Subscription Options ?

[LCH]

I don't see a "lifetime" subscription option - is there one ? Under consideration ?

I've avoided Tivo-like solutions because I have an HTPC and prefer to use it for ALL functions. I assumed that PC based PVR's would avoid recurring fees. :(

[dkardatzke]

We currently don't offer a lifetime option and I don't know when we would offer that as an option. However you can choose between the monthly or annual option.

It's hard to avoid a recurring/annual fee for fully integrated EPG solutions for PC based PVRs. Currently SageTV and WMCE are the only fully integrated solutions available for PC-based PVRs. Unless you consider the Gemstar guide for ATI fully integrated. Gemstar gets around the monthly fee by imbedding advertisements in their guide. Microsoft is, well Microsoft. (Actually a Microsoft rep at Comdex told me they had imbedded advertisments in their guide as well.

The reason we charge a fee for the data is because we have to pay for it from Zap2it. As you can see $4.95 month is well below Replay and TiVo from a monthly standpoint.

Hope that helps,
Dan

[RBTConsultants]

It's funny that everybody gripes about paying for EPG's. But for years people have paid for TV guide, and if you buy a TV guide every week it's more expensive than $5 a month. I used to buy the Sunday paper ($1.50 p/wk) just for the TV section before I got my Tivos. Actually I bought 2 Sunday papers because the one I actually like to read had a lousy TV guide, and the boring paper had the good TV guide :-)

And I did buy the lifetime for the Tivos, but that is for the lifetime of the Tivo, not my lifetime, and I had to buy one for each Tivo. I'm not sure how a PC-based PVR could come up with a lifetime model, and I think $50p/year is pretty fair.

My $.02

Bob

[RBTConsultants]

And not to mention I could never click on my TV Guide to record something, and it didn't automatically record things I like.

Bob

[edmc]

SageTV incorporates an EPG

That EPG data costs Frey Technologies on a recurring basis

Barring a Lifetime Option, let's just say it is only fair that
Frey charge a recurring fee for the EPG data

Do people thing the $5/month or $50/year is too much?

If too much, what would be a reasonable price?

I, for one, applaud the efforts by Frey to challenge the
status quo of others (typically $10/month etc...) by offering
the EPG at a lower price point.

On the other hand, should Frey offer a Lifetime Option, we
are all basically making an actuarial calculation. How long do
you think you will use SageTV? How long do you think Frey
will be around before the big-wigs see their value and buy
them out (hopefully making our friends @ Frey rich in the
process)?

I got the Lifetime Option on my ReplayTV but wonder if I'd pop
for the current $250 price if I were buying one today (it was only
$100 when I bought the Lifetime Option way back when). I really
don't know what I'd do with a Lifetime Optoin for SageTV either...

[RBTConsultants]

FYI - Tivo is now $13 a month and $300 for lifetime.

Bob

[donutman]

I do believe there are free options out there that Sage could have interfaced with, rather than taking on the cost of buying/setting up an epg on their own.

TitanTv works with similar software for instance.

[dkardatzke]

Donutman,

The reason we did not go with TitanTV is because it is not an integrated solution. You would have to launch their application in another window just to interface with the guide. Our goal was to have a fully integrated guide that you could view and command from your couch.

Dan

[Mark Lamutt]

Hi donutman,

I've used the titantv scheduler for some time now with my hipix cards, and to me it is really limited what you can do with it. The titantv website is SLLLLOOOOOWWWWW all the time, and at least half the time, their listings are wrong. You have to download a file from them everytime you want to schedule a recording, and when they change formats, you're out of luck until an update is released for your software.

I have none of these annoyances with SageTV, plus I get the added benefits of full guide searching 14 days into the futire, and it's always there, and always correct (at least more correct than anything else I've seen). Not to mention the fact that SageTV searches the guide for me and catches things to record that I wouldn't normally find. After you use SageTV for awhile, it gets really good at knowing what to record to suit my tastes. To me, all of that is well worth $5 a month.

(And while I'm an administrator at the site, I don't get paid by these guys for any of this. I'm a satisfied customer that has been using SageTV for more than 6 months now, and really love it.)

[RBTConsultants]

One question I would have is where does XMLTV get it's guide data for free? There is some development in some areas (TVLobby, part of Mainlobby for instance, or PICOGUIDE) that are getting their guide data for free from XMLTV. I don't know where that data originates from, of if they are just using the "Crack Cocaine" marketing model of get em hooked for free, then start charging (also know as the Bill Gates marketing model).

Bob

[Narflex]

I'd also really like to know where the XMLTV data comes from. I did LOTS of research into this before and it seemed like solutions such as XMLTV just scraped EPG information from websites. This is what Sage did when I first wrote it as a personal project (but I wrote my own scrapers). But for commercial use that's illegal because we're not allowed to redistribute that data extracted from their website. That's why we get our data from Zap2It (Tribune Media Services), and have ever since this turned into a commercial project.

[SHS]

Jeff it may supize you but XMLTV data comes from Zap2It and belive TitanTV and min other TV listings web site all it dose get XML web page and convert to reg microsoft access data base.
RBTConsultants XMLTV can't do that there open source code.

[Crazedz]

Well snapstream has written a tool to allow xmltv data to be imported into their showshifter and are advertizing on their website about no subscription fees tv listings and their selling that product so it is possible to do this.

http://www.snapstream.com

I did some looking around their forum and found this thread discussing this

http://discuss2.snapstream.com/vb/showthread.php?threadid=5214

So i guess it's not illegal to have a tool to import the data so it can be done if that makes sense. :coffee:


Also i was looking at their Personal Video Station 3.0 and it looks awsome the menus and all look great as well as the way they setup the tv viewing and progress bars. But still no support for hardware encoder tuners though they are talking about trying to implament them after they get 3.0 out of beta. I still like sagetv as it ws written from the ground up to work with these types of tuners but i have to say it snapstreams looks much better except for that annoying livetv icon up in the corner while viewing ugh!

http://www.snapstream.com/Products/Products_PVS3_screenshots.asp

[dkardatzke]

SageTV's architecture supports an external EPG plugin so users can import their own data. We designed the application this way so developers could write a plugin and then interface with another Data source. I've heard some rumblings that a few people are working on these plugins but nothing formal yet.

This will then give our international customers a way to import their own guide data so they can experience the benefits of SageTV over SageRecorder.

Keep in mind that there are copyright and use restrictions on most data sources like Zap2it. Here's a portion of Zap2it's Term's of Use....

"All of the information, content and services (collectively, the "Content") within this Service are protected by copyright and other intellectual property laws. The Content is owned by Tribune Media Services (TMS) and its Zap2it.com division, or their affiliated companies, licensors or suppliers. The Content is intended for the personal use of users of the Service only. While you may interact with or download a single copy of any portion of the Content for your own personal, non-commercial entertainment, information or use, you may not and may not authorize others to reproduce, sell, publish, distribute, modify, display, repost or otherwise use any portion of the Content in any other way or for any other purpose without the prior written consent of TMS."

[Lester Jacobs]

The snapstream solution for getting guide data is exactly the point I tried to make on this forum in a previous post. I've been following both the Snapstream and Frey forums for some time now trying to decide which PVR I will buy.

I really initially liked the Frey solution since it supported my Creative card but the lack of guide data for Canada and the inability to import guide data into the Frey database is a showstopper. As soon as Frey either provides a way to import guide data (hopefully xmltv) or supports Canadian listings then I'll be buying their product.

In the meanwhile it looks like Snapstream might be the best bet (except that I wish they supported the Creative card). However the provision of some ability to import xmltv guide data is deciding factor for me. If Frey hasn't provided guide data import functionality by the time Snapstream releases then I'm afraid that I'll be heading over to Snapstream with my cash.

Lester

[Edit: Just saw Dan's post. This plugin architecture may be just the thing!]

[Lester Jacobs]

Originally posted by dkardatzke
SageTV's architecture supports an external EPG plugin...

Where do I get info on the plugin SDK? I'm interested in exploring this further.


Lester

[dkardatzke]

Email us at support@freytechnologies.com.

[SHS]

Lester no need get SDK I know somebody that working on it rigth now.
And yes xmltv Lester.

[Lester Jacobs]

Originally posted by SHS
Lester no need get SDK I know somebody that working on it rigth now.
And yes xmltv Lester.

Can you provide me with any contact info? I'd like to be a beta tester if possible...


Lester

[SHS]

When it ready Lester it be on SHSPVR

[Crazedz]

Oh my look what i did :eek: J/K


Seriously wow this is great the whole epg thing was getting me to but allias i would have ended up getting Sagetv with or without a free guide as i really have to have the dual tv option. Sorry i gotta be truthfull here on this.


But this is great to hear about the plugin ability of Sagetv it makes it even better. Im just glad that this is going to happen and would love to give it a try when it is ready for to go if possible.

[SHS]

This is real surprised
http://www.shspvr.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2495

[Lester Jacobs]

Originally posted by SHS
This is real surprised
http://www.shspvr.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2495

Excellent! When you said "soon" I didn't realize you were talking about mere hours. I will definitely test this thoroughly this weekend. Saves me the hassle of writing my own plugin.

If this works. I'll be buying Sage TV asap.

Finally I'll be able to use my Creative card the way it was meant to be used!

Thanks a bunch!
Lester

[Crazedz]

Yeah it works takes a few steps to setup. But once it is it works well and the data is accurate but their are some spots that show as no data.

[Crazedz]

Ok i got some questions on this it appears the intellengent recordings have decided that i like recordings on 76 techtv right off the bat and seems to default to recording shows on that channel even ones i haven't watched with sagetv before which is wierd. So how does it go about deciding what it thinks i like to watch and what it thinks i want to watch so quickly? Not that im arguing with some of the stuff it picks but it picked them out almost as soon as the guide was setup before i had a chance to tell it anything.

Also i have seen some spots showing up as no data one in particular is a show my kid likes to watch on cartoon network which is on at the same time everyday but the guide shows it as no data everytime however other shows before and after it on the same channel showup. I have checked the xmltv data file and found the the info is their in the data file name and all but it just wont showup in the guide. Is their anyway to fix these so they will show up?

[dkardatzke]

Your problems sound related to the data through the XMLTV plugin. Keep in mind that we use the most robust data source available (Zap2it) to drive the power of SageTV. Once you use a different data source, we can no longer support any issues related to using that source. We have not tested the plugin, nor will we provide any support for using it.

With regards to Intelligent Recording, SageTV is trying to form a basis off some limited watch history. Give it some time before it can start to formalize a better profile for you.

[Narflex]

The one bit of advice I can give is that the EPG DB for SageTV will remove any overlappig airings. So if you add one that overlaps with a pre-exisitng one, the pre-existing one is automatically removed. This is for reasons of updating, since the schedule can change with time.

The 'no data' cells are automatically inserted anywhere that there is no data. So most likely the show that's missing was added, but then another show that overlaps with it caused it to be removed. So check for any overlaps, and also just to make sure the data for the show that's missing is in fact correct itself.

[mlar]

The reason you will see "No Data" is because the XMLTV data for North America is sometimes missing the stop attribute. Rather than assuming that the show runs until the start of the next one, it's simply dropped from the EPG. I thought this was an isolated issue that only happened at the end of a channels scheduled programming for the day (like the Sign Off "show"), so I didn't bother with it. I'll look at it again.

[Lester Jacobs]

I used mlar's EPG PLugin to import listings and that works great. However, I went ahead and modified the plugin source in order to resolve the channels to the correct tuner channel to avoid the remapping step (mlar's code wasn't doing that since he wanted to be more generic).

My modified code works fine except for one little problem. I can look at the guide data, all the channels are tied to the correct tuner channel, but I cannot view the TV. What I mean is that if I'm on the guide data screen and I click the TV icon, nothing happens.

I realize that the EPG import is completely unsupported but does anyone have an idea what might be going wrong here?

Regards
Lester

[dkardatzke]

The TV icon will only work if you are currently recording or watching something. If you just started SageTV and it wasn't recording anything nor have you watched anything yet, it won't know where to go. At that point, you have to choose something to watch from the SageGuide.

[olyar15]

Lester, any chance you coud send me a copy of the modified plugin? I would like to try this out, as I am also in Canada.

[Lester Jacobs]

Originally posted by olyar15
Lester, any chance you coud send me a copy of the modified plugin? I would like to try this out, as I am also in Canada.

Well, since it's not really my code, I'm working with mlar to release a generic version that works for everyone. That way we avoid having lots of different versions of the same thing which avoids a lot of confusion. Hang tight for a little while longer...

Cheers
Lester

[Lester Jacobs]

Originally posted by dkardatzke
The TV icon will only work if you are currently recording or watching something. If you just started SageTV and it wasn't recording anything nor have you watched anything yet, it won't know where to go. At that point, you have to choose something to watch from the SageGuide.

Thanks! This worked. The restriction that I have to choose something from the Sage Guide seems a little unintuitive though. Intuitively I would expect that if I clicked on the TV icon I would always get to the TV. It should either go back to the channel that I was watching last or, if it doesn't know where to go, then simply pick an initial channel (say the lowest numbered tuner channel). Simply doing nothing confuses the user, IMHO. Perhaps at the very least it could display a dialog saying something like "Please choose a show from the Guide".

Cheers
Lester

[dkardatzke]

Thanks for the input Lester. We are currently working on a complete UI redesign for v2.0 so we'll keep that in mind to see how it fits in.

[Narflex]

Dan's actually incorrect on that one.

It does already do what you're asking Lester. If you hit TV, it should always go to the TV. It will find a default channel and show something if there's nothing preselected.

[Lester Jacobs]

Originally posted by Narflex
Dan's actually incorrect on that one.

It does already do what you're asking Lester. If you hit TV, it should always go to the TV. It will find a default channel and show something if there's nothing preselected.

Well, it doesn't seem to do that in my install. Here's the scenario under which it doesn't work:

1) Install Sage TV
2) Setup Sage TV but do not select Sage TV Service
3) Complete setup and exit Sage TV
4) Modify sage.properties file to point to the EPG plugin
5) Restart Sage TV and run Setup
6) This time setup Sage TV Service at which point Sage TV will use the EPG Plugin to get the listings data
7) Complete setup
8) Click the TV button
9) Nothing happens

However if at this point you go to the Sage Guide and choose something to watch then the TV does appear.

I do believe however that once you have gotten the TV to appear once then you can subsequently always get to the TV by clicking the TV button. It seems that this weird behaviour occurs only after a fresh listings import.

It's not a critical error, but it can be confusing.

Cheers
Lester

[Lester Jacobs]

Originally posted by Crazedz
...Also i have seen some spots showing up as no data one in particular is a show my kid likes to watch on cartoon network which is on at the same time everyday but the guide shows it as no data everytime however other shows before and after it on the same channel showup. I have checked the xmltv data file and found the the info is their in the data file name and all but it just wont showup in the guide. Is their anyway to fix these so they will show up?

One of the tools included in the xmltv distro is the tv_sort utility. Among other things, it will fix the "no data" problem. Usually the "no data" problem results when there is no "stop" attribute in the xmltv data. tv_sort adds stop times by "guessing" using the start time of the next show.

So run tv_grab_na or whatever then run tv_sort on the resulting output.

Cheers
Lester

[Crazedz]

Originally posted by Lester Jacobs
One of the tools included in the xmltv distro is the tv_sort utility. Among other things, it will fix the "no data" problem. Usually the "no data" problem results when there is no "stop" attribute in the xmltv data. tv_sort adds stop times by "guessing" using the start time of the next show.

So run tv_grab_na or whatever then run tv_sort on the resulting output.

Cheers
Lester

Ok i gave that a try and it did seem to look through the file and dumped a list of the shows without stop times at the end but it didn't write it to the file. I think i may have given the wrong command to do this or something. It's kinda hard to know as im not used to giving commands through a command line or batch file. But anyway here's the bat file listing maybe you can see where i went wrong.

set tz=CST6CDT
xmltv tv_grab_na --configure
xmltv tv_grab_na --days 8 --listings-overwrite true --listings "C:\Program Files\Frey Technologies\SageTV\xmltv-0.5.9-win32\listings.tmp"
xmltv tv_sort "C:\Program Files\Frey Technologies\SageTV\xmltv-0.5.9-win32\listings.tmp"
copy "C:\Program Files\Frey Technologies\SageTV\xmltv-0.5.9-win32\listings.tmp" "C:\Program Files\Frey Technologies\SageTV\epgdata.xml"

it runs through and downloads the data fine then it runs the sort command which appears to work and displays the shows without stop times but then doesn't change the file it just copies the tmp to the sage folder as xml file with lack of stop times on the shows still their.

[Lester Jacobs]

Originally posted by Crazedz
...xmltv tv_sort "C:\Program Files\Frey Technologies\SageTV\xmltv-0.5.9-win32\listings.tmp"
...

You need to use the --output <filename> option to get tv_sort to write the modified file instead of displaying it to screen. So you would do something like:

xmltv tv_grab_na --days 8 --listings foo.xml
xmltv tv_sort --output sorted_foo.xml foo.xml
copy sorted_foo.xml <sage_dir>

Cheers
Lester

[Crazedz]

Thanks lester that seems to have done it i'll have to give it a test to see if it fixes the nodata listings in the guide now.

[justme]

Thanx for the tip Lester.

I went on a wild ramble on SHSPVR(Im edtee there) about how to "fix" this.:eek: Guess the old saying is true "read the bleepping manual" or documentation in this case.

[justme]

Ok I downloaded 2 days of data. I ran tv_sort on the file. I then checked the file and "stop" was added where missing. I then copied the new epgdata.xml file in to the SageTV directory. While SageTV was closed I renamed wiz.bin and wiz.bak. I then did a complete setup with the "setup wizard".

Good news: I no longer had to remap my channels, like I did before I "sorted" epgdata.xml

Bad news:I still have the "no data" showing up on all channels with shows occurring around midnight. So strange, since I can see the "stop" set for "The Tonight Show" in the "sorted" file, but "no data" in SageTV for that time.

Its progress, Am I doing something wrong? Did some else get this to work? Could mlar's plugin be not properly handling midnight shows?

[Lester Jacobs]

Hi,

I have modified the EPG plugin originally submitted by mlar to add the following features:

1) Channel numbers are now assigned correctly without any remapping required.
2) Logic has been added to flag reruns (previously all shows were assumed to be first runs).

Caveats:
1) This is only designed to work for North American users who use the tv_grab_na xmltv grabber
2) Make sure that your tv_grab_na.conf file (in your xmltv directory) only has unique instances of each channel. For instance in my setup I have 2 channel 26's in my tv_grab_na.conf file so I commented out one of them (put a'#' at the beginning of the line)

For install instructions check mlar's webpage http://mta.techno.org/epg/

I have attached the plugin (including source)
UPDATE: If you downloaded the attachment before 7am May 2, you may want to download it again. The rerun logic appeared to be not working for some people, so I updated the file.

Regards
Lester

[Lester Jacobs]

Originally posted by justme
Ok I downloaded 2 days of data. I ran tv_sort on the file. I then checked the file and "stop" was added where missing. I then copied the new epgdata.xml file in to the SageTV directory. While SageTV was closed I renamed wiz.bin and wiz.bak. I then did a complete setup with the "setup wizard".

Good news: I no longer had to remap my channels, like I did before I "sorted" epgdata.xml

Bad news:I still have the "no data" showing up on all channels with shows occurring around midnight. So strange, since I can see the "stop" set for "The Tonight Show" in the "sorted" file, but "no data" in SageTV for that time.

Its progress, Am I doing something wrong? Did some else get this to work? Could mlar's plugin be not properly handling midnight shows?

Here's something else to try; use the --by-channel option on tv_sort if you are still getting No Data errors, i.e:

xmltv tv_sort --by-channel --output sorted.xml unsorted.xml

Remember though that the last day of your listings will always have problems at the 11:30 pm - 12:30 am timeslot (or thereabouts) since there are no subsequent shows to "guess" the end time from. However all intermediate days should be fine. This shouldn't be a problem as long as you always update your listings at least one day before they expire.

Regards
Lester

[olyar15]

Thanks Lester for the updated plugin. However, I am also having problems with "no data" for shows around midnight. Any show that ends or continues past midnight shows no data. Tried sorting both ways with similar results..Even tried manually editing the xml file and still no change. Weird.

[olyar15]

OK, looked at the xml file, and the problem is definitely in how xmltv inserts the stop times for shows that don't have a stop time. Usually this is for shows that cross over midnite. What seems to happen is that xmltv finds the next show on the channel and instead of using the start time of the next show as the stop time of the previous show, it instead uses the STOP time of the next show as the stop time of the previous show, causing an overlap.

This seems like an easy bug to fix. Of course, I can't program if my life depended on it, so I don't know how to go about it. Any gurus here willing to tackle this problem?

[justme]

What version of XMlTV are you using Im using 0.5.9. I thought of upgrading to 0.5.10, but another program I use has some problems with 0.5.10. I will try 0.5.10 today, I will let you know if it makes any difference.

I wonder how a gapping error like this has made it through XMLTV. Especially when the fix is so simple, for some one who can program any way.;) Heck even a simple VBscript should be able to set the correct "stop". I'm not mocking mlar or Lester. I really appreciate your help. Could the plugin try to fix the "stop" itself? Since it looks like tv_sort may even make the "no data" worse.

That's it I'm starting to learn to program tonight. I'll try VB since i did have some Basic experience about 15 years ago(a TRS80 COCO) :eek2: Don't expect anything from me though, it will take a long time to get up to speed.

[justme]

Succes!:D

Ok both 0.5.9 and 0.5.10 seem to have the tv_sort bug, So I tried 0.5.8 . This was a partial success the data would download and tv_sort worked right.:) ,but the data was off by one hour.:(

The solution though not eleqant, is to configure and download with .9 or .10. And then use tv_sort from 0.5.8 on the data. The result when copied into the Sagetv dir, is corect time and the "no data" problem is gone.:)

This works great for me. At least so far as I can tell, no telling if something else cropped up. I would like to see if it works for someone else.

It's best to make batch file because of all the commands, copying and changing dirs.

PS:Make sure the different versions of XMLTV are in different dirs.

[Lester Jacobs]

Originally posted by justme
Succes!:D

Ok both 0.5.9 and 0.5.10 seem to have the tv_sort bug, So I tried 0.5.8 . This was a partial success the data would download and tv_sort worked right.:) ,but the data was off by one hour.:(

The solution though not eleqant, is to configure and download with .9 or .10. And then use tv_sort from 0.5.8 on the data. The result when copied into the Sagetv dir, is corect time and the "no data" problem is gone.:)

This works great for me. At least so far as I can tell, no telling if something else cropped up. I would like to see if it works for someone else.

It's best to make batch file because of all the commands, copying and changing dirs.

PS:Make sure the different versions of XMLTV are in different dirs.

Strange! I'm having absolutely no problems with "No Data" sections in the guide using the tv_sort from xmltv 0.5.9. I guess our data feeds from xmltv are different. However, now that you've identified the problem, please send an email over to xmltv-devel@lists.sourceforge.net explaining the issue (try to keep the explanation strictly in terms of xmltv since they're not likely to be familiar with Sage). Those guys are the ones responsible for maintaining the xmltv code. Although the plugin could technically fix the issue if we added some code to it, the fix properly belongs to the xmltv guys. You can also subscribe to the XMLTV mailing lists at http://sourceforge.net/mail/?group_id=39046

Regards
Lester

[justme]

Hi Lester,

Question: What OS are you using? I have an XP pro box.

By the way all my builds where pre-compiled win32 zipped Bins and downloaded from the sourceforge site. Ver 0.5.10 was the 2003-04-25 16:00 build, 0.5.9 was 2003-04-05 15:00, and 0.5.8 was 2003-02-14 16:00 .

Sorry for all the data and the question. I just want to verify all my facts before l send email as you suggested. I hope I can explain it coherrently, this is the first time I've sent an error report to a sourceforge project.

[olyar15]

Wow, great news. I will try 0.5.8 when I get home. I had tried 5.9 and 5.10 before. Lester, I wonder if your listings all have stop times, even for the last show of the day? If that is the case, you will never run into the Stop bug.

Now for a question to the Sage folks: Do I still have to buy a subscription in order to continue to use the XMLTV listings? Right now I am using the Trial password to activate the EPG. What happens after 2 weeks when the trial expires?

[Narflex]

Charles,

While you are more than welcome to purchase a subscription, if you're not actually downloading any data from us, then you're not required to.

Thanks,

[justme]

Hi peolple, I need your help for the XMLTV situation.

I've sent an email to XMLTV and gottten a response. They can not repeat the bug, just as some here on this thread have had good luck. What I need is the OS and XMLTV version you're using and your timezone. If the you are using two versions of XMLTV as a workaround, please list the version you use to download and the version you are using to sort with. It would help if some people who did not have problems responded as well. In your case please state your success with XMLTV.

EX: Win XP Pro SP1; xmltv 0.5.9 failed tv_sort(0.5.8 to sort); and EST.

I would really apreciate your help as the SHSPVR forum has been killed by love(too much use). It may only be temporary but, now you all are the only peolpe I can talk to who have had experience with this.

[olyar15]

I am using WinXP SP1, xmltv 0.5.8 only, PST
Tried both 0.5.9 and 0.5.10, both had the problem.
Listings are for Vancouver, Canada.

[Lester Jacobs]

WinXP Pro SP1, xmltv 0.5.9 with tv_sort from xmltv 0.5.9. Listings for Toronto, Canada (Rogers). Timezone is EDT.

Cheers
Lester

[Crazedz]

Win XP Pro SP1; xmltv 0.5.9 &xmltv0.5.10 failed tv_sort(0.5.8 to sort); U.S. CST6CDT.
Listings are for Minneapolis Minnesota.

[justme]

Thanx alot guys,
Hopefully this will give the XMLTV developers enough info to find the bug, and why it only occurs on some systems.

[ron.smythe]

Hi,

Does anyone know what I am doing wrong, I keep getting the error only 4 days of data when I do an XMLTV download?

C:\Program Files\Frey Technologies\SageTV\XMLTV>xmltv tv_grab_uk --days 8 --output file epgdata.xml
Timezone is +0100
using config filename ./.xmltv/tv_grab_uk.conf
getting list of channels: ##################################################
channel extreme.filmfour.channel4.com (656) not seen on site, remove from channe
l_ids file
channel world.filmfour.channel4.com (655) not seen on site, remove from channel_
ids file
film:12: unknown channel id extreme.filmfour.channel4.com
film:20: unknown channel id world.filmfour.channel4.com

Copyright (C) 2001 Ananova Ltd
www.ananova.com
For terms and conditions of use please see
http://www.ananova.com/about/terms.html

no channel package or region includes S4C2 (658.tv-listings.ananova.com, 658)
no channel package or region includes UK Horizons (Plus 1) (704.tv-listings.anan
ova.com, 704)
grabbing 90 channels from 587 available
downloading listings: ###############################no content for day 5, assum
ing --days 4
parsing: ##################################################
writing: ##################################################

C:\Program Files\Frey Technologies\SageTV\XMLTV>

Thanks.

[epa]

It seems to be true that the bug with XMLTV's tv_sort is intermittent. I cannot reproduce it myself (using the Perl scripts on Linux), perhaps it only happens with the Windows xmltv.exe. But even then it might not always occur. If you have seen the problem with tv_sort failing to add stop times correctly please send me a message with the system you use and the version of xmltv (also mention whether you're using the Windows binary version or the source distribution).

To the person who couldn't get more than four days of listings from tv_grab_uk: unfortunately that's because the site it fetches from has only four days of data.

[justme]

Hi Ed,

It's great to see an XMLTV person here. I'm amazed at your response time, once my ISP actually sends you my email;) .

Thanx for the help with this, Mike

[Tag]

Hi all,

I'm hoping someone here can point me in a direction. I've tried to piece together info from this thread but still hitting a wall.

I too am getting a "no data" problem however I think mine may be different. I have no data for everything listed in the guide...not just around midnight or at end of 7 days.

I have tried XMLTV 5.8, 5.9 and 5.10 with the options and sorts listed in this thread. I tried the plugin listed in the thread and the one on MLars site. I did add the EPGPlugin to the sage.properties file and I have Xerces, in my Sage directory, my JAVA directory and my JRE directory. I think I'm doing everything correctly but still no data.

It's almost as if the plugin isn't running at all. Is there any way to verify this or debug further?

Thanks for any help anyone can provide.

[Lester Jacobs]

Originally posted by Tag
Hi all,

I'm hoping someone here can point me in a direction. I've tried to piece together info from this thread but still hitting a wall.

I too am getting a "no data" problem however I think mine may be different. I have no data for everything listed in the guide...not just around midnight or at end of 7 days.

I have tried XMLTV 5.8, 5.9 and 5.10 with the options and sorts listed in this thread. I tried the plugin listed in the thread and the one on MLars site. I did add the EPGPlugin to the sage.properties file and I have Xerces, in my Sage directory, my JAVA directory and my JRE directory. I think I'm doing everything correctly but still no data.

It's almost as if the plugin isn't running at all. Is there any way to verify this or debug further?

Thanks for any help anyone can provide.

Strange. Definitely works for me. I assume that you've rerun the Setup from within SageTV and chosen the XMLTV lineup? Also the speeling of the epg plugin in sage.properties is extremely important. The plugin name is xmltv.XMLTVImportPlugin. Finally the three plugin classes must be in a subdirectory called xmltv in the SageTV directory.

Failing that, please list the EXACT steps you are taking starting with installing SageTV and maybe we can figure out whether you might be missing a step.

Regards
Lester

[Narflex]

If you set:
HKLM\Software\Frey Technologies\Common\consolewin=1 as a DWORD in the registry,there's you may see some debug info for the plugin (if it has errors).

[Tag]

Thanks all for the help,

I turned on the console window and not seeing any messages.

Double-checked spelling and capitalization and it is correct.

However, this:

rerun the Setup from within SageTV and chosen the XMLTV lineup

may be my missing step. I've rerun setup multiple times but I do not see "XMLTV Lineup" . When running setup Wizard, I see the following items:
1) Complete/Addmodify/Remove....I select remove and remove all sources
2) Rerun Setup Wizard - Brings up a welcome to setup screen. I select Enter to continue
3) Select video capture. Only one option: Hauppauge WinTV PVR PCI II Capture. Select it
4) Enter SageTV Access Code - I select "Do Not have Access Code"
5) Select Input: S/Composite/Antenna/Cable - I select Cable
6) Complete Setup

After that, entering "Channel Setup" shows Channels 1-158 that all say Hauppauge WinTV PVR PCI II Capture TV Tuner.

I'm using v1.2.8 of Sage TV

If this all looks right, I will uninstall everything and document installation steps.

Thanks again for the help...I really appreciate it!

[Lester Jacobs]

Originally posted by Tag
Thanks all for the help,

I turned on the console window and not seeing any messages.

Double-checked spelling and capitalization and it is correct.

However, this:



may be my missing step. I've rerun setup multiple times but I do not see "XMLTV Lineup" . When running setup Wizard, I see the following items:
1) Complete/Addmodify/Remove....I select remove and remove all sources


Ah! I see the problem.
At this stage you should be choosing "Modify", to modify an existing setup. When you get to the access code screen, use access code "TRIAL" and then zip code 00000. You should then see XMLTV Lineup as a choice (if not choose Dish Network).
Continue as normal and your guide data should be imported
(I assume that you have also prepared an "epgdata.xml" file previously using the xmltv tools?

Please check mlar's webpage as he has very specific details on how to install the plugin including the steps I mentioned above.

Regards
Lester

[justme]

Off current topic:This refers to the midnight "no data" for some users in 0.5.9/10. It looks like they found the bug, at least the fix works fine for me in 0.5.10 now. I am posting part of an email I got from Ed below. I doubt he minds since it seems he would like feedback on this.

Ed wrote: The bug you found in tv_sort seems to be a bug in the 5.40 version of
the Date::Manip module. People running the Perl source code should
get the latest alpha release of Date::Manip from
<http://www.cise.ufl.edu/~sbeck/DateManip.tar.gz>. People running the
Windows executable can get a development version at
<http://ese-cad.com/xfer/xmltv.exe> (although this has other changes
besides the date bug fix).

The bug will be fixed in the next xmltv release, although it may
involve making a non-standard release of the Date::Manip module as
well.


For me copying the XMLTV.exe from the second url, over the xmltv.exe in my 0.5.10 dir allowed me to just use 0.5.10 for downloading and sorting. As Ed said there are other changes, since this is built from the lastest alpha code but it works great for me. Appearently the bug has something to do with wether you set your TZ or let XMLTV chose it.

[Tag]

Well with one last email to support, I appear to be working!!!

Thanks a lot to Frey Support, Lester and everyone else that helped out

[Mr_X]

Having some trouble with XMLTV and the plug-in for SageTV...
Here are my command lines:

xmltv tv_grab_na >epgunsorted.xml
xmltv tv_sort --output epgdata.xml epgunsorted.xml

tv_sort takes a LONG time, and outputs plenty of overlaps, but that's not what my problem is! =)

It's when I go through the setup wizard in Sage, I select the input, etc. etc. and select XMLTV data as my provider, and the channel order is all mixed up!

Channel 2 is listed as "Channel 25 TNNC"
Channel 3 is listed as "Channel 28 CMT"
Channel 4 is listed as "Channel 26 ARTSC"

and so on. Channel 25 IS TNNC, but why is it coming up as Sage's channel 2?

I took a look at EPGDATA.XML, and here's how it starts:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<!DOCTYPE tv SYSTEM "xmltv.dtd">

<tv date="20030602002429" source-info-url="http://www.zap2it.com" source-info-name="Zap2It" generator-info-name="tv_grab_na V2.20030426" generator-info-url="http://sourceforge.net/projects/xmltv">
<channel id="10 LOCAL">
<display-name>Channel 10 LOCAL</display-name>
</channel>
<channel id="11 CBXFT">
<display-name>Channel 11 CBXFT</display-name>
</channel>
<channel id="12 KREM">
<display-name>Channel 12 KREM</display-name>
<icon src="http://tvlistings2.zap2it.com/tms_network_logos/cbs_30.jpg" />
</channel>
<channel id="13 ACCNET">
<display-name>Channel 13 ACCNET</display-name>
<icon src="http://tvlistings2.zap2it.com/tms_network_logos/access.gif" />
</channel>
<channel id="14 KSPS">
<display-name>Channel 14 KSPS</display-name>
<icon src="http://tvlistings2.zap2it.com/tms_network_logos/pbs_30.jpg" />
</channel>
<channel id="15 CBNEW">
<display-name>Channel 15 CBNEW</display-name>
<icon src="http://tvlistings2.zap2it.com/tms_network_logos/cbc_news.gif" />
</channel>
<channel id="15 VOICE">
<display-name>Channel 15 VOICE</display-name>
<icon src="http://tvlistings2.zap2it.com/tms_network_logos/voicep.gif" />
</channel>
<channel id="16 KHQ">
<display-name>Channel 16 KHQ</display-name>
<icon src="http://tvlistings2.zap2it.com/tms_network_logos/nbc_30.jpg" />
</channel>
<channel id="17 TREEC">
<display-name>Channel 17 TREEC</display-name>
<icon src="http://tvlistings2.zap2it.com/tms_network_logos/treehouse.gif" />
</channel>
<channel id="18 MUCHMUSIC">
<display-name>Channel 18 MUCHMUSIC</display-name>
<icon src="http://tvlistings2.zap2it.com/tms_network_logos/muchmusic_30.jpg" />
</channel>
<channel id="19 CWEA">
<display-name>Channel 19 CWEA</display-name>
</channel>
<channel id="20 YTVP">
<display-name>Channel 20 YTVP</display-name>
<icon src="http://tvlistings2.zap2it.com/tms_network_logos/ytv.gif" />
</channel>
<channel id="21 TSN">
<display-name>Channel 21 TSN</display-name>
<icon src="http://tvlistings2.zap2it.com/tms_network_logos/tsn.jpg" />
</channel>
<channel id="22 KAYU">
<display-name>Channel 22 KAYU</display-name>
<icon src="http://tvlistings2.zap2it.com/tms_network_logos/fox_30.jpg" />
</channel>
<channel id="23 WP">
<display-name>Channel 23 WP</display-name>
</channel>
<channel id="24 TLC">
<display-name>Channel 24 TLC</display-name>
<icon src="http://tvlistings2.zap2it.com/tms_network_logos/tlc.jpg" />
</channel>
<channel id="25 TNNC">
<display-name>Channel 25 TNNC</display-name>
</channel>
<channel id="26 ARTSC">
<display-name>Channel 26 ARTSC</display-name>
<icon src="http://tvlistings2.zap2it.com/tms_network_logos/ae.jpg" />
</channel>
<channel id="27 SPONET3">
<display-name>Channel 27 SPONET3</display-name>
<icon src="http://tvlistings2.zap2it.com/tms_network_logos/sportsnet.jpg" />
</channel>
<channel id="28 CMT">
<display-name>Channel 28 CMT</display-name>
<icon src="http://tvlistings2.zap2it.com/tms_network_logos/cmt.gif" />
</channel>
<channel id="29 CNN">
<display-name>Channel 29 CNN</display-name>
<icon src="http://tvlistings2.zap2it.com/tms_network_logos/cnn.jpg" />
</channel>
<channel id="3 CFCN">
<display-name>Channel 3 CFCN</display-name>
<icon src="http://tvlistings2.zap2it.com/tms_network_logos/ctv.jpg" />
</channel>
<channel id="30 SCR">
<display-name>Channel 30 SCR</display-name>
<icon src="http://tvlistings2.zap2it.com/tms_network_logos/hs.gif" />
</channel>

Any ideas???

-Mr.X

[justme]

First did you mean:
xmltv tv_sort --output epgdata.xml epgunsorted.xml
Anyway, that's irrelevant if you see the data in SageTV.

Are you using Lester's modified code? See this post. (http://www.freytechnologies.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=2476#post2476) When I switched to this updated code I no longer had to remap my channels.

[grot]

Must use lesters code. Instant fix.

[Mr_X]

Perfect!

Thanks so much!

-Mr.X

[Lester Jacobs]

The xmltv plugin was broken by xmltv release 0.5.14. The upgraded xmltv plugin that works with xmltv 0.5.14 can be found here. (http://www.freytechnologies.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1001) .

Cheers
Lester

[craiger316]

Originally posted by Lester Jacobs

I really initially liked the Frey solution since it supported my Creative card but the lack of guide data for Canada and the inability to import guide data into the Frey database is a showstopper. As soon as Frey either provides a way to import guide data (hopefully xmltv) or supports Canadian listings then I'll be buying their product.


Lester, if you are looking for a PVR solution that has legit Canadian listings my company is developing one. In fact, if you would be as kind as to fill out our survey, that would be a great help (this goes for any other Canadians out there!). The survey can be found here:

http://infopoll.net/live/surveys/s22830.htm

If you do not feel comfortable entering your email on the survey but would still like to be considered as a beta tester, simply email us at info@onshore.ca and we will add you name to the list.

We have gotten the express written permision of Frey technologies to post to the forums. For further updates you can check the new Canadian international forum on this message board.

Thanks,

Craig.