UK EPG Licence Expiring

Global guide related discussion. All Windows versions.
rosbaldeston

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#181

Post by rosbaldeston » Tue Sep 15, 2015 9:22 am

roswellgrey wrote:MS EPG seems to have unstuck itself and is now populated to the 26th i.e. 11 days. ......
In the settings, tv, guide, listing info what is the end date given as? Mine was still showing 19/9/2015 last night (and after an update), been stuck there since Friday when we seemed to get a single update. Otherwise you might just be seeing a mix of in-band and fridays MS EPG update.

roswellgrey

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#182

Post by roswellgrey » Tue Sep 15, 2015 10:14 am

rosbaldeston wrote: In the settings, tv, guide, listing info what is the end date given as? Mine was still showing 19/9/2015 last night (and after an update), been stuck there since Friday when we seemed to get a single update. Otherwise you might just be seeing a mix of in-band and fridays MS EPG update.

I have a 2nd pc running win7 that has no tuner attached anymore - I am using this as an EPG reference as there can be no in-band :)
It, along with the main htpc, was stuck since friday/sat, but it did update this morning to the 26/09/2015 19:00:00

franksm

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#183

Post by franksm » Tue Sep 15, 2015 12:17 pm

Frank here in Dublin, Ireland - guide with UK postcode (WMC7) ran out on 03-Sep; despite re-doing the TV setup, nothing in the guide although it reported no errors as such.

But good news, the guide seems to have populated itself this morning ! At least to 26-Sep 1900h. Guide is by BDS (Broadcasting Dataservices Ltd) and ID is 250282 for DVB-S Astra 28.2 East

jelockwood

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#184

Post by jelockwood » Tue Sep 15, 2015 4:46 pm

Now that it looks like the EPG is renewing properly i.e. beyond the 19th September, what site/forum/page would people recommend for reporting UK guide errors - of which there are many. So many in fact I have been compiling an Excel spreadsheet to track them all.

They seem to fall in to three categories
  • Wrong or obsolete channel number in EPG
    Channel not listed in EPG at all
    Channel listed in EPG but does not produce any data (the infamous No Data message in the Guide)
The second and third issues are the most important.

The first error is relatively minor but does make it harder to have channels auto-match to guide data. There is also the differences in the actual Channel name as in the EPG compared to the Channel name as transmitted, again this impacts on auto-matching channels to the Guide. However there are so many of these I have not bothered emphasising them.

I have not even touched on the fact that series link is extremely unreliable nor the fact that many programs are listed as repeats when they are not as far at least as UK Freeview is concerned.

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IT Troll

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#185

Post by IT Troll » Tue Sep 15, 2015 5:32 pm

jelockwood wrote:what site/forum/page would people recommend for reporting UK guide errors
Unfortunately there isn't one I would recommend. The MS Connect site is really all we have got but Microsoft have previously stated that it isn't being actively monitored.
https://connect.microsoft.com/site1145/Feedback

This latest issue is a prime example. It is the biggest service outage we have experienced and it resulted in multiple reports with multiple votes and repros. Not a single report has been responded to by a Microsoft agent.

Given that, I'm afraid I don't hold out much hope for you getting any attention from Microsoft.

It might be worth trying to contact BDS instead.
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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Vistaar

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#186

Post by Vistaar » Tue Sep 15, 2015 6:13 pm

jelockwood wrote:what site/forum/page would people recommend for reporting UK guide errors - of which there are many.
Are you quite certain that the provider is still BDS? That sounds very much like Rovi to me! :wtf:

There has been a "Media Center EPG: Rovi Guide Data Quality" thread for some time, so an analogous BDA Guide Data Quality thread might be in order. I can't help thinking this is all Microsoft's way of punishing those who have not "upgraded" to Windows 10.

Blue407

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#187

Post by Blue407 » Tue Sep 15, 2015 6:25 pm

I think it's more likely to be inaction on Microsofts part, rather than action. More likely something was broken by mistake or a contract not renewed in time.
I doubt they are that organised to have proactively done this with any intention.

rosbaldeston

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#188

Post by rosbaldeston » Tue Sep 15, 2015 6:25 pm

I'm kinda wondering if it is all fixed or if todays update is another one-off. Would be nice to have some official feedback on whats going on.

Leaves me wondering how MS are going to sunset this product. I'm guessing they've no plans to sell the IP on or opensource it?

Would be nice to see the feed formats opened up at the very least. Seems the EPG is going to kill off the product first and it might make sense to implement yourself one of the fallback feeds before its required again.

jelockwood

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#189

Post by jelockwood » Tue Sep 15, 2015 6:39 pm

IT Troll wrote:
jelockwood wrote:what site/forum/page would people recommend for reporting UK guide errors
Unfortunately there isn't one I would recommend. The MS Connect site is really all we have got but Microsoft have previously stated that it isn't being actively monitored.
https://connect.microsoft.com/site1145/Feedback

This latest issue is a prime example. It is the biggest service outage we have experienced and it resulted in multiple reports with multiple votes and repros. Not a single report has been responded to by a Microsoft agent.

Given that, I'm afraid I don't hold out much hope for you getting any attention from Microsoft.

It might be worth trying to contact BDS instead.
Sadly I suspect your right, I seem to remember in the dim and distant past there was a thread here on TheGreenButton (which remember is owned by Microsoft) but that seems to have died out as well.

So do you have any contact details for BDS?

RichardS

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#190

Post by RichardS » Tue Sep 15, 2015 7:19 pm

OK...I've taken the plunge after all the years and installed the TV pack on Vista MC!

The guide now seems to be back which is a relief but the channels are a mess which had taken me ages to sort out. I am on the Ridge Hill transmitter which broadcasts in different regional channels but also the signal from Sutton Coldfield is about the same strength so MC has always tended to pick up surplus channels with marginal reception which do not have guide data and which needed sorting out in "Edit Channels" but with the TV Pack this has been taken to new extremes such as Channel 1 having two versions of BBC1 and Channel 2 having 4 versions of Al Jazeera and 2 versions of BBC2 etc etc.

I have always wished that MC had a manual tune option where you can select each Mux individually as that how we tune in our TVs to avoid these problems.

I've also only enabled 2 tuners so far rather than the 4 I have installed but I'm taking it one step at a time.

Richard

stwarr

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#191

Post by stwarr » Tue Sep 15, 2015 7:48 pm

No updates here - still stuck on 19/09/2015 expiry

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IT Troll

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#192

Post by IT Troll » Tue Sep 15, 2015 9:04 pm

jelockwood wrote:Sadly I suspect your right, I seem to remember in the dim and distant past there was a thread here on TheGreenButton (which remember is owned by Microsoft) but that seems to have died out as well.

So do you have any contact details for BDS?
TGB is independent again. The original site was bought by Microsoft and then promptly run into the ground. What we have now had to be completely rebuilt from scratch.

BDS (Red Bee Media) now belongs to Ericsson.
https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ericsson ... a_Services

EPG is part of their Content Discovery service.
http://www.ericsson.com/broadcastandmed ... discovery/
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JBG

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#193

Post by JBG » Tue Sep 15, 2015 9:39 pm

RichardS wrote:OK...I've taken the plunge after all the years and installed the TV pack on Vista MC!
Richard - was this over a clean install? If not what is your set up and was the install straight forward? - I'm thinking maybe the TV Pack might be the only answer - either that or to try to get hold of an upgrade to Win7 disc.

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#194

Post by stwarr » Tue Sep 15, 2015 9:50 pm

stwarr wrote:No updates here - still stuck on 19/09/2015 expiry
After many unsuccessful attempts running mcupdate.exe manually, eventually got the listing to 26/09/2015

RichardS

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#195

Post by RichardS » Tue Sep 15, 2015 10:02 pm

JBG wrote:
RichardS wrote:OK...I've taken the plunge after all the years and installed the TV pack on Vista MC!
Richard - was this over a clean install? If not what is your set up and was the install straight forward? - I'm thinking maybe the TV Pack might be the only answer - either that or to try to get hold of an upgrade to Win7 disc.
Definitely not a clean install. It was Vista patched to SP2 with all the Windows updates through to early 2015. I downloaded the 2008 TV Pack file from a website I googled http://digiex.net/guides-reviews/guides ... guide.html and got the latest version 1.3 of PlayReady from a Microsoft website. I rebooted after installing the TV Pack and then installed the PlayReady file and then re-setup Media Center. There were no installation problems.

As others have commented, the guide data is not as good as the old one with some series not being flagged as such. Also the keyword recording does not seem to be as good although I need to play with it some more. One good thing is that whereas with the old guide I could not always read all the textual info about a programme or film as it went off-screen at the bottom, with the new guide you can scroll down and read eveything.

When you install the TV pack you will lose all your series and one-off recording set-ups. However, all my previously recorded programmes are still there and still play perfectly even though I think that the TV pack is now recording in .wtv format rather than .dvr-ms format although I've not checked that yet.

Based on my experience over the last couple of hours I would say that it's not quite as good overall as pre-TV Pack but it's worth it to get the full 14 day guide back and a lot easier than an upgrade to Windows 7 and having to sort out drivers etc.

Richard

ricardoroberto

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#196

Post by ricardoroberto » Tue Sep 22, 2015 9:34 pm

Now got 14 days of Freeview listings except for the main BBC channels which are just a couple of days short but looks like good news and they are on their way back to normal. :thumbup:
I have use of 6 desktops and 1 laptop. I use WMC to record Freeview with both Vista and Windows7.

MikeSin

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#197

Post by MikeSin » Wed Sep 23, 2015 6:12 am

Did they just appear or did you have to do something - I have tried get guide listing today on vista today and it is still blank - are you of terrestial or satellite freeview ?

thanks

kramaring

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#198

Post by kramaring » Wed Sep 23, 2015 3:13 pm

I am on terrestrial freeview on Windows 7 Media Center and I now have listings into October. I have HD channel listings once again.

ricardoroberto

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#199

Post by ricardoroberto » Wed Sep 23, 2015 5:15 pm

No it just happened without me doing anything.
I have use of 6 desktops and 1 laptop. I use WMC to record Freeview with both Vista and Windows7.

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Vistaar

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#200

Post by Vistaar » Wed Sep 23, 2015 8:12 pm

MikeSin wrote:Did they just appear or did you have to do something - I have tried get guide listing today on vista today and it is still blank - are you of terrestial or satellite freeview ?
I'm a Vista user in the U.S. Microsoft has discontinued legacy data for XP MCE and Vista here; and having followed this thread, it seems increasingly clear that they have done likewise in the UK. I have noticed your post "Vista EPG from DVBGUIDE." I'm no authority on DVBGuide, but make certain that you are using output format M, not T, because Vista does not support MXF without TV Pack. Speaking of which, installing TV Pack is another option to consider in your situation. Other options include NextPVR, MediaPortal, Windows 7. Good luck to you.

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