INTERACT FORUM

Windows => Television => Topic started by: leo99 on February 03, 2016, 01:47:33 am

Title: EPG for DVB-T Australia
Post by: leo99 on February 03, 2016, 01:47:33 am
Love MC21 TV, very good render, smoothest playback, except...  just about every other free program in the universe does this. Is JRiver going to fix this or is there an easy  solution i don't know about?
Title: Re: EPG for DVB-T Australia
Post by: imugli on February 03, 2016, 04:08:54 am
Welcome aboard :-)

Have you looked at http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=100236.0 ?
Title: Re: EPG for DVB-T Australia
Post by: leo99 on February 03, 2016, 12:52:54 pm
Thank you!

Had a look at that post, but it's all too hard. I think some of that info is dating rapidly too.

The TV side of the system just needs to do OTA EPG grabbing.  :)
Title: Re: EPG for DVB-T Australia
Post by: imugli on February 03, 2016, 02:08:29 pm
The TV side of the system just needs to do OTA EPG grabbing.  :)

You won't get any arguments on that here, but EPGCollector and IceTV are both worthwhile. I use Ice and think it's worth the $$, other's don't though. :-)
Title: Re: EPG for DVB-T Australia
Post by: leo99 on February 03, 2016, 11:06:42 pm
I don't see why i have to pay a fee for something that is free over the air.??  Paying for an EPG service when it usually comes for free is like buying a car without a fuel tank included. Anyhow, I hope they're listening. If i want to record I've got to use something else at the moment. If i just had the old Windows Media Center TV functionality in J River I would  be more than happy.
Title: Re: EPG for DVB-T Australia
Post by: RoderickGI on February 03, 2016, 11:52:04 pm
If i just had the old Windows Media Center TV functionality in J River I would  be more than happy.

Huh? Windows Media Center never collected EPG OTA in Australia. No EPG data was available for Australia, ever.

So you do have Windows Media Center functionality in JRiver MC now. That is, no built in OTA EPG data collection, but quite good DVR functionality.
Title: Re: EPG for DVB-T Australia
Post by: leo99 on February 04, 2016, 05:24:36 am
I get a TV guide with MediaPortal and Next via Kodi (without doing anything special) but not with JR. Maybe I am not using the correct acronyms for this conversation? So no, it does not do what Media Center did. Sorry.

Check this out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_terrestrial_television_in_Australia

They refer to "EPG", "IPG" sent as datacast - See the image down the screen - You can click on these things to change channel and record the program. That's what I want to do.
Title: Re: EPG for DVB-T Australia
Post by: astromo on February 04, 2016, 06:33:15 am
I think you might get value out of Theatre View:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=100299.msg695148#msg695148 (http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=100299.msg695148#msg695148)
Title: Re: EPG for DVB-T Australia
Post by: RoderickGI on February 04, 2016, 03:56:50 pm
So no, it does not do what Media Center did. Sorry.

That's okay. It is just that we get a lot of ex-Windows Media Center users who turn up and complain that MC doesn't use exactly the same keyboard shortcuts, remote buttons, and mouse controls, or doesn't do this or doesn't do that, or just isn't the same as WMC. It is a different program, so naturally it is going to be different.

So, JRiver MC doesn't include built in OTA EPG data collection for Australia, yet (it does for ATSC in the USA). But if you are using MediaPortal and Kodi, then you should be able to set up EPG Collector, and import the XMLTV file it creates into MC. It is free, has had significant improvements recently, and the support is excellent. The data isn't perfect, since it is provided by the broadcasters who don't want to share data, but with the included metadata lookup function it can be pretty good. I would say it is the easiest way to collect EPG data for free in Australia. I'm pretty sure some users of MediaPortal and Kodi in Australia and elsewhere use EPG Collector.

Astromo linked to my thread on EPG in Australia. In that thread is a link to a basic outline of setting up EPG Collector. One day one of us may write a better one, but until then, have a go, search around here, or ask questions.

Yes, you can click on things to change channel and record a program. But you may have a bit of a learning curve to set up and use MC the way you want. Over to you.
Title: Re: EPG for DVB-T Australia
Post by: leo99 on February 04, 2016, 09:13:37 pm
Thank all of you for your help.

JR might be a different program to WMC but it's not much use to me in 2016 as a TV or PVR without an EPG!  That's my point, and the purpose of that is not to complain as such, but to alert the people that make it that it needs some work to be irresistibly buy-able. This is where the  'support' link sent me.   

There is no need in my mind for a batch command solution work-around in an app which is complete, so more importantly than its deficiencies, how do we alert the people that write it so they can make it better? And what is their response?

Thanks again.
Title: Re: EPG for DVB-T Australia
Post by: RoderickGI on February 04, 2016, 09:37:27 pm
Fair enough. This is the correct place to inform the developers of issues, concerns, shortcomings etc.

Just so that you know, providing a built in OTA EPG solution for more (if not all) locations is on the developer's list. It just hasn't made it to the top of the list yet. It will get there, and hopefully when it does it will be as good as EPG Collector.
Title: Re: EPG for DVB-T Australia
Post by: leo99 on February 04, 2016, 10:04:13 pm
Excellent news, thank you. I'll buy a license when it's a goer.
Title: Re: EPG for DVB-T Australia
Post by: struct on February 07, 2016, 02:33:55 am

Hi,

I think I just made freepg.tv work very, very easily.  You simply register with freepg.tv and they send you a link for epg data.  You simply paste this into MC as the xmltv file location and it seems to work. I was worried I would have to write a script to download it to a local file, set the scheduler etc. 

But this seems to work fine with the http link.

Is this a false positive?  If not, we should update the static page as it can't get easier than this.

Thanks
Craig
Title: Re: EPG for DVB-T Australia
Post by: RoderickGI on February 07, 2016, 03:33:41 am
That is interesting Craig. Have you had a chance to work out how good the EPG data is? That is the deciding factor for me. Plus reliability of the service I guess.
Title: Re: EPG for DVB-T Australia
Post by: astromo on February 09, 2016, 05:03:51 am
That is interesting Craig. Have you had a chance to work out how good the EPG data is? That is the deciding factor for me. Plus reliability of the service I guess.

http://freepg.tv/ (http://freepg.tv/)
Quote
This service provides ready to use xmltv feeds for Australian Free To Air (FTA) channels designed for use with your favorite PVR system.

Data is sourced from the community compiled feeds over at http://oztivo.net (http://oztivo.net) and then packaged and compressed for your enjoyment.

I'd still be running the freepg.tv EPG through an enhancer. The EPGC system seems to work pretty well for that sort of work.
Title: Re: EPG for DVB-T Australia
Post by: RoderickGI on February 09, 2016, 02:41:59 pm
That is my concern, and why I asked. EPGC metadata lookup is working really well now with the improvements Steve has put into it.

The FreEPG.tv solution sounds very easy for non-technical users, but if the data needs enhancement then it still isn't a complete solution. Plus my concerns here (http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=100236.msg702059#msg702059) about Tivo/Community sourced EPG data.