EPG123 and UK Freesat

[MrFluffy]

Hi, I know this has been covered a few times and I've read and re-read all the posts but cannot get a working setup.
I have an HTPC running W7 x64 and have spent many hours trying different setups without success.

The main problem I have is that if I run through the setup and get all the channels how I want in WMC, EPG123 deletes most of them and leaves me with around 10 random channels and incorrect listings.
If I de-select the matching option then no guide listings are transferred to WMC. As many know it's a pain to get all the required channels in WMC due to having to manually scan transponders.
Fortunately I'm able to take a backup of the ehome folder prior to retrying so at least I don't have to keep re-running the WMC TV setup.

Should the listings be imported into WMC without the matching enabled as long as the channel numbers match?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

[sjr56stn]

I have a similar problem, and I am also using W7 x64. My lineups are UK Freeview and UK Freesat. I first installed EPG123 about a week ago and initially it seemed to be working OK, but I have also seen apparent random changes to the channels I have selected for guide download in EPG123.
Now my BBC and ITV channel guides do not seem to be updating. They are stuck on 10th Sept. As far as I can see EPG123 - update seems to be working OK and the channel download list looks OK. It looks like it is doing the right things, but the BBC and ITV guides do not extend beyond 10th Sept.
I have just installed the latest V1.0.1 version, but it doesn't seem to make any difference.

[DaveInPa]

I'm not familiar with UK Freesat, but I've used EPG123 and other programs before it to configure guide data. If automatching mixes up the stations, I believe you will need to manually match them.

When I first began importing non-MS guide data, I had to manually match each station to the correct guide data station. Now there are programs (like EPG123) that will do that for us.

I think the guide data is in WMC, but you may need to edit each channel you are using and point it to the new Schedules Direct information.

Normally, automatching takes care of this, but it sounds like it doesn't know how to interpret UK Freesat.


Good luck

[MrFluffy]

Thanks Dave, I'll have a look later this evening and see if i can manually edit each channel. I did go through all the settings for guide data but not on a per channel basis.
I can live with doing that if it'll work - at least I'll only need to do it once!

[IT Troll]

Now my BBC and ITV channel guides do not seem to be updating. They are stuck on 10th Sept. As far as I can see EPG123 - update seems to be working OK and the channel download list looks OK. It looks like it is doing the right things, but the BBC and ITV guides do not extend beyond 10th Sept.

This is due to the Schedules Direct feed. Their upstream provider does a weekly batch update rather than the rolling daily update you would have got with Microsoft. These tend to come in at the end of the week so by the weekend you should have another weeks worth added. There is another thread about this in this forum.

If you don't use the Automatch feature (which perhaps doesn't work so well for Freesat anyway) then you have to manually assign guide data to each channel individually. This can be done through Media Center but soon gets tedious if you have a lot to do. In which case a third party utility like Guide Tool can ease the pain.

There have been a lot of channel shuffles in the UK recently because of the Olympics. I found that Automatch didn't handle these well due to the way channels were duplicated and moved. My suggestion is to use Automatch initially to see what it gives you, then turn it off so you can fine tune things by hand and prevent any unwanted changes in the future.

[garyan2]

The automatch feature uses the channel number in the lineup and matches that to the original tuner channel (user modified channel numbers do not affect this operation). If the lineup from SD does not match your received lineup, then do not use the automatch feature. With automatch disabled, that means the matching of station schedule listings with tuner channels will have to be a manual operation using either the WMC interface, or a tool like Guide Tool.

Note that epg123 does not delete channels, it only disables channels that are not a part of the epg123 lineup (channel not selected). With automatch disabled, it will not disable any channels either so once the match is made, either automatically or manually, the match will stay.

[MrFluffy]

Thanks Gary, I think I'm there now! I went into the channel edit settings and found the duplicate channel numbers with the proper channels unticked.
I ticked the channels that I wanted and then went into each channel manually and attached the listings from the EPG123 listings.

I've done about 10 channels this way and hopefully they'll stay working OK.

Thanks for your help