Poll: did you stay or switch?

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adam1991

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Poll: did you stay or switch?

#1

Post by adam1991 » Mon Jul 01, 2019 12:24 pm

I'm a guy who's been there done that with the guide outage thing; I hit my tolerance limit awhile back when it got to 3 days left of guide with no end in sight, and that made me jump to EPG123. (Of course, the moment I did that MS fixed the guide.)

I'm curious, with the guide service outage going down to the wire like it did this time around, how many found their tolerance limit? How many kept WMC but finally went to EPG123, and how many just took the opportunity (this being summer and all) simply to move to another platform entirely--be it Windows based, or something like Tivo?

Put another way, how many tolerated the guide behavior this time around and will stick with the included Rovi guide even though history shows this to be more the norm than not on a regular basis?

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garyan2

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#2

Post by garyan2 » Tue Jul 02, 2019 1:45 am

There were some that moved to epg123, but not too many. For comparison, that wonderful July in 2017 saw 7,918 unique visitors with 31,089 views of the epg123 website and epg123 got about 2,000-3,000 new users. You can see this last issue didn't see nearly that many... maybe because most of us had already moved over.
epg123Traffic.PNG
- Gary
Keeping WMC alive beyond January 2020. https://garyan2.github.io

stuartm

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#3

Post by stuartm » Thu Jul 04, 2019 9:32 pm

I switched long ago and never looked back. EPG123 is the best thing that has happened to WMC in many years. I fully expect to keep using WMC as long as my cable company supports the cablecard in my HDHomerun Prime and OTA broadcasts are broadcast in a format that tuners supported by WMC can handle. I expect it's possible that 4K cable/OTA may eventually happen and not work with WMC or cable will go exclusively to IP streaming but until then I am set thanks to EPG123. Question for Gary: do you get totals from SD for how many accounts are using their data for EPG123? I am curious if you have a current total # of EPG1213 users?

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garyan2

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#4

Post by garyan2 » Fri Jul 05, 2019 1:44 am

stuartm wrote: Thu Jul 04, 2019 9:32 pmQuestion for Gary: do you get totals from SD for how many accounts are using their data for EPG123? I am curious if you have a current total # of EPG1213 users?
I do, but it's based on the number of users that clicked the epg123 checkbox as software used in their Schedules Direct account. Their last report was:
Application Name : epg123
Active SD users : 3160 (+117) (as reported by users' profile)
Fetch-14 users : 2807 (+97) (data downloaded within 14 days)
The +117/+97 was probably from this latest outage. I expect some of those to go away since MS/Rovi is back and they were on the trial.
- Gary
Keeping WMC alive beyond January 2020. https://garyan2.github.io

john321

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#5

Post by john321 » Sat Jul 06, 2019 4:41 pm

I have been unhappy with my guide data in recent months. I may switch to EPG123.

But, ultimately, I want the Silicondust DVR to work for DRM recordings!

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#6

Post by john321 » Sat Jul 06, 2019 8:24 pm

TBH, I didn't notice that my guide data was down to 3 days. I haven't been watching as much TV lately. Life happens.

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#7

Post by john321 » Wed Sep 11, 2019 10:06 pm

john321 wrote: Sat Jul 06, 2019 4:41 pm I have been unhappy with my guide data in recent months. I may switch to EPG123.

But, ultimately, I want the Silicondust DVR to work for DRM recordings!
Ok, I've finally given up hope for the HDHR DVR. I ordered a Tivo Bolt Vox and two Tivo Vox mini's last night. I also ordered the stuff I need to upgrade the Bolt to 4TB.

So long, WMC and Silicondust!

Rickt1962

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#8

Post by Rickt1962 » Mon Sep 16, 2019 1:17 pm

john321 wrote: Sat Jul 06, 2019 4:41 pm I have been unhappy with my guide data in recent months. I may switch to EPG123.

But, ultimately, I want the Silicondust DVR to work for DRM recordings!
Mine works great using Windows 7
HTPC W7 pro with HDhomerun with 6 tuners using Comcast scanned by MCEbuddy uploaded to network to be watched by KODI

rliepins

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#9

Post by rliepins » Mon Sep 16, 2019 10:24 pm

Still using my W7 WMC system, though I run in parallel with Emby

lurch66

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#10

Post by lurch66 » Tue Oct 01, 2019 5:10 am

I am currently switching over to nvidia sheild as my front end and upgrading my win 7 htpc to win 10 running server duties. (Emby) It has been a fantastic ride for sure but I no longer have cable just OTA. Speaking of that will epg123 work with emby guide? Never tried. I have loved it on wmc though.

volfan6415

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#11

Post by volfan6415 » Tue Oct 01, 2019 5:22 am

I will say this that once i made the switch to EPG123 i have not looked back and my WMC7 system is kicking it in high gear. The only downside is that since the switch my HTPC (with emby for movies) now operates so much like an appliance that i don't find my self needing to tinker with the system anymore. Thank you Gary for the hard work that you have put into EPG123. I went through the trouble to figure out what my password was so that i could login and comment because thanks to you i don't have to login to thegreenbutton.tv as much as i used to because my system is basically stable now and has been since i made the switch almost two years ago.

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garyan2

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#12

Post by garyan2 » Wed Oct 02, 2019 12:52 am

lurch66 wrote: Tue Oct 01, 2019 5:10 amSpeaking of that will epg123 work with emby guide? Never tried. I have loved it on WMC though.
The XMLTV generated by EPG123 will work, but it will violate your membership agreement with Schedules Direct since emby left the open source arena. The spin-off Jellyfin? is open source and approved by SD.

Really though, emby uses Gracenote for guide data so you will get pretty much the same as I can provide with the XMLTV file. They have more current program images, while EPG123 will give you some customizations.
- Gary
Keeping WMC alive beyond January 2020. https://garyan2.github.io

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#13

Post by garyan2 » Wed Oct 02, 2019 12:53 am

volfan6415 wrote: Tue Oct 01, 2019 5:22 am I will say this that once i made the switch to EPG123 i have not looked back and my WMC7 system is kicking it in high gear. The only downside is that since the switch my HTPC (with emby for movies) now operates so much like an appliance that i don't find my self needing to tinker with the system anymore. Thank you Gary for the hard work that you have put into EPG123. I went through the trouble to figure out what my password was so that i could login and comment because thanks to you i don't have to login to thegreenbutton.tv as much as i used to because my system is basically stable now and has been since i made the switch almost two years ago.
Thanks. Appreciate the feedback!
- Gary
Keeping WMC alive beyond January 2020. https://garyan2.github.io

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