Guide Updates - Download Issues

Global guide related discussion. All Windows versions.
asm495

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#481

Post by asm495 » Wed Jan 02, 2013 8:47 am

nzsjb wrote:I used to pop in a couple of years ago but very few picked up on EPG Collector so I dropped out.

Everything comes to those who wait........
Can I just say thank you for developing this. But for you having done this in the past there would I believe be many households where the resident geek would become very unpopular due to the lack of guide data. Personally speaking I got it up and running a few hours before the old data expired!

pjacobus

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#482

Post by pjacobus » Wed Jan 02, 2013 9:13 am

Firstly thanks for the pointer to EPG scheduler - works perfectly (Win 7 x64 & Freesat). Could someone just explain a little more how to schedule this to run each day to keep guide up to date.... I am not familiar with task scheduler.

Thanks, Duke.

billyprice

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#483

Post by billyprice » Wed Jan 02, 2013 10:15 am

Thanks for the link, ASM 495.

It's good to know I'm not alone.

The Mayan calender theory is good, but I would rather know, from Microsoft, if they have stopped supporting this feature in the UK or if it is just a glitch.

If the former, I will have to install some 3rd party software to run the guide, but I don't want to do this if it's going to come back soon.

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mark1234

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#484

Post by mark1234 » Wed Jan 02, 2013 11:16 am

On one of the many, many Connect tickets that have been raised about this (who knew there were so many Media Centre users in the UK??) I found a link to an MS Support chat facility that I was unaware of: answerdesk.support.microsoft.com

I've just spent 45 minutes with "Jovan T" with the conclusion being:
Mark, currently we don't have any updates regarding this issue. I believe the services is not ended. There could be only some server problems.
We already raised this issue. Please allows 24-72 hours and check again the service.
We apologize for the inconvenience.
I'll be very happy to be wrong about the data ending, if it turns out that way.
Windows Media Centre - Abandoned by Microsoft

terrybailey

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#485

Post by terrybailey » Wed Jan 02, 2013 11:35 am

Can someone help me here.

I use media centre as delivered on may W7 box with no add ons. The machine has a standard terrestial TV tuner (analogue) and I have used it for some time connecting my SKY box via the RF out socket and using an little infra red sender to control the SKY receiver. I do it this way as I want to view the encrypted SKY content (I am a subscriber.)

The data for the EPG is obviously downloaded over the internet and this problem means that I have got nothing in the EPG after 1/1/13, not that it was all that correct before that date :(

I see lots of people recomending EPG Collector but I guess this won't work for me as I guess it reads the incomming signal from the satellitte. Is there an alternative way for me to get updated EPG info given my setup. I once did try to fit another receiver in the PC but it appears that my version of WMC only supports one receiver, even so this would only allow me access to the FreeSat stuff anyway.

Looking for ideas if anyone can help.

asm495

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#486

Post by asm495 » Wed Jan 02, 2013 11:41 am

mark1234 wrote:On one of the many, many Connect tickets that have been raised about this (who knew there were so many Media Centre users in the UK??) I found a link to an MS Support chat facility that I was unaware of: answerdesk.support.microsoft.com

I've just spent 45 minutes with "Jovan T" with the conclusion being:
Mark, currently we don't have any updates regarding this issue. I believe the services is not ended. There could be only some server problems.
We already raised this issue. Please allows 24-72 hours and check again the service.
We apologize for the inconvenience.
I'll be very happy to be wrong about the data ending, if it turns out that way.
A server issue that just happens to end at the end of the year? Seems a bit too much of a coincidence for me. I think there are a number of possibilities:
  • MS have not bothered to renew getting the UK data and thus no longer will provide it
  • The person responsible for ensuring the data gets put into the appropriate system has gone on holiday/left and no one has picked it up
  • Someone just needs to update the validity date of the data from 1/1/2013 to some other date in the future
At the moment with EPG Collector working I'm not too concerned anymore but it would be interesting to know.

It confirms my belief that sooner rather than later I need to consider what I should do to deliver the distributed TV experience I've come to enjoy with Win7 and Xbox 360 extenders. Once setup it has just worked for the last couple of years with very few WAF issues. At the moment the most likely possibilities are MediaPortal or XBMC with a TV headend server. Not in any rush so long as things keeping working at the moment and I'll wait for the other products to mature.

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mark1234

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#487

Post by mark1234 » Wed Jan 02, 2013 11:46 am

terrybailey wrote:Can someone help me here.

I use media centre as delivered on may W7 box with no add ons. The machine has a standard terrestial TV tuner (analogue) and I have used it for some time connecting my SKY box via the RF out socket and using an little infra red sender to control the SKY receiver. I do it this way as I want to view the encrypted SKY content (I am a subscriber.)

The data for the EPG is obviously downloaded over the internet and this problem means that I have got nothing in the EPG after 1/1/13, not that it was all that correct before that date :(

I see lots of people recomending EPG Collector but I guess this won't work for me as I guess it reads the incomming signal from the satellitte. Is there an alternative way for me to get updated EPG info given my setup. I once did try to fit another receiver in the PC but it appears that my version of WMC only supports one receiver, even so this would only allow me access to the FreeSat stuff anyway.

Looking for ideas if anyone can help.
I have basically the same set-up, except I use Virgin. You can use Digiguide as a source for data (£15/year subscription) and there are a few programs that will import the data into 7MC for you. I'm trying out MCE 7 Reset Toolbox (£10).

Digiguide has a seven day trial, MCE7RTB has a 30 day trial. I'm figuring that if the real data hasn't reappeared within seven days that it really will have died, and I'll just stump up the money.

I set this up last night. It wasn't documented in way and it's not entirely obvious, but it is possible. I was planning on doing a post about it, but I'm not there yet as there are a few things I've not sorted out yet - like automating the process.

Couple of links if you want to try it yourself:
http://digiguide.tv/
http://vistademon.wordpress.com/2012/12 ... oolbox-v8/
Windows Media Centre - Abandoned by Microsoft

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mark1234

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#488

Post by mark1234 » Wed Jan 02, 2013 11:55 am

asm495 wrote:It confirms my belief that sooner rather than later I need to consider what I should do to deliver the distributed TV experience I've come to enjoy with Win7 and Xbox 360 extenders. Once setup it has just worked for the last couple of years with very few WAF issues. At the moment the most likely possibilities are MediaPortal or XBMC with a TV headend server. Not in any rush so long as things keeping working at the moment and I'll wait for the other products to mature.
Talking over options with the wife the last few days has shown that, even with the feature stagnation that Media Centre has had over the last few years, none of the regular consumer options are even close to it for offering the all-in-one solution. The biggest thing that a Sky+ or Virgin Tivo box can offer is the "it just works" result of being locked to their respective provider. I guess at the end of the day that ease of use is what Joe Public wants, and why MS can deprecate Media Centre. I've not looked at other PC based software for several years now as I too am getting tired of the constant TLC required by a PC solution.
Windows Media Centre - Abandoned by Microsoft

terrybailey

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#489

Post by terrybailey » Wed Jan 02, 2013 12:04 pm

Thanks Mark a) for an informative and useful reply and b) for a very prompt one. I'll give it a poke and see what happens, you never know I might actually get some decent listings. The ones that used to come out for SKY where all over the place, the source of the EPG data often used to swap the HD and SD versions of the channels. Nothing annoys me more than setting up a recording only to find that it has recorded an hour of the banner that says nothing but you are not subscribed to the HD option.

Will let you know how I get on.
Thanks again

72dg

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#490

Post by 72dg » Wed Jan 02, 2013 12:10 pm

I'm just hoping that it will just start working again, surely its too much of a co incidence that it stops on 1st Jan. If MS has killed it off surely we'd have heard?

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mark1234

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#491

Post by mark1234 » Wed Jan 02, 2013 12:14 pm

terrybailey wrote:Thanks Mark a) for an informative and useful reply and b) for a very prompt one. I'll give it a poke and see what happens, you never know I might actually get some decent listings. The ones that used to come out for SKY where all over the place, the source of the EPG data often used to swap the HD and SD versions of the channels. Nothing annoys me more than setting up a recording only to find that it has recorded an hour of the banner that says nothing but you are not subscribed to the HD option.

Will let you know how I get on.
Thanks again
One thing you'll find is that all those channels where the MS data just used to say "No Data Available" (and that's if the channel even showed up in the first place) will be filled with lovely programme info.
Windows Media Centre - Abandoned by Microsoft

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camelopardis

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#492

Post by camelopardis » Wed Jan 02, 2013 12:19 pm

mark1234 wrote:
I have basically the same set-up, except I use Virgin. You can use Digiguide as a source for data (£15/year subscription) and there are a few programs that will import the data into 7MC for you. I'm trying out MCE 7 Reset Toolbox (£10).

Digiguide has a seven day trial, MCE7RTB has a 30 day trial. I'm figuring that if the real data hasn't reappeared within seven days that it really will have died, and I'll just stump up the money.

I set this up last night. It wasn't documented in way and it's not entirely obvious, but it is possible. I was planning on doing a post about it, but I'm not there yet as there are a few things I've not sorted out yet - like automating the process.

Couple of links if you want to try it yourself:
http://digiguide.tv/
http://vistademon.wordpress.com/2012/12 ... oolbox-v8/
Thanks for the info Mark - I hope you manage to get it all working, a post with the instructions would be much appreciated! Do you have to opt for the Digiguide Windows £15 subscription? Would the £3 pa Digiguide Premium Sub not provide the same data?

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mark1234

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#493

Post by mark1234 » Wed Jan 02, 2013 12:23 pm

I wondered about the £3/£15 choice as well. But I found that to actually get the data out of Digiguide in an XML file needs the Digiguide Windows software, which is the £15 option.
Windows Media Centre - Abandoned by Microsoft

xxxtglxxx

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#494

Post by xxxtglxxx » Wed Jan 02, 2013 12:33 pm

asm495 wrote:For those of you using FreeSat, here is what I did to get guide listings again.
  • Install EPG Collector from http://sourceforge.net/projects/epgcollector/
  • Run "EPG Center" and go to File->Change Collection Parameters... and select the file installed at "C:\Program Files (x86)\Geekzone\EPG Collector\Samples\Collector\UK - FreeSat.ini" (default location)
  • Ensure on the "Output" tab that "Import the data to Windows Media Centre directly" is selected with an import name of "EPG Collector". Also ensure that "Flag all programmes as part of a series is chosen"
  • On "Lookups" tab ensure that Movie Lookup and TV Series Lookup is enabled
  • On "Advanced" tab ensure that "Use FreeSat Huffman tables to translate compressed EIT text" is selected
  • Go to File->Save... to save these settings
  • Go to Run->Collect EPG Data... to gather the data but ensure Media Center is not running at the time. This may take 10 to 15 minutes.
  • Next we have to set each channel to use the EPG Collector listing information. Unfortunately I could not seem to do this in GuideTool. Therefore you need to go into Media Center and edit each channel and go to "Edit Listings".
  • You will then find an entry for each channel that EPG Collector has found suffixed by "-EPG Collector". Select the appropriate channel and save these settings.
  • Once you have done one channel you should see listings present and can then do the same for the other channels.
  • Having ensured that all the channel listings are working correctly then set up a scheduled task to run EPG Collector at a time when you think Media Center will not be running. I picked 1.30am.
Hopefully that will help some others and if you have any issues I'll see what I can do to help. Having seen the guide data gathered in this way it seems to be better than the MS data. However, it is only 1 week in advance rather than 2 unfortunately but much better than nothing!
Hi there :) Thanks for the above.

I am new to this forum and stumbled across as I was trying to find out why my epg had packed up on WMC.
Anyway the above guide is helpful, but I cant get past the first part - when I run the epg program there are no files in any directories at all? Could you please do a real idiots guide from the very beginning, as so far I have managed to install and run it, and I did try to find epg listings with the correct satellite, but like I said non of the above will work as I have nothing in the file directory to change any parameters. :)

Many thanks and happy new year :)

EBH

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#495

Post by EBH » Wed Jan 02, 2013 12:44 pm

I now have data for the standard def freeview channels but no data for freesat or HD channels.
I didn't do anything to get the data back as far as I know.

Ben

xxxtglxxx

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#496

Post by xxxtglxxx » Wed Jan 02, 2013 12:47 pm

thats interesting, I hope the freesat follows.

We dont get freeview/terrestrial tv in rural highlands, and we cant have traditional broadband either, so satellite tv and satellite internet (with tv card in pc) is all we have :)

Cafe.Racer

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#497

Post by Cafe.Racer » Wed Jan 02, 2013 12:56 pm

I have mixed freeview and Virgin cable - we lost the guide data for Virgin yesterday, but Freeview is fine, it goes out to 10/1 anyway.

The quality of the guide data has been a source of frustration for a while, but I never knew there were other options (giving up the addiction to "fiddling" with MCE a while ago), I might try some of these.

asm495

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#498

Post by asm495 » Wed Jan 02, 2013 1:01 pm

xxxtglxxx wrote: Hi there :) Thanks for the above.

I am new to this forum and stumbled across as I was trying to find out why my epg had packed up on WMC.
Anyway the above guide is helpful, but I cant get past the first part - when I run the epg program there are no files in any directories at all? Could you please do a real idiots guide from the very beginning, as so far I have managed to install and run it, and I did try to find epg listings with the correct satellite, but like I said non of the above will work as I have nothing in the file directory to change any parameters. :)

Many thanks and happy new year :)
Unfortunately I am away for a few days on business so I can't write a complete guide - I only had a little time to write the guide that I did. However, when I first installed EPG Collector the "UK - FreeSat.ini" file was there so I'm not entirely sure why it would not be. You should still be able to proceed without this but you will need to go to Run->Find Listings first I would suspect.

bobbob

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#499

Post by bobbob » Wed Jan 02, 2013 1:20 pm

mark1234 wrote:
asm495 wrote:It confirms my belief that sooner rather than later I need to consider what I should do to deliver the distributed TV experience I've come to enjoy with Win7 and Xbox 360 extenders. Once setup it has just worked for the last couple of years with very few WAF issues. At the moment the most likely possibilities are MediaPortal or XBMC with a TV headend server. Not in any rush so long as things keeping working at the moment and I'll wait for the other products to mature.
Talking over options with the wife the last few days has shown that, even with the feature stagnation that Media Centre has had over the last few years, none of the regular consumer options are even close to it for offering the all-in-one solution. The biggest thing that a Sky+ or Virgin Tivo box can offer is the "it just works" result of being locked to their respective provider. I guess at the end of the day that ease of use is what Joe Public wants, and why MS can deprecate Media Centre. I've not looked at other PC based software for several years now as I too am getting tired of the constant TLC required by a PC solution.
imo dvblink / xbmc is 80-90% there as a replacement for wmc. raspberry pi's make excellent low cost always on extenders. its just not as user friendly at the moment and as i have a trusty epg source there's nothing pushing me to xbmc on the main htpc. i've got 2 raspberry pi extenders running it delivering live tv only, i could get the full scheduling if i were to use the dvblink recorder rather than wmc

Heuer

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#500

Post by Heuer » Wed Jan 02, 2013 1:33 pm

If it is any help I used asm495's guide and it worked with some trial and error. Things I noticed:

1. I did not use the 'Automatically MAP EPG to channels"
2. You don't need the specific Free Sat.ini file although it should be in the samples library. Just make sure you set the satellite to 28.2 Eurobird under 'Delivery System' and name the ini file as 'EPG Collector'
3. After running EPG Collector I had a problem with some HD stations disappearing. I re-ran WMC TV signal set-up and had to to run specific satellite transponder scans to pick up some missing stations.
4. I re-ran EPG Collector and I then had all my stations and the guide data (displayed as channel name + EPG Collector) which I assigned manually using WMC 'edit listings'. This was a real pain and took ages - unfortunately GuideTool does not show the EPG Collector listings. Maybe 'Automatically Map EPG to channels" might work?
5. I then used Task scheduler to run a timed EPG collection. No need to create a .bat file, you can simply create an Action, browse to your EPG Collector.exe file in your installation directory and set a time. There is a wizard to guide you through the process. Test it by clicking on 'Run Now'.
6. I use Remote Potato and I found I had to stop the server and reset/reload the channels to get it working.
7. I use MyChannel logos and I had to reassign the logos to some channels.

It took me the best part of a day to get things the way I wanted but it was a case of learning as I went along. Only part of EPG Collector I cannot get to work is the 'Channels' and 'Filters' tabs - nothing displays and clicking on any button causes EPG Collector to crash. Shame really as I only need data for about 15 of the 230 Freesat stations!

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