Introducing EPG123

An evolving, supported alternative to Rovi
Forum rules
★ Download the latest EPG123 here: https://garyan2.github.io/ <> Setup guide here: https://garyan2.github.io/install.html
User avatar
Doctor Feelgood

Posts: 331
Joined: Thu Aug 16, 2012 12:37 pm
Location: NJ

HTPC Specs: Show details

#1541

Post by Doctor Feelgood » Mon Nov 27, 2017 3:15 pm

:lol:

I was thinking about that more last night to convince myself I wasn't old. The bedroom has a 32" on the wall opposite the bed, which makes it like 10 feet from my face. That's just too far and I need a cyber monday deal on something bigger in there! Yeah, yeah, that's the answer.

From your images I now see the issue on going with less. But, I think with 6 rows I wouldn't want much bigger text, but with all the lines of text now spaced out more that they would be easier to process. :thumbup:

User avatar
garyan2

Posts: 7435
Joined: Fri Nov 27, 2015 7:23 pm
Location:

HTPC Specs: Show details

#1542

Post by garyan2 » Tue Nov 28, 2017 1:23 am

Doctor Feelgood wrote::lol:

I was thinking about that more last night to convince myself I wasn't old. The bedroom has a 32" on the wall opposite the bed, which makes it like 10 feet from my face. That's just too far and I need a cyber monday deal on something bigger in there! Yeah, yeah, that's the answer.

From your images I now see the issue on going with less. But, I think with 6 rows I wouldn't want much bigger text, but with all the lines of text now spaced out more that they would be easier to process. :thumbup:
You know, there's a reason why I keep you guys around. This discussion has made me rethink my approach. Rather than use the demanded number of rows dictate the font size, why not use a desired font size determine the number of rows? Having 20 rows of guide data does no good if you can't read it. But if you can adjust the font size to what you need, then the number of rows will simply be the most you can get... everybody wins.

Hat tip to you. :thumbup:
- Gary
Keeping WMC alive beyond January 2020. https://garyan2.github.io

User avatar
StinkyImp

Posts: 669
Joined: Thu May 11, 2017 7:53 pm
Location:

HTPC Specs: Show details

#1543

Post by StinkyImp » Fri Dec 01, 2017 3:07 pm

garyan2 wrote:Just me adding some more features. This is a preview of what is going in the client tool to tweak WMC.

I got the code setup to be able to dynamically adjust the font sizes to fit in any number of rows. Right now I am using a slider bar to range from 7 to 20 rows, though I have gone up to more rows without problems.
Hi Gary,

Is there any ETA to when we can try out this sweet looking modification?

Do you need any Alpha or Beta testers for any of your works in progress? :)

Thank you so much for the terrific work you do with this!

User avatar
garyan2

Posts: 7435
Joined: Fri Nov 27, 2015 7:23 pm
Location:

HTPC Specs: Show details

#1544

Post by garyan2 » Sat Dec 02, 2017 5:52 pm

StinkyImp wrote:Hi Gary,

Is there any ETA to when we can try out this sweet looking modification?

Do you need any Alpha or Beta testers for any of your works in progress? :)

Thank you so much for the terrific work you do with this!
I'm hesitant to announce some kind of ETA for the next release... work has taken a ridiculous amount of my time these last 6 months and it isn't getting any better. The more I research these guide manipulations, the more I find to include. The end product will be very dynamic ... I'm just trying to keep the number of options as small as possible for the user to manipulate.

When I have something available for test runs, I'll let everyone know either on this thread or a new one.
- Gary
Keeping WMC alive beyond January 2020. https://garyan2.github.io

User avatar
garyan2

Posts: 7435
Joined: Fri Nov 27, 2015 7:23 pm
Location:

HTPC Specs: Show details

#1545

Post by garyan2 » Tue Dec 12, 2017 4:10 am

Anybody have some tweaks they typically do during setup that may be appropriate? I'm looking for things to fill the empty space with.
TweakWMC1.PNG
- Gary
Keeping WMC alive beyond January 2020. https://garyan2.github.io

bigjohns97

Posts: 32
Joined: Fri Oct 26, 2012 6:14 pm
Location:

HTPC Specs: Show details

#1546

Post by bigjohns97 » Thu Dec 14, 2017 6:21 am

Every once and a while i lose everything in my program guide, should i disable the native EPG update task cause i keep having to manually come in and run epg client and save/update like every 3-5 days or so.

User avatar
garyan2

Posts: 7435
Joined: Fri Nov 27, 2015 7:23 pm
Location:

HTPC Specs: Show details

#1547

Post by garyan2 » Thu Dec 14, 2017 2:21 pm

bigjohns97 wrote:Every once and a while i lose everything in my program guide, should i disable the native EPG update task cause i keep having to manually come in and run epg client and save/update like every 3-5 days or so.
No, you've got something else going on. If you send my your trace.log file, I'll take a look at it and find out what is going on if it is a EPG123 issue.
- Gary
Keeping WMC alive beyond January 2020. https://garyan2.github.io

bigjohns97

Posts: 32
Joined: Fri Oct 26, 2012 6:14 pm
Location:

HTPC Specs: Show details

#1548

Post by bigjohns97 » Thu Dec 14, 2017 8:13 pm

garyan2 wrote:
bigjohns97 wrote:Every once and a while i lose everything in my program guide, should i disable the native EPG update task cause i keep having to manually come in and run epg client and save/update like every 3-5 days or so.
No, you've got something else going on. If you send my your trace.log file, I'll take a look at it and find out what is going on if it is a EPG123 issue.
How should i send?

User avatar
Scallica

Posts: 2797
Joined: Mon Jun 06, 2011 7:09 pm
Location: USA!

HTPC Specs: Show details

#1549

Post by Scallica » Thu Dec 14, 2017 9:16 pm

When you click reply, click the "Full Editor" button, then on the bottom, select upload attachment.
HTPC Enthusiast / Forum Moderator - TGB.tv Code of Conduct

romperroom

Posts: 17
Joined: Mon Dec 17, 2012 11:42 am
Location:

HTPC Specs: Show details

#1550

Post by romperroom » Fri Dec 15, 2017 4:46 am

How about adding a Live TV Buffer adjustment?

garyan2 wrote:Anybody have some tweaks they typically do during setup that may be appropriate? I'm looking for things to fill the empty space with.
TweakWMC1.PNG

User avatar
garyan2

Posts: 7435
Joined: Fri Nov 27, 2015 7:23 pm
Location:

HTPC Specs: Show details

#1551

Post by garyan2 » Fri Dec 15, 2017 2:28 pm

romperroom wrote:How about adding a Live TV Buffer adjustment?
Yah, I was looking at this link a couple days ago (https://www.howtogeek.com/howto/12256/i ... ia-center/). I'll probably add it in there as well. :thumbup:
- Gary
Keeping WMC alive beyond January 2020. https://garyan2.github.io

User avatar
garyan2

Posts: 7435
Joined: Fri Nov 27, 2015 7:23 pm
Location:

HTPC Specs: Show details

#1552

Post by garyan2 » Fri Dec 15, 2017 3:43 pm

garyan2 wrote:
bigjohns97 wrote:Every once and a while i lose everything in my program guide, should i disable the native EPG update task cause i keep having to manually come in and run epg client and save/update like every 3-5 days or so.
No, you've got something else going on. If you send my your trace.log file, I'll take a look at it and find out what is going on if it is a EPG123 issue.
There's really not too much in your log to go with, but there are 2 recent entries that caught my attention.

On 12/12, it looks like the client completely bailed from the import ... but maybe not.
On 12/13, at the same place where it looked like it bailed on 12/12, instead of bailing it took 4 hours and 39 minutes to actually start the import.

The import is performed on a background thread, so this kind of behavior suggests that epg123 just isn't getting the processing time to execute. A possibility is that WMC is doing some garbage cleanup / client maintenance at this time (I believe this is done every 5 days). You can verify if it is that by looking at the event viewer \Applications and Services Logs\Media Center and see if there was anything going on with MCUpdate at the times of you updates. The garbage cleanup will be any entries with "Starting Client Maintenance" and "Client Maintenance has completed." It is also possible that some other program like an antivirus scan is running.

Do you have the option for WMC Optimization enabled in WMC (settings->General->Optimization)? I've had bad luck with this in the past (before epg123) that would sometimes corrupt the database and have to "recover."

If not any of the above, I would suggest changing your scheduled update time to 0400 and see if that makes a difference.
- Gary
Keeping WMC alive beyond January 2020. https://garyan2.github.io

dkm

Posts: 40
Joined: Wed Mar 01, 2017 5:05 pm
Location:

HTPC Specs: Show details

#1553

Post by dkm » Fri Dec 15, 2017 4:46 pm

New feature for that settings screen - Option to show/hide channel numbers in the guides. Personally I do not use channel numbers, I organize my guide alphabetically by name.

User avatar
garyan2

Posts: 7435
Joined: Fri Nov 27, 2015 7:23 pm
Location:

HTPC Specs: Show details

#1554

Post by garyan2 » Fri Dec 15, 2017 5:26 pm

dkm wrote:New feature for that settings screen - Option to show/hide channel numbers in the guides. Personally I do not use channel numbers, I organize my guide alphabetically by name.
Do you not use logos, then?
- Gary
Keeping WMC alive beyond January 2020. https://garyan2.github.io

User avatar
WC_Barnstormer

Posts: 62
Joined: Sat Apr 30, 2016 12:05 pm
Location:

HTPC Specs: Show details

#1555

Post by WC_Barnstormer » Sat Dec 16, 2017 7:37 pm

garyan2 wrote:Anybody have some tweaks they typically do during setup that may be appropriate? I'm looking for things to fill the empty space with.
TweakWMC1.PNG
Hi Gary,
It would really be nice to be able to change the skip and replay intervals with Tweak WMC instead of having to do a regedit.

Here is a link to the info for doing this: https://www.howtogeek.com/howto/10762/i ... ia-center/

I am not sure if Internet Time Synchronization Update Interval would be worth while but I do have one machine that I have had to use it on due to the RTC running slow.

Here is a link to the info for this: https://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/8980 ... erval.html

On another note I wanted to give you a success story on EPG123. I noticed that the guide had an error in it on 12-25-2017 at 5:00AM splitting a show into 2 recording times. I emailed schedules direct and within 30 minutes had a reply telling me they were working on it. The next morning after EPG123 updated, the issue was fixed and the recording schedule is now correct.

Since I am still running one box on Rovi, I just got the data for 12-25-2017 only to find out it has the same recording time split into 2 time frames. I emailed Tivo about it but I am not holding my breath and it will be interesting to see how long it takes them to resolve the issue.

I can also attest to the fact that the guide data is much much more accurate from schedules direct. Had it not been for the box running EPG123 I would have missed at least 5 recordings due to incorrect times on the box running Rovi guide data.

Thank you again for your efforts with EPG123. I am sold on it and schedules direct!!!

Have a Merry Christmas

User avatar
StinkyImp

Posts: 669
Joined: Thu May 11, 2017 7:53 pm
Location:

HTPC Specs: Show details

#1556

Post by StinkyImp » Sun Dec 17, 2017 1:16 am

WC_Barnstormer wrote:It would really be nice to be able to change the skip and replay intervals with Tweak WMC instead of having to do a regedit.
Have you tried this new tweaker? I've used it with WMC7 and it's pretty easy to use! :D

User avatar
IT Troll

Posts: 1167
Joined: Sun Nov 27, 2011 9:42 am
Location: Edinburgh, UK

HTPC Specs: Show details

#1557

Post by IT Troll » Sun Dec 17, 2017 8:18 am

StinkyImp wrote:Have you tried this new tweaker? I've used it with WMC7 and it's pretty easy to use! :D
Wow! I'd completely missed that and the larger development project it is part of.
https://windows10mediacenter.com/

Exciting times!
Are you a Recorded TV HD user or want to give it a try? Check out the new community-made update; Recorded TV HD v2.1.1

User avatar
garyan2

Posts: 7435
Joined: Fri Nov 27, 2015 7:23 pm
Location:

HTPC Specs: Show details

#1558

Post by garyan2 » Sun Dec 17, 2017 3:43 pm

IT Troll wrote:
StinkyImp wrote:Have you tried this new tweaker? I've used it with WMC7 and it's pretty easy to use! :D
Wow! I'd completely missed that and the larger development project it is part of.
https://windows10mediacenter.com/

Exciting times!
Yah, it's the UI+ that I am waiting for. He showed me some samples of program details a few months back and they look pretty good.
- Gary
Keeping WMC alive beyond January 2020. https://garyan2.github.io

romperroom

Posts: 17
Joined: Mon Dec 17, 2012 11:42 am
Location:

HTPC Specs: Show details

#1559

Post by romperroom » Thu Dec 21, 2017 5:27 pm

So I just set up/replaced an older HTPC using a InfiniTV PCI card with a new Intel NUC using the InfiniTV USB tuner. I set everything up in WMC and the latest version of EPG123 and all was normal. Pressed the Save & Execute button and EPG ran like normal. After the update window disappeared, an error box saying "Media Center Electronic Program Guide in 1-2-3 has stopped working". The usual responses were "Check online for solution" or "Close the program". I hit close... anything that I need to do after this? How long does it usually take for the Guide listings to usually show after a brand new initial setup?

User avatar
garyan2

Posts: 7435
Joined: Fri Nov 27, 2015 7:23 pm
Location:

HTPC Specs: Show details

#1560

Post by garyan2 » Thu Dec 21, 2017 6:10 pm

romperroom wrote:So I just set up/replaced an older HTPC using a InfiniTV PCI card with a new Intel NUC using the InfiniTV USB tuner. I set everything up in WMC and the latest version of EPG123 and all was normal. Pressed the Save & Execute button and EPG ran like normal. After the update window disappeared, an error box saying "Media Center Electronic Program Guide in 1-2-3 has stopped working". The usual responses were "Check online for solution" or "Close the program". I hit close... anything that I need to do after this? How long does it usually take for the Guide listings to usually show after a brand new initial setup?
Something went wrong. There should be something in the trace.log file to identify. The guide listings will be immediately available once the listings are matched to the merged channel.
- Gary
Keeping WMC alive beyond January 2020. https://garyan2.github.io

Post Reply