Auto channel lineup numbering with XMLTV / TVTV?

[evilc]

Could someone tell me if it is possible to have the correct channel numbers automatically assigned to EPG data pulled from XMLTV / TVTV?
I live in the UK and have Sky. There is only one correct channel number for each channel, so there is a clear "right way" to number the channels.
However, when pulling data from, for example, Radio Times using XMLTV, you end up with a listing of channels that can be quite hard to associate with their correct numbers, even using StephaneM's great new tool.

Yes, I know it can be done manually, but it is a pain in the ass and prone to errors - surely it must be possible to do programatically - it would just need someone to write the code and for people to keep a database up to date.

Advice please?

[brewston]

have a poke through the UK forum, I think someone compiled a Sky channel file for Stephane's imported. I only have 'freesat' Sky, so do them by hand

[evilc]

I saw something in one of the threads with an attached .txt file with channel lists, but it was over a year old and I had no idea how to use it.

This, for me, is the biggest failing of SageTV. There appears to be zero effort by the makers to help people understand what the hell they need to do to get EPG working properly. I am a geek and even I am confused as hell. I had no idea there was a difference between channel listings and channel numberings.

A big mistake by Sage IMHO. I have had two mates who bought tuner cards, downloaded the sage demo, but gave up trying to get the EPG working and never bought sage, even when they had full intentions of doing so and the money waiting - they just didn't want to risk spending any more money when they had no idea of if it could work and how to do it.

[ripple420]

Take a look at this thread, it might be useful. I use the script mentioned and it works for me.

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=16139

[bartley9]

I made the following spreadsheet which I use wth alan birtles XMLTV grabber.

It helps with the continual channel re-mapping that sky do. It might help

[evilc]

Thanks for that bart.

On browsing through the instructions, I am not totally sure, but when I sit down and do it I will probs work it out.

ripple - that appears to be to do with reruns. Or maybe I am missing something.

[doc]

i tried to set up the channels in stephanes importer programatically, and in the end gave up and did it manually.

www.wildsat.com has a listing of the sky channels, so i used that to then put in the right channel numbers, rather than go through the sky guide and write them all down.

I check it weekly to see if any of the channel numbers have changed.

[ripple420]

My mistake I pasted the wrong url.

This is the tool to renumber.

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=16139

"That's it, when you add the new XML source the channels will be mapped with the channel numbers listed in the XML file. If you already have the XMLTV source configured, then the next time your EPG updates it will import the new channel mapping."

Thats what the author says the tool does, and it works for me.

Originally Posted by evilc

Thanks for that bart.

On browsing through the instructions, I am not totally sure, but when I sit down and do it I will probs work it out.

ripple - that appears to be to do with reruns. Or maybe I am missing something.

[evilc]

Thanks ripple, although I may well not be buying sage after all - I am not sure I want to pay for a product that doesn't work properly out of the box in my region.

I mean, the US peeps get automatic EPG data, but for some reason Sage don't think that programming it in for the UK is worth it - instead you have to use a whole load of 3rd party apps stitched trogether to acheive it - it's all a bit ridiculous.

Sage don't even seem to provide any information whatsoever on the workings of XMLTV / TVTV etc (And I am pissed that I paid for TVTV because sage said it was compatible, and it wont work with Sage at all) - they expect you to work it all out yourself or use the community which isn't really on for a paid product IMHO. Yes, AFAIK, XMLTV is a 3rd-party plugin, but I don't care - SageTV is sold as a working product. Outside the US it does not work unless you fiddle for hours, sacrifice a chicken over the keyboard to the gods of XML etc...

[nielm]

Originally Posted by evilc

I mean, the US peeps get automatic EPG data, but for some reason Sage don't think that programming it in for the UK is worth it - instead you have to use a whole load of 3rd party apps stitched trogether to acheive it - it's all a bit ridiculous.

Sadly, unlike the US, in the rest of the world, that channel mapping data does not exist...

There is no central authority that knows what the channel<->frequency mappings are for every single region/transmitter (for analogue terrestrial), or channel ID mappings for each provider's lineup (for cable/sat lineups). This sucks, but in the other direction, the providers don't see why they should have to supply this data. Sky and other cableco's have their digiboxes, why should anyone want anything else?!

DVB EPG data should be the solution, but not everyone can get it, and the EPG data quality may not be as good as other sources.

Apart from needing to remap the channels to their requried numbers, TVTV should have worked to supply the EPG data without needing the 3rd party apps. Once in the EPG Database, Sage sees no difference between the data from any source, so the problems you had regarding channel changing may not have been related to TVTV.


Historically, Sage (and other PVR providers) have kept a safe distance from XMLTV and let 'the community' develop importes. This may possibly be due to the dubious legal position of some of the grabbers, possibly due to the project's perpetual-beta status, and possibly due to the simple fact that being based in the US, and having North America as their major market, they simply don't see the problems that us yurpeens have to contend with to keep our PVRs running

[StephaneM]

Originally Posted by evilc

Sage don't even seem to provide any information whatsoever on the workings of XMLTV / TVTV etc (And I am pissed that I paid for TVTV because sage said it was compatible, and it wont work with Sage at all) - they expect you to work it all out yourself or use the community which isn't really on for a paid product IMHO. Yes, AFAIK, XMLTV is a 3rd-party plugin, but I don't care - SageTV is sold as a working product. Outside the US it does not work unless you fiddle for hours, sacrifice a chicken over the keyboard to the gods of XML etc...

Well that's somehow a complex problem because:

* TVTV is a great idea, but TVTV staff doesn't achieve a great support. And SageTV can't do anything for this as TVTV must support guide data problem and not SageTV. So basically it sucks.

* for XMLTV this is even more complex as there is so many guide data source that you'll end up with two softwares one for getting the data, and one for importing the data into SageTV. You'll receive good support for importing the data, not so much for getting the data (legal issues).

However, you'll always find help for your guide data issues. And you'll see that SageTV is not that bad for European users. At least SageTV seems dedicated to offer support for DVB technologies and give you the choice between TVTV and XMLTV (whereas other PVR softwares for Europe are TVTV or DVB based only)

Back to your problem. I created a script that can extract channel numbers from the XMLTV file and create the lineups for my Importer tool, you can try it if you do have channel numbers in your XMLTV file.

You can also try the lineup file from motobarsteward (or contact him), it has a Sky lineup ready to use.

I may also add a collaborative feature in the Importer to download lineups from other users, this may helps.

Regards,
Stéphane.

[evilc]

I can totally appreciate what you guys are saying, but surely this is 100% surmountable by sage.

It seems, for example, that the main source for data in the UK is the radio times XML feed. Sure, I can understand that there could be legal problems if sage wrote a solution that pulled the data itself, but I doubt it. RT is owned by the BBC and as such is paid for by the UK licence fee payer.

Originally Posted by RT Website

©BBC Magazines Ltd. The Radio Times word mark and logo are trademarks of BBC Worldwide Ltd.
BBC Magazines is owned by the BBC and our profits are returned to the BBC for the benefit of the licence-fee payer.

It would surely be trivial to maintain a database of channel numbers by broadcaster for each of the channels available in the UK - in fact, all Sage would need to do would be to write the code / website capable of holding the info and people could add the data.

There is no way that there can be any legal issues with mapping channel names to numbers. You cannot copyright a fact - Sky One is on channel 106 on a Sky box - pure fact.

Failing that - do what Orb does. It has a list of channels that exist, and it sends the "Channel Up" IR signal, asks "What channel is this?" and then repeats for the next channel.

What they are doing at the moment just smacks of sticking their head in the sand.

I sat and fiddled with SageTV for 5 or 6 hours trying to get it working before I even realised that XMLTV did not assign channel numbers and the reason that I was getting a black screen was not because my tuner was playing up, it was because there was no lineup.
It said in the manual that Sage worked with TVTV, so I pay for TVTV, only to find that it won't work. I tried loading BeyondTV and it worked fine, so I guess this is a Sage issue.

All of this I could overlook if sage actually informed their prospective customers of the issues, the terminologies etc and wrote some documentation to cover it rather than forcing us to spend hours upon hours trying to figure it out. NOWEHERE in the manual is it mentioned that XMLTV does not arrange channels and that you will need to edit text files and the like, all it says is "Get the XMLTV plugin" like that's it - end of story - job done. A typical American attitude - if it ain't in the good ole US of A, then it doesn't matter.

[nielm]

Originally Posted by evilc

I can totally appreciate what you guys are saying, but surely this is 100% surmountable by sage.

Anything is surmountable, given enough money. The question is, is it worth doing.

Originally Posted by evilc

It would surely be trivial to maintain a database of channel numbers by broadcaster for each of the channels available in the UK

For sky, maybe. Of course Sky have a habit of changing their channels every so often..
For freeview, again maybe.

But for each local cable provider's lineup, and all the analogue terrestrial transmitters, no way could Sage keep track of this.

Anyway, why should the UK be special? What about Belgium, France, Netherlands, Australia, Germany. etc..

The fact is that TVTV should be collating and providing this data where possible, but they do not. IMHO, TVTV is too expensive for too little function.


And the XMLTV plugin is not documented because it (actually they -- there are several plugins with different featuresets) are not written or supported by Sage. If the XMLTV plugin's documentation is not clear enough, this is not Sage's fault.


PS: anyone know how MCE handles channel mapping?

PPS: the terms and conditions of the RT site dictate personal use only, no scraping, no storing of data and no re-publishing. XMLTV have a special agreement with RT that allows access to a subset of the data provided, for personal use only, and which does not include channel numbers.