XMLTV How to?

[jan smit]

anybody else have an idea what these errors could be caused by?
xmltv? xeerces? Java?
compatibily problem of revisions?
Which combination(s) are known to be working?

Thanks,
jan

[nielm]

The error messages are from the XMLTV grabber because the command line options you pass are not correct.

The command line options in the batch file are for the North American grabber (which no longer exists). You need to read the XMLTV docs to lean how to configure and use the _nl grabber, then set that up in your batch file...

It is best to run xmltv from the windows command line (start->run cmd.exe) while you are trying to get it running.

[jan smit]

So near and yet so far away!
My math teacher told me many years ago: for most problems there is a simple solution, don't search too far away. And he was wright again.

Thank you very much nielm.
I looked almost everywhere, but never realised that these little txt-files contained the information I needed.
Most important however was your note that the options in the na-grabber are non existent for the nl-grabber.

I find it somewhat strange however, that one of the 5 steps in the moreless "official" XMLTV HOW_TO is can be called nonsense!

Anyway, thanks again, you made my day; I now have epg working for some channels and will continue using your "dummy file" described in another thread.

Best regards, jan

[nielm]

I keep on meaning to update the guide -- it still refers to Sage1.4 -- but never have time!

[jan smit]

Don't get me wrong, I did not mean to criticise anybody; I apreciate very much the work that you and all the others do.
I was just surprised that the problems I had are not mentioned in any of the many threads about the subject that I looked through.
Epg now seems to work for me for all the channels that I want and I am very happy about that!!!!!!!

Regards, jan

[Lucas]

Hi all,

I noticed this morning and last night after running the UK_RT grabber that every page request returned an error and no data.

Has something changed on the RT site?

Has any of you run the UK_RT grabber successfully over the last couple of days?

[dooferlad]

The Radio Times web site has started blocking XMLTV. There is a replacement grabber available as discussed on the XMLTV users list:

"An alternative grabber that uses the listings at www.bleb.org is checked into CVS and is in the latest alpha EXE. It does not have the same detail as RT, nor as many channels, but it is quicker.

Perl-source installation:
Either get a CVS checkout from Sourceforge:
http://sourceforge.net/cvs/?group_id=39046
or the latest snapshot tarball
http://snapshot.xmltv.org/
and install as normal.

Win32 installation:
Download the latest alpha xmltv executable:
http://alpha-exe.xmltv.org/
Save it in the same directory as the old XMLTV exe.

Download the icon_urls file
http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.p..._urls?rev=HEAD
(warning, big URL. Right-click the link and select save-as)
Save this as: <xmltv-dir>\share\xmltv\tv_grab_uk_bleb\icon_urls
AFTER SAVING MAKE SURE THAT IT HAS NO .TXT EXTENSION

start a command prompt and cd to the XMLTV dir
Configure the channels:
xmltv tv_grab_uk_bleb --configure
then run the grabber
xmltv tv_grab_uk_bleb --days n > epgdata.xml "

Unfortunately when I tried this I was unable to get listings from this source. Apparently it doesn't put the optional time zone information in its listings output and the Sage XMLTV plugin doesn't like this.

Bleb is a very fast source so if we can get it working with Sage it is an improvement over RT.

[nielm]

also see here: http://forums.sage.tv/forums/showthr...&threadid=7264

Unfortunately when I tried this I was unable to get listings from this source. Apparently it doesn't put the optional time zone information in its listings output and the Sage XMLTV plugin doesn't like this.

Odd - it does for me!

[Lucas]

I got the new alpha xmltv.exe with the bleb grabber as soon as nielm posted its presence on the other thread 3 days ago.

It has worked for me and I am in the GMT+3 timezone.

About the only issue that seems to be inconvenient is the handling of programmes spilling over midnight where some programmes end up getting chopped off or having excessive stop times.

After looking at the raw bleb data, this is probably due to bleb data listing programmes after midnight GMT as still belonging to the previous day...

But nevermind at least we got something........

As nielm has also noted.... discussions seem to be under way with RT and they seem not be totally negative about the RT grabber.

[Lucas]

I also had some troubles with various xmltv plugins with RT grabber.

I switched plugins.

I was pointed to:


Nielm's alternative multi-source XMLTV plugin

This worked flawlessly ever since and still works well with the uk_bleb grabber.

[dooferlad]

Thanks for the pointers everyone - I will try it this evening. I was using the first bleb enabled xmltv.exe so it may work better with the new one. Nielm's XMLTV plugin will probably help as well.

[Lucas]

I still use the first release of the alpha xmltv.exe that supported the bleb grabber. I also use nielm's multi-source plug-in without any probs.

I am not aware of a newer version.
My previous posts did not mean to suggest that.

[dooferlad]

Looking through some other posts it looks like it may be working, but the channel IDs have changed. I am not using Nielm's XMLTV plugin AFAIK though, so I will try that if it still isn't working.

[dooferlad]

Got it working. The trick was to delete the old recording source and re-create it. Bit of a pain, but nothing I can't cope with.

Still using http://mta.techno.org/epg/ as my XMLTV plugin. The one posted above gives me the choice of several sources, the first couple of which just didn't work.

Now onto getting DVD playback working well (currently my sound sync sucks) and using http://mediaportal.sourceforge.net/ as my music (and maybe video) front end.

[parkimar]

This is a great xmltv grabber, specific for the UK.
Cheers

Mark

http://www.alanbirtles.dsl.pipex.com/xmltv/xmltv.htm

[silkshadow]

Originally Posted by nielm

XMLTV users outside of North America may have problems with various versions of the XMLTV plugin -- this is because the plugin tries to determine the channel number from the channel name -- which is not always present.

If I may ask, which variable in the channel name?

Given this tag:

<channel id="cartoonnetwork.home.ph">
  <display-name lang="en">TOON</display-name> 
  <url>http://cabletv.starhub.com/</url>

which is the main chanell identifier,

or this one:

<programme start="200411071730 +0800" stop="200411071800 +0800" channel="cartoonnetwork.home.ph">
  <title lang="en">He-man & The Masters Of The Universe</title> 
  <desc>Get set for the premieres of the He-Man And the Masters of The Universe. When Skeletor and his evil minions threaten the land of Eternia, a new hero, He-Man rises to protect the land. Together with his allies, He-Man battles to defend Eterniamagic.</desc>

which is a cell channel definition. What should I replace with the physical channel number?

What I mean is, is it the main 'channel name' where coreykim's plugin is looking for a channel number? Or is it the channel ID? In other words, should I change 'cartoonnetwork.home.ph' or 'TOON' to '32' (which is the physical channel it is on)? Or some string to represent '32'? Or maybe 32.home.ph?

This would really be alot of help because I just spent a couple hours, over the past couple days, hacking around my registry trying to assign channels to frequencies and its been a bit frustrating . Also, I would really like to get the newer (coreykim's) XMLTV plugin working. I am using the older one right now because coreykim's leaves me hanging at the 'connecting to schedule' (or whatever the screen is) forever.

Thank you!

To add to this topic. Mr. Bill Dickens has created an awsome XMLTV grabber for SE Asia. A big thanks to him and his incredible program and support. You can get TVxb here: http://www.tvxb.com/.

[nielm]

Originally Posted by silkshadow

If I may ask, which variable in the channel name?

<display-name> in the <channel> tag, eg:

<channel id="cartoonnetwork.home.ph">
  <display-name lang="en">TOON</display-name> 
  <display-name>32</display-name> 
  <url>http://cabletv.starhub.com/</url> 
</channel>

You may be better off with the plugin found here:
http://forums.freytechnologies.com/f...&threadid=2234
which does not need channel numbers (you have to remap them yourself in Sage).

[silkshadow]

Thanks nielm! The plugin you linked is the one that I am using now and it is working fine. But, I've been doing alot of trouble shooting in Sage (to fix extremely choppy video) and I keep installing and reinstalling (pulling out properties stuff, starting from sctratch, etc) and it would ne nice not to keep having to remap the channels. I will give this a try. Thanks again!

Edit: Do you think it will work if I do, for example:

<display-name lang="en">NBN,8</display-name>

?

Becasue the grabber I am using only supports one name field.

[s_s]

actually I wanted to know abt my epgdata....actually in that my grabber didn'y garb the program ofend of the day

[ArnouD]

Originally Posted by Sweep

Just installed sagetv for the first time and tried to get it all working. Since I live in the Netherlands, I ran into the known problems found here with the tuning and the EPG.
With the instructions in this thread I almost got the EPG to work ;-)
I got to step 5 but sageTv got no further than the message "please wait .. while getting your channel lineup from the sagetv servers" (or something like that.
Using the plugin from http://mta.techno.org/epg/ got me also beyond this point.

So far it seems to work, now let's wait and see if it refreshes.

I'm still running the 10-day trial but really like this software so far!

getting this atm, but that link of yours is down.