DigiGuide alternative to RT XMLTV

[starfire]

Hmm, perhaps I should mark every category as "like series" then, then they will all start EP and the importer will not drop the FR/RR flag like it does for SH as per :-

With a "SH" EPGID, FR / RR doesn't mean anything, that's why the Importer drops this information.

[rickgillyon]

I have "like series" marked for everything but Magazine and News, IIRC, where they really are not like Series.

[starfire]

OK, I have done a quick test:-

Backed up Sage , replaced the importer with Nielms and ran XMLTV GUI to grab Digiguide data then imported this into Sage.

This is now doing what I wanted, everything that is not marked as repeat in the xml is correctly marked as FR apart from when a show has the same title and subtitle for example heroes season x, episode y where it marks the repeat as FR - however, if I set the first showing to watched then the repeat is also marked as watched

I have reverted back to my original config. as all the channel mappings were wrong but it does show this is possible to do if you are happy trusting Digiguide data.

[StephaneM]

Originally Posted by rickgillyon

Is this really true? Seems to me that it works reasonably well on Descriptions too, e.g. Top Gear as suggested by Starfire, never ep numbers but it seems to flag okay for me.

Of course it will work too for shows without ep.title/numbers, the only issue is the description might not be always the same whereas the ep.title or numbers usually doesn't change (from one year to another, one exception though some provider may use the original title (like EN-US) and later on the local title (for instance FR / EN-GB))

[StephaneM]

Originally Posted by starfire

apart from when a show has the same title and subtitle for example heroes season x, episode y where it marks the repeat as FR

This is the correct behavior.

I think you don't understand what is a FR from SageTV point of view.FR means that the show (episode) is a new one (never aired before), as well as all of its repeats (repeats = other airing of the same episode).

A RR means that the show (episode) is not new because it was aired last month, last year.

but it does show this is possible to do if you are happy trusting Digiguide data.

You can use this plugin if you want. It works in almost the same way as mine, what you don't get is:

* the Importer history: the history will remember original air date of shows, as well as ep.numbers.
* the fact that the Importer drops FR/RR for "SH" shows
* EPGID generation using another algorithm (a little less sensitive to misspelling of show titles)

So to make my point clear, I cannot add a new option to the Importer for you, because the Importer is already doing what you want, you just have to adjust the Importer for the show you want to record (in your case overriding the "SH" into a "EP" prefix) or adjust the way you use SageTV to make your recordings.

[starfire]

Originally Posted by StephaneM

This is the correct behavior.

I think you don't understand what is a FR from SageTV point of view.FR means that the show (episode) is a new one (never aired before), as well as all of its repeats (repeats = other airing of the same episode).

A RR means that the show (episode) is not new because it was aired last month, last year.

I didn't, I do now

You can use this plugin if you want. It works in almost the same way as mine, what you don't get is:

* the Importer history: the history will remember original air date of shows, as well as ep.numbers.
* the fact that the Importer drops FR/RR for "SH" shows
* EPGID generation using another algorithm (a little less sensitive to misspelling of show titles)

And the channel editing/mapping of course, I do really want to use yours, I really appreciate all the effort and support you put in

So to make my point clear, I cannot add a new option to the Importer for you, because the Importer is already doing what you want, you just have to adjust the Importer for the show you want to record (in your case overriding the "SH" into a "EP" prefix) or adjust the way you use SageTV to make your recordings.

I think that is the key thing, I need to change all SP into EP by using the category editor I think to mark all categories as series and then FR/RR will not be dropped - I am still not sure why you drop this (if the data is in the XML why not use it?) but I'm sure there are good reasons!

Thanks again.

[StephaneM]

Originally Posted by starfire

mark all categories as series and then FR/RR will not be dropped - I am still not sure why you drop this (if the data is in the XML why not use it?) but I'm sure there are good reasons!

"SH" show usually will not have enough data to create unique episodes (this is not always true, but better safe than sorry, the point being that you can record as many episodes as you can).

As a consequence, the EPGID for these shows will generally be the same for multiple airings wether it is the same episodes or not. For instance a news show every day three airings 12h / 20h / 00h. They will all share the same EPGID day after day and as so they share their properties (FR for instance). Making the EPGID a "SH"=> SageTV is able to record them all and here FR/RR doesn't add value because all show are FR.

Some other shows that get "SH" are carrying enough info to create differents EPGID for each of them. For instance a documentary series, you have 8 airing of these in the week, one of them is a FR (with two repeats), the other one are RR. If the Importer wasn't dropping the FR status you would have three FR in your EPG, but as those ones are "SH", SageTV will record all three of them (with "SH" showd when you mark one repeat as "Watched" the other ones doesn't get set)

As you can see the "FR" information for "SH" show is not valuable because in the end SageTV will not do what you want it to do (record one FR airing and only one)

[Dvid]

My system has been running great for ages now, but the server decided to reboot yesterday and since then my guide shows "No Data" for every channel. I am using Stephane's importer and the Digiguide plugin.

I have run the XML2DG importer manually and done a manual Guide Update in XMLTV importer, I have restarted SageTV, restarted the whole server, still nothing. The epgdata.xml has valid data in it as far as I can tell. I have also tried re-uploading the lineups in the importer.

Family's going nuts at me now I've shifted everything onto SageTV and Extenders and relegated the PVRs to the cupboard!

Somehow, Sage isn't recognising the guide data. I'm probably missing something simple - can anyone give me a pointer please?

Thanks.

[elyl]

Check that all your channels are added in DigiGuide. Seems like DigiGuide intermittently removes all your channels, leaving just 1-5, and you need to go back in and re-add them. I've yet to work out why it does it, but it only seems to happen after reboots.

[starfire]

Also check the latest trace log from Stephanes importer, it should report all your channels being processed, on my system the logs are at:
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\LM Gestion\SageTV XMLTV Importer

[Dvid]

Thanks for the help.

I finally fixed it by removing the video sources and re-adding them. It took a while for all of the channels to get data in the guide, but is finally working again

[rickgillyon]

Sorry to resurrect this old thread (Stephane's eyes must be rolling!) but I've been running a couple of months now with all Repeat data removed from my Digiguide XML. If you remember, I did this to avoid the false repeats, being caused by the repeats sometimes appearing in the data before the first runs, then causing the first runs also being marked as repeats when they arrive. Phew!

Okay, upshot of removing rerun data - I don't get the false repeats any more. Big improvement. And where there is decent episode numbering it's perfect. BUT...there's a lot of bad data out there, especially the BBC, who just don't seem to give a toss about their poor data. So lots and lots of programmes are calculated first/rerun on their descriptions. As the repeats often come with different descriptions to the original programme, the importer calculates it as a first run. This affects a *lot* of programmes, so there's way too much work going back through and marking new false first-runs as watched.

So, no good answers I'm afraid, because the data is poor, but I'm going to turn repeat markers back on again and go back to watching for when things are marked RR incorrectly...

[bunch92]

Is this digiguide solution worth considering for freesat viewers ?

I use tv_grab_uk_rt and although I am missing some channel EPGs ( such as ITV4 + 1 , tiny pop , ... ) I am not sure it is worth £14.99/year (thx Rickgillyon, seems more interesting now).

I can understand it is usefull for Sky viewers, but just for freesat, I am not convinced.

[rickgillyon]

Digiguide is a tenner a year!

Duh, £15 for new customers, a tenner a year if you sign up for two....

[MCE-Refugee]

I have been a Digiguide enthusiast for many years & think that it's worth subscribing just as a PC based programme guide. Stephane's application to integrate Digiguide data into the SageTV EPG was the trigger for me to move to SageTV from Windows Media Center.

[whibs]

I'm a newcomer to all things SageTV. I'm very impressed so far - our Sky digibox has not been in use for over a week...

I'm in the process of modifying my .frq file following a DVB-S scan and setting up a scheduled XMLTV import for SageTV's EPG (satellite FTA channels only).

I was using the RT grabber up until recently, but last night thought I would give DigiGuide a go, having read here in the forum that DG's data is superior to RT's.

So...I installed DigiGuide, downloaded DG2XML 1.0.1.0, copied the scheme folder over as per the instructions and set up the web service, selecting the DG2XML skin for the 'web' context.

Problem is, when testing DG2XML at the command line I keep getting the following type of error:

Retrieving http://localhost:2402/skin-DG2XML/dologin?password=password
Outputting to epgdata.xml
Retrieving http://localhost:2402/skin-DG2XML/sid-C235067F-4829-474C-90BD-5E8BB4A
6B49A/viewmultichannelgrid?htd=504&dt=1230902916&chi=0&noc=1
Retrieving http://localhost:2402/skin-DG2XML/sid-C235067F-4829-474C-90BD-5E8BB4A
6B49A/viewmultichannelgrid?htd=504&dt=1230902916&chi=1&noc=1
Retrieving http://localhost:2402/skin-DG2XML/sid-C235067F-4829-474C-90BD-5E8BB4A
6B49A/viewmultichannelgrid?htd=504&dt=1230902916&chi=2&noc=1
Retrieving http://localhost:2402/skin-DG2XML/sid-C235067F-4829-474C-90BD-5E8BB4A
6B49A/viewmultichannelgrid?htd=504&dt=1230902916&chi=3&noc=1
Retrieving http://localhost:2402/skin-DG2XML/sid-C235067F-4829-474C-90BD-5E8BB4A
6B49A/viewmultichannelgrid?htd=504&dt=1230902916&chi=4&noc=1
Retrieving http://localhost:2402/skin-DG2XML/sid-C235067F-4829-474C-90BD-5E8BB4A
6B49A/viewmultichannelgrid?htd=504&dt=1230902916&chi=5&noc=1
Retrieving http://localhost:2402/skin-DG2XML/sid-C235067F-4829-474C-90BD-5E8BB4A
6B49A/viewmultichannelgrid?htd=504&dt=1230902916&chi=6&noc=1
Retrieving http://localhost:2402/skin-DG2XML/sid-C235067F-4829-474C-90BD-5E8BB4A
6B49A/viewmultichannelgrid?htd=504&dt=1230902916&chi=7&noc=1
ERROR:Root element is missing.

The epgdata.xml is created, but it seems only partially (just over 2MB in size). The last programme entry in the file looks like this (line chopped up to fit on screen):

<programme channel="107" channel2="3081" start="20090123123000 
+0000" stop="20090123130000 +0000"><title>Vanity Insanity</title>
<desc>Series exploring people's fixation with beauty. Its beautiful beaches 
match the people. Discover the plastic surgeons that make Brazil a hotbed of 
hot bods!</desc><category>Documentary<

That's the end of the file right there.

My best guess at the moment is that the DG web service isn't serving the expected content, but it seems happy up to that point. I also thought that it might have been something to do with special characters causing parsing problems, but this error seems to be consistent regardless of which channels have been included/excluded in the DigiGuide lineup.

In summary, DG2XML appears to start OK but then comes to an abrupt halt.

Has anyone else experienced this?

Any pointers in the right direction would be greatly appreciated. Now I've seen what DG has to offer, I'm reluctant to go back to RT for data...

Thanks for your help.

[bunch92]

Originally Posted by whibs

Has anyone else experienced this?

Last time I had a similar issue was because I was using the wrong parsing.

I was using UTF-8 instead of ISO 8859-1

Regards

[whibs]

Thanks for the quick response. I appreciate that you're telling me where you've confronted this error before from a development perspective, but my query is that of an end-user for DG2XML.

Assuming I've followed the instructions correctly, it should 'just work' but it don't! So, either I've done something wrong (probable) or something is different to the norm with my environment or DigiGuide itself (possible).

Playing around with the DigiGuide web service, I reverted to the 'web' skin and viewed the service in a browser (http://localhost:2402). This appears to work fine. Similarly, there is useful data shown when the skin is changed to 'tv' or 'pda'. However, using the 'DG2XML' skin returns nothing but a number:

1230912325

Incidentally, this is the the entire contents of the page's source as well - no other markup of any kind.

Seems to me I've definitely borked it somewhere. I shall continue to rummage and report any findings...

[bunch92]

Just downloaded the digiguide application, DG2XML , and gave it a try

I have exactely the same error :

Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600]
(C) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp.

C:\Documents and Settings\Laurent - Kate>cd c:\gigixml
The system cannot find the path specified.

C:\Documents and Settings\Laurent - Kate>cd c:\digixml

C:\digixml>dg2xml
Retrieving http://localhost:2402/skin-DG2XML/do...sword=password
Outputting to epgdata.xml
Retrieving http://localhost:2402/skin-DG2XML/si...7-839D-94D20BA
9529E/viewmultichannelgrid?htd=504&dt=1230917133&chi=0&noc=1
Retrieving http://localhost:2402/skin-DG2XML/si...7-839D-94D20BA
9529E/viewmultichannelgrid?htd=504&dt=1230917133&chi=1&noc=1
Retrieving http://localhost:2402/skin-DG2XML/si...7-839D-94D20BA
9529E/viewmultichannelgrid?htd=504&dt=1230917133&chi=2&noc=1
Retrieving http://localhost:2402/skin-DG2XML/si...7-839D-94D20BA
9529E/viewmultichannelgrid?htd=504&dt=1230917133&chi=3&noc=1
Retrieving http://localhost:2402/skin-DG2XML/si...7-839D-94D20BA
9529E/viewmultichannelgrid?htd=504&dt=1230917133&chi=4&noc=1
Retrieving http://localhost:2402/skin-DG2XML/si...7-839D-94D20BA
9529E/viewmultichannelgrid?htd=504&dt=1230917133&chi=5&noc=1
Retrieving http://localhost:2402/skin-DG2XML/si...7-839D-94D20BA
9529E/viewmultichannelgrid?htd=504&dt=1230917133&chi=6&noc=1
Retrieving http://localhost:2402/skin-DG2XML/si...7-839D-94D20BA
9529E/viewmultichannelgrid?htd=504&dt=1230917133&chi=7&noc=1
ERROR:Root element is missing.

C:\digixml>

[bunch92]

Maybe it is because they have just released a new version (8.4) ?