I will implement this capability.
While you are working in that area Yaobing, could you consider the use case where a User may wish to change some setting using the existing dialogues, for example the time an automatic load should take place, but NOT run an EPG load?
I am using EPG Collector and did a lot of testing and setting up, and wanted to test the automatic load as this process wasn't always running when expected, and it appeared to handle error messages differently to running a load manually. That is, when run manually EPG Collector logged an error, but still produced an EPG XML file and MC loaded that file. When run automatically as per the daily time setting, EPG Collector logged the same error message, but MC did not load the XML file. Presumably because EPG Collector had returned an error.
In the end it was a data issue and not a MC or EPG Collector issue, but EPGC runs were taking at least 20 minutes because it was waiting for an error time out. So every time I wanted to change parameters and set the run time to the near future to test how it ran automatically, I had a long wait. That is, I needed to process two runs for each new set of parameters; one when I changed the parameter, and one automatically at the new set time.
For testing and setup, or even just changing the time of the run for any reason, the ability to change parameters and run time to the near future, then let MC do the EPG run as scheduled, would have been a big benefit. Perhaps if completing the dialogues did not perform a run automatically, but included on the last dialogue window was an "Ok" button to just save the changes, and a "Run Now" button to save and run the EPG ?
Also, as the OTA EPG here in Australia is pretty unreliable, I could also use the ability to load multiple XML files from multiple sources within a day, or even from the same source but in a different run with different parameters. Each run would then need to have a parameter in MC to define whether the Guide should be cleared before the load, or if this run should add to the data already there.
There are a lot of other improvements I would like to see in the EPG handling area, like using OTA Now and Next or CRID data to modify recording start and end times, by monitoring that data continuously. The ability to add recordings to MC on the fly from a remote location using tools provided by a third party EPG provider. (Have a look at what IceTV in Australia offer in their services.
http://www.icetv.com.au/ ) but I'll save those thoughts for another time.
Oh, I would like to know just what data MC can handle in XML files though. Fields and formats, for such things as Repeat Flags, Series Number, Movie/TV Program tags, and a lot of stuff that I haven't researched. That would help me decide whether to continue with the OTA EPG using EPG Collector, or use another, better quality source.
Sorry, I got a bit carried away. Poor quality EPG is a big issue in Australia. Very frustrating.
