My Channel Logos : Still Needed after epg123 install?

[madhatman]

Hello,

Prior to epg123, I used My Channel Logos to populate logos in my guide. According to the epg123 install guide it mentions downloading channel logos? So is My Channel Logos no longer needed with epg123? Does epg123 replicate the functionality of My Channel Logos or does it require my channel logos to be installed to still get the logos?

Hopefully Gary or someone else can chime in & help clarify!

Thanks

[tluxon]

As a long time user of My Channel Logos and recent convert to EPG123, I can attest that you will get that functionality and more with EPG123 and Schedules Direct.

[garyan2]

My suggestion, as far as MCL XL goes, is to just copy all the logos from MCL XL to a safe place and remove it. If you find a logo you don't like, or missing, from Schedules Direct, you can always grab one and place it in the C:\ProgramData\GaRyan2\epg123\logos folder. The file needs to be a PNG and the filename will be the call sign of whatever station you want to change. The next time you build an MXF file and import into WMC, the new logo will be seen. The one thing you don't get with EPG123 is the instant change of the logos in the guide.

If you want to keep using MCL XL, then just change your EPG123 configuration to disable the option to 'Include station logos'. That way they don't fight each other.

[madhatman]

Ok. Thanks. When you say you'll lose the "Instant change of the Logos in the Guide" if you use epg123 logo instead . What do you mean by that ? What is this instant change ?

Thanks

[garyan2]

I was referring to MCL where you could change the logo at any time and you will see the change in the guide. With EPG123, when you change a logo, it has to be included in the MXF file and that MXF file has to be imported into WMC. So you either force and update or wait for the next scheduled update before you will see the new logo in the guide.

[madhatman]

I basically just ran mcl once & never again. So I guess I would be ok without instant logo updates. Other than that is there any other reason to not uninstall MCL and just use the logo import of SD

[LakeRat]

I purchased My Channel Logos when it came out. EPG123's handling of channel logos is way better, in my opinion.

MCL required the user to setup logos on all computers separately. EPG123 makes the process much easier by allowing any changes to the server PC logos to be distributed to the client PCs automatically. While WMC tweaks still have to be set on each client, you had to do that with MCL too.

For users with Windows 10 PCs, the built-in Paint 3D app is an amazingly easy editor for transparent PNG files. I used it to create original logos, and to fix Schedules Direct logos that did not display well with the default WMC color scheme. I simply used the fill tool to change the black (or dark) parts of a logo to white, and the logos were much easier to see. Image resizing was simple as well.

I have uninstalled MCL from all of my media PCs now. EPG123 made MCL redundant.

[Space]

I remember that MCL became freeware a while ago. Is this free version still able to download the logos? The ones offered by MCL were superior to the ones available from SD (at least at the time) for use in WMC. I'm wondering if anyone made the logos available for separate download somewhere? Or perhaps there is a way to download these logos without having the MCL program?

[LakeRat]

Even though I uninstalled MCL, the logos directories are still on my computer. I looked at them to see if any are useable.

The logos from SD are definitely larger, and more up to date. The largest logos in the MCL directory are 225 x 75. I found the logo for G4 in there. That channel hasn't existed since 2014! Most of the newer station logos aren't in the directories. I don't believe that MCL has updated their logos for at least a couple of years. I clicked on "Update Logos" pretty regularly, and never noticed any new ones coming in. MCL was great in its day, but it seems that development was stopped a while ago.

Just one more reason to use EPG123 instead of MCL...


Edit: Changed "higher resolution" to "larger" to be more accurate

[mwpeterson]

Some of the logos from SD are higher resolution, but IMO they don't format as well in WMC as the MCL logos. I think I swapped out something from a third to a half of the logos with the ones from MCL.

MCL big logos are 225x75, EPG123 goes up to 150x50 or thereabouts.

[garyan2]

MCL big logos are 225x75, EPG123 goes up to 150x50 or thereabouts.

Not even close. The logos EPG123 gets from SD are much larger than that... and larger than MCL XL big logos. How long ago did you go through the effort for logos? Early in development, very early, I didn't crop the logos and I only picked the first logo available which typically did not contrast well with WMC's default color scheme.

[mwpeterson]

I may be confused. With Tweak WMC, it says it can set the logo size up to 150x50.

[garyan2]

No, that's the visible size... it can be shrunk down that far and it is based on the height of the row. Increase the font size and/or the row height and you will see the logo sizes increase with it.

EDIT: The largest size the logo can be is 360x270 from SD. EPG123 just crops out the transparent space. So the logo will be around 360 wide or 270 tall.

[mwpeterson]

Okay. I see what I did. MCL was still controlling the size.

[IT Troll]

The MCL logos for the UK are pretty pants. Loads of missing channels and the rest are out of date. I ended up making all my own for use with MCL. I submitted them for inclusion but they were never added. I think it is effectively abandonware now.

I recently tested the SD logos and on the whole they are much better. There were still one or two which were a bit ropey, but certainly much fewer fixes are required.