Subtle hint there Nathan
Try this for starters. If it works for you I will knock something up more formally for the wiki.
The manual process should be something like this:
1. Download source data for your region:
http://xmltv.locost7.info/2. Extract it to wherever you like (say c:\epg)
3. Configure MC to reference the extracted file under c:\epg - ie, Television > Configure... > Load Program Guide... > XMLTV
Now, I actually use WebScheduler on my server to download daily epg updates and I've configured my htpc clients to grab a local copy of this as required (and on startup). I've created a simple bat script for you though to automate the above process on a stand-alone machine. Call it via MC's "Run an executable to retrieve XMLTV data" option on the XMLTV dialog page or simply schedule it with Windows scheduler.
REM DownloadEPG.bat
REM Downloads and extracts XMLTV guide data
@ECHO OFF
CD C:\EPG
REM cleanup previous files
DEL /F /Q *.xml
DEL /F /Q *.ZIP
REM download the xmltv source
wget.exe http://xmltv.locost7.info/Melbourne/OztivoMelbourne.zip
REM extract it via winzip
C:\Progra~1\WinZip\winzip32 -min -e c:\epg\OztivoMelbourne.zip
Note: Script assumes you have WGET. Download it from here:
http://users.ugent.be/~bpuype/wget/ and copy it to your system32 folder. Also, it assumes you have winzip installed in the above location. Obviously, change "C:\EPG" and "OztivoMelbourne.zip" to whatever is appropriate for you.
Finally, if you schedule the script to run automatically with Windows scheduler, you may need to include calls in the script to stop MC before executing the extract and then re-starting it when complete. I'm not sure so try it. I just have a feeling that MC may place a lock on the xmltv file while it's running which will make updating it impossible.
Cheers,
Ralf.