Microsoft ending EPG for WMC in January

[luv2chill]

I do not have either of these patches installed, yet I keep getting the end of life message everytime I go to the guide. Has anyone found any other way of disabling this.

According to this encouraging post: viewtopic.php?p=137804#p137804 we won't have to wait much longer.

Edit: I got the "Don't show this again" checkbox as of today 1/31/2020. Woohoo!

[Bee_Dee_3_Dee]

.
"Do not remind me again"
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[plplplpl]

RIP WMC ROVI EPG.

[mercalia]

The last few hours before 1st Feb I was looking at my media center and every time I exited /started the epg that message kept on coming up. I mean every single time. Fortunately when Feb 1st clicked in I got the message about seeing it anymore - like hell I do!

Fortunately Freeview in the UK broadcasts its own epg so MS one was never really needed. But what about the inital setup, presumable for regional transmitter frequencys. Presumably that dont work also? eg you move from say Exeter to York? You dont need the epg data only but the local transmitter frequencys that setting up Media center provided ( as part of the epg service?) Is there any way to set those up without going for the full wack of some thing like epg123 or whatever it is?

[luv2chill]

Did Rovi guide data actually end on 1/31? I haven't seen an update in the thread for a week or so but prior to that people were seeing normal guide data windows stretching into the last couple of days of January. Any procrastinators who haven't yet made the switch who can report if the Rovi guide is no longer providing listings?

[plplplpl]

Did Rovi guide data actually end on 1/31? I haven't seen an update in the thread for a week or so but prior to that people were seeing normal guide data windows stretching into the last couple of days of January. Any procrastinators who haven't yet made the switch who can report if the Rovi guide is no longer providing listings?

See above below.

viewtopic.php?p=137875&sid=36bbb2250926 ... 08#p137875

[Vistaar]

Fortunately Freeview in the UK broadcasts its own epg so MS one was never really needed. But what about the inital setup, presumable for regional transmitter frequencys. Presumably that dont work also? eg you move from say Exeter to York? You dont need the epg data only but the local transmitter frequencys that setting up Media center provided ( as part of the epg service?) Is there any way to set those up without going for the full wack of some thing like epg123 or whatever it is?

That is an excellent question! I'm not aware of any Microsoft announcement regarding WMC setup data for DVB countries such as the UK and Australia where in-band guide data is usable. We may not know until someone actually attempts to set up WMC and posts about their results. (My guess is that retiring the EPG service does mean no more setup data.) I see you were informed about EPG123 on page 1 of this thread. There is also a free option called EPG Collector that could fetch the in-band EPG data. EPG Collector has recently been discussed on page 16 of this very thread beginning here: viewtopic.php?p=137607#p137607. This would actually be a better option over there than it is in ATSC counties such as the US, where in-band guide data is more limited. Options would also include replacing WMC with third-party software such as NextPVR, which has native support for both in-band guide data and Schedules Direct. I'm using NextPVR now myself, and it has a number of forum members in the UK.

[mercalia]

Fortunately Freeview in the UK broadcasts its own epg so MS one was never really needed. But what about the inital setup, presumable for regional transmitter frequencys. Presumably that dont work also? eg you move from say Exeter to York? You dont need the epg data only but the local transmitter frequencys that setting up Media center provided ( as part of the epg service?) Is there any way to set those up without going for the full wack of some thing like epg123 or whatever it is?

That is an excellent question! I'm not aware of any Microsoft announcement regarding WMC setup data for DVB countries such as the UK and Australia where in-band guide data is usable. We may not know until someone actually attempts to set up WMC and posts about their results. (My guess is that retiring the EPG service does mean no more setup data.) I see you were informed about EPG123 on page 1 of this thread. There is also a free option called EPG Collector that could fetch the in-band EPG data. EPG Collector has recently been discussed on page 16 of this very thread beginning here: viewtopic.php?p=137607#p137607. This would actually be a better option over there than it is in ATSC counties such as the US, where in-band guide data is more limited. Options would also include replacing WMC with third-party software such as NextPVR, which has native support for both in-band guide data and Schedules Direct. I'm using NextPVR now myself, and it has a number of forum members in the UK.

well I just tried it on one MC with a tuner and it said it couldnt get the setup data so would continue to use the old data, so question answered. The answer is MS have ended the setup data service also. Shame.

[bencjedi]

well I just tried it on one MC with a tuner and it said it couldnt get the setup data so would continue to use the old data, so question answered. The answer is MS have ended the setup data service also. Shame.

Ut oh! Better image my machine again then! I have one from pre-EPG123 setup but not after

[Space]

Did Rovi guide data actually end on 1/31? I haven't seen an update in the thread for a week or so but prior to that people were seeing normal guide data windows stretching into the last couple of days of January. Any procrastinators who haven't yet made the switch who can report if the Rovi guide is no longer providing listings?

I believe the last guide update was around 1/17/2020. So I had data up to 1/30/2020 @ 7pm ET. I just migrated my system to using EPG123 this morning (2/1/2020).

[garyan2]

I just migrated my system to using EPG123 this morning (2/1/2020).

Talk about a holdout! Nearly 4 years!

How'd it go?

[kb2tdu]

Finished setting up EPG123 on my HTPC running Windows 7. What a great bit of software! Even tho I did the install out of order (frankly the instructions are a bit TOO flexible ) it worked correctly the first time on my FiOS lineup with a Ceton 6-tuner card. So until (if?) SiliconDust can do their cable-card-friendly tuner my old friend WMC will carry on! Donation on the way.

[IT Troll]

RIP WMC ROVI EPG.

Sad that this spells an end of an era for Media Center. Not sad to see the back of the MS EPG service though.

[Space]

I just migrated my system to using EPG123 this morning (2/1/2020).

Talk about a holdout! Nearly 4 years!

How'd it go?

It went fairly smoothly, but I did have one unexpected event... I had asked you if I could use the backup file from my failing hard disk in the transfer tool because the current Series that were in WMC were 1 year old (I had restored a 1 year old image) and was missing some Series as well as had additional ones that I had deleted over the past year.

What I failed to realize was that when the Transfer Tool runs automatically during the install it loads all the Series in to the fresh WMC database. Of course these are the 1-year old Series that I didn't want to use, so I had to go in to WMC and delete all ~150 Series, re-run the Transfer Tool and load in the backup I had saved from the failing drive. So the deleting part wasn't fun, not sure if there was a way to avoid those Series getting loaded (maybe disabling the automatic progression from step to step?)

Also, once I had the correct Series loaded, I had to go to each one and change them from "New & Rerun" to "New" since I now have reliable OADs and don't need that hack to overcome the incorrect OADs in Rovi data.

But other than those things, it went fairly well. There were a couple times where I thought it was hung up, but I just waited and it completed whatever it was doing.

But now that I am using EPG123, you will be sorry.

Just kidding, but I will have further comments and suggestions that you can choose to ignore or implement. I already started a list.

Now I just have to go through my old emails to find and activate a code that a nice fellow sent me way back (currently on the 7 day trial period).

P.S. I am still tweaking my system and noticed one thing that had changed after the install. I used a registry setting to implement a 15 second soft prepad for all recordings (using the WMC GUI you can only use 1-minute increments), and this had reverted to 0 (no padding). I am wondering if this was changed by the EPG123 setup directly, or was a side effect of running setup within WMC.

Here is the registry setting I made to set the soft pre-padding to 15 seconds (note that the value is a negative number ($100000000 - $F (15) = $FFFFFFF1 ):

Code: Select all

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Media Center\Settings\VideoSettings]
"RecordingSoftPrePadding"=dword:FFFFFFF1

I looked at several other registry tweaks that I made and the others did not seem to be affected. Do you know of any other registry settings that may be set to their default or otherwise be changed by the install/setup?

Also, this 15 second pre-padding seems to be used in the Series when it is created, so each Series can have it's own, separate "soft pre-padding" value (although the only way to set a different value for a new Series is to change this default value before creating the Series).

I am wondering if the Transfer Tool takes this "soft pre-padding" value from the backup and creates the Series with the same value, or if it just uses "0", because if I look at all the Series in my old saved backup they have prePaddingrequested="PT15S", but if I look at the current backup file, they all have prePaddingrequested="PT0S". I'm just wondering if that was intentional or if there is a problem with creating the Series correctly, as the value of postPaddingRequested seems to be set correctly and I would assume you would also set the pre-padding in a similar way. Perhaps you need to set it to the negative number like the registry setting and you are using a positive number in error?

[mercalia]

Question is now since MS ended the setup data for Media Center along with the epg data. Is there any way to get this setup data ( for free) without any epg data? As Freeview in the UK has its own broadcast epg. or does any one here have any technical details where it is ( ehome or registry)

[tonywagner]

Question is now since MS ended the setup data for Media Center along with the epg data. Is there any way to get this setup data ( for free) without any epg data? As Freeview in the UK has its own broadcast epg. or does any one here have any technical details where it is ( ehome or registry)

Can you try it on a fresh system or virtual machine? Obviously don't delete your current working system! But it would be interesting to see what WMC would do without that setup data on a fresh install. Can it scan for data? Can you still manually add channels within WMC? (Sorry I'm not a UK user, or I'd try it myself!)

[mercalia]

Question is now since MS ended the setup data for Media Center along with the epg data. Is there any way to get this setup data ( for free) without any epg data? As Freeview in the UK has its own broadcast epg. or does any one here have any technical details where it is ( ehome or registry)

Can you try it on a fresh system or virtual machine? Obviously don't delete your current working system! But it would be interesting to see what WMC would do without that setup data on a fresh install. Can it scan for data? Can you still manually add channels within WMC? (Sorry I'm not a UK user, or I'd try it myself!)

I tried that along time ago and the epg just sat there blank as far as I can remember ( I have a number of Media Center PCs 7 & 8.1)

[Vistaar]

Well mercalia, you could always switch to NextPVR, which can scan all frequencies on its own and has native support for your in-band EPG (as well as for Schedules Direct').

[tonywagner]

I tried that along time ago and the epg just sat there blank as far as I can remember ( I have a number of Media Center PCs 7 & 8.1)

Did you just disconnect the internet when you tried that a long time ago? And it wouldn't advance past the setup? MIght be worth trying again, perhaps in conjunction with trying something like GuideTool on a working machine:

http://www.seanmauch.com/1geek1s-guide-tool/

[Saintor]

Well Rovi is back again. After January 30th, I was left without a guide for a few days and today, I see that my guide is updated until February 16th 8h30PM!