EPG Loading Question/Suggestion/Rant(?)

[volksman]

Hey All!

Ok so this isn't a bitch thread or anything. Just a thought that I figured I'd vocalize and see if there is a response.

I was wondering why the EPG update routine isn't smarter? Why does it try to load everything at once? There should be a way to force it to play nice with IO and CPU cycles. My father lost his machine for a week cause it put so much load on it that it overheated glueing one of his fans up. I know the underlying problem there was a faulting fan to begin with (was likely spinning slower than it should have been).

But my concern still stands. On my two sat recievers the EPG loads over time. When I first hit the EPG its nice and fast and shows me current day events meanwhile it is populating future events in the background.

Just curious if this has been given any sort of consideration for future releases?

[sub]

To be honest, I never thought there was a problem with this. Its been doing pretty much the same scheme for the last three years, and its been working pretty well from what I could tell. The automated EPG update occurs in the background at a time of your choosing.

Are you a zap2it Dish or DirectTV user? I know these users have significantly more channels than everyone else, and when combined with 13 days of listings can add up to a phenomenally large number of listing (quarter million to half a million). How many channels and days worth of listings are retrieving?

[Shaky]

+1 on this. In my case I have a lot of channels and am using a combination of DVBEPG and Zap2it with 11+days of data. Especially after an EPG update it is common that it takes upwards of 5 minutes until the guide displays. (basically locks up the screen until it is done loading)

You may want to try the TV listing plug-in as it seems to load the data differently and is quicker to display.

[sub]

Are you guys talking about the same thing? Volkmans post seems to refer to the 'EPG update routine', but I guess he might be talking about loading the epg as you go into the TV Guide?? Either way, this happens in the background from the first second you start GB-PVR, so it'll only be a problem if you start GB-PVR then try to go immediately to the TV Guide. If you have had GB-PVR running any period of time, then the guide will already be loaded and will show immediately.

Anyway, Shaky, can you zip and email your gbpvr.db3 file to me at support@devnz.com so I can try it here and see where the slowness is occurring? I'll try to improve it for next release.

My week of listings for 40 or so channels loads pretty much instantly - a second or two? Having a large database of listings like yours make give a more realistic view of what you see.

[Shaky]

Are you guys talking about the same thing? Volkmans post seems to refer to the 'EPG update routine', but I guess he might be talking about loading the epg as you go into the TV Guide??

Interesting, now that I read again it could be 2 different things. Sorry, didn't mean to steal the thread if this is the case.

Anyway, Shaky, can you zip and email your gbpvr.db3 file to me at support@devnz.com so I can try it here and see where the slowness is occurring? I'll try to improve it for next release.

I'll try to email to you and PM you a link as well in case the file it too big to get through.

[charlieram]

I have same problem on both accounts, Takes ages to show epg when GBPVR is started and the update EPG option takes forever. Just a quick question, on Virgin cable there are a couple of channels that broadcast a 4 day epg for all channels, is there any way to just scan those transponders to fill all channels and would this make it quicker for the above problems?

[sub]

I have same problem on both accounts, Takes ages to show epg when GBPVR is started and the update EPG option takes forever. Just a quick question, on Virgin cable there are a couple of channels that broadcast a 4 day epg for all channels, is there any way to just scan those transponders to fill all channels and would this make it quicker for the above problems?

Are you using the DVB EPG? If so, do you have the patch from the sticky survival guide thread?

[charlieram]

Doh! missed those, should I install all the patches or only ones causing a problem?

[sub]

Probably best to install them all. Do it in the order they're listed.