Topic: What does the EPG look like? (Read 4621 times)

atc98092 · « **on:** June 24, 2019, 02:03:03 pm »

I am searching for a replacement for Windows Media Center. Since I can't upgrade to Windows 10 and keep WMC (I've tried the hacks, none work right with the EPG), I want to find something that is supported. My only use of WMC is to record OTA television, mostly older movies but some TV shows as well. The one advantage of WMC that I can't find duplicated in any other product is the dedicated Movies EPG. It shows everything identified as a movie for the coming two weeks (roughly). I hate trying to wade through the standard EPG just looking for movies I might want to record. I have too many channels available to quickly scan the EPG. I could spend hours searching the EPG when the WMC Movie Guide shows them all with an icon, date and time. There's usually about 350 entries for the coming two weeks, and I can browse through it in about 5 minutes.

So, what does JRiver Media Center offer for the EPG? I can't find any screenshots of the system in operations. Can the EPG be filtered to only show movies, and if so how are they presented? Again, I'm looking for an easy to scan grid that does require constant moving from side to side or up/down. A single scroll in one direction to view everything is desired.

Thanks!

jachin99 · « **Reply #1 on:** June 24, 2019, 02:48:37 pm »

JRiver doesn't have a feature like that but I think it would be really useful as well. Overall I think WMC did a better job at TV, so I still use WMC on Win 7 as my main DVR. I haven't played around with it but you might be able to build a script or expression in JRiver that only displays upcoming movies, and create a view in standard view from that. I'm slowly getting a feel for the DVR capabilities in MC, and I use it to record the occasional movie but I think I'll always use WMC to record TV shows.

Yaobing · « **Reply #2 on:** June 24, 2019, 07:24:03 pm »

You can currently customize Theater View, by adding a Movies only guide. It can easily hide non-movie shows. See attached screen shot. However leaving voids in the guide for non-movies may not be the best thing to do, but that is the way it is.

Currently there is no filter in Standard view to show just movies. It maybe a good idea to add one.

atc98092 · « **Reply #3 on:** June 24, 2019, 07:30:39 pm »

Thanks for both replies. Yeah, just having the blank spaces in the grid isn't much help. Since you're only seeing maybe two hours of the grid, you'd have to scroll down through all the channels, move the grid to the right, and scroll again. I was hoping for a tile view similar to what WMC offers. Sigh... there just doesn't seem to be any alternative to WMC for the Movie Guide. At least I haven't found one yet. If you'd like someone to test a prototype, let me know. I have a test media server as well as my primary, so I can experiment a lot without interfering with my family usage.

Yaobing · « **Reply #4 on:** June 24, 2019, 07:43:51 pm »

But of course you can also change list style so it is not in the "TV Guide Grid" style.

Yaobing · « **Reply #5 on:** June 24, 2019, 07:45:18 pm »

There are several list styles to choose from.

We offer 30-day free trial. You can download and get a feel of it.

atc98092 · « **Reply #6 on:** June 24, 2019, 08:06:48 pm »

I know I tried it long ago, but you're right. I need to take another look. thanks for the reminder!

RoderickGI · « **Reply #7 on:** June 24, 2019, 09:12:45 pm »

JRiver MC can match or exceed WMC TV recording capabilities in all ways but one; MC can't record or play DRM encoded (encrypted) channels.

I built the list view of movies you want for Theatre View in less than three minutes. Seriously. It took that long because I made a mistake along the way. Unfortunately, being in Australia, the free to air EPG data I am currently using is a bit rubbish, and one broadcaster is spamming the EPG with upcoming event announcements. So there are no images for the movies, and the display looks a bit simple. But it is exactly what you asked for, with movie descriptions. See attached image.

WMC was a good product. But it had early troubles. A lot. Before it settled down. Mostly it was what you see is what you get in WMC, and that is how they stabilised it. MC, on the other hand, is very configurable and with a little effort to learn how to use it, and some help from forum users, you can configure it to do some pretty neat stuff. It is a bit more like a toolkit than a fixed solution. Take a look at this thread, but don't be scared by the detail: https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,119385.msg837698.html#msg837698

So MC does, in fact, have the feature you want. It just doesn't come configured to do it in a vanilla installation.

RoderickGI · « **Reply #8 on:** June 24, 2019, 09:22:09 pm »

I took a moment to remove the EPG spam, so you can see the movie list a bit better. See image.

atc98092 · « **Reply #9 on:** June 25, 2019, 06:53:03 am »

Quote from: RoderickGI on June 24, 2019, 09:22:09 pm

I took a moment to remove the EPG spam, so you can see the movie list a bit better. See image.

Thanks for that. That's getting much closer to what I was looking for. I'm only recording OTA stations, so no worries about DRM material. Absolutely have to look closer at this. Thanks!

JimH · « **Reply #10 on:** June 25, 2019, 06:56:09 am »

Thanks, RoderickGI, and others who've helped.

tzr916 · « **Reply #11 on:** June 25, 2019, 08:32:54 am »

One thing theater view MC guide can't do (easily), that WMC does, is to choose a channel (move cursor to left, press ok on the channel) and it would present a full listing of all the present/upcoming programs for that channel, press left and it goes back to the full guide (all channels). Wish MC could do that without some complex setup/search.

jachin99 · « **Reply #12 on:** June 25, 2019, 08:44:25 am »

I was toying around with this, and setting up tooltips, custom library fields and expressions is still a ways over my head. I might have found a similar way to almost accomplish this same task but either I don't know enough about JRiver, or MC may need an additional tag field. I use an XMLTV file to get my guide data and in my XMLTV file movies appear to have a category tag with a value of movie at just a glance. I added a library item under movies called movie guide and started setting up display rules. I was able to create a rule for media type TV but I can't seem to find a value that would filter that list down to a movie.

But there is a category tag in my XMLTV file that explicitly states this is a movie so I'm thinking maybe JRiver could further sort my TV rule down to files with a movie category. I see a tag value of XMLTVID but I'm not entirely sure what that does. Can I use this to specify a category in my filter, or does this specify one specific program. If this field does not work is there a way to add XMLTV category to my sort? If not could that be added? I think this would be a more attainable approach for those of us still getting used to things around JRiver.

Yaobing · « **Reply #13 on:** June 25, 2019, 07:28:25 pm »

I believe we do look at "Category". If we find "Movie" or "Film", we tag "Media SubType" to "Movie". When you create your view, try looking for items whose "Media Subtype" is "Movie".

jachin99 · « **Reply #14 on:** June 25, 2019, 08:02:22 pm »

I'll try that and thanks again!!

atc98092 · « **Reply #15 on:** June 25, 2019, 08:06:29 pm »

I just downloaded, but it might be a couple of weeks before I have to time to install and configure. I'm the broadcast sound engineer for my church this weekend, and that absorbs a fair amount of time over two days.

jachin99 · « **Reply #16 on:** June 25, 2019, 08:41:05 pm »

So I got it working, which I'm really happy about. It took about a minute for me to do, and I'll post a sceenshot of my rules. I applied a media subtype rule of movie as yaobing mentioned, and I then limited to my view to the TV database. I have view nested under guide but I might change that later. I also changed the style of my view to coverflow to match the rest of my views. Now one compliant I have is that I get a lot of duplicates. I have about three weeks worth of guide listings, so I get A LOT of movies. This same view in WMC will give me between 1100 or 1200 movies without duplicates so you can see where I would want to exclude these. I found a modifier to remove duplicates of but I'm not sure how to proceed with that rule correctly so any advice there is appreciated.

RoderickGI · « **Reply #17 on:** June 25, 2019, 09:58:20 pm »

The field you want to test is [Rerun]. If it is set to "1", then the EPG record is showing a repeat (duplicate). But that field value is very dependent on your EPG data having the "Repeat" flag or the "Previously Shown" date set, or if MC knows it exists in the EPG earlier, I think.
Search for discussion on "Rerun" in the forum to confirm.

But the MC Standard View Television Guide has a column named "New", which is not a MC field, but is a calculated field for the display. I forget how that field is calculated now, but if Yaobing can share.
Ah, here is some information: https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,120029.msg829750.html#msg829750

You might be able to use a rule better than the simple;
-[Rerun]=1
or
[Rerun]=[]

Or you may just wish to sort by the movie name, instead of by broadcast time, so that you can see the first and all following broadcasts together, and select which one you wish to record. If you potentially have recording clashes with some broadcasts, that may work better.

You won't be able to see recording conflicts in your View, when in Standard View. But if you try to record a movie with a conflict MC will tell you about it. But you can't mark a program to be recorded in your Standard View View anyway, so have another tab open with the Television Guide showing, search for the movie, and MC will show if there are conflicts. Or use the Theatre View View, where you should be able to mark a movie to be recorded.

Plenty of scope for a good workflow.

atc98092 · « **Reply #18 on:** June 26, 2019, 10:36:32 am »

Rerun would seem to be invalid for a movie. That seems more a TV show episode. But since I haven't delved into this yet, I may not know what I'm talking about.

I do know that in my WMC guide, I will see duplicate entries of the same movie. But I don't consider it an issue for me, as I only have about 350 movies for a two week span to examine. I only have about 20 channels that I am concerned with monitoring, as some of my channels are unlikely to show anything I'm watching for. Shopping channels, PBS Kids, etc.

jachin99 · « **Reply #19 on:** June 26, 2019, 11:36:55 am »

When I applied a rerun filter my view only had about 30 movies. I think that one might filter movies down to premiers, which would be useful in other cases. I'll still keep looking at it and alphabetical order is a small improvement.

RoderickGI · « **Reply #20 on:** June 26, 2019, 06:18:45 pm »

As per the thread I linked to, Yaobing explained that the "Previously shown" date is used to work out whether to mark a program as a rerun. If your EPG includes a "Previously shown" date, then MC will consider it a rerun. So yes, that does sort of filter it down to movie Premiers. But it all depends on the quality of your EPG.

I sorted my experimental View by [Name] and then [Date recorded], which is in fact the program date and time in the MC EPG. That made repeat showing very obvious and in order of broadcast, so duplicates were easy to see.

Of course, if you have thousands of movies in the EPG, sorting first by name may mean you miss seeing ZARDOZ is about to be shown tomorrow, and hence miss recording that classic!

So maybe some more View manipulation could improve it, such as Grouping movies by week first, then sorting within the week by name, then date. I haven't looked at whether that is possible, or how easy it would be though.

jachin99 · « **Reply #21 on:** June 27, 2019, 09:00:32 am »

My guide data includes the previously shown tag so that explains the Premier view I discovered on accident. I'm not sure how I missed this before but I was able to remove duplicates of the name field and get things working so this is a replica of the same view in WMC as far as i can tell. I dont think I'm done with creating these views just yet but thanks for all of the help so far. I have attached a screenshot of my view for an easy reference.

Yaobing · « **Reply #22 on:** June 27, 2019, 09:48:32 am »

@RoderickGI: Thanks for your great help, as always.
@jachin99: Thanks for sharing your setup.

atc98092 · « **Reply #23 on:** June 28, 2019, 10:55:09 am »

Quote from: jachin99 on June 27, 2019, 09:00:32 am

My guide data includes the previously shown tag so that explains the Premier view I discovered on accident. I'm not sure how I missed this before but I was able to remove duplicates of the name field and get things working so this is a replica of the same view in WMC as far as i can tell. I dont think I'm done with creating these views just yet but thanks for all of the help so far. I have attached a screenshot of my view for an easy reference.

OK, I'm installed and have the EPG populated via OTA updates. But I can't figure out where you are building this search function. Looking at your screenshot, my left column doesn't match yours, specifically there's no Theater View in the left pane, which appears to be where you are working. Attached is what I see.

jachin99 · « **Reply #24 on:** June 28, 2019, 01:10:21 pm »

Go to tools on the top left corner then options under that. Afterwards things should look more familiar.

Yaobing · « **Reply #25 on:** June 28, 2019, 01:30:50 pm »

Tools > Options...
then click Theater View on the left pane.

atc98092 · « **Reply #26 on:** June 28, 2019, 02:02:04 pm »

There it is! Thanks!

atc98092 · « **Reply #27 on:** June 28, 2019, 02:42:40 pm »

OK, built the rule, but nothing is populating. Is that possibly because using the OTA signal to populate the EPG doesn't have that Movie flag on the data? Is there perhaps a file somewhere I can examine what is being listed from that source?

Yaobing · « **Reply #28 on:** June 28, 2019, 03:09:42 pm »

That is a strong possibility. OTA data usually are not as complete.

jachin99 · « **Reply #29 on:** June 28, 2019, 04:03:14 pm »

If your going to be setting up rules, and views then it might be a good idea to subscribe to either schedules direct, or percdata for your guide. I can't compare the two because I have never used percdata but if you look around reply 12 there is a snippet of my guide data where the category is set to movie. As a bonus you get automated channel logo population with schedules direct at least. It looks like there are a lot of possibilities for these views, and you might discover new uses for them.

atc98092 · « **Reply #30 on:** June 28, 2019, 04:13:06 pm »

Quote from: jachin99 on June 28, 2019, 04:03:14 pm

If your going to be setting up rules, and views then it might be a good idea to subscribe to either schedules direct, or percdata for your guide. I can't compare the two because I have never used percdata but if you look around reply 12 there is a snippet of my guide data where the category is set to movie. As a bonus you get automated channel logo population with schedules direct at least. It looks like there are a lot of possibilities for these views, and you might discover new uses for them.

Your guidance has been great, I really appreciate it.

I just don't think I can justify a subscription to one of those sources. I just don't use it all that much. I have my WMC set to record every NCIS episode (including LA and New Orleans) and other than that I just want to be able to browse any upcoming movies for potential recording. I don't actually use this computer as a HTPC, instead using a Roku Ultra on that particular TV and an Nvidia Shield on my main 4K set. I think the OTA EPG will suffice for NCIS, and I can keep playing around with other options as well. If Zap2xml provides a richer data source I can try that as well.

RoderickGI · « **Reply #31 on:** June 28, 2019, 06:38:41 pm »

If you want to see what is in your EPG data, create a View of just the TV database. Then you can check if programs have "Movie" assigned to them.

No time to explain now, but I have posted how to do that before, so search for "EPG View" or similar.

atc98092 · « **Reply #32 on:** June 28, 2019, 08:46:30 pm »

OK, more progress made. I tried using zap2xml to retrieve the data and successfully configured Media Center to import it. Another plus with this method is I'm getting 20 days into the future of program information. The Movie Guide view as suggested by jachin99 is now populated with only movies, or at least what is tagged as a movie. That confirms that the OTA EPG info does not contain the movie tag.

I'm very close to what I was hoping for, and if this is as close as I can come, it will most likely work. My question now is it possible to customize the way this information is displayed in Theater View? I'd like to change the info on the left side (now is title, day of week, time, channel: would like title, date of broadcast, time, channel). I was also wondering if it could show as tiles, hopefully with the DVD case image, rather than a list to scroll down through. Again, something similar to WMC.

Again, you all have been of great assistance, and I think this is going to work for me. I'm sure there are lots of little tweaks I can find if I keep working on it.

Thanks all!

jachin99 · « **Reply #33 on:** June 28, 2019, 09:28:40 pm »

Yes you can. I can explain better later but you should see a more button somewhere near the very top of the screen in your view. Select that and then hit toggle list style until you find one you like.

atc98092 · « **Reply #34 on:** June 28, 2019, 09:45:46 pm »

Quote from: jachin99 on June 28, 2019, 09:28:40 pm

Yes you can. I can explain better later but you should see a more button somewhere near the very top of the screen in your view. Select that and then hit toggle list style until you find one you like.

Outstanding, that is exactly the view I wanted. Now if I can change the day of week to the actual date, I've got it made. Thanks again!

atc98092 · « **Reply #35 on:** June 30, 2019, 09:35:39 pm »

If you all can tolerate one final question from me.

I purchased a license yesterday, so I'm overall very pleased with the product. I have the Movie Guide configured exactly the way I want it except for one thing: I'd like it sorted by the broadcast date. I've added a filter to the rule to Sort By, and I've tried Date (a-z) and Date (z-a). Those two change the sort, but neither are putting them in a date/time sequence. My preference would be the earliest date at the top, with the date furthest away at the bottom of the grid. Have I overlooked something simple? My rule looks identical to what jachin99 posted above, except for the sort by date modifier.

Thanks again for all the great help!

RoderickGI · « **Reply #36 on:** June 30, 2019, 10:27:51 pm »

Sort by [Date Recorded]. That is the future broadcast date in the EPG. Sort a-z, as you did for Date.

Welcome to the MC family.

atc98092 · « **Reply #37 on:** July 01, 2019, 08:21:02 am »

Quote from: RoderickGI on June 30, 2019, 10:27:51 pm

Sort by [Date Recorded]. That is the future broadcast date in the EPG. Sort a-z, as you did for Date.

Welcome to the MC family.

Perfect, thanks!

GreggP · « **Reply #38 on:** July 23, 2019, 04:11:00 pm »

Quote from: RoderickGI on June 24, 2019, 09:12:45 pm

JRiver MC can match or exceed WMC TV recording capabilities in all ways but one; MC can't record or play DRM encoded (encrypted) channels.

I have a cable TV subscription with Spectrum (Charter) and use an HDHomeRun Prime with CableCARD to view and record every channel using WMC. Spectrum gave me a tuning adapter to allow it to work with my Prime. I have limited experience with JRiver MC for television because have been very satisfied with WMC. I have tested the television feature with MC and so far I haven't come across any problems with recording or playing channels.

RoderickGI · « **Reply #39 on:** July 23, 2019, 05:57:52 pm »

That's great GreggP.

But either you aren't recording any encrypted channels, or that adapter is some magic. What is the adapter, make and model?

Maybe some Americans who watch encrypted channels would be interested. I don't have the issue here in Australia.

tzr916 · « **Reply #40 on:** July 23, 2019, 06:53:57 pm »

The confusion here is the word encrypted. When all the big cable companies in USA went digital, it meant that ALL their channels are encrypted, requiring cable card and/or tuning adapters. Almost all of those encrypted channels are "copy free" flagged, which JR MC can watch/record. Only premium channels like HBO, SHO, etc should be flagged "copy once", which JR MC cannot watch/record.

millst · « **Reply #41 on:** July 24, 2019, 05:44:07 pm »

Unfortunately, that is YMMV. Many providers mark almost all their channels "copy once." My local Cox is one of them. Local channels are about the only ones that come across "copy freely."

atc98092 · « **Reply #42 on:** August 09, 2019, 09:38:52 pm »

Just to let everyone know, I have the EPG providing everything I was looking for, and have completely replaced Windows Media Center with JRiver. It's even better than ever, since with the great assistance of people on this forum I was able to not only make my Movies only guide, but my recorded files are all correctly named and ready to edit the commercials with VideoReDo and save them to my DLNA server.

A great product with outstanding support. Thanks everyone for all the assistance!

jachin99 · « **Reply #43 on:** August 09, 2019, 10:33:44 pm »

Since you have already paid for videoredo, take a look at video redo auto processor or vap. It will monitor your recorded tv folder, then spit out your movies to a movie subfolder and your tv shows to a separate subfolder. It will also rename your files if need be to user-defined templates, and transcode. It works with ad detective and both the free and paid comskip versions and it's free. I have used it for about a year now and it makes life quite a bit easier.

atc98092 · « **Reply #44 on:** August 11, 2019, 06:45:26 pm »

Quote from: jachin99 on August 09, 2019, 10:33:44 pm

Since you have already paid for videoredo, take a look at video redo auto processor or vap. It will monitor your recorded tv folder, then spit out your movies to a movie subfolder and your tv shows to a separate subfolder. It will also rename your files if need be to user-defined templates, and transcode. It works with ad detective and both the free and paid comskip versions and it's free. I have used it for about a year now and it makes life quite a bit easier.

I don't have VideoReDo installed on that computer, so it would have to monitor a network share. I already have MCEBuddy monitoring the recording folder, and it converts the file to H.264 from MPEG-2. I used to use it for naming the files as well, but J River does a much better job of that, so MCEBuddy only has to do the transcoding. But I was never satisfied with any of the auto-commercial removal software I've tried, so I'd rather take a few minutes of my time and do it myself. That was the original reason I bought VideoReDo, as it supports WTV files. Not necessary any longer, but it's still such an easy tool to use to edit videos that I still use it.

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Author Topic: What does the EPG look like? (Read 4621 times)