To setup EPG Collector...
1. Download the latest "EPG Collector V040200 Install.msi" here
http://sourceforge.net/projects/epgcoll ... iles/V4.2/
2. Install EPG collector
3. Have a look at the first post in this forum -
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=77177.0 it was the guide I used to configure EPG Collector
4. As mentioned in the above forum, in EPG Collector Go to File -> Create Collection parameters...
5. From the list I chose UK - Freesat
6. In the Tuners list I chose my Freesat tuner (could probably leave this as "Any available tuner")
7. Select the "Output" tab, in the "Output Method" section at the top select "EPG Collector Reports the data to Windows Media Center".
8. From the File menu select "Save As" and save your collection settings.
9. Click the Globe icon on the toolbar to "Collect EPG". Or you can do this via the Run->Collect EPG menu.
10. I didn't change any other values, all were left as defaults.
11. EPG Collector will go off and interrogate the receiver to read the channel data.
12. When finished, no channels were imported into Media Center because they need to be mapped to the new EPG data.
13. Mapping the MCE channels is mentioned in the EPG Collector ReadMe.txt file (Section 5.2.2). Here's the bit you need:
....1. Navigate to the programme guide.
....2. Click on the channel name.
....3. Click 'Edit Channel'.
....4. Click 'Edit Listings'.
....5. Click 'Disable Inband' if necessary.
....6. Scan the list of EPG sources and click on the relevant entry.
....7. Click 'Save'
14. I didn't have the "inband" option in the steps mentioned above.
15. What you need to do is carry out step 13 for every channel, in the available listings you will see the channel name with "EPG Collector" after it i.e. BBC1 EPG Collector. Choose this as the channel listing source.
16. That's all.
I found EPG Collector quite easy to use, though un-intuitive. It latched straight onto my receiver card and didn't need much setting up.
When I get 5 minutes I'm going to set it up as a scheduled task so that it collects the data every day.
To be honest I will probably continue to use EPG Collector after Microsoft fix their EPG servers because the MS EPG never did provide EPG data for all of my channels. It looks like with this setup you can have some channels provided by the Microsoft Servers, and others obtained over the air.