NFL Sunday Ticket

[sdsean]

OK a couple of things. . .

1.) It doesn't look like this is getting fixed any time soon. . .ugh. . .so my question is. . .how did you figure out the Zap2It channel ID? Process of elimination? I can go back in and manually map them again to the new messed up way. . . but I have no idea or can't glean from Zap2Its website what the channelIDs are (e.g. 44423, where did you find this)

[Fuzzy]

I believe if you click on a channel in the lineup, the ID is in the URL. (stnNum=xxxxx)

[sdsean]

Just wanted to revive this thread a bit. . .

I'm curious if anyone is using Windows Media Centre, and can tell me if the DirecTV guide
for it has the channels for Sunday Ticket with the Games /matchups correct.

Granted I know its the offseason right now, so this might be difficult to tell. . .
But now that I've switched to using all sage, its going to be really difficult/painfull to tell
which game is on which channel when the season starts back up. . .

[sacrament055]

Anybody ever get this mapped correctly? I noticed as was mentioned earlier that the canadian channels do not map directly to the directv channels.

[sdsean]

Yeah I have to do it manually every week though. . .super big pain in the butt, but it does work just fine.

1.) Goto DirecTV.com, sign in.
2.) Goto Guide, then to Channels 700-719, sunday, for your local time zone
3.) Also in another browser tab/window, goto Zap2It.com.
4.) On the Zap2It.com site, use M3B 3A4 as the postal code, and select Star Choice east, and select sunday tv listings, east coast time (game times start at 1pm EST).
5.) Now, in Zap2It, start at channel 422.
6.) In sage goto Setup->Setup Video Sources->Channel Lineup
7.) Add channel
8.) Hover your mouse over each channel number, and there it will show you the actual zap2it ID (so 422 is 44422).
9.) Add channel 44422, name it "NFL Sunday Ticket (SHAW 422)", name can vary, but make sure you DON't name it the same as the originals.
10.) Now for both logical and physical channel, enter the channel number for the corresponding game on the DirecTV site.
11.) Repeat for all game channels.

Once you do this the 1st time, you'll only have to edit the Physical/Logical channel mapping. So for the following week, you still goto add channel, enter 44422, and now your added channel will come up and you just change the mapping.

Unfortunately, I have to take 30min or so every weekend to do this. . .but it is reliable.


It seems that there is a pattern, from the Zap2It listing to DirecTV, but it seems to shift, so you still end up doing it manually.

Also interestingly, MSN's site, and Yahoo's site both have the game listings, but Zap2It for many DirectTV listings does not, which is why Sage is wrong. (but i know MSN, Yahoo, and BeyondTV all get there base data from Zap2It so its a bit strange).

It should be easy enough to write a plugin to do this. . .all you need to do is scrape directv and zap2it's sites. Maybe you'd need to enter your directv name and pwd, but that's it. Of course I don't have the time these days to do so. ..

[sacrament055]

Thanks for the response and detailed instructions.

[panteragstk]

Anyone still use this process? Seems that zap2it doesn't have any guide data for sunday ticket anymore. Not cool.

[Slugger]

Yeah, the channels mentioned above as having the game data don't have it anymore. My EPG plugin uses the new Schedules Direct JSON service for its data source. This service does have (or will have, hopefully, by this Sunday) the game data for Sunday Ticket. We're still working out the kinks, but it's coming. Of course, you'd have to change EPG sources, which may or may not be an option.

[sdsean]

Yeah let me know Slugger as well.
Zap2it does have the data it's just buried somewhere and not showing up in their UI.
I know they have it b/c MSN and Yahoo TV listing sites use Zap2it and they show the data (as does BeyondTVs guide service).

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by Slugger

Yeah, the channels mentioned above as having the game data don't have it anymore. My EPG plugin uses the new Schedules Direct JSON service for its data source. This service does have (or will have, hopefully, by this Sunday) the game data for Sunday Ticket. We're still working out the kinks, but it's coming. Of course, you'd have to change EPG sources, which may or may not be an option.

I thought your guide replacement plugin was already available?

[Slugger]

The EPG plugin is. Schedules Direct service is still working on the Sunday Ticket listings fix. Should be ready for this Sunday's games.

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by Slugger

The EPG plugin is. Schedules Direct service is still working on the Sunday Ticket listings fix. Should be ready for this Sunday's games.

Oh. That makes more sense. Thanks.

[panteragstk]

I still didn't get Guide Info for my sunday ticket HD channels on my test server using the schedules direct plugin.

[rkulagow]

The changes required to support NFL Sunday Ticket were made in the beta API (20130709) and not the production API (20130512).

The beta API is just about ready to become production and Slugger and I are working on the final details. Once he's completed the changes to the grabber then Sunday Ticket / NFL details will be available with game-specific details rather than generic blocks of time.

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by rkulagow

The changes required to support NFL Sunday Ticket were made in the beta API (20130709) and not the production API (20130512).

The beta API is just about ready to become production and Slugger and I are working on the final details. Once he's completed the changes to the grabber then Sunday Ticket / NFL details will be available with game-specific details rather than generic blocks of time.

I wouldn't mind testing this for you guys on my test server. Not that I have an ulterior motive or anything.

[Slugger]

Access to the Schedules Direct beta server is public (to those with a valid/active SD subscription). However, since the beta server is always one API version ahead of production, the sdepg plugin in the Sage repository cannot communicate with the SD beta server. You would need to upgrade the sdepg plugin to the private, development version I'm currently running, which isn't available in the repository.

We were hoping to have things upgraded on production already, but seems Robert has hit a few issues as the beta server has been down/broken for the last few days. Once he fixes whatever it is he's working on, I expect production to be upgraded. I've already made the mods to the plugin and am just awaiting the production upgrade on the SD side before releasing my update.

I believe Robert subs to this thread, so you may want to post there to get an update from him on where the new API release stands.

[panteragstk]

Anybody ever get Sunday Ticket working using Schedules Direct?

[sdsean]

I have been meaning to set up the Schedules direct plugin, but haven't yet gotten around to it. I had been still mapping new channels to zap2it info for Shaw cable in canada which used to have the match up info, but last year that stopped working at some point.

[sdsean]

I just re-checked btw. The old process using Shaw cable in Canada still does not work.
Slugger, does schedules direct have the info?

[Slugger]

Originally Posted by sdsean

I just re-checked btw. The old process using Shaw cable in Canada still does not work.
Slugger, does schedules direct have the info?

Yes, for DirecTV* and Shaw Direct satellite only.

* I can't confirm DirecTV, don't use it. I do use Shaw Direct and the game data is there.

Shaw Direct used to provide the data to Tribune, which means the data was in all the Tribune/Zap2It feeds (including the SageTV EPG feed) but that stopped last season. Instead, Schedules Direct gets the data in for the two providers above. For the US, DirecTV is the only provider where this is relevant. In Canada, every cable/satellite provider can offer Sunday Ticket (and most do), but none provide the game data. Because I'm Schedules Direct's upstream provider for Shaw Direct, this is the reason only Shaw Direct is updated in Canada.