Canadian EPG (or lack thereof)

[bznotins]

Just an FYI to the Frey folks that they're losing a customer to BTV because of a lack of a Canadian EPG. I know that there's a break-even point and that's hard to quantify, but I just told my Dad (who lives in Canada) that SageTV is the best and he should make that choice, but I then found out he can't get Canadian listings (without an XML workaround that he's really not capable of maintaining) and therefore his only choice is BTV.

Just FYI, again. Hopefully you can hit some critical mass in the future to add Canadians into your customer base!

[mlbdude]

There is a Canadian plugin for EPG listing. It does NOT use XMLTV and is a full featured Zap2It plugin.

http://forums.sage.tv/forums/showthread.php?t=3916

[bznotins]

Wow... in all my searches I never found that post. I guess I suck.

Thanks for the info!

One question: Is the plugin seamless once installed? I can set it up for my dad but he's really not all that adept at these kind of things. If there's any "maintenance" involved with the plugin it might not be such a good idea.

Thanks!

[bznotins]

OK, I looked at the webpage for the plugin. It has potential. Although fully-integrated & supported Canadian listings would be preferential, this just might be close enough to tell my Dad to buy SageTV. I'm just worried about something going awry and me not being around to fix it...

Thanks

[mlbdude]

Originally Posted by bznotins

Wow... in all my searches I never found that post. I guess I suck.

Thanks for the info!

One question: Is the plugin seamless once installed? I can set it up for my dad but he's really not all that adept at these kind of things. If there's any "maintenance" involved with the plugin it might not be such a good idea.

Thanks!

I don't use it but from what I have heard it is seamless once installed. The guy that maintains that thread is super helpfull though if you have any questions.

[bznotins]

Originally Posted by mlbdude

I don't use it but from what I have heard it is seamless once installed. The guy that maintains that thread is super helpfull though if you have any questions.

OK I read through all the forums and it seems like there is some likelihood of the plugin crapping-out at some point after install or Zap2it pulling their free EPG. There also seems to be some issue regarding proper identification of first-run programs. Since I'm not going to be around to help my Dad, I think BTV is still going to be the choice...

Thanks for all the help though -- I appreciate it.

Just curious... I wonder if Frey has done any kind of analysis like "there are X,000,000 households with the internet in California, and we have sold our program to X,000 of those households, resulting in an X% market share. If we were to get that X% share of X,000,000 households in Canada, we would have X,000 new customers and thus turn a profit/loss on subscribing to the Canadian listings." I'm sure they have and the math just doesn't work.

Canadians are pretty internet-savvy though. Probably much more so than most states in the US. Broadband is cheap up there too (from my experience). Many households have it and my guess would be that broadband penetration is much higher there than in the US. Just a guess though.

[mlbdude]

If you are worried about supporting you father, you may want to consider MCE05. It has international guide support and is quite a bit more stable than BTV.

[bznotins]

Originally Posted by mlbdude

If you are worried about supporting you father, you may want to consider MCE05. It has international guide support and is quite a bit more stable than BTV.

Ah, OK thanks! I'll look into that!

[Lester Jacobs]

Originally Posted by bznotins

OK I read through all the forums and it seems like there is some likelihood of the plugin crapping-out at some point after install or Zap2it pulling their free EPG. There also seems to be some issue regarding proper identification of first-run programs.

Hi, I'm the maintainer of the SageTV Canadian EPG plugin so I thought I'd chime in here with some comments just to allay some of your fears.

1) The vast majority of people do not have trouble with the plugin. For those where the plugin stops working, I've always been able to trace it down to a configuration problem on their side. In my case, for instance, I have not had a single hiccup with the plugin on my production SageTV box. My box has been running for months now without me changing a single thing on it.
2) Yep, there's a possibility that Zap2It might pull their EPG but I've seen no indication from them that they're considering this. What they are concerned about are commercial entities who are apparently redistributing the data which is a no-no. I expect that they will go after these entities individually rather than pulling the entire free listing service.
3) In terms of first run programs, the Canadian EPG plugin is actually better than the standard feed from the Sage Servers. In its default configuration, the first-run/re-run identification is exactly the same as Sage's standard feed. However you can configure the plugin (through the zap2itconfig.xml) to do intelligent parsing of the data so that first-run/re-run identification is more accurate than the Sage standard feed (eg. those ubiquitous re-runs of Seinfeld don't keep erroneously showing up as first-runs for instance). In addition the plugin can be configured to handle multi-part show logic correctly so that multipart show segments are flagged to be recorded correctly as separate parts rather than all being flagged as the same show.
4) There is, however, a bit of maintenance that is mandatory to keep the plugin running. The plugin requires that the user have an account at the Zap2it website. Zap2It requires that the user logs in every 3 months or so to answer a questionnaire to renew their subscription. Pretty painless really and Zap2it will send a reminder email when it's time to log in again.


Cheers
Lester

[Ctrl-Z]

The Canadian EPG plugin is the single best feature of SageTV for me. Unlike many of the other parts of SageTV 2.1 and 2.2.2 beta, the EPG has worked perfectly every single time. Thank you Lester! (although you might want to check why ZAP2it doesn't like the certificate code you provided).

[bznotins]

Originally Posted by Lester Jacobs

Hi, I'm the maintainer of the SageTV Canadian EPG plugin so I thought I'd chime in here with some comments just to allay some of your fears.

1) The vast majority of people do not have trouble with the plugin. For those where the plugin stops working, I've always been able to trace it down to a configuration problem on their side. In my case, for instance, I have not had a single hiccup with the plugin on my production SageTV box. My box has been running for months now without me changing a single thing on it.
2) Yep, there's a possibility that Zap2It might pull their EPG but I've seen no indication from them that they're considering this. What they are concerned about are commercial entities who are apparently redistributing the data which is a no-no. I expect that they will go after these entities individually rather than pulling the entire free listing service.
3) In terms of first run programs, the Canadian EPG plugin is actually better than the standard feed from the Sage Servers. In its default configuration, the first-run/re-run identification is exactly the same as Sage's standard feed. However you can configure the plugin (through the zap2itconfig.xml) to do intelligent parsing of the data so that first-run/re-run identification is more accurate than the Sage standard feed (eg. those ubiquitous re-runs of Seinfeld don't keep erroneously showing up as first-runs for instance). In addition the plugin can be configured to handle multi-part show logic correctly so that multipart show segments are flagged to be recorded correctly as separate parts rather than all being flagged as the same show.
4) There is, however, a bit of maintenance that is mandatory to keep the plugin running. The plugin requires that the user have an account at the Zap2it website. Zap2It requires that the user logs in every 3 months or so to answer a questionnaire to renew their subscription. Pretty painless really and Zap2it will send a reminder email when it's time to log in again.


Cheers
Lester

Lester,

Thanks for the feedback. That really helps. I'll try it on my DVR at home and see how it works!

[SimpleSimon]

I'm sorry, but a plugin that is a "hack" (00000 for the zip code???) and that relies on Suns crap for Java is not acceptable to me.

Suns Java is bloated, crashes PC's and is generally unreliable. WHY do we need to use this?

[nielm]

Sage relies on Suns Java. Don't like it -- choose a different PVR product, and the 'hack' is how the plugin works.

(and on 4 home PCs, 2 work PCs, and 2 Unix workstations using Java JVM I have seen no instabilities caused by Java. Sage has been running 24/7 on my server for 2 years, and I have never had to restart it except for maintenance -- hows that for reliable?)

[michelkenny]

Originally Posted by SimpleSimon

I'm sorry, but a plugin that is a "hack" (00000 for the zip code???) and that relies on Suns crap for Java is not acceptable to me.

Suns Java is bloated, crashes PC's and is generally unreliable. WHY do we need to use this?

1) The plugin is not a hack. The 00000 allows the plugin to be called when needed without taking over the entire EPG setup process. A hack would be "replace this dll, hex edit the main executable, etc". Just because you can't setup the plugin doesn't mean it's a hack

2) I also have 1 server and 2 clients running flawlessly with Sage and Java. They can be turned on for long periods of time without needing a reboot. I don't even have to restart Sage itself periodically since it doesn't loose it's responsiveness or crashes.

[Fluffdaddy]

Originally Posted by SimpleSimon

I'm sorry, but a plugin that is a "hack" (00000 for the zip code???) and that relies on Suns crap for Java is not acceptable to me.

Suns Java is bloated, crashes PC's and is generally unreliable. WHY do we need to use this?

Lighten up Francis

[SimpleSimon]

FYI.. I *have* been burned by Sun and their Java...

I required some software for some technical courses I was taking. It would not install because it relied on a Java based installer. The installer would not work because of a bug , which was acknowledge by Sun.

Their response? "Go away, you're not running an Intel processor."

I couldn't get the installer to use a different version of the SunJVM so I was stuck with upgrading the PC just so I could finish taking my course.

Aside from that, I HAVE seen the Sun JVM screw up a PC on several occasions. Not so much with crashes an errors, but with applications that suddenly ceased to work or unexplainable extra CPU load.

[hdtvrocks]

I'm investigating the firstrun and "smart" EPG integration of SageTV. How good is the rerun detection of the Digicasa plugin? Also, I noticed that Zap2it doesn't provide PPV listings for my provider. Will this be changed in the future?