Using epg123.xmltv in Plex?

[garyan2]

Enhanced guide is not something that replaces the imported XMLTV guide, it is to "enhance" the contents of your XMLTV guide by providing artwork, actors, descriptions, etc.... So for each program in the XMLTV file, it will search some database and try to determine what series it belongs to, and what season and episode it is... then provides/overwrites your provided contents with the "match". For the XMLTV file using EPG123, all that information is provided making it unnecessary. I also found that when it searches sports events, since they are not real production series', it will screw them up.

I'm actually really disappointed in that feature from Plex, and really hate that it is enabled by default. So you would have to setup the DVR with XMLTV, which will start import immediately, disable the "enhanced" guide, and then "refresh" the XMLTV again in order to get rid of the crud.

Bottom line is, the XMLTV provided by EPG123 with Schedules Direct data is more than good enough that the enhanced guide is not needed and actually has a detrimental effect.

[Sammy2]

Thanks for the info, Gary.

Plex is a mess in more ways than the epg. The Premium TV option is stuttering like crazy whereas Emby breezes right through it.

[newfiend]

Thanks for the info, Gary.

Plex is a mess in more ways than the epg. The Premium TV option is stuttering like crazy whereas Emby breezes right through it.

Hey Sammy2,
I am having the same issues with Plex at the moment with Premium TV laggy and stuttering. Also trying to map the OTA channels and Premium TV channels to the guide in my area is more than a PITA.

I'm sure Plex will get this all sorted out. Just a matter of time. I'm hoping I can eventually move to PLEX for everything and drop Cable TV finally. I haven't used EMBY in some time. I always had a better experience getting my media around the house with PLEX.

I'm experimenting now with OTA and a HDHomerun Quatro + Premium TV package + PLEX. Unfortunately I need a better OTA Antenna at the moment as I live far enough away from the broadcast antennas that I need an outdoor antenna.. (ugh!).

Plex is so close to having a good option to move to.. I just need better playback of the Premium Package in Plex, A better way to map the Premium package and OTA channels to the guide and a Grid Guide inside of Plex Media Player.. If they can get to this point I would be all set..

Here is to hoping it happens.. Soon.
newfiend~

[Sammy2]

Thanks for the info, Gary.

Plex is a mess in more ways than the epg. The Premium TV option is stuttering like crazy whereas Emby breezes right through it.

Hey Sammy2,
I am having the same issues with Plex at the moment with Premium TV laggy and stuttering. Also trying to map the OTA channels and Premium TV channels to the guide in my area is more than a PITA.

I'm sure Plex will get this all sorted out. Just a matter of time. I'm hoping I can eventually move to PLEX for everything and drop Cable TV finally. I haven't used EMBY in some time. I always had a better experience getting my media around the house with PLEX.

I'm experimenting now with OTA and a HDHomerun Quatro + Premium TV package + PLEX. Unfortunately I need a better OTA Antenna at the moment as I live far enough away from the broadcast antennas that I need an outdoor antenna.. (ugh!).

Plex is so close to having a good option to move to.. I just need better playback of the Premium Package in Plex, A better way to map the Premium package and OTA channels to the guide and a Grid Guide inside of Plex Media Player.. If they can get to this point I would be all set..

Here is to hoping it happens.. Soon.
newfiend~

If you haven't tried Emby in a while you probably should give it a look. In a lot of ways I think it is better than Plex and it has things Plex doesn't. It's had a grid guide for over a year on all devices and apps for one.

[swinn]

I've never gotten the xmltv file to work with Plex. Plex always tells me "invalid or missing file". I've tried it with 14 days or 21 days, no options checked in the main section other than "create xmltv file". Tried putting the xmltv file on a network share and in a local directory to Plex. I don't know what the trick is.

[Sammy2]

I've never gotten the xmltv file to work with Plex. Plex always tells me "invalid or missing file". I've tried it with 14 days or 21 days, no options checked in the main section other than "create xmltv file". Tried putting the xmltv file on a network share and in a local directory to Plex. I don't know what the trick is.

Make sure that you've disabled station logos from the local drive so epg123 let's PlexDVR grab them directly from Schedules Direct.

Sent from my SM-G930P using Tapatalk

[swinn]

Make sure that you've disabled station logos from the local drive so epg123 let's PlexDVR grab them directly from Schedules Direct.

I currently have everything unchecked except for "Create XMLTV File". In XMLTV Confguration, I've tried with everything unchecked except for "Use Plex friendly channel ID's". What options do you use?

[garyan2]

I've never gotten the xmltv file to work with Plex. Plex always tells me "invalid or missing file". I've tried it with 14 days or 21 days, no options checked in the main section other than "create xmltv file". Tried putting the xmltv file on a network share and in a local directory to Plex. I don't know what the trick is.

I've never gotten it to fail like this, so could never try and find the reason. Maybe you have to delete the DVR, shutdown the server, restart the server, and then start adding the DVR back? I dunno.

I've never gotten the xmltv file to work with Plex. Plex always tells me "invalid or missing file". I've tried it with 14 days or 21 days, no options checked in the main section other than "create xmltv file". Tried putting the xmltv file on a network share and in a local directory to Plex. I don't know what the trick is.

Make sure that you've disabled station logos from the local drive so epg123 let's PlexDVR grab them directly from Schedules Direct.

Sent from my SM-G930P using Tapatalk

I gave up on trying to find out how to get local images to work for channel logos in plex. I've tried URI paths, UNC paths, relative paths.... It may only accept URL paths.

I honestly don't know what else to try or anything I can do to try and help. It would be nice if the Plex folks would actually chime in, but they have been silent on all Sammy's posts concerning importing XMLTV files.

[SLOANJA]

I've been able to get Plex on Linux (CentOS) to work with epg123.xmltv file, but not able to get the same file to work with Plex on Windows even though that Plex on Windows is hosting EPG123 for me.

However, my problem with EPG123 with Plex is that Plex is not reading the XMLtv file and populating all the correct channel numbers when the station is the same. For example, KFVSDT2 in my area is both channel 2 and channel 713 in my lineup. The first is SD and the second is HD. In Plex, if the channel is not marked as HD in the XMLTV, then it can only record as SD, even though Plex gets the HD video from HDHomeRun. What I need to be able to do is to uncheck one instance of the channels so I can correctly map HDHomeRun to the correct HD version of the channel. Currently, if i uncheck one of the two channel numbers, it unchecks BOTH. If i manually remove station number 2 from the XMLTV, then it works and I can map CW to channel 713. While I could attempt to script to modify the file, I would like to be able to do this programatically from within EPG123.

<channel id="EPG123.32242.schedulesdirect.org">
<display-name>KFVSDT2</display-name>
<display-name>KFVSDT2 (KFVS-DT2)</display-name>
<display-name>2 KFVSDT2</display-name>
<display-name>2</display-name>
<display-name>713 KFVSDT2</display-name>
<display-name>713</display-name>
<display-name>CW</display-name>
<icon src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/schedulesdirec ... _h3_aa.png" />
</channel>

[garyan2]

I've been able to get Plex on Linux (CentOS) to work with epg123.xmltv file, but not able to get the same file to work with Plex on Windows even though that Plex on Windows is hosting EPG123 for me.

However, my problem with EPG123 with Plex is that Plex is not reading the XMLtv file and populating all the correct channel numbers when the station is the same. For example, KFVSDT2 in my area is both channel 2 and channel 713 in my lineup. The first is SD and the second is HD. In Plex, if the channel is not marked as HD in the XMLTV, then it can only record as SD, even though Plex gets the HD video from HDHomeRun. What I need to be able to do is to uncheck one instance of the channels so I can correctly map HDHomeRun to the correct HD version of the channel. Currently, if i uncheck one of the two channel numbers, it unchecks BOTH. If i manually remove station number 2 from the XMLTV, then it works and I can map CW to channel 713. While I could attempt to script to modify the file, I would like to be able to do this programatically from within EPG123.

<channel id="EPG123.32242.schedulesdirect.org">
<display-name>KFVSDT2</display-name>
<display-name>KFVSDT2 (KFVS-DT2)</display-name>
<display-name>2 KFVSDT2</display-name>
<display-name>2</display-name>
<display-name>713 KFVSDT2</display-name>
<display-name>713</display-name>
<display-name>CW</display-name>
<icon src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/schedulesdirec ... _h3_aa.png" />
</channel>

If your channel 2 is truly SD, and your 713 is truly HD, then you should open a ticket with Schedules Direct. They should have different station IDs; 1 for SD and 1 for HD. If they were 2 different IDs, then you wouldn't have this problem.

[Sammy2]

I gave up on Plex now that I have MCEBuddy up and running on Emby. Plex was just a pain to set up and manage.

[garyan2]

Sorry, the above was a drive-by response ... I was running late to a meeting. I'll try to provide a bit more detail here.

According to the lineup provided by Gracenote/SD, the 2 channels are exactly the same ... just different channel numbers. Based on the call sign, I would say that KFVSDT2 is SD since it is a substation (DT2). The bandwidth of the physical channel it is being broadcast on is ~20Mbps whereas a HD transmission will be around 15Mbps of that, leaving 5mbps remaining for the substation(s). They can reduce the bandwidth requirement of the HD transmission some by using VBR and/or variable frame rates, but it is extremely rare to be able to have 2 actual HD channels on the same physical channel. So either channel 713 is actually SD (it can still be a 16:9 format, just lower resolution), or it is HD in which case Gracenote/SD has it wrong and there should be a different station on 713.

Suggestion for you on Plex management... even though Plex will not automatically map to 713, you can still manually map it. Also, you can "disable" or unmap channel 2 when you are setting up the DVR. This would be a work around and should be a 1-time thing. It should be up to the Plex development team to allow a single station to be mapped to multiple channels... heck, it should be up to the Plex development team to allow mapping of multiple lineups as well.

As far as doing something like this programmatically within EPG123, it's not going to happen. It adds a significant level of complexity and risk without much gain; especially since it can be handled easily within Plex as above. It is, however, possible for you to create a custom lineup and exclude channel 2, but that isn't for the faint-of-heart at the moment. I have yet to develop an interface that will assist in that endeavor.

I am learning that trying to work with Plex can be very frustrating. Not only do they appear to make up their own rules on how to handle/use XMLTV files, they don't let anyone else know what those rules are, as far as I can tell.

[Sammy2]

That's why I gave up. Emby is proving to be a far superior product at this time.

Sent from my SM-G930P using Tapatalk

[SLOANJA]

If your channel 2 is truly SD, and your 713 is truly HD, then you should open a ticket with Schedules Direct. They should have different station IDs; 1 for SD and 1 for HD. If they were 2 different IDs, then you wouldn't have this problem.

Thank you, I'll do that.

[SLOANJA]

Suggestion for you on Plex management... even though Plex will not automatically map to 713, you can still manually map it. Also, you can "disable" or unmap channel 2 when you are setting up the DVR. This would be a work around and should be a 1-time thing. It should be up to the Plex development team to allow a single station to be mapped to multiple channels... heck, it should be up to the Plex development team to allow mapping of multiple lineups as well.

As far as doing something like this programmatically within EPG123, it's not going to happen. It adds a significant level of complexity and risk without much gain; especially since it can be handled easily within Plex as above. It is, however, possible for you to create a custom lineup and exclude channel 2, but that isn't for the faint-of-heart at the moment. I have yet to develop an interface that will assist in that endeavor.

I am learning that trying to work with Plex can be very frustrating. Not only do they appear to make up their own rules on how to handle/use XMLTV files, they don't let anyone else know what those rules are, as far as I can tell.

Actually, you can't. When Plex sees two sets of channels in one station XML block, like I posted above, it ignores the second and only displays the first. That's why I only see channel 2 and not channel 713 to map to (hence my troubleshooting step to remove channel 2 from my test XMLtv file). I'm posting this problem on Plex forums as well.

I agree that Plex should allow multiple lineups, and then I wouldn't need EPG123 or Schedules Direct to support Silicondust's new Premium TV service.

[garyan2]

Actually, I think you can, but it will look weird. With Plex, you can manually map xmltv channel 2 to tuner channel 713, but what you will see in the guide is 2 channel 2's... one of them is actually channel 713. If you disable channel 2, and manually map xmltv channel 2 to tuner channel 713, then the guide will show channel 2 which is actually channel 713.

Definitely confusing.

[Sammy2]

Now that I've got MCEBuddy set up and working in Emby, I'm shutting down my Plex DVR for recording.

I do appreciate all your work in getting Plex to read epg123.xmltv, Gary!

Thank you..

[rmeden]

I know this is an old thread, but using data from SD with Plex ( a commercial product ) is a violation of the SD terms of service. SD is only licensed by Gracenote to provide data to non-commercial apps.

[Ron]

I just moved my Plex Server to a WD NAS PR4100. When setting up my DVR (HDHR) and trying to import EPG XMLTV file, I get “invalid or missing file” message within Plex. This is after entering, what I believe to be, the correct path where the file was created. Anyone have any ideas on what’s going on? I even copied the XMLTV file over to the NAS in the Public directory, trying to import it from there. But no luck.

Previously, I had Plex server running on a Windows machine and also a Mac. Both were able to import the XMLTV file.

Any help and suggestions, certainly appreciated.