How to create XMLTV file for Germany?

[ghofmann]

Hi all,

in configuration of EPG source, I will have to provide an XMLTV file.

What do I need to create this file?

TIA
Gerhard

[sub]

You need to have some third party XMLTV software installed that will created the file for you. Which country are your in? A good first port of call is www.xmltv.org

[xtoph]

You need the XMLTV package (as sub already indicated) and from this you best take the tv_grab_de_tvtoday "feeder". All this stuff is written in Perl, but for Windows there is also a precompiled version available (xmltv.exe). That does the job for you.

[ghofmann]

Hi,

thanks for your hints! Now I was able to create an xml file with xmltv.exe and set up EPG source properly. I can view live TV and schedule records.

But I'm still a little bit confused. Is it necessary to run
xmltv.exe tv_grab_de_tvdoday
regularly by Windows task scheduler? Or will GBPVR do this for me?

Regards
Gerhard

[sub]

GB-PVR just wants an xmltv file and has no idea where you get this file from.

That said, if you create a batch file called UpdateEPG.bat in the GB-PVR that contains that line, then GB-PVR will execute it prior to updating the EPG.

[rowyourboot]

Here you can find a step by step config for german EPG (in german).
http://htpc.4thdimension.de/modules....ic&t=87

PS1: xtoph very cool avatar
PS2: Hi, ghofmann willkommen bei GB-PVR, der Link in TVoon war ja super schnell wieder weg

[stefan_k]

still need it?
===============

Wrote some info on:
- XMLTV
- channel-configuration

Especially usefull for European users (i'm from the netherlands)

===========================
XMLTV

As promised some info on:
- how to setup tv guide in europe
- how to setup xmltv in europe.
both related to gbpvr

xmltv
First thing you have to understand:
gbpvr is a 'viewer' for the tvguide, but does not grab the data.
tv-guide data is stored in a 'standardised file-format': an .xml file.
gbpvr reads this file and present you the nice userinterface that you can control with your remote. Under the tab 'capture sources' (gbpvr, configuration) you can schedule when you want to reread the file.

So: you can read it daily with gbpvr, how do you get it?
you need a 'grabber': a small program you (automatically) run daily and which uses the internet to 'automatically grab program-information' and put it in the .xml-file.

I have tried tvxb, but it did not work with gbpvr: tvxb did not write the closing <tv> command which caused gbpvr to fail on reading the file.

xmltv works fine.

More info on:
http://www.maisenbachers.de/dokuw/howto:mytv:setupxmltv

Although pretty complete, i'll repeat main steps.
1/ download program:
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles...p_id=39046
Store in a directory like C:xmltv*, using Crogram Files* is not recommended for reason of the <space> in <Program Files> which conflicts because you need to run under dos.
2/ open doswindow (yes you need dos)
goto program-directory and type:
xmltv.exe tv_grab_## --configure
with ## identifying the country you live in (tv_grab_nl for netherlands).

answer all questions: typically channels you want to grab.
=> this configures your xmltv-application
3/ type:
xmltv.exe tv_grab_## --days 7 --output tvguide.xml

This will run for a few minutes (in my case: 8 minutes)
It will write 7days of data to the file <tvguide.xml>
(--days specifies <days>, --output specifies <file>

4/ check the output-file: if it looks ok, your ready to use gbpvrto import it.

5/ create scheduled task to run the above line daily: i use 4:14am, avoid round times, since they may have excessive trafic.

6/ run gbpvr, configuration
6a/ tab 'capture sources' schedule daily at some time after file-grab (i use 5:00am).
6b/ use 'add' to configure your capturesource
6c/ choose "epg source" = "XMLTV plugin", settings
6d/ specify filename (tvguide.xml in this example: use full path or browse)
done!

run gbpvr to check.

------------
An other thing that puzzled me:

Each channel is coming back 4 times:

a/ check xml-file: you'l find EXACT channel-name between [brackets]
b/ in directory ...gbpvrmediaChannelLogos
you need to have a channel-icon for each channel: name shall be EXACTLY identical to name under a/, and have picture extention like.gif or .jpg.
Logos may be found on:
http://www.satlogo.com/
c/ in gbpvr configuration, tab 'capture sources', edit one of the sources you created during xmltv-setup:
For each channel you can select Enabled/Disabled
Source channel = channel-of-the-frequency-you-use-on-your-tuner.
So: this is the 'actual tuning'
-> you can modify this number (type anything you like)
Use gbpvr Tuning Assistant to find channel-numbers (just start it, its selfexplaining)
d/ in gbpvr configuration tab 'channels' you select the order you want to see the channels in the tvguide. Edit numbers to change the order.
So: this is viewing order.

To repeat in short:
name -> xml-file -> name
logo -> ...gbpvrmediaChannelLogosname.jpg, name.gif
tuning -> 'capture source'
screenorder -> 'channels'

Hope it helps

Stefan
===========================

Tuning:
Until yesterday, most of my channels were slightly mistuned.

cause: fixed channels have wrong frequencies.

Got it to work using FreqCopy, see:
http://www.prize.nl/software/pvr/

basically:
1/ use WinTV2000 to tune to exact frequencies
2/ step over all channels and write down the channel-numbers that have been assigned to the frequncies
3/ run FreqCopy to download them in registry:
-> note: as suggested on the site: download 4x, cable/antenna, country=0 and country=## (use own country, 31 for netherlands).
-> i 1st did cable/31 only and that did not work, doing 4x costs 30seconds and gets it to work.
4/ open gbpvr, configure, goto tab 'capture sources'.
- edit 'source you are using'
- edit 'numbers of channels' to the values you wrote down under (2/)

DONE!


Note:
- Tuning Assistant will only scan the frequncies that are conected to the channels, but these are NOT correct in europe. SO: good for a 1st try, but not for 'real live' (most channels show up in bw, mono only)
- Tool 'freq2reg.exe ' as mentioned in the manual, did not work (in my case).
Stefan

[xtoph]

Just a small note about how the XML file gets updated. I have always had problems with Windows doing this automatically (by scheduler and GB-PVR batch interface). So I have moved this task to my Linux server and created a read-only Samba share with anonymous access. So now GB-PVR gets things from there.