DVB-S2 EPG Recommendations

[jfh_777]

Hi,

I'm after a little advice/suggestions on potential solutions to improving my EPG listings using my DVB-S2 based card in the UK.

Background is I'm migrating from Windows 7 MC and hopefully going to integrate with XBMC as the next step. So far I have scanned in my channels and created a group consisting of the basic BBC, ITV channels etc that I'm actually interested in from the hundreds of junk channels that come with the basic freesat scan.

My EPG data is currently limited to now and next, and just plain missing on certain channels. There is also a strange character appearing at the beginning and end of each item - not sure what it is but it's annoying. This is something that I'd like to improve upon.

One of the slightly annoying things about the 7MC EPG was sometimes it would name series episodes slightly differently and this would break the series link. For example sometimes the documentary series Horizon would be listed as 'Horizon' and sometimes it would be listed as the episode name. I'm wondering if perhaps some better guide listings will resolve this.

I've read the wiki stuff regarding XML imports etc and i'm not opposed to paying for something like digiguide but I just wondered what others have found to be effective on a practical level.

Also, will the PC wake from sleep at 2AM (the default time) to do the guide update?

One thing I liked about 7MC was the ability to search listings, you could just type the program name and it would search the EPG and it tell you the time/channel it was on) does this functionality exist in NextPVR?

Any tips or suggestions appreciated.

Thanks

James

[jcjefferies]

Have a look at XMLTV GUI which will download the EPG data from somewhere like Radio Times over the internet. Another to look at is DVBGuide which will download the Freesat EPG data from the satellite into an XML file. You can if you want mix the two or more as you can select the source for each channel if you want.

[Graham]

I, and many others, use XMLTVGUI ...

http://www.birtles.org.uk/xmltv/

There is also ...

http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/pclare/DVBGuide/

and

http://sourceforge.net/projects/epgcollector/

[imilne]

DVBGuide would be my recommendation, although stick with version 0.95 rather than the very latest as it produces a slightly different format of output that isn't compatible with NPVR.

As for searching the guide, yes NPVR lets you do that. You can even mark things for recording as you view the results.

Iain