Future v1.1.0 Release

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garyan2

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Future v1.1.0 Release

#1

Post by garyan2 » Sun Oct 23, 2016 10:02 pm

Well, there's been a lot of good suggestions out there for new features as well as a couple things I learned epg123 is missing. I'm making this a 1.1 since the changes will be significant. I'm giving everyone an early heads up because this is actually going to be a breaking update (something I've managed to avoid so far). So let me explain.

One of the things I noticed is that for lineups that have multiple stations listed on the same channel ... only 1 channel will be visible to WMC and GuideTool. In order to overcome this, I have to change the channel unique id. What this means is with the new version, all the channels will have to be rematched to the station. All indications point to scheduled recordings will be okay ... no need to rebuild.

Speaking of matching channels to stations, the current incarnation of automatch will be transformed. All the troubles some are having pointed out a need to have something better. I will be creating a GUI for the epg123Client which will be similar to what GuideTool does. An automatch can be performed in the GUI or manual matching if preferred. Right now I'm thinking the GUI will strictly be for the epg123 lineup, but may expand that if turns out to be simple enough.

Feel free to chime in on the following feature requests (I'm somewhat ambivalent):
Add movie ratings to the category search ... only want 4 star movies? maybe 3 or 3.5 star?
Add series finales to the category search as well. Change "Premieres" to "Premieres/Finales" or a new category?

If anyone has any other suggestions/requests go ahead and pile it on this thread.
- Gary
Keeping WMC alive beyond January 2020. https://garyan2.github.io

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#2

Post by kmp14 » Mon Oct 24, 2016 4:32 pm

Any reason we will have to switch to 1.1.0? I am happily cruising along with the current version and don't see any need to upgrade.

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#3

Post by squirest » Mon Oct 24, 2016 9:47 pm

A Guide Tool replacement would be awesome!

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#4

Post by Scallica » Tue Oct 25, 2016 12:15 am

kmp14 wrote:Any reason we will have to switch to 1.1.0? I am happily cruising along with the current version and don't see any need to upgrade.
This. Please keep the 1.0 track alive!
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#5

Post by Sammy2 » Tue Oct 25, 2016 6:13 pm

I was chatting with mikinho on Hangouts the other day and he mentioned that epg123 could be set up to do more inside WMC. He also said he'd help if you wanted some help. Send him a message if you're interested.

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#6

Post by jonwz » Tue Oct 25, 2016 11:03 pm

garyan2 wrote: Add movie ratings to the category search ... only want 4 star movies? maybe 3 or 3.5 star?
Um, er, as one of the (or probably only the one person) that asked for this, once I pruned my guide down to my accessible channels, I see that the native WMC Movie guide is pretty darn useful. I can live with "top rated by start date."

The " set up to do more inside WMC" suggestion from Sam' and Mik' sounds possibly awesome. I hope you have the bandwidth to evaluate that.

You are taking a "dead" Microsoft feature (that's the best DVR) and extending its life. Thank you!!!!

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#7

Post by IT Troll » Wed Oct 26, 2016 9:41 am

garyan2 wrote:What this means is with the new version, all the channels will have to be rematched to the station. All indications point to scheduled recordings will be okay ... no need to rebuild.
This could put off a lot people from upgrading and fragment the user base. Especially so for users for whom Automatch doesn't work so well and channels need to be matched manually. I imagine this will also mean that custom logos (MCLXL) will need to be reapplied.

Will schedule recordings be OK if the "this channel only" option has been set?

Is there any chance of a migration feature within the new GUI which would allow the existing configuration to be retained?

For the wish list; An on screen pop-up within/over Media Center if EPG data has less then x days remaining (x configurable). Similar to the one Windows 8 Media Center has for pending Windows Updates.
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

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#8

Post by Wheeker » Wed Oct 26, 2016 1:25 pm

I would echo what IT Troll says, as everything seems to be working fine for me I would need to be sure my Scheduled Recordings remain & that I don't have to manually match all my channels to listings all over again. I did look at the last upgrade & realised there was no way to import the Line-up Channels from the previous version, so just remained on the old version. I can't use Automatch as I have a custom EPG numbering combining Saorview(Ireland) with Freesat (UK).

I love the idea of a GUI to replace Guide Tool. The one thing Guide Tool doesn't show is what line-up each channel has been subscribed to. Maybe a moot point if you want ALL listings to be EPG123 but at the moment I'm not entirely sure I've subscribed all of mine to EPG123.

Maybe OT: FYI- I also use RecordedTV HD, one weird thing I've noticed (which may be a RecordedTV HD issue rather than an EPG123 issue) is e.g. I record Car SOS & although I have the correct SE##EP## prefacing the title from EPG123, RecordedTV HD comes up with a totally different SE##EP##!? I keep having to manually correct it. Is there any way for these 2 great apps to work together better?

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#9

Post by Sammy2 » Wed Oct 26, 2016 7:51 pm

Wheeker wrote:I would echo what IT Troll says, as everything seems to be working fine for me I would need to be sure my Scheduled Recordings remain & that I don't have to manually match all my channels to listings all over again. I did look at the last upgrade & realised there was no way to import the Line-up Channels from the previous version, so just remained on the old version. I can't use Automatch as I have a custom EPG numbering combining Saorview(Ireland) with Freesat (UK).

I love the idea of a GUI to replace Guide Tool. The one thing Guide Tool doesn't show is what line-up each channel has been subscribed to. Maybe a moot point if you want ALL listings to be EPG123 but at the moment I'm not entirely sure I've subscribed all of mine to EPG123.

Maybe OT: FYI- I also use RecordedTV HD, one weird thing I've noticed (which may be a RecordedTV HD issue rather than an EPG123 issue) is e.g. I record Car SOS & although I have the correct SE##EP## prefacing the title from EPG123, RecordedTV HD comes up with a totally different SE##EP##!? I keep having to manually correct it. Is there any way for these 2 great apps to work together better?
Somebody else on here said that RecordedTVHD updated their code to accommodate epg123 for this reason.. I'll try to find it.

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#10

Post by IT Troll » Wed Oct 26, 2016 9:58 pm

Sammy2 wrote:Somebody else on here said that RecordedTVHD updated their code to accommodate epg123 for this reason.. I'll try to find it.
No, RTVHD hasn't been updated since December 2013. I think some changes were made for ServerWMC so you might be thinking of that.

RTVHD should just take (and therefore match) the episode information from the metadata, unless you have configured an override.
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

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#11

Post by garyan2 » Thu Oct 27, 2016 2:58 am

IT Troll wrote:
garyan2 wrote:What this means is with the new version, all the channels will have to be rematched to the station. All indications point to scheduled recordings will be okay ... no need to rebuild.
This could put off a lot people from upgrading and fragment the user base. Especially so for users for whom Automatch doesn't work so well and channels need to be matched manually. I imagine this will also mean that custom logos (MCLXL) will need to be reapplied.

Will schedule recordings be OK if the "this channel only" option has been set?

Is there any chance of a migration feature within the new GUI which would allow the existing configuration to be retained?

For the wish list; An on screen pop-up within/over Media Center if EPG data has less then x days remaining (x configurable). Similar to the one Windows 8 Media Center has for pending Windows Updates.
I realize this, that is why I'm giving heads up to allow everyone to express their concerns. I've got a lot of other things going on, but I'm playing with some ideas to make this as seamless as possible.

A simple way would be for those that upgrade to operate in a 'legacy' mode ... no change to channel unique ids so no rematching. A migration feature is doable ... that may be the best thing. I can imagine what would be necessary, and I could even take care of the custom logos, callsigns, and channel numbers. It would be pretty complex and would take me a while to check out all possibilities for proper execution, but doable.

For scheduled recording with specific channels, it might not require any actions by the user but I would simply recommend to change to 'Any Channel', Save, and set to the specific "new" channel. Pretty simple. Actually, I would recommend changing all scheduled recordings to any channel, do the upgrade, then set the recordings back to specific channel as desired. I have yet to test any of this out yet, so I reserve the right to change my recommendation later on. ;)
- Gary
Keeping WMC alive beyond January 2020. https://garyan2.github.io

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#12

Post by garyan2 » Thu Oct 27, 2016 3:14 am

Wheeker wrote:I would echo what IT Troll says, as everything seems to be working fine for me I would need to be sure my Scheduled Recordings remain & that I don't have to manually match all my channels to listings all over again. I did look at the last upgrade & realised there was no way to import the Line-up Channels from the previous version, so just remained on the old version. I can't use Automatch as I have a custom EPG numbering combining Saorview(Ireland) with Freesat (UK).
There is no actual "upgrade" process to go through. You just need to drop the new executables over the old ones... the epg123.cfg file is what is important to keep and maintains your channel selections.
Wheeker wrote:I love the idea of a GUI to replace Guide Tool. The one thing Guide Tool doesn't show is what line-up each channel has been subscribed to. Maybe a moot point if you want ALL listings to be EPG123 but at the moment I'm not entirely sure I've subscribed all of mine to EPG123.
Wasn't planning on that, but if it is important I think I can do it without too much trouble.
Wheeker wrote:Maybe OT: FYI- I also use RecordedTV HD, one weird thing I've noticed (which may be a RecordedTV HD issue rather than an EPG123 issue) is e.g. I record Car SOS & although I have the correct SE##EP## prefacing the title from EPG123, RecordedTV HD comes up with a totally different SE##EP##!? I keep having to manually correct it. Is there any way for these 2 great apps to work together better?
The season/episode numbers are from 2 completely different sources. RecordedTV HD queries TheTVDB.com and matches the series and episode names. EPG123 uses the season/episode numbers provided by Gracenote which is not always the same. Not sure who gets where and how, but the big difference, and probably biggest contributor to the difference, is with TheTVDB being community driven, it is more interested in maintaining a reasonable and logical order of things. The season/episode numbers from Gracenote are more focused on the production sequence and air dates. With Gracenote, there is no Season 0 for specials so episode numbers can be off ... there are also sometimes no discerning one season from another which creates other problems.
Last edited by garyan2 on Thu Oct 27, 2016 3:21 am, edited 1 time in total.
- Gary
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#13

Post by garyan2 » Thu Oct 27, 2016 3:21 am

IT Troll wrote:
Sammy2 wrote:Somebody else on here said that RecordedTVHD updated their code to accommodate epg123 for this reason.. I'll try to find it.
No, RTVHD hasn't been updated since December 2013. I think some changes were made for ServerWMC so you might be thinking of that.

RTVHD should just take (and therefore match) the episode information from the metadata, unless you have configured an override.
For the season and episode numbers, the changes were made to VideoRedo to bring that information in to do whatever it does with it (probably queries TheTVDB.com).

There were changes to ServerWMC to get the guide images and to catch some formatting issues for the "Season XX, Episode YY" information appended to the episode description.

Nothing done with RecordedTV HD.
- Gary
Keeping WMC alive beyond January 2020. https://garyan2.github.io

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#14

Post by IT Troll » Thu Oct 27, 2016 2:58 pm

garyan2 wrote:The season/episode numbers are from 2 completely different sources. RecordedTV HD queries TheTVDB.com and matches the series and episode names. EPG123 uses the season/episode numbers provided by Gracenote which is not always the same.
RTVHD does query TheTVDB but I thought it used season/episode numbers from the metadata in the WTV file. Which is in turn populated from Gracenote via EPG123. So you should only see weirdness if the data from Gracenote is missing/incorrect.

So if the S/E appears correctly in the guide I'm confused why RTVHD would match to something different.
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

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#15

Post by Sammy2 » Thu Oct 27, 2016 8:50 pm

garyan2 wrote:
IT Troll wrote:
Sammy2 wrote:Somebody else on here said that RecordedTVHD updated their code to accommodate epg123 for this reason.. I'll try to find it.
No, RTVHD hasn't been updated since December 2013. I think some changes were made for ServerWMC so you might be thinking of that.

RTVHD should just take (and therefore match) the episode information from the metadata, unless you have configured an override.
For the season and episode numbers, the changes were made to VideoRedo to bring that information in to do whatever it does with it (probably queries TheTVDB.com).

There were changes to ServerWMC to get the guide images and to catch some formatting issues for the "Season XX, Episode YY" information appended to the episode description.

Nothing done with RecordedTV HD.
Thanks for the clarification on this. I knew I remembered SOMETHING!

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#16

Post by jonwz » Thu Oct 27, 2016 9:04 pm

Hi Gary, will the new release deal with problems like the one mentioned in http://www.thegreenbutton.tv/forums/vie ... 70#p111242

If you recall, I had a similar problem where programming changed and the guide didn't reflect that change.

It's great that with SD and EPG123 we can get 21 days of guide. But if 7MC rejects schedule changes (and you can't bypass that), we might be better off just getting 7 days of guide data.

Thanks again for your work.

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#17

Post by garyan2 » Fri Oct 28, 2016 12:36 am

jonwz wrote:Hi Gary, will the new release deal with problems like the one mentioned in http://www.thegreenbutton.tv/forums/vie ... 70#p111242

If you recall, I had a similar problem where programming changed and the guide didn't reflect that change.

It's great that with SD and EPG123 we can get 21 days of guide. But if 7MC rejects schedule changes (and you can't bypass that), we might be better off just getting 7 days of guide data.

Thanks again for your work.
That problem is still a tough nut to crack... I'll still be working on that one. This change will however help? with lineup changes. I put a question mark on 'help' since it will not have a problem of a channel's listing not updating with a new station (good) ... but that is because it is a completely different service and will need user intervention if something like automatch isn't running (bad).
- Gary
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#18

Post by marvin-miller » Tue Nov 01, 2016 3:24 am

I may be totally on crack but I seem to recall EPG still using ROVI for some things? If I'm not on glue then I would like to suggest that a complete divorce from ROVI would be really desirable.

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#19

Post by garyan2 » Tue Nov 01, 2016 4:02 am

marvin-miller wrote:I may be totally on crack but I seem to recall EPG still using ROVI for some things? If I'm not on glue then I would like to suggest that a complete divorce from ROVI would be really desirable.
You're not totally on crack. ;)

EPG123 still allows the extended information for movies provided by AMG (All Movie Guide), which became just All Movie and is owned by no other than Rovi. This is actually the only part of Rovi in WMC that works, so I let it stay. Also, this gives us the ability to pull up other movies by an actor and schedule future recordings based on results.

For the guide listings ... Rovi has no finger hold and does not influence/corrupt anything.
- Gary
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#20

Post by marvin-miller » Tue Nov 01, 2016 6:28 am

Hmmm....that doesn't explain all the bugs I see out of the corner of my eye.... :)

Not to belabor the point, and just out of my own interest, is is even possible to make everything go through SD and not loose any functionality or is it that SD doesn't support the stuff from IMDB ?

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