, and I could also be completely off base. It looks like it can create an xml document that is created from keywords though. But then how would I stop it from recording everything, instead of showing me its schedule?

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#79

Post by jachin99 » Thu Mar 16, 2017 6:01 pm

At a glance, it looks like all I have to do to get guide data is create a sports specific MXF listing, and point the Sports strip to it. I'm still over in the EPG forums asking everyone I can questions about this but I've at least discovered this so far off of the MSDN WMC page

"The LoadMXF.exe tool loads data from an MXF file into a Windows Media Center Guide data store. LoadMXF.exe is located in the in %windir%\ehome folder of a Windows Media Center PC."

Now its just a matter of getting the tools I have available (EPG123 & possibly ROVI) to either
A. Create these guide listings in a separate Sports.MXF file that displays as guide data in media center under the guide tab or
B. Find a way to parse the existing guide data, and get the results to display that data.

As always, any help, comments or concerns are welcomed.

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#80

Post by jachin99 » Fri Mar 17, 2017 2:21 pm

After poking around some more, and asking a few questions, It looks like all guide data ends up in the mcepg database, weather that guide data is for the TV guide, Sports On now, or Sports On Later. Essentially, what happens is guide data is downloaded from an external source in a specific format (XML) on both ROVI, and EPG123, and using the LoadMXF.exe program, the data is populated into a database. I wanted to see if two databases could coexist in WMC but apparently they cannot, and if you try, WMC marks the older database as corrupt, and uses the newer, rebuilt database so I am thinking that all Sports related guide data comes from the .MXF files contained within sports. One of these Sports.MXF files works, and shows on now, while the other doesn't I GUESS. Looking through random posts around this forum, I came across this log file, and I can swear I've seen something similar elsewhere. This is just a small portion of it but it looks to me like WMC is still pointed to its old plugins, but cannot find any data in them. My next thought is to try populating some of the Sports.MXF files, and see if the On Later tab works. I also got a set back while I was changing things in my TV room WMC. I changed the permissions of the guide database, sports folders, sports strip, and Microsoft Netflix plugin to add full control, and they all dissapeared. I'm not sure if WMC does an integrity check before it loads files, or if changing permissions will alter the hash of a file but using all of the same methods I have previously used to install these did not work.

This is real PITA for me but it might also help me figure out exactly how to get them back. I'm wondering If I have to add the sports folders, and renable them in the registry. Either way, if someone sees that I am either getting closer or further away from a solution please feel free to speak up.

- Retrieving SportsSchedule.
2:14:08 AM - Processing SportsSchedule.
2:14:08 AM - Retrieving SportsSchedule-2.enc.
2:14:11 AM - Extracting SportsSchedule.mxf.
2:14:11 AM - Processing SportsSchedule.mxf.
2:14:11 AM - Processing of SportsSchedule is complete.
2:14:11 AM - Retrieving SportsV2.
2:14:12 AM - Processing of SportsV2 is complete.
2:14:12 AM - The SportsV2 package is already up to date.

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