EPG123 newbie - channels missing

[anywhereelse]

Hi, I'm completely new at this, and I hope someone can point me in the right direction. I'm in the UK, and have moved into a house that has a satellite dish - no conventional TV aerial. My Win7 Media Centre now has a TBS8900 DVB-S2 TV card, which receives Freesat okay, and I've just discovered the amazingness that is EPG123 to populate the TV guide. The trouble I'm having is that the TV guide lists about a dozen channels, and others are completely missing, even though they are listed in EPG123. Two channels in point are Cbeebies and CBBC - the guide simply doesn't list them.

If I go to 'edit channels' in WMC the boxes are unticked; I can tick them, and the guide page displays empty listings for the channels, and then the next time I run EPG123 they disappear altogether. I have two lineups enabled, one for Freesat England and [I can't remember the name of the other one, sorry, but I tried to avoid having another Freesat channel). Data comes from SchedulesDirect. Both lineups list these channels in both standard and HD.

I have no idea where to start with this - should I be focussing on EPG123 or SchedulesDirect? Where should I be looking? I'd be grateful if someone could give me some (gentle) pointers.

Thank you!

[garyan2]

It sounds like you have "Automatically match stations to channels" selected. I've heard mixed results with automatch on DVB-S lineups, so it is probably best to not select it. Instead, you can use the epg123Client to manually match (subscribe) a tuner channel on the left side with a lineup station on the right side. Once that is done, you should be good-to-go.

[anywhereelse]

Thank you so much for the quick answer, Gary. I've had a quick play with the manual set up in the EPG123 client and that does indeed seem to bring back some of the channels.

It also shows up just how little I know what I'm doing - I'm afraid I just couldn't get my head around the description of manual set up in the PDF. No criticism intended of you - but I think it assumes more subject knowledge than I have. Is there a very basic guide to this somewhere you could point me to, please? Apologies for being hopeless!

Jeremy

[garyan2]

Thank you so much for the quick answer, Gary. I've had a quick play with the manual set up in the EPG123 client and that does indeed seem to bring back some of the channels.

It also shows up just how little I know what I'm doing - I'm afraid I just couldn't get my head around the description of manual set up in the PDF. No criticism intended of you - but I think it assumes more subject knowledge than I have. Is there a very basic guide to this somewhere you could point me to, please? Apologies for being hopeless!

Jeremy

I'll be the first to admit that area of the guide is very weak. It was a last minute detail I wanted to get done before releasing v1.1.0 and sad to say I was probably more interested in keeping it to 1 page than making it full understandable.

The intent of the manual process is to attach a stations guide listings to a channel in your guide.

Doing this manually in WMC would look like this:
1. From the home screen ... [settings]->[TV]->[Guide]->[Edit Channels]
2. Select the channel that does not have any guide information to edit (or a channel with incorrect guide information)
3. Select [Edit Listings] ... you will be presented a list of all stations that you have guide information for as well as all tuner channels
4. Find the appropriate station listings for the channel you are editing and select it
5. Save

Doing the manually in EPG123 would look like this:
1. Open epg123Client.exe GUI (step 1 above)
2. Select the channel on the left side with no or incorrect listings (step 2 above)
3. Select the lineup from the pulldown above the right listview that contains the station you are looking for (step 3 above)
4. Right-click the station on the right side appropriate for the channel (step 4 above)
5. Select 'Subscribe' (step 5 above)

Basically you are matching a tuner channel that does not have a guide listing, with a station in your downloaded lineup that does.

Unfortunately, I don't have anything that can really describe how WMC does what it does or anything on how EPG123 does what it does. I'll work on the guide as well as a FAQ on the site that might help, but that's a ways away before either is complete.

[anywhereelse]

Hi Gary, a huge thank you for this - it's absolutely crystal clear and I think I now have all the channels working as advertised. Thanks again! Jeremy