Cheeky requests

[aquadextrous]

Hello
Firstly thanks for this great piece of software. I have used WMC for years and always relied on DigiGuide and XMLTV to generate the EPG, but there is limited information coming from DigiGuide and so programme thumbnails and series link never worked properly. Thanks to EPG123 i now have both of these features working for the first time in years.

I use DVBLink to organise my channels (mainly as i have a mix of DVB-T, DVB-S and IPTV to deliver channels and it's a much easier way to manage merging of channels, numbering etc than within WMC itself). What i've found was that if i manually linked channels in epg123 (neither the call signs or numbers match any lineup available from SD so automatic did not work) every time DVBlink made a change to the line up i would lose all EPG data and restoring from backup gave me channel EPG for a few mins before it disappeared again. (I have manually linked over 300 channels at least 8 times in the last week - this is not fun!). As a work around i have renamed all my channels in DVBLink to match the call signs on the listings available, then scheduled the epg123 task for a few times per day so that even if DVBLink causes the guide to disappear EPG123 then automatically matches it up again within a few hours. This seems to have worked and i have had consistent guide data for many days now.

The only problem with this is that now all my channels have silly names like BBC1LHD, ITV1LHD, CH4HDP1 etc instead of nice easy to recognise names. However each listing has a service name like BBC One HD London, ITV HD, Channel 4HD +1 etc which is much more accurate, is there a way to get the software to show these names in WMC instead of the callsign without having to manually rename every channel and then chose custom channel names?

Secondly and more an OCD thing series episode information is all in lower case, ie: Doctor Who s01e01 Rose - is it possible to capitalise this so it shows S01E01 instead - it's a really minor niggle but i'm a little OCD :S

Also I love the WMC tweaks, being able to not just add rows to the guide but decrease the font so things fit better in a busier guide is amazing! Is there any way that the information below the guide (programme title, episode, and description etc) can be added to also reduce it's size? I like having that information there, but it looks a bit odd as its now much larger than all the other guide text.

Finally not an EPG123thing but more a Schedules Direct thing - is anyone else in the UK only getting 7or 8 days data for BBC channels and 12+ days for most others? Is there a particular set of listings on SD that has the longest data?

Thanks again, love the software and it's features, I am so thankful that there are some dedicated people trying to keep WMC alive - when payday rolls around i will definitely be sending a beer or two your way via paypal

[IT Troll]

Finally not an EPG123thing but more a Schedules Direct thing - is anyone else in the UK only getting 7or 8 days data for BBC channels and 12+ days for most others? Is there a particular set of listings on SD that has the longest data?

The UK data gets updated in bulk batches once per week. So a certain group of channels will be updated one day then another day you get another group. So you will find that you listings will gradually reduce down to one weeks worth, then you get an update and it jumps back up to two weeks for that group. For my channels the updates happen Thursday - Saturday.

SD said that they would speak to their upstream provider about the possibility of rolling daily updates (like the Microsoft service) to keep the EPG topped up. But we didn’t hear back on that. It is also not clear if any last minute schedule changes are pushed out between these weekly bulk updates.

[aquadextrous]

Finally not an EPG123thing but more a Schedules Direct thing - is anyone else in the UK only getting 7or 8 days data for BBC channels and 12+ days for most others? Is there a particular set of listings on SD that has the longest data?

The UK data gets updated in bulk batches once per week. So a certain group of channels will be updated one day then another day you get another group. So you will find that you listings will gradually reduce down to one weeks worth, then you get an update and it jumps back up to two weeks for that group. For my channels the updates happen Thursday - Saturday.

SD said that they would speak to their upstream provider about the possibility of rolling daily updates (like the Microsoft service) to keep the EPG topped up. But we didn’t hear back on that. It is also not clear if any last minute schedule changes are pushed out between these weekly bulk updates.

Thanks for the info. I had read somewhere that SD only updates UK channels on Friday or Saturday - my channels did gain a few days this weekend. Some more than others - the UKTV channels have at least 18-20 days worth which is pretty nice. Most channels are about 10 to 13 days but the bbc ones are only a week or so ahead. It’s no big deal I guess now series link is working well thanks to epg123, just thought maybe I’d selected bad lineups

[garyan2]

I use DVBLink to organise my channels (mainly as i have a mix of DVB-T, DVB-S and IPTV to deliver channels and it's a much easier way to manage merging of channels, numbering etc than within WMC itself). What i've found was that if i manually linked channels in epg123 (neither the call signs or numbers match any lineup available from SD so automatic did not work) every time DVBlink made a change to the line up i would lose all EPG data and restoring from backup gave me channel EPG for a few mins before it disappeared again. (I have manually linked over 300 channels at least 8 times in the last week - this is not fun!). As a work around i have renamed all my channels in DVBLink to match the call signs on the listings available, then scheduled the epg123 task for a few times per day so that even if DVBLink causes the guide to disappear EPG123 then automatically matches it up again within a few hours. This seems to have worked and i have had consistent guide data for many days now.

Unfortunately, I've never used DVBLink so I don't know how DVBLink works, or what it is supposed to do. It sounds like another option may be to use EPG123 to create the XMLTV file for DVBLink to use instead of importing the MXF directly into WMC?

The only problem with this is that now all my channels have silly names like BBC1LHD, ITV1LHD, CH4HDP1 etc instead of nice easy to recognise names. However each listing has a service name like BBC One HD London, ITV HD, Channel 4HD +1 etc which is much more accurate, is there a way to get the software to show these names in WMC instead of the callsign without having to manually rename every channel and then chose custom channel names?

For the callsign/naming, first... have you tried using channel logos? They're pretty good from SD. The arrangement is the default WMC behavior and of course is dependent on the source material. You are not the first to comment on this (it's always looked like this for the USA folks, but you guys across the pond got used to seeing readable text in the channel column). It was a non-starter to discuss adding the ability a couple years ago, but with the Tweak WMC function I might be able to do it. I'll take a look.

Secondly and more an OCD thing series episode information is all in lower case, ie: Doctor Who s01e01 Rose - is it possible to capitalise this so it shows S01E01 instead - it's a really minor niggle but i'm a little OCD :S

There were so many different conventions to show season/episode numbers that I knew I wasn't going to make everyone happy. I also didn't want to turn EPG123 into an engineering lash-up where everything is customizable and nothing is understood. I chose the lower-case method so it wouldn't be overpowering to see... though I am starting to like the latest convention of S1:E1. If I throw something in, an undocumented feature, I'll let everyone know.

Also I love the WMC tweaks, being able to not just add rows to the guide but decrease the font so things fit better in a busier guide is amazing! Is there any way that the information below the guide (programme title, episode, and description etc) can be added to also reduce it's size? I like having that information there, but it looks a bit odd as its now much larger than all the other guide text.

I tried... I really, really tried to modify that setting but failed miserably. That particular setting is in the ehres.dll which is a very large resource repository for WMC and no matter what I tried, I could not successfully update a resource in that file. I had no problem with the Microsoft.MediaCenter.Shell.dll for all the other tweaks, but the ehres.dll eluded me. If I ever feel I have not been punished enough lately, I may revisit and give it a try again. I would love to be able to figure that one out. Obviously other folks have been able to do it....

[aquadextrous]

I use DVBLink to organise my channels (mainly as i have a mix of DVB-T, DVB-S and IPTV to deliver channels and it's a much easier way to manage merging of channels, numbering etc than within WMC itself). What i've found was that if i manually linked channels in epg123 (neither the call signs or numbers match any lineup available from SD so automatic did not work) every time DVBlink made a change to the line up i would lose all EPG data and restoring from backup gave me channel EPG for a few mins before it disappeared again. (I have manually linked over 300 channels at least 8 times in the last week - this is not fun!). As a work around i have renamed all my channels in DVBLink to match the call signs on the listings available, then scheduled the epg123 task for a few times per day so that even if DVBLink causes the guide to disappear EPG123 then automatically matches it up again within a few hours. This seems to have worked and i have had consistent guide data for many days now.

Unfortunately, I've never used DVBLink so I don't know how DVBLink works, or what it is supposed to do. It sounds like another option may be to use EPG123 to create the XMLTV file for DVBLink to use instead of importing the MXF directly into WMC?

The only problem with this is that now all my channels have silly names like BBC1LHD, ITV1LHD, CH4HDP1 etc instead of nice easy to recognise names. However each listing has a service name like BBC One HD London, ITV HD, Channel 4HD +1 etc which is much more accurate, is there a way to get the software to show these names in WMC instead of the callsign without having to manually rename every channel and then chose custom channel names?

For the callsign/naming, first... have you tried using channel logos? They're pretty good from SD. The arrangement is the default WMC behavior and of course is dependent on the source material. You are not the first to comment on this (it's always looked like this for the USA folks, but you guys across the pond got used to seeing readable text in the channel column). It was a non-starter to discuss adding the ability a couple years ago, but with the Tweak WMC function I might be able to do it. I'll take a look.

Secondly and more an OCD thing series episode information is all in lower case, ie: Doctor Who s01e01 Rose - is it possible to capitalise this so it shows S01E01 instead - it's a really minor niggle but i'm a little OCD :S

There were so many different conventions to show season/episode numbers that I knew I wasn't going to make everyone happy. I also didn't want to turn EPG123 into an engineering lash-up where everything is customizable and nothing is understood. I chose the lower-case method so it wouldn't be overpowering to see... though I am starting to like the latest convention of S1:E1. If I throw something in, an undocumented feature, I'll let everyone know.

Also I love the WMC tweaks, being able to not just add rows to the guide but decrease the font so things fit better in a busier guide is amazing! Is there any way that the information below the guide (programme title, episode, and description etc) can be added to also reduce it's size? I like having that information there, but it looks a bit odd as its now much larger than all the other guide text.

I tried... I really, really tried to modify that setting but failed miserably. That particular setting is in the ehres.dll which is a very large resource repository for WMC and no matter what I tried, I could not successfully update a resource in that file. I had no problem with the Microsoft.MediaCenter.Shell.dll for all the other tweaks, but the ehres.dll eluded me. If I ever feel I have not been punished enough lately, I may revisit and give it a try again. I would love to be able to figure that one out. Obviously other folks have been able to do it....

Thanks for the response.

DVBlink is now obsolete so probably not too many new users coming to worry about, and matching channel names to call signs from SD has fixed the refresh issue wiping everything anyway.
Also DVBLink doesn’t seem to like very large xml files - my file when I tried this was over 200mb and when DVBlink tried to import it the service would crash and not restart without a reboot. The mxf file epg123 and WMC work instantly. So this is a much safer option.

I use channel logos for the main guide (SD’s logos are all old and outdated and a complete mismatch of styles - I don’t think the UK is their target market! ) so I used MCL to put my own logos back in (again having to rename 300+ logos to match the new channel names!) so the guide looks alright. It’s just the info bar and recording or programme details like other showings where the strange channel names will take some getting used to!

Maybe an option of or upper case or lower case season info would be useful. I’m not sure if having a colon in the details would cause issues with other add-ins. For example I have my recordings set to the programme title and series info eg “Doctor Who - s04e13 Journeys End.WTV” other adding such as TVLibrary or MyMovies then pick up the file name to create their own metadata and organise everything when I place the file in my library. I’m not sure if a colon would be an invalid character. Maybe I’m the only person who does this. There’s so few of us WMC die-hards left it’s difficult to know

And that’s cool on the text size. I have absolutely no idea when it comes to recompiling files and working things out - so never know how difficult something would be! I’m always in envy of people like yourself who can do these things!

Thanks again for the reply!

Ant

[garyan2]

Okay, spent some time researching... scouring through resource files and my Tweak WMC code... and took a guess. Evidently it was a good guess and will be in the next release. There will be a new option in the Tweak GUI to "Replace Callsign with Channel Name." Mind you this is only for the guide display, it does not change the station's callsign.

Replace Callsign with Channel Name

[IT Troll]

Thanks for the info. I had read somewhere that SD only updates UK channels on Friday or Saturday - my channels did gain a few days this weekend. Some more than others - the UKTV channels have at least 18-20 days worth which is pretty nice. Most channels are about 10 to 13 days but the bbc ones are only a week or so ahead. It’s no big deal I guess now series link is working well thanks to epg123, just thought maybe I’d selected bad lineups

As of today, all my channels run up to Saturday 15th, including the BBC ones. This is what I would expect at this point. They will run down to 7/8 days and then get a bulk update and jump back up to 14/15 days. Whilst you can pull more than that from SD, I find that anything beyond this just has placeholder "To be announced" entries.

[jziggity]

As of today, all my channels run up to Saturday 15th, including the BBC ones. This is what I would expect at this point. They will run down to 7/8 days and then get a bulk update and jump back up to 14/15 days. Whilst you can pull more than that from SD, I find that anything beyond this just has placeholder "To be announced" entries.

Hopefully the OP and others don't mind me piggy-backing off of one of the topics in this thread. I have wondered how far out Schedules Direct specific data in the U.S. really goes. I have my EPG123 set up to pull 21 days worth of data. It seems to do that pretty well, but beyond a certain point, show descriptions are just the generic ones for that program, not the specific one for that individual show. The length of time for how many days worth of show specific data I get seems to vary drastically based on the show. For example, The Late show with Stephen Colbert currently has specific descriptions only through Friday of this week (9/7), and then starting again on Monday is it just a generic description of the show itself. However there are other shows on Monday with specific descriptions.

I'm going to assume that due to the nature of booking guests for Colbert's show, they may not even know who/what is going to be on more than a few days in advance. After 9/17, a vast majority of the shows that I have set to record have only generic descriptions, even though the show names and time slots are all correct. Does someone at SD need to manually update all of this information at some point?

It becomes very readily apparent in my list of shows scheduled to record, because without specific show descriptions, WMC doesn't know if a show is a new episode or re-run, so it just defaults to recording it. So for example, I currently have close to 24 recordings of SpongeBob SquarePants scheduled for Monday and Tuesday (9/17 and 9/18), since they are all just generic descriptions. A vast majority of the time, those scheduled recordings will drop off the list as soon as show specific data is downloaded and WMC can correctly see them as re-runs.

Anyone else ever notice this? And I assume this is all normal for Schedules Direct data? Thanks! (Sorry about the not-so-quasi thread jacking...)

[IT Troll]

Most channels are about 10 to 13 days but the bbc ones are only a week or so ahead.

I’ve been keeping a close eye on updates since you mentioned this. This last weekend some BBC channels didn’t get a bulk update so they now have under 7 days remaining. BBC1 and BBC2 are affected, but BBC4 is OK with 14 days available.

There are no errors in EPG123 so I think this is a SD problem. I’ve put in a support call.

[IT Troll]

Listings now run until the 21st. SD confirmed that the update was late from their upstream. Sounds like this might have happened a few times recently based on earlier comments.

I've asked again in the SD forums about getting rolling updates for the UK. If the update doesn't go out on the Friday then I suspect nothing happens until Monday which is effectively Tuesday for us.

[aquadextrous]

Listings now run until the 21st. SD confirmed that the update was late from their upstream. Sounds like this might have happened a few times recently based on earlier comments.

I've asked again in the SD forums about getting rolling updates for the UK. If the update doesn't go out on the Friday then I suspect nothing happens until Monday which is effectively Tuesday for us.

Thanks for looking at this and pushing back to SD. Hopefully they can sort out better updates for data but I guess it depends on their data supplier getting the data to them quicker.

[IT Troll]

BBC4 down to less than 5 days and BBC1 down to less than 7 days.

Seems these are regularly late and not reaching a full 14 days. I really hope we can get more frequent and reliable updates. It is possible to get 7 rolling days from the OTA in-band EPG.

SD are investigating.

[IT Troll]

I've not heard back from SD but the EPG is now showing until 28th.

This is giving me MS/Rovi flashbacks.

[aquadextrous]

Great job with the feedback to SD - also got epg to the 28th. Let’s hope they keep the listings this far in advance