Utility: Web Radio and TV Encoder

[michaeldjcox]

Originally Posted by pjpjpjpj

1. It appears - correct me if I am wrong - that the XMLTV importer thing is now built in to your plugin, and we don't need the separate one that is linked in the first post. Is that true? There appear to be differences between the info on the download page and the info in the first post here. It appears that we are now able to add channels to our Sage lineup and import their EPG listings directly from your plugin.

Previously the web feed encoder used to advocate use of Stephanes XMLTV importer. Whilst I'm a big fan of that utility and use it for regular listings I wanted the webfeedencoder install and configuration not to have to involve typing lineup into another tool.

The web feed encoder now directly injects EPG into SageTV using an EPG import plugin that wraps around any existing one you may have set up. Effectively the WebFeedEncoder lineup is just added to the existing list.

Originally Posted by pjpjpjpj

2. I saw posts earlier about the XML importer (or maybe your plugin?) messing up the SageTV listings. Is this remedied, or does your plugin overwrite the SageTV channel listings, requiring you to redo existing "normal TV" channel EPGs that you would already have?

There was a problem for users which do not already use an XMLTV plugin but instead just use built-in SageTV EPG source. SageTV is not very flexible here and mandates that you are either using an XMLTV plugin OR builtin EPG but not both. This meant that in version 0.9.4 existing built-in EPG would disappear for users. It turns out that there was a property you can set in Sage.properties to disable use of an XMLTV plugin for a particular EPG source. That is setup in 0.9.4a and fixes this issue so EPG updates to regular and WebFeedEncoder EPG sources can coexist for the purposes of update.

One issue still remains. If you are setting up a new source, or reconfiguring and existing source, to use built-in EPG. SageTV will go to the XMLTV import plugin to look for providers and local markets rather than built-in EPG and of course they will not be found. The work around currently is to temporarily remove the epg/epg_import_plugin line, do your source setup, restore that line and make sure the new EPG source in Sage.properties has "disable_plugin=true".

Ideally I would like to wrap the built-in EPG data in the same way as I wrap my plugin around an existing EPG plugin. However SageTV does not make its internal source provide the same interface as it requires of EPG import plugins. A shame. So I'm having to work much harder to resolve this one to avoid the above manual work around.

Originally Posted by pjpjpjpj

3. If #2 above is not an issue - the plugin allows you to add individual channels to your existing EPG and add their listings separately from the SageTV/Zap2It listings that area already there... then are you able to choose manually what channel number to give to each new channel you add?

The web feed encoder requires that you specify a logical channel start point and then adds the channels from that point on. So you just need to identify a free range of channel numbers.

Hope this helps clarify the current state.

Michael

[RocKKer]

Michael,

Still testing on my XP box, not ready to attempt Linux yet.

Anyway, got a question, the SageTV EPG seems to be 6 hours early. ie: shows that start at 9AM show in the schedule as starting at 3AM I have set the Time Zone for each channel to my correct TZ, currently only working with local feeds so it would seem those schedules should be correct. Got any suggestions?

[michaeldjcox]

Originally Posted by RocKKer

to my correct TZ

Hi,

the time zone of the channel should be the timezone of the listing data.

Normally I put in the timezone where the station originates.

But the key thing is what timezone is the listing data in on the web site you are getting it from.

So if its a www.radiotime.com station then for me the EPG of all stations is listed in UTC/GMT.

Hope this helps,

Michael

[RocKKer]

The local time is what I expected too, as these are local channels.

Is there a way to view the raw schedule data to see what is retrieved from radiotime?

[michaeldjcox]

Originally Posted by RocKKer

The local time is what I expected too, as these are local channels.

Is there a way to view the raw schedule data to see what is retrieved from radiotime?

1. Edit the channel in the config tool.
2. Select the EPG harvest tab.
3. Press the test button.
4. Then either "Step" several times or "Run" and you will see the raw data.

You should see something like this:

http://www.keepandshare.com/photo/ro...5081&d=0&sz=sm

I'm pretty sure radiotime lists *all* stations schedules in one timezone e.g. GMT and not in the timezone the station is from.

I'm not sure whether their web pages are senstive to where the page viewer is coming from i.e. I see all times in GMT but you might see them otherwise.

Michael

[RocKKer]

I tested a couple different ways:

Looked at the test data from EPG harvest and setting Time Zone to different values then imported EPG to SageTV. Here's the results:

My target was a show on 8PM - 10PM local time.

From EPG Harvest test:

TZ set to America/Los_Angeles 7PM - 9PM
TZ set to Etc/GMT-8           4AM - 6AM
TZ set to Etc/GMT-9           3AM - 5AM

Import the above data to SageTV:

TZ set to America/Los_Angeles 12PM -  2PM
TZ set to Etc/GMT-8            9PM - 11PM
TZ set to Etc/GMT-9            8PM - 10PM

Not sure what conversions are happening but for me Etc/GMT-9 ends up being correct in SageTV, odd because I think currently we are GMT -7?

[michaeldjcox]

Hi,

Well - the good thing is you can choose a timezone and get the correct times.

Things can be a little confusing this time of year with people switching back from daylight savings.

Can you do a couple of things for me please:

• In your web browser go to www.radiotime.com. Top right it will say something like "All times in GMT (DST)". What does it actually say for you.
• Let me know the radiotime station id you are tuning to - i.e. the number prefixed with an "s" e..g s1112.
• From the timezone drop down in the edit channel dialog - which choice represents your current timezone?

I'll do some debugging and see whats going on.

Update:
(Just checked and www.radiotime.com says it provides show times in UTC unless a username is provided in which case localtime is provided. Theres no user name in the URLs so it should be UTC. This is why I make the timezone Europe/London(UTC) for all radiotime stations. Ultimately when it is exported to SageTV it is exported as UTC time. What we need is for no conversion to be applied. Do you get the right answer if you set timezone for Europe/London?).

Thanks,

Michael

[fac13]

I installed WFE for the first time yesterday and I'm very pleased with it.

Installation was not smooth; UAC is here to stay and the installer needs to be able to deal with it. I got round most problems by running the webfeedencoder_0_9_4.jar from an elevated command prompt, but I also needed to do the following: -

1) Copy sage.properties to a temporary, non-protected, location so the installer could edit it there. Then copy the installer-modified version back to my SageTV folder.

2) Change the suggested default install folders to Program Files (x86) - not a UAC issue of course.

3) I had to copy wfesageplugin.jar into the SageTV jars folder manually, even the elevated command prompt failed (silently) to do that.

I can confirm that VLC 1.0.3 still doesn't work, so I'm using the suggested 0.9.8a. I have the problem most (all?) people are having with very choppy playback on the server machine, but everything is perfectly smooth on my HD100s.

All in all I'm very impressed with this piece of work, thank you very much for the effort you've put in to get it this far.

My setup is in my public profile.

[RocKKer]

Originally Posted by michaeldjcox

Hi,

• In your web browser go to www.radiotime.com. Top right it will say something like "All times in GMT (DST)". What does it actually say for you.
• Let me know the radiotime station id you are tuning to - i.e. the number prefixed with an "s" e..g s1112.
• From the timezone drop down in the edit channel dialog - which choice represents your current timezone?

I'll do some debugging and see whats going on.

Update:
(Just checked and www.radiotime.com says it provides show times in UTC unless a username is provided in which case localtime is provided. Theres no user name in the URLs so it should be UTC. This is why I make the timezone Europe/London(UTC) for all radiotime stations. Ultimately when it is exported to SageTV it is exported as UTC time. What we need is for no conversion to be applied. Do you get the right answer if you set timezone for Europe/London?).

Thanks,

Michael

- When I go to radiotime.com, it says "All times in Pacific" - correct for me.
- s_35304
- My current TZ is America/Los_Angelas, which should be GMT-8

Now I can't seem to get the right time in SageTV's EPG.


When I use Europe/London example:
On Radiotime my test show starts 11/1 @ 12AM
The EPG Harvest Test shows it starts 10/31 @ 4PM (this is GMT-8 as expected)
In SageTV the test show starts 11/1 @ 8AM (??)

[michaeldjcox]

Originally Posted by fac13

Installation was not smooth; UAC is here to stay and the installer needs to be able to deal with it. I got round most problems by running the webfeedencoder_0_9_4.jar from an elevated command prompt, but I also needed to do the following: -

1) Copy sage.properties to a temporary, non-protected, location so the installer could edit it there. Then copy the installer-modified version back to my SageTV folder.

2) Change the suggested default install folders to Program Files (x86) - not a UAC issue of course.

3) I had to copy wfesageplugin.jar into the SageTV jars folder manually, even the elevated command prompt failed (silently) to do that.

Hi,

Glad you are having some success.

I think I got away without UAC because my mobile USB network dongle software suggested UAC be turned off - so I have been working in a restriction free environment. I will do some testing on this - at the very least the installer should report and advise on any UAC issues. How do these things work for you normally - do installers usually prompt for user names and password? Do instructions state that you should run as a priveleged user?

I will also try and default the install directory to something sensible.

Could you post back with your install log file please?

Thanks for your feed back.

Michael

[michaeldjcox]

Originally Posted by RocKKer

- When I go to radiotime.com, it says "All times in Pacific" - correct for me.
- s_35304
- My current TZ is America/Los_Angelas, which should be GMT-8

Now I can't seem to get the right time in SageTV's EPG.


When I use Europe/London example:
On Radiotime my test show starts 11/1 @ 12AM
The EPG Harvest Test shows it starts 10/31 @ 4PM (this is GMT-8 as expected)
In SageTV the test show starts 11/1 @ 8AM (??)

I'm wrong in my update in my previous post.

I'm scraping from web pages rather than going via the OPML interface to radiotime. Which means, for you I am scraping times off radiotime in pacific time.

You should therefore set the timezone in the channel data to be your own timezone.

This should then convert to UTC correctly.

Then when uploading to SageTV - which I assume is local time it will be converting back again.

I think this last step is possibly not coded correctly.

Could you help me please to further diagnose?

If you could do the following:

1. Make the above change to set channel timezone to your local zone.
2. shutdown the configtool and the webfeedencoder
3. save a copy for the current configtool.jar.
4. overwrite that jar with the one in the attached zip file.
5. Run up just the config tool
6. select your channel in the lineup
7. Choose "Actions->Send channel EPG to SageTV"
8. Reply with the logs/configtool.log file.

Thanks,

Michael

[RocKKer]

Thank you Michael! Not at home right now, will do this later this evening (Pacific Time!)

Edit: 11/03/09

Yes I am running SageTV local time.

Here is the configtool.log

[michaeldjcox]

Originally Posted by RocKKer

Here is the configtool.log

Thank you, very much appreciated.

I think I have now found the issue.

Sorry for delay - bad week last week - kids sick, work shite and working from home so I missed my "time to myself" on the train when I code all this stuff.

Will post a fix very shortly.

Michael

[michaeldjcox]

Originally Posted by RocKKer

Yes I am running SageTV local time.

Here is the configtool.log

Hi,

Looked again at the output and I'm not convinced there was a problem with that test run:

: The Rush Limbaugh Show20091108170000+0000 starts 20091108170000+0000=Sun Nov 08 17:00:00 PST 2009
: The Rush Limbaugh Show20091108170000+0000 UTC millis = 1257728400000
: The Rush Limbaugh Show20091108170000+0000 setting date from 1257728400000+ ZoneOffset=-28800000+ DSToffset=0
: The Rush Limbaugh Show20091108170000+0000 local time is = Sun Nov 08 09:00:00 PST 2009

The radio time start time is parsed to 17:00 hrs GMT

It seems to correctly subtract 8 hours.

Then comes up with the answer in local time as Sun Nov 08 09:00:00 PST 2009.

Checking the station web site this seems correct.

What time do you see in SageTV for The Rush Limbuagh Show after an EPG import?

Michael

[RocKKer]

Thanks for getting back Michael - I understand how real life gets in the way sometimes. No worries!


Radiotime shows Rush Limbaugh starts @ 0900 on Monday 11/9 (my time)

Just ran another update and Sage EPG shows it starts @ 0100 on Monday (11/9) 8 hours early.

[michaeldjcox]

Originally Posted by RocKKer

Thanks for getting back Michael - I understand how real life gets in the way sometimes. No worries!


Radiotime shows Rush Limbaugh starts @ 0900 on Monday 11/9 (my time)

Just ran another update and Sage EPG shows it starts @ 0100 on Monday (11/9) 8 hours early.

I must be wrong.

I assumed SageTV expects show times to be in local time.

Perhaps it expects them to be in GMT so it can subtract 8 hours to get PST.

Michael

[michaeldjcox]

Hi Rockker,

I've tried removing the timezone translation I was doing.

I don't think its needed as the EPGPlugin interface sage offers takes number of millis since a GMT time which is what I already had before I started adding bits on for timezone to send to SageTV.

So attached zip file contains a modified configtool.jar and encoder.jar (seeing as the grabber is in both).

You only need the configtool.jar just to have a go from the config tool.

If you like the fix then the encoder.jar is also needed as the encoder does the overnight grab.

Michael

[RocKKer]

I tried the new configtool.jar last night (I posted the results, I thought, but don''t see it...anyway it was late..).

The showtimes are right except the days are wrong...

Radiotime says - Money Matters airs Saturday Nov. 14 12pm - 1pm

However after importing, SageTV's EPG shows it will air Wednesday Nov 11 12pm - 1 pm. times are right but it's a few days early.

[michaeldjcox]

Originally Posted by RocKKer

I tried the new configtool.jar last night (I posted the results, I thought, but don''t see it...anyway it was late..).

The showtimes are right except the days are wrong...

Radiotime says - Money Matters airs Saturday Nov. 14 12pm - 1pm

However after importing, SageTV's EPG shows it will air Wednesday Nov 11 12pm - 1 pm. times are right but it's a few days early.

That must be something else - my change only moves things + or - 12 hours.

Are all the programs for Sat 14th moved to Wed 11th?

Those logs would be cool if you get a minute.

I'll look into it.

When we have fixed this one I will make a 0.9.4b release wrapping up these and the UAC fixes.

Thanks,

Michael

[michaeldjcox]

Hi RocKker,

Try this one. Fixed a few little problems in this one.

Michael