I find the easiest way to use a third-party EPG data source is to create a new folder, such as "Zap2xml", "XMLTVDB", or "mc2xml" where it is easy to get to - such as in the root directory of C: drive. But it can be almost anywhere you want (but don't put this in the Program Files folder or elsewhere where Windows won't let you write to it).
Then download the third party program to that new folder and use Windows task Scheduler to run it every day.
To run Zap2xml follow steps below: Also see screen shot here:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=100319.msg712839#msg7128391) Create folder (i.e. C:\Zap2xml) and download the Zap2xml program to it.
2) You have to go to Zap2it webpage
http://tvschedule.zap2it.com/tvlistings/ZCUserAccountLoad.do?aid=tvschedule and setup a free account. When you register for the account you will provide an e-mail address and password. When you Register you tell the program what location you are in, and what kind of EPG data you use (i.e. OTA-Broadcast, cable, etc.).
3) Then in the MC setup, type this into the "Run this Executable" (in box "#1" in screenshot above): "{path to program}Zap2xml"
4) In the box below, "Pass these command arguments to the executable", enter the "-u {your e-mail}" and "-p {your password}", and any other parameters you want (i.e. the "-D" "-r5" "-s1").
5) The program will output the file "xmltv.xml" to the directory where you installed Zap2xml.
6) You then tell MC21 or MC20 use this "xmltv.xml" file created by the Zap2xml program when it loads its EPG data (in box #2 from screenshot above).
Note: The Zap2xml data is about the same as mc2xml data that is built-into MC21.
So why use it? One, if your not using MC21 (
your still on MC20) this is a good option to get EPG data, and two, if you add the optional "-D" switch, the program will then get/add Season Number and Episode Number to the EPG data (which then provides more detail than the built-in mc2xml in MC21 provides).
Note that the -D option adds Season and Episode Numbers to the EPG data, according to Zap2xml when you add the "-D" option the program uses "1 extra http request per program!" which puts additional loading on the data source.
Tip from Roderick:
You should use the -e commands, "-e = encode entities (html special characters like accents)" so that characters are displayed correctly.
You could use the -D command, "-D = include extra program details (S##E##) = 1 extra http request per program!", but I have found recently found that zap2it doesn't have Season and Episode numbers for all programs, so that may be of less use than I originally thought. If you do use it, and you get the time out message mentioned above, you could use the -r command, "-r <# of connection retries before failure> (default = 3, max 20)" to increase the number of retries. But that loads the server a lot more, and if it is busy and not responding, then it probably won't respond better if you retry more often. But, the command is there to try.
If you do use the -r command, you may want to also add the -S command, "-S <#seconds> sleep between requests to prevent flooding of server", so that the server gets a little break from your downloads to catch up and serve other users. That may considerably slow your EPG data collection though. If you use it, try no more than 2 seconds of sleep. In fact I would start at 0.1 seconds if zap2xml will take fractions, and see how long the collection took before increasing it.
So the basic command line looks like this "zap2xml -u youremail@email.com -p password -D -e -r 5 -s 1" (where -r is for 5 retries and -S is for 1 second of sleep)___________________________________________________________________________________________________________
To run "XMLTVDB":I find this data to be very good, but the setup is a little more difficult.
First you need a xmltv.xml file for the program to utilize. So
you will need to run the stand-alone program "mc2xml" or "zap2xml" program first. Note that the mc2xml we are talking about here is not the same "built-in" program MC21 uses. MC21 uses ver 1.4 and deletes the xmltv.xml file in the process (unfortunately, so it's not available to us).
Since we need the "xmltv.xml" file we will download and run the "stand-alone" mc2xml version 1.5
1) Create a folder where the mc2xml (ver 1.5) program will reside. I use "C:\mc2xml". The output file will be in this folder too.
2)Then download the mc2xml.exe file from
http://mc2xml.awardspace.info/3) When you run the program the first time it will ask for your Zip Code and Lineup (just like shown in Step 10 and 11 above). Then it will create a file called mc2xml.dat to save this info.
3) It is easier to run this from inside the JRiver program (see the screen shot in the post above this one). This creates the "xmltv.xml" file in the folder (C:\mc2xml).
Now the program instructions for setting up XMLTVDB.5) Create another folder for this program. It can be a subfolder to mc2xml (such as C:\mc2xml\XMLTVDB).
6) Install the program to the folder. The XMLTVDB program comes as a "zip" file, so you will need to extract it to the folder you just created.
7) Now you need to edit the "XMLTVDB.properties file.
The location where the "xmltv.xml" file from above is stored needs to be identified (in this example it's at C:\mc2xml). And the location of where the new output file (xmltv.enhanced.xml) is to go needs to be identified.
Note that the entire file is not shown - as only the lines at the top need to be modified. Save the changes as "UTF-8" ecoding and ".txt" file type.
