a TV Listing time adjustment would be nice

[Kalessin]

The times that Zap2it Labs gives for my programs are all an hour off. Here's what they have to say about it:

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All schedule air dates in the XTVD data from DataDirect are supplied in UTC (Greenwich Mean Time), which is fixed and does not change with Daylight Savings. Therefore, all time offset issues result from misconfiguration in a client using DataDirect.

Many Zap2it Labs users use XMLTV to access the DataDirect service, which requires a user to properly set the time offset. In the current version of XMLTV, this is set in the initial client configuration by running xmltv tv_grab_na_dd --configure, which writes the time offset to the tv_grab_na_dd.conf file. Users of older XMLTV versions may use the "--offset" command-line flag flag to set the offset. Whatever the method, if this is set improperly, then the XMLTV file created from the DataDirect XTVD data will have improper schedule times.
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What I would like is either an internal fix for this or the ability to tell GB-PVR to asjust all the times given by the guide by a given amount of time (an hour is probably all that would be needed given the situation). The other option would be to just have a setting that tells it to adjust its internal time by an hour and you'd just have to be aware that all the times that you were dealing with were an hour off.

As it is, I have to input manual timers for everything since the times are all off. I don't know which solution to the problem would be the best, but one that results in the guide giving the correct times would be preferable. Regardless, a fix for this would be quite desirable. It would cause too many problems for me to offset my system clock by an hour to get GB-PVR to record at the correct time, so that's not a good solution for me.

GB-PVR is a great program. Thanks a bundle. But it would be nice if this scheduling problem peculiar to Zap2it could be fixed. Thanks.

[bluesxman]

Isn't timezone one of the zap2it configuration options?

[Kalessin]

If it is, you give it when you first sign up, but can't change it later because I have no access to such a setting on their site. They should know what your time zone is from the TV provider you say that you have. But as their post said, they give everything in Greenwitch Mean Time. As such, I don't see why they'd care one bit about the time zone.

The issue is that they ignore Daylight Savings. It's up to the user program to deal with that. As far as I can tell, GB-PVR does nothing about it. I assume that once we change our clocks in September, the times will line up correctly, but that still means that they're an hour off during the rest of the year.

Even if it were too much of a pain for GB-PVR to figure out by itself whether or not it needed to adjust the times, it would be nice if an option were added so that the user to could tell it to adjust the times. You'd have to change the setting every time you changed your clock, but that's not all that big a deal as long as you rememeber to do it. The only issue would be how GB-PVR dealt with recurring timers when you changed the setting. You might have to redo them all.

[bluesxman]

I meant in the configuration within GBPVR when you setup your capture source.

[sub]

The issue is that they ignore Daylight Savings. It's up to the user program to deal with that. As far as I can tell, GB-PVR does nothing about it. I assume that once we change our clocks in September, the times will line up correctly, but that still means that they're an hour off during the rest of the year.

GB-PVR uses your PC timezone settings to convert the zap2it UTC times to local times. If your PC is set to handle daylight savings automatically, then your zap2it times will be fine.

We made it through the last daylight savings change with any zap2it users have any problems. No one had to change anything.

[Kalessin]

Well I most definitely don't have my system set to change for Daylight Savings time because I have a dual boot system and on the last go round both Windows <i>and</i> Linux changed my clock by an hour. So I've been letting Linux worry about that.

I have now tried changing it so that Windows <i>does</i> care about Daylight Savings (hopefully I can tell Linux not to instead, but if not, worse case is I have to change my clock by an hour when the time comes). However, that didn't change anything. The guide is still off by an hour. I even went so far as to not only update the EPG, but remove it and re-add it. No good. I suppose that my next step would be to reinstall it. GB-PVR probably set some setting when it was installed that it won't reset now. I'll just have to go and see....

[sub]

If you change any timezone settings, you need to do an 'Empty EPG' first then an 'Update EPG'. This is to clear out any shows already in you database, since this UTC conversion only happens at the time the shows are first imported.

[Kalessin]

Well, I reinstalled GB-PVR before I saw your post, but as an experiment I then changed my system clock back so it ignored Daylight Savings and did what you suggested. At that point the guide changed to being an hour off. And when I changed the clock back, the guide was fixed as well (I emptied the EPG data both times).

However, I find it interesting that when I had outright removed the capture source before and then re-added it, it didn't fix the problem. I assume that since I never actually hit the "Empty EPG" button that the data was left in GB-PVR and updating the information with the "new" capture source didn't fix that. Either way, it works now. Thanks for the help.

And thanks for such a great product. It may be free, but I'd love to donate some money. This product is absolutely fantastic. I'm running Win2K and bought the ATI TV Wonder Elite card. But unfortunately I didn't read the specs right and the software requires WinXp (that's the first time I've seen anything that did - I don't know if that's just because I haven't been buying much software lately, or if this is a new, rare thing). But regardless, the included software didn't do me any good, so I had to look elsewhere for a program to run the card. I then ended up spending $50 on ChrisTv and while it has many great features for tweaking the video format and such, my card seems to be too new to be properly supported by it and I couldn't get good enough picture and sound (most notably I had difficulty getting them in synch). And then I found you! Not only is your prouct free, but it's far superior to what I'd previously messed with. It produces TV quality video and audio and has a great channel guide system (which ChrisTV certainly doesn't have). This program is really a find. Thanks a bundle!

P.S. I'd like to donate, but I don't see any links to do so on your site. As such, I would assume that I need to know your Paypal account in order to donate. Could I get my hands on such information (okay, dumb question). Could you please give me such information. This is a great product and I think that it definitely needs to be supported.

[gbt]

There a big donate button in the top right corner of this page. Click it.

[Kalessin]

I looked for something on the menu and such and never located it. I guess I'm too used to blocking out anything that even looks vaguely like an ad and I missed it. Thanks!