Getting EPG direct from DVB-S card

[motobarsteward]

Is this possible now with Sage?

If so, do I just select 'Don't use EPG with this source' when configuring a source?

Does sage its self recognise Series etc in the 'Over the air' EPG?

I'm just getting a little fed up of trying to keep tuning information and EPG info in sync. lmgestion's tool, although better than nothing, doesn't really help as you don't know what's in the frequency tables until you down load them and map everything up. The ones I've tried have errors in them and I'm not confident that they have every free-to-air channel in them and I don't have complete EPG data from DigiGuide.

Getting the EPG from the source has got to be the best option as it's all there for all the channels that you receive.

[StephaneM]

Originally Posted by motobarsteward

Is this possible now with Sage?

Now and Next only.

Does sage its self recognise Series etc in the 'Over the air' EPG?

No.

lmgestion's tool, although better than nothing, doesn't really help as you don't know what's in the frequency tables until you down load them and map everything up.

I'm open to suggestions... When you download the frq files, you see the list of all channels each frq file contains before the get added to your lineup. I don't see how I can improve this...

The main problem (I think) is that tuning informations and EPG informations will always be separated (it would be great if when you download the frq file the EPG was also downloaded and mapped but this is illegal)

Regards,
Stéphane.

[motobarsteward]

I've just realised one problem....

The Channel IDs I'm getting from DigiGuide are different to the ones in the frequency file. I've used a frq file that uses standard Sky channel numbers (and IDs) but Freesat channels are slightly different.

Why is this so difficult? I have to get the EPG but no one source does all the channels. I have to match the channel IDs in in the linups with channel ID in the frq files. There is no comprehensive and fully correct frq file.

I've now purchase two DVB-T/S cards to simplify the system and now I'm getting stuttering and channel changes can take up to 15 seconds!

I've been using stage for around three years and I'd have thought this kind of stuff would have got easier rather than more difficult.

[StephaneM]

Originally Posted by motobarsteward

The Channel IDs I'm getting from DigiGuide are different to the ones in the frequency file. I've used a frq file that uses standard Sky channel numbers (and IDs) but Freesat channels are slightly different.

This is the problem with Digiguide grabber => the channel Xmltv IDs are currently derived from the channel number, this is not the way it should be (from the XMLTV standard). So you may want to have a match between the frq channel numbers and XMLTV IDs, but that's not the way channel are supposed to match anyway (The Importer always try to match channel on their names)

Why is this so difficult? I have to get the EPG but no one source does all the channels. I have to match the channel IDs in in the linups with channel ID in the frq files. There is no comprehensive and fully correct frq file.

I guess you'll get as many lineups as people tastes... For instance if I decide to publis my satellite lineup (for French Canalsat provider) you wouldn't find any sports channels...

I've now purchase two DVB-T/S cards to simplify the system and now I'm getting stuttering and channel changes can take up to 15 seconds!

Well that's not the EPG's fault

I've been using stage for around three years and I'd have thought this kind of stuff would have got easier rather than more difficult.

It's difficult because it's flexible.

As I said I'm open to suggestions, so if you have an idea about a better process I will listen (By the way if we want to dicuss this topic without flooding SageTV forums with it we can have brainstorming on the LM forums).

As I barely touch my lineups configuration (once a year maybe) I find the process pretty easy...

Regards,
Stéphane.

[MCE-Refugee]

Originally Posted by StephaneM

The main problem (I think) is that tuning informations and EPG informations will always be separated (it would be great if when you download the frq file the EPG was also downloaded and mapped but this is illegal)

Illegal? How on earth could it be a crime? DVBViewer provides the full Freesat EPG.

The main problem for viewers of UK satellite TV is that even for just the FTA channels there is a frequent shuffling about of frequencies & transponders plus channels being added & deleted. These changes are handled transparently on the Sky or Freesat STBs but need manual intervention to fix Sage.

[motobarsteward]

MCE refugee is correct here. I sent an email to Sage and DigiGuide a while ago suggesting that they work together to provide support to UK customers similar to what happens in the US. I guess nothing came of it. Microsoft Media Centre was much better in this respect. If Microsoft did a software client, I'd probably go back to MCE tomorrow!

There are two fundamental problems. There is no unique way to describe a channel. The names are frequently different in the different sources so it's almost impossible to automatically match a name in an EPG source to the name used by the tuner. There appears to be no single source for UK satellite channel lists and EPG.

Sky is an obvious source but they are quite protective of it as you effectively pay for this service when you subscribe to Sky. The information is Copyrighted, hence the legality issue. The provider of this information has a right to control what use is made of the information. I have, on several occasions, suggested to Sky that they should sell this information by way of a subscription but both times they have told me that they have no plans to do so.

I guess, what I'm looking for, is someone else to do this for me! I board of doing it all now and I can think of many things that are more interesting that I'd like to do. I guess that my only saving grace is that I'm willing to pay for the service.

[MCE-Refugee]

Originally Posted by motobarsteward

MCE refugee is correct here. I sent an email to Sage and DigiGuide a while ago suggesting that they work together to provide support to UK customers similar to what happens in the US. I guess nothing came of it. Microsoft Media Centre was much better in this respect. If Microsoft did a software client, I'd probably go back to MCE tomorrow!

I disagree. Microsoft Media Center does a poor job of keeping the EPG up to date whenever there are channel changes sometimes it's weeks before listings for new channels appear. The quality of EPG data delivered even when the channel is present can be very hit & miss. Just take a look at some of the postings here http://thegreenbutton.com/forums/90.aspx Digiguide is far & away the best source of UK EPG data.

[brewston]

I've not seen the frequencies change on the FTA channels recently but that could be due to the cut down lineup I'm using. Even so, when the DVB-T ones changed the other day, I just ran the update scan and it found the correct new frequencies which I then accepted.

I admit setting up EPG is hard work at first, but once its done you rarely touch it

[MCE-Refugee]

Originally Posted by brewston

I've not seen the frequencies change on the FTA channels recently but that could be due to the cut down lineup I'm using. Even so, when the DVB-T ones changed the other day, I just ran the update scan and it found the correct new frequencies which I then accepted.

I admit setting up EPG is hard work at first, but once its done you rarely touch it

Scanning & sorting the 60 odd channels for Freeview is not the problem. It's the 1000+ channels on satellite that are such a pain to manage & frequencies change far more frequently than with DVB-T.

[motobarsteward]

Originally Posted by MCE-Refugee

Scanning & sorting the 60 odd channels for Freeview is not the problem. It's the 1000+ channels on satellite that are such a pain to manage & frequencies change far more frequently than with DVB-T.

Yeh, this is what I'm getting at.

[StephaneM]

Originally Posted by MCE-Refugee

Illegal? How on earth could it be a crime? DVBViewer provides the full Freesat EPG.

This is illegal to share data when you don't have the rights to do so (XMLTV Importer can import data but cannot share these data amongst its users like it do with the .frq files)

The main problem for viewers of UK satellite TV is that even for just the FTA channels there is a frequent shuffling about of frequencies & transponders plus channels being added & deleted. These changes are handled transparently on the Sky or Freesat STBs but need manual intervention to fix Sage.

To be able to do this requires that you "subscribe" to notifications from the content provider. This is only possible from the application that handle the DVB capture card and is country / provider specific (there is also licensing issues here for some providers)

[StephaneM]

Originally Posted by motobarsteward

I guess, what I'm looking for, is someone else to do this for me! I board of doing it all now and I can think of many things that are more interesting that I'd like to do. I guess that my only saving grace is that I'm willing to pay for the service.

I agrees 100% with you here.

I'm not sure though I could do it as I'm in France I don't think I woul have access to a Sky subscription.

As I said I'm open to every kind of suggestions. What's come to my mind is:

* Having someone(s) in the UK to monitor Sky lineups and maintain a workin frequency tables
* Make this frequency table a "fixed" lineup in the Importer to which you can subscribe (it would be automatically downloaded for each import)
* Have this fixed lineup matching exactly digiguide data (this would requires also some work on the Digiguide grabber) or get access to data that someone is willing to license (this is the fun part! And btw copyright doesn't kill innovation...)

I don't see how it can work reliabily

a) without pairing frequencies and guide data
b) without someone(s) getting paid to review the accuracy of the channel <-> data matching.

Regards,

[MCE-Refugee]

Originally Posted by StephaneM

This is illegal to share data when you don't have the rights to do so (XMLTV Importer can import data but cannot share these data amongst its users like it do with the .frq files)

I agree that the data taken from your own installation of Digiguide cannot be shared.

I thought that you were referring to the full 14-day Freesat EPG that is broadcast over the air. DVBViewer has support for this OTA EPG & it is not illegal to access that EPG. There are other applications available that also extract the EPG. The advantage of using the OTA EPG is that it can be more up to date than a an XMLTV import performed once per day.

[MCE-Refugee]

Stephane,

I live in France (near Cannes) & have a Sky subscription. It's very easy to get a subscription provided that you have a UK address that you can use just as it's simple to get a Canalsat subscription in the UK if you can use the French address of a friend or relative.

To test an improved implementation it would be simpler initially to concentrate on Freesat as that provides a comprehensive bouquet of FTA channels which means that one doesn't need to worry about decryption, CAMs, cards etc but also has far fewer channels than the Sky bouquet. The frequency tables mapping to channels can be obtained from Lyngsat or elsewhere.

The problem is he current method that we use not just in Sage but in all DVB-S computer applications i.e. scan all the transponders & then figure out what channels there are, how we want to number them & which EPG data we want to map to that channel. The smart way would be to do as the STBs do & gather the required information from the broadcast stream & do it all programmatically without manual intervention.

[starfire]

I see part of the problem is that Sage does not seem to support the use of Logical Channel Numbers (LCN), this would make things far easier as you wouldn't have to sort X number of channels getting them into the expected order, eg 1 BBC1, 2 BBC 2, 3 ITV etc.

I know DVB-T supports this, I presume DVB-S does as well.

Perhaps if LCN was supported then we could automate the mapping to Digiguide data?

[StephaneM]

Originally Posted by MCE-Refugee

I thought that you were referring to the full 14-day Freesat EPG that is broadcast over the air. DVBViewer has support for this OTA EPG & it is not illegal to access that EPG.

It is not illegal to access these data (it can be though from some provider : Guide+, MediaHighway..) but sharing them is.

There are other applications available that also extract the EPG. The advantage of using the OTA EPG is that it can be more up to date than a an XMLTV import performed once per day.

It can... In France however the OTA EPG is neither accurate, neither complete.

[StephaneM]

Originally Posted by MCE-Refugee

The smart way would be to do as the STBs do & gather the required information from the broadcast stream & do it all programmatically without manual intervention.

This still requires that the application doing this controls the frequencies map and the guide data.

[StephaneM]

Originally Posted by starfire

Perhaps if LCN was supported then we could automate the mapping to Digiguide data?

This is all good if both LCN are used within the frq file and digiguide data.

If this is always the case, then a single frequency file shared in the XMLTV Importer is enough.

[MCE-Refugee]

Originally Posted by StephaneM

This still requires that the application doing this controls the frequencies map and the guide data.

I don't know how it is done but obviously details of the mapping between the channel frequencies & the OTA EPG is transmitted along with the EPG & the actual programs as the set top boxes automatically handle all frequency changes & addition/removal of channels.

[MCE-Refugee]

Originally Posted by StephaneM

It can... In France however the OTA EPG is neither accurate, neither complete.

I don't have French satellite TV but have noticed how poor the TNT (DVB-T) EPG is as it's mainly Now/Next even on a proper TNT STB or TV.

The OTA EPG for both Freesat & Sky is excellent as is the Freeview (DVB-T) one.