SD EPG Issues - Uninstall?

[MarkHotchkiss]

Hi Dixxfixx,

I can't try with IE. We removed IE from all of our machines many years ago . . .

[dixxfixx]

If you wanted to stick with XP and Schedules Direct, you'd probably need to switch to an XMLTV EPG source.

Okay, I had a couple hours to kill, so I fiddled with XMLTV. I've never looked at it before, never had to. (Well, I've looked at the format before, because I had to make a fake XML EPG file for a fake channel I made up, but that's a different story.)

The wiki just kind of points to it, and getting it is easy, but there were no real "How To Do It" tutorials that I could find. But on the SD site, the fabulous rkulagow has a wonderful writeup.

http://forums.schedulesdirect.org/viewto...?t=295&f=6

It might be a little over the head of the casual user, but I'm an old engineer so I had no problem. I now have SD EPG on an XP machine through XML.

The cool thing is that once you give it a clue, NPVR just goes and finds what it needs.

I still can't wrap my head around why NPVR can't get the data using an XP machine when XMLTV can. From what I read, XMLTV is using the JSON source. What am I missing?

It takes about ten seconds per channel to change from SD to XMLTV, so I just deleted all my channels and imported them anew from XMLTV. Of course, that's the full lineup when I really only get a subset of them (DTA vs. DVR). Now I have to go delete all all the erroneous channels again, but that's quite a bit faster than changing 157 channels one at a time.

Oh, and of course <DONATE>.

[sub]

I still can't wrap my head around why NPVR can't get the data using an XP machine when XMLTV can. From what I read, XMLTV is using the JSON source. What am I missing?

Schedules Direct has two APIs. Their recommended JSON api (which NextPVR has been using for about 3 years) which is accessed over https (and never been a problem until this recent change at SD), and their old legacy zap2it style xml interface.

The xmltv utility accesses the old zap2it interface, which doesn't require https.

We've been using their JSON API for years, because they recommended it, and because it provides benefits not available via the zap2it interface (like artwork, extra metadata, more efficient/quick EPG updates etc).

For a complete answer though - there is nothing to stop an XP machine from accessing the JSON api, it's just that the no longer compatible with the Microsoft Windows https / encryption stack. An application could still work, but it'd need to provide it's own implementation of this https / encryption stuff. ie, like FireFox or Chrome do.

[dixxfixx]

Excellent explanation as usual, sub. Thanks!

[rmeden]

The xmltv utility accesses the old zap2it interface, which doesn't require https.

The Sourceforge XMLTV project (which provides xmltv.exe ) has 3 Schedules Direct grabbers

• tv_grab_na_dd -- uses legacy SD-DD service
  
• tv_grab_sd_json - Uses SD-JSON service
  
• tv_grab_zz_sdjson_sqlite - uses SD-JSON. Not in the last full release, in nightly and alpha-exe.
  

I find tv_grab_zz_sdjson_sqlite to be faster than _sd_json (it uses a sqlite database to cache values, not perl structures)

Normal Distributions: http://files.xmltv.org
Nightly Source http://snapshot.xmltv.org ( doesn't really help windows users)
alpha-exe http://alpha-exe.xmltv.org

RobertE

[dixxfixx]

The Sourceforge XMLTV project (which provides xmltv.exe ) has 3 Schedules Direct grabbers

• tv_grab_na_dd -- uses legacy SD-DD service
  
• tv_grab_sd_json - Uses SD-JSON service
  
• tv_grab_zz_sdjson_sqlite - uses SD-JSON. Not in the last full release, in nightly and alpha-exe.
  

Yo Robert,

Good work, by the way. I'm under the impression you wrote some or all of this. The rkulagow writeup I linked above uses the DD service, which you designate as "legacy". Does that mean it might go away? Should I switch to the JSON? Speed is not an issue for me.

I could not find a way to donate to this effort. Is there indeed a way to support it financially?

Another Robert

[GlenH]

I hope this makes it easier for others.

Go to http://forums.schedulesdirect.org/viewto...?t=295&f=6

Download the xmltv.exe at the link http://alpha-exe.xmltv.org

Save/move it to a directory of your choice (e.g. c:\xmltv) - herein referenced as <dir> below.
Open a command prompt.

In the command prompt:
cd <dir>
xmltv tv_grab_na_dd --configure --share <dir>

You will get prompted for a timezone offset. It correctly automatically selected one for me. I just pressed enter.
You will get prompted for Schedules Direct user ID. Enter your ID.
You will get prompted for Schedules Direct password. Enter it. It will not echo the characters as you type them.
If you don't enter your password, it will need to be entered every time xmltv is run. This probably is not desired during NPVR automatic updates (see below).

It will connect to SD and get your lineup information and prompt for which lineup to select.
I have only one so I let it default. I don't know how it behaves with multiple lineups.

Next it will prompt "Do you want to skip some channels?" No is the default. Type Yes if you want to. I chose the default.

It will list all the channels added and end with "Configuration Complete!"

Now you need to build an xml file for NPVR.

In the command prompt enter the command:

xmltv tv_grab_na_dd --share --days 5 --output xmltv.xml

It will display information as it downloads the schedule and writes xmltv.xml.

Now go to NPVR settings for channels.

Your process may defer from these instructions. I only have North America ATSC so this is what I had to do. Others may post how to address other options.

Change the details of each channel to use XMLTV as the source. You can use the bulk map process or update each one from the setting window. I recommend doing the first one from the settings before doing bulk map. This first edit allowed setting the xmltv file but bulk mapping does not prompt for the file on the change from SD to XMLTV.

Point the XMLTV file entry to the XMLTV.XML file built above. Fortunately you only have to do this once.

Set the mapping of the channel appropriately. Sadly, NPVR could not automatically find the mapping. Channel 4.1 is 4-1, 34.2 is 34-2, etc. in the new file. I had set each one separately.

Once done with the mappings, click the Update EPG button and NPVR now has an updated schedule when it completes.

Now go to the scripts subdirectory in your NPVR data directory.
Create a UpdateEPG.BAT file using Notepad.

Put the following text into it and save the file.
cd <dir>
xmltv tv_grab_na_dd --share --days 5 --output xmltv.xml

This will now keep the schedule updated (for now until something else breaks this process) whenever NPVR is set to automatically update the guide.