Random thoughts on EPG123
Posted: Sat Oct 21, 2017 5:23 pm
Uncle! OK, there. I've given in, and went EPG123. Random thoughts:
* it took me several tries to make it work. It's still a bit of a science experiment. I started with a clean start, but got an error about "can't delete ehome folder" or something. Whatever. From there it took me, what--3? 4? clean starts to get a guide. I would get to where WMC thought I had a guide, but no guide data were loaded. Dunno why.
* I didn't mind the clean start so much because I'm OTA and I don't have all that much stuff to set back up. I really, truly only need to record CBS stuff plus The Blacklist. I think everything else I care about is on Hulu the next day.
* Doing all the clean starts and setting up signal, I ended up losing a major local channel. My channel scans went down from 25 to 21 after awhile. Dagnabbit. I had to add a couple channels manually. The NBC station is on real channel 14, and I had to have that. I don't know why channel scan stopped finding it by the time I was doing my 3rd or 4th scan.
* I dove in and, first thing, bought a year's worth of SD. No free trial, nuthin'. I figured, I was going to commit myself to this. It would work, or else. And there's no "or else". And since I was not going back, I decided to "lock the door behind me" so to speak by spending that $25. Now I'm committed (not unlike the old saw about the ham and eggs breakfast--the hen is involved, but the pig is committed). There's nothing better to make you focus on the task and complete it.
* Being a fresh pair of eyes, I would edit the documentation better to explain things to the guy on the street who's not elbows deep into coding and maintaining the project. For example, there's no mention of "And there, you're finished!" to separate the setup tasks from the optional tasks. Also, the steps are laid out pretty well, but the overall organization of the steps needs clarified. For example: the documentation branches out in the middle of a task to talk about optional, other tasks that maybe you'd want/need to do, maybe not--but the whens and whys and what orders of these alternate/sub tasks, and how to go back to them and what steps are needed to finish them, are not clear at all. That's why I say it's still a bit of a science project--you have to intuit the framework of what's actually happening, instead of it being laid out clearly, so when you're doing the tasks you don't have a lot of context. And you don't know what order to do things in if you have to backtrack and look at some of these other items (like my having to add channels manually); you have to intuit that. An introductory section of "this is what WMC does and how they do it, this is were we insert ourselves and take over, these are the things we change and do differently, these are the things you will no longer do in WMC because of that, and this is where we leave off and it's back to WMC" section would be A Good Thing.
* I simply took quick pics of my series recordings screens, and I'm adding them back in one at a time. I hoped that WMC might let me go into the existing recordings and "record series," but no go. No big deal.
* I set up the scheduled task for nightly updates, but I will absolutely check it tomorrow to make sure it ran. I still don't know that I entirely trust this Rube Goldberg machine. But like I said, I'm $25 into it, so it *will* work.
* Gary, my intent is to see this working consistently and then donate to the cause. If you don't see something from me in the next couple of weeks, don't hesitate to ping me.
My Plan A+1 was to just give in and get a Tivo. But I had just bought the new Silicon Dust Quatro, and I didn't want to hassle with selling it (nor am I interested in their DVR project). Plus, it works great. So here we are.
* it took me several tries to make it work. It's still a bit of a science experiment. I started with a clean start, but got an error about "can't delete ehome folder" or something. Whatever. From there it took me, what--3? 4? clean starts to get a guide. I would get to where WMC thought I had a guide, but no guide data were loaded. Dunno why.
* I didn't mind the clean start so much because I'm OTA and I don't have all that much stuff to set back up. I really, truly only need to record CBS stuff plus The Blacklist. I think everything else I care about is on Hulu the next day.
* Doing all the clean starts and setting up signal, I ended up losing a major local channel. My channel scans went down from 25 to 21 after awhile. Dagnabbit. I had to add a couple channels manually. The NBC station is on real channel 14, and I had to have that. I don't know why channel scan stopped finding it by the time I was doing my 3rd or 4th scan.
* I dove in and, first thing, bought a year's worth of SD. No free trial, nuthin'. I figured, I was going to commit myself to this. It would work, or else. And there's no "or else". And since I was not going back, I decided to "lock the door behind me" so to speak by spending that $25. Now I'm committed (not unlike the old saw about the ham and eggs breakfast--the hen is involved, but the pig is committed). There's nothing better to make you focus on the task and complete it.
* Being a fresh pair of eyes, I would edit the documentation better to explain things to the guy on the street who's not elbows deep into coding and maintaining the project. For example, there's no mention of "And there, you're finished!" to separate the setup tasks from the optional tasks. Also, the steps are laid out pretty well, but the overall organization of the steps needs clarified. For example: the documentation branches out in the middle of a task to talk about optional, other tasks that maybe you'd want/need to do, maybe not--but the whens and whys and what orders of these alternate/sub tasks, and how to go back to them and what steps are needed to finish them, are not clear at all. That's why I say it's still a bit of a science project--you have to intuit the framework of what's actually happening, instead of it being laid out clearly, so when you're doing the tasks you don't have a lot of context. And you don't know what order to do things in if you have to backtrack and look at some of these other items (like my having to add channels manually); you have to intuit that. An introductory section of "this is what WMC does and how they do it, this is were we insert ourselves and take over, these are the things we change and do differently, these are the things you will no longer do in WMC because of that, and this is where we leave off and it's back to WMC" section would be A Good Thing.
* I simply took quick pics of my series recordings screens, and I'm adding them back in one at a time. I hoped that WMC might let me go into the existing recordings and "record series," but no go. No big deal.
* I set up the scheduled task for nightly updates, but I will absolutely check it tomorrow to make sure it ran. I still don't know that I entirely trust this Rube Goldberg machine. But like I said, I'm $25 into it, so it *will* work.
* Gary, my intent is to see this working consistently and then donate to the cause. If you don't see something from me in the next couple of weeks, don't hesitate to ping me.
My Plan A+1 was to just give in and get a Tivo. But I had just bought the new Silicon Dust Quatro, and I didn't want to hassle with selling it (nor am I interested in their DVR project). Plus, it works great. So here we are.