Cant autopopulate epg

[mvallevand]

Sequence of events:
01/18 2300 manually updated epg on channels page
01/19 0815 Manually emptied epg on channels page and reset auto update time for 0830
01/19 0930 checked epg - no listings
01/19 0930 zipped logs and npvr.db3

Logs and db3 attached

It seemed to be set for 9am but in in any case you started NextPVR before the EPG update Did you try sub's response yesterday to restart it after the update?

Martin

[default_user8]

Make it easy on yourself, sub is right the OTA epg data is hit or miss. Go here and make an account and pick your channels. https://tvlistings.zap2it.com/?aid=gapzap
Go here and download zap2xml http://zap2xml.awardspace.info/

Place zap2xml in the scripts directory and edit this batch file with your username and password for zap2it and you should be good.
I have been running mine like this since i started using nextpvr without any issues.

If you get stuck you should be able to get it right with this post.
https://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.ph...mp-Zap2xml

Oh and i forgot to mention the initial EPG update takes a long time, the batch file i attached is the one i use and i pull 14 days worth of EPG. Run the update epg and forget about it for 20-30 minutes.

[jaunderwood]

I am seeing listings when I use your database.

Are you trying to view the guide in NextPVR UI, or somewhere else like the web app, kodi, emby etc?

I am trying to view using the TV Guide in NextPVR UI.

[jaunderwood]

It seem to be working now. Don't know what I did to fix it. Thanks to all who offered their assistance.

[DVRMultiStreamer]

If you want to supply your logs, and npvr.db3 database, soon the next EPG update time, I'll check it out.

Most people would run the EPG update at like 2am or similar though, because you want to be sure the tuner isn't tied up with recording etc, otherwise the EPG update might not happen that day.

I've installed a WinTV Quad tuner recently for OTA and have been testing it with NextPVR.

It started downloading this EPG data though sporadically as some time slots would be empty. However, last night I was sorting all my channels into groups which helps sort out the local channels in HD, SD, and then splitting into Comcast Cable HD, SD, and then creating my favorites group channels so I'm not overwhelmed as I know which channels I usually end up recording.

As for the EPG data I did a manual update and noticed as Sub has said it only gets about 24 hours of data as I fast forwarded in time to so how far the TV listings went.

I would also like to know if NextPVR allows forced TV Channel Groups to be updated with EPG data so it doesn't scan EPG data for channels I'm not interested in? I've isolated a group of OTA HD Local channels and I was able to manually select them and Update EPG after I cleared it first to be certain what data was new.

Second I recommend for an EPG update time not to use 2am. Many programs and channels being quite a heavy DVR multistreamer will be occurring so the update will miss if it is occupied. I think a safer time is 603am. This is right before any major news. Although some may get away with 503am. I usually have a post padding buffer of 2 minutes for my recordings so this should avoid any conflicts.

Now if it is true only 24 hours of EPG data can be updated at once is this because of the TV stations themselves only broadcast up to 1 day's in advance is there a way to force download more EPG data on a certain channel up to 2 weeks?

Where is the EPG data stored and is it in plain ASCII text?

I was wondering if there was a way to force lock certain EPG data so it always knows to not overwrite the information there in certain time slots?

The idea is to populate the EPG data of certain channels and time slots that are always consistent.

For example.

Say FOX, CBS, NBC, ABC, 7am-9am usually is News related and never changes shows. Is there a way to set up an alternate EPG source file that is permanent which your own customized TV show Channel Number, TV Call Sign, and TV Show Name for a specific time slot in the EPG data?

I noticed when the TV show listings is missing EPG data it defaults to 30 minute increments. Could this be changed in a future NEXTPVR to allow 30 minute or 1 hour time span selection instead? Most shows are usually 1 hour more often than 30 minutes. So maybe adding a default 1 hour and a possible 30min selection option in the recording window to toggle between the two.

Another issue I had was I like to use the manual recording sometimes to speed up the DVR programming of shows when EPG data is missing/not present. When I am on the channel I want and I use Ctrl+K this causes it to record the current time slot instead of pulling up the Manual recording menu so I can manually schedule my programs. Can you fix this so it reverts back to the original functionality? I can see where Ctrl+K might be handy if you want to instantly record a show that's currently playing but you would most likely have missed the beginning already.

Also if on the Main Menu, why does Ctrl+K then become a delete recording command? Can you disable this and change this to Ctrl+D? Why doesn't Ctrl+K pull up the Manual recording when on the Main Menu?

On the TV Guide Listings, why is it it that this can't be an video overlay as it shuts down my current TV tuned station and exits out?

When doing Manual Recordings (Ctrl+K) can you include the option to select from a customized Channel Group so you wouldn't have to wade through the entire list of channels and option to input TV channel number manually? Also when doing Manual Recordings I noticed something that could help with the ease of identifying the channel better if you included the Channel Number to the Left with a space before the TV station CallSign next to it. With the Channel Number to the left it helps me know how far I am away from selecting the correct channel when scrolling through all the TV callsigns and knowing where the station I want is.


Now when doing a Manual Recording and lacking EPG data or Cable Channel data I noticed that it always saved the filename in this formatting:

Default_Year-Month-Day_TimeStart_TimeEnd

Now could you improve this in a future update of NextPVR and fix this file naming issue to be more specific?

If NextPVR already knows the Channel Number and Channel TV Callsign Name couldn't you just include that in the manual recording filename?

For example if I am recording CNN if you took my suggestion it will be in this format:

TV Channel_TV Call Sign_Year-Month-Day_TimeStart-TimeEnd

CH759_CNN_2018-01-19_1600-1700

This will help sort out the recordings better at least giving me a better sense of grouping them by Channel Number and TV Call Sign rather than a jumble of Default recordings to sort through.

Now if it does detect correct EPG data and identifies the TV Show Title then I would like it to show the filename format as this:

TV Show Title -- TV Channel_TV Call Sign_Year-Month-Day_TimeStart_TimeEnd

Erin Burnett OutFront -- CH759_CNN_2018-01-19_1600-1700


Now if it is simpler to include an option to set the Manual Recording and EPG Recording File Formatting variables that would be another way for people to customize the look out the filename outputted.

Another feature I just thought of was during a Manual Recording or a TV Guide missing EPG data recording could you include a way to manually type in the title of the TV Show while the show was recording that after recording it will add that to the front of the filename in the same format I exampled?

Thank you Sub I hope what I wrote made sense. I'm more to happy to elaborate if any of it doesn't.

[sub]

I've installed a WinTV Quad tuner recently for OTA and have been testing it with NextPVR.

It started downloading this EPG data though sporadically as some time slots would be empty. However, last night I was sorting all my channels into groups which helps sort out the local channels in HD, SD, and then splitting into Comcast Cable HD, SD, and then creating my favorites group channels so I'm not overwhelmed as I know which channels I usually end up recording.

As for the EPG data I did a manual update and noticed as Sub has said it only gets about 24 hours of data as I fast forwarded in time to so how far the TV listings went.

Actually, you usually only get about 6 hours with of listings in the US. Sometimes you get lucky and your station gives you 24 hours. Honestly, in that part of the world I'd just switch to Schedules Direct to get decent listings.

I would also like to know if NextPVR allows forced TV Channel Groups to be updated with EPG data so it doesn't scan EPG data for channels I'm not interested in? I've isolated a group of OTA HD Local channels and I was able to manually select them and Update EPG after I cleared it first to be certain what data was new.

It'll only scan channels that are set to use the DVB/ATSC EPG. If you switch some channels to Schedule Direct or XMLTV or None, then these channels wont be scanned.

Second I recommend for an EPG update time not to use 2am. Many programs and channels being quite a heavy DVR multistreamer will be occurring so the update will miss if it is occupied. I think a safer time is 603am. This is right before any major news. Although some may get away with 503am. I usually have a post padding buffer of 2 minutes for my recordings so this should avoid any conflicts.

Is this for commercial use? NextPVR is strictly for in-home personal user. For commercial use, you need to buy a commercial license.

Now if it is true only 24 hours of EPG data can be updated at once is this because of the TV stations themselves only broadcast up to 1 day's in advance is there a way to force download more EPG data on a certain channel up to 2 weeks?

As mentioned, it's usually only 6 hours of listings in the US TV broadcasts. That is all the FCC requires them to transmit. Very few stations transmit more than this. Most users use the Schedules Direct listings.

Where is the EPG data stored and is it in plain ASCII text?

It's stored in the npvr.db3 database.

I was wondering if there was a way to force lock certain EPG data so it always knows to not overwrite the information there in certain time slots?

The idea is to populate the EPG data of certain channels and time slots that are always consistent.

For example.

Say FOX, CBS, NBC, ABC, 7am-9am usually is News related and never changes shows. Is there a way to set up an alternate EPG source file that is permanent which your own customized TV show Channel Number, TV Call Sign, and TV Show Name for a specific time slot in the EPG data?

I noticed when the TV show listings is missing EPG data it defaults to 30 minute increments. Could this be changed in a future NEXTPVR to allow 30 minute or 1 hour time span selection instead? Most shows are usually 1 hour more often than 30 minutes. So maybe adding a default 1 hour and a possible 30min selection option in the recording window to toggle between the two.

Another issue I had was I like to use the manual recording sometimes to speed up the DVR programming of shows when EPG data is missing/not present. When I am on the channel I want and I use Ctrl+K this causes it to record the current time slot instead of pulling up the Manual recording menu so I can manually schedule my programs. Can you fix this so it reverts back to the original functionality? I can see where Ctrl+K might be handy if you want to instantly record a show that's currently playing but you would most likely have missed the beginning already.

Also if on the Main Menu, why does Ctrl+K then become a delete recording command? Can you disable this and change this to Ctrl+D? Why doesn't Ctrl+K pull up the Manual recording when on the Main Menu?

On the TV Guide Listings, why is it it that this can't be an video overlay as it shuts down my current TV tuned station and exits out?

When doing Manual Recordings (Ctrl+K) can you include the option to select from a customized Channel Group so you wouldn't have to wade through the entire list of channels and option to input TV channel number manually? Also when doing Manual Recordings I noticed something that could help with the ease of identifying the channel better if you included the Channel Number to the Left with a space before the TV station CallSign next to it. With the Channel Number to the left it helps me know how far I am away from selecting the correct channel when scrolling through all the TV callsigns and knowing where the station I want is.


Now when doing a Manual Recording and lacking EPG data or Cable Channel data I noticed that it always saved the filename in this formatting:

Default_Year-Month-Day_TimeStart_TimeEnd

Now could you improve this in a future update of NextPVR and fix this file naming issue to be more specific?

If NextPVR already knows the Channel Number and Channel TV Callsign Name couldn't you just include that in the manual recording filename?

For example if I am recording CNN if you took my suggestion it will be in this format:

TV Channel_TV Call Sign_Year-Month-Day_TimeStart-TimeEnd

CH759_CNN_2018-01-19_1600-1700

This will help sort out the recordings better at least giving me a better sense of grouping them by Channel Number and TV Call Sign rather than a jumble of Default recordings to sort through.

Now if it does detect correct EPG data and identifies the TV Show Title then I would like it to show the filename format as this:

TV Show Title -- TV Channel_TV Call Sign_Year-Month-Day_TimeStart_TimeEnd

Erin Burnett OutFront -- CH759_CNN_2018-01-19_1600-1700


Now if it is simpler to include an option to set the Manual Recording and EPG Recording File Formatting variables that would be another way for people to customize the look out the filename outputted.

Another feature I just thought of was during a Manual Recording or a TV Guide missing EPG data recording could you include a way to manually type in the title of the TV Show while the show was recording that after recording it will add that to the front of the filename in the same format I exampled?

Thank you Sub I hope what I wrote made sense. I'm more to happy to elaborate if any of it doesn't.

It sounds like you need a commercial license. I'm also happy to discuss any customizations required for commercial users.

[DVRMultiStreamer]

Actually, you usually only get about 6 hours with of listings in the US. Sometimes you get lucky and your station gives you 24 hours. Honestly, in that part of the world I'd just switch to Schedules Direct to get decent listings.

It'll only scan channels that are set to use the DVB/ATSC EPG. If you switch some channels to Schedule Direct or XMLTV or None, then these channels wont be scanned.

Is this for commercial use? NextPVR is strictly for in-home personal user. For commercial use, you need to buy a commercial license.

As mentioned, it's usually only 6 hours of listings in the US TV broadcasts. That is all the FCC requires them to transmit. Very few stations transmit more than this. Most users use the Schedules Direct listings.

It's stored in the npvr.db3 database.

It sounds like you need a commercial license. I'm also happy to discuss any customizations required for commercial users.

Hello Sub,

Curiously I was reading your response to my statement here: "Second I recommend for an EPG update time not to use 2am. Many programs and channels being quite a heavy DVR multistreamer will be occurring so the update will miss if it is occupied. I think a safer time is 603am. This is right before any major news. Although some may get away with 503am. I usually have a post padding buffer of 2 minutes for my recordings so this should avoid any conflicts."

>>>Is this for commercial use? NextPVR is strictly for in-home personal user. For commercial use, you need to buy a commercial license."

Can you tell me what makes this commercial use? I record OTA channels for free but also some news channels only found on Cable although I'm planning on cutting the cord soon as it's pretty much a rip off. They charge you for the CableCard, HD signal, and Set Top Box. Then a bundle TV package where you might only want a few channels out of the entire 1000.

Normally I used to use the WinTV and the quick instant record button and manually started and ended my OTA recordings which allowed me to watch Live TV on all channels I was tuned to simultaneously. This was something that NextPVR is unable to do or monitor. Now I can't be certain if the recording quality between WinTV vs NextPVR is superior because in the past I seemed to be getting larger files sizes with WinTV than NextPVR but I haven't done a full analysis of the same channel recorded live in WinTV and one in NextPVR of the same OTA channel to verify this yet.

For the moment I'm just a regular at home user who probably has more ideas to improve your product as it at least from my viewpoint lacks a lot of robust features but is a great offline TV scheduler type application. However most of my ideas end up hitting a brick wall and don't get introduced so people live with it. Your program is probably the closest to something that is usable (worth using) next to the WinTV version. So I'm glad you are still keeping your program alive and supporting it.

If I was a programmer maybe I could release one myself that included everything I've thought about that could be improved. I'm more a program designer. But I'm willing to help improve your product for free because I see this program could be the best DVR program out there but it's just lacking things that prevent it from being the best. But of course the harder part I assume is programming all the ideas into it which is easier said than done. I don't really care if you profit off of it as long as the product is improved.


Can you tell me more about this commercial license? I assume that is geared towards businesses or something of that nature?

What is that cost of this commercial license and does a commercial license allow access to the source code to improve NextPVR or if not will NextPVR be open source? I only saw you could donate and didn't know there was some paid commercial version?

Is the Commercial version more advanced or is this more of a pay to you Sub to get the customized features to be included in a future NextPVR release that ends up being a public version for all to use down the road?

I looked at the Donate button and it only accepts CC. Do you ever take Paypal payments? I think you would get more donations that way at least from USA/Canadian users.


P.S.
I tested out the Update EPG and I believe it scans all the channels even if you select just one Settings Channels Window. The same applies for the Empty EPG. Selecting one channel to Empty doesn't work either.

When using the Update EPG I noticed that it sits there indefinitely it seems or freezes out. No status of what's going on just that it's updating. Now if you Empty EPG it will then tell you what channel it is scanning and the 60 second count down status update.

Is there a way to Update individual PCG channels or Empty individual selected PCG channels from the Settings, Channel Listings Window?

I was testing out the EPG TV Listings and now sometimes it seems corrupted and you will see TV programs from other channels end up on another channel. Then there are some channels that just don't get any EPG data update and show "No shows".

A bug I noticed is if NextPVR is frozen and you force close it. Sometimes you can't relaunch NextPVR. The only way to fix this is to shutdown the NextPVR from the Services by stopping it and then restarting and this kills any recordings currently happening.

Is there a way to relaunch the NextPVR program without shutting down the NextPVR service.

The only file I found in the Task Manager was NEXTPVR.exe *32. Is there another file that is running that I can end or a way to fix this issue of NextPVR from relaunching properly?

Another issue is sometimes if you select a channel and it doesn't lock onto the signal quickly sometimes it will sit there or appear frozen. Sometimes you can try and select another channel and it will break free from the freezing or if it not you have to end NEXTPVR.exe *32 from the Task Manager and hope relaunching it will work or else the dreaded stopping the NextPVR service which kills all your currently recording programs.

There's more bugs I found as well but concerning this channel locking issue maybe you should be able to set some sort of customizable channel finder countdown clock to 5 seconds max or something so it's not stuck in a somewhat frozen mode. Now sometimes it does end up finding a channel much longer than normal like 15 seconds but sometimes it doesn't and sits there so the only way is to try to click another channel during the lag so it gets out of the lag when it locks onto another channel then try the channel you originally wanted again and hope it locks on.

Now there are other issues when watching a live tuned channel. If you have a program about to record it will kick you out of the live tuned channel even though there are other "free" unused tuners available.
I would assume if the program is recording on the same channel you are watching live it shouldn't need to kick you out since one nice feature of NextPVR is you can watch the same channel multiple times on the same tuner without wasting another tuner but sometimes I believe this is not always the behavior. I think I've seen if you try to tune the same channel it does steal another free tuner to use which it shouldn't.

Also if you have all your tuners being used (one for a different channel)
If you select Live TV it will say no tuners available. Now instead of that it should just drop down a list of just the channels being tuned to select from instead of that warning message.

Because if I force select a currently tuned and being recorded channel it allows me to view it live. Why not make Right Click "Live TV" pop up a selection of channels currently tuned instead of this warning message or automatically tune to the last tuned TV channel currently being recorded with this list of available tuned channels pop up list to select from?

[Graham]

I tested out the Update EPG and I believe it scans all the channels even if you select just one Settings Channels Window. The same applies for the Empty EPG. Selecting one channel to Empty doesn't work either.

When using the Update EPG I noticed that it sits there indefinitely it seems or freezes out. No status of what's going on just that it's updating. Now if you Empty EPG it will then tell you what channel it is scanning and the 60 second count down status update.

Is there a way to Update individual PCG channels or Empty individual selected PCG channels from the Settings, Channel Listings Window?

The NextPVR channel scan uses a .INI file found at Users\Public\NPVR\Tuning ... The first few lines identify the tuning file and are, more or less, the text that is displayed at NextPVR Settings --> Devices in the "Country" and "Region" boxes when you do a channel scan. You could cretae your own .INI file if you know the frequency of the channels that are received by your antenna.

The Update EPG process will scan all of the frequencies in the .INI file (AFAIK) looking for EPG data and there is no way to change this behaviour.

I was testing out the EPG TV Listings and now sometimes it seems corrupted and you will see TV programs from other channels end up on another channel. Then there are some channels that just don't get any EPG data update and show "No shows".

The EPG data that is broadcast OTA in the US is famously sparse and unreliable. You will be told by everyone here to not use OTA EPG data and you will also be advised to use Schedules Direct. Other options include "zap2xml".

A bug I noticed is if NextPVR is frozen and you force close it. Sometimes you can't relaunch NextPVR. The only way to fix this is to shutdown the NextPVR from the Services by stopping it and then restarting and this kills any recordings currently happening.

Is there a way to relaunch the NextPVR program without shutting down the NextPVR service.

The only file I found in the Task Manager was NEXTPVR.exe *32. Is there another file that is running that I can end or a way to fix this issue of NextPVR from relaunching properly?

Please create a new thread for this specific problem ... Recreate the problem and attach the logs to a post that describes what you did and, importantly, the time that you did it so that we know where to look in the logs. There is a button at NextPVR Settings --> About that will zip the logs for you.

Another issue is sometimes if you select a channel and it doesn't lock onto the signal quickly sometimes it will sit there or appear frozen. Sometimes you can try and select another channel and it will break free from the freezing or if it not you have to end NEXTPVR.exe *32 from the Task Manager and hope relaunching it will work or else the dreaded stopping the NextPVR service which kills all your currently recording programs.

There's more bugs I found as well but concerning this channel locking issue maybe you should be able to set some sort of customizable channel finder countdown clock to 5 seconds max or something so it's not stuck in a somewhat frozen mode. Now sometimes it does end up finding a channel much longer than normal like 15 seconds but sometimes it doesn't and sits there so the only way is to try to click another channel during the lag so it gets out of the lag when it locks onto another channel then try the channel you originally wanted again and hope it locks on.

Please also create a new thread for this specific problem ... Recreate the problem ... attach the logs ... the time that you did it ...

Now there are other issues when watching a live tuned channel. If you have a program about to record it will kick you out of the live tuned channel even though there are other "free" unused tuners available.
I would assume if the program is recording on the same channel you are watching live it shouldn't need to kick you out since one nice feature of NextPVR is you can watch the same channel multiple times on the same tuner without wasting another tuner but sometimes I believe this is not always the behavior. I think I've seen if you try to tune the same channel it does steal another free tuner to use which it shouldn't.

NextPVR use tuners in order ... Recordings are allocated to tuners from the top down in the list at NextPVR Settings --> Devices. You can force NextPVR to allocate Live TV to tuners from the bottom up in the list by ticking "Use Reverse Priority for Live TV". If the problem persists please do as above ... new thread ... logs ... time of the problem.

[sub]

Can you tell me what makes this commercial use?

I said this because of the series of posts you made, in multiple threads, which did not sound like things your average home user would want.

For the moment I'm just a regular at home user who probably has more ideas to improve your product as it at least from my viewpoint lacks a lot of robust features but is a great offline TV scheduler type application. However most of my ideas end up hitting a brick wall and don't get introduced so people live with it. Your program is probably the closest to something that is usable (worth using) next to the WinTV version. So I'm glad you are still keeping your program alive and supporting it.

As the developer of this application, I need to consider carefully whether users ideas are incorporated, to make sure we're steering the application in the right direction for the future. If I included everyone's good ideas, we'd have an application that looked like this:

Can you tell me more about this commercial license? I assume that is geared towards businesses or something of that nature?

NextPVR is only free for personal use at home. If you're a business that wants to record TV, or school, or a non-profit, or a some other sort of organization, you'd need to use the 'Contact Us' link on the website to discuss commercial licensing options.

What is that cost of this commercial license and does a commercial license allow access to the source code to improve NextPVR or if not will NextPVR be open source? I only saw you could donate and didn't know there was some paid commercial version?

How much it costs depends on your needs (number of machines, type of deployment, any customization required etc).

Is the Commercial version more advanced or is this more of a pay to you Sub to get the customized features to be included in a future NextPVR release that ends up being a public version for all to use down the road?

At the most basic end of the licensing, it's the same application, but with permission to use in a commercial setting, and with direct support contact. Moving beyond that basic licensing,and commercial users can ask me to quote for whatever customizations they want. They can have an entirely different UI if they want, or specific recording file name structure, or scheduler driven by config files, or whatever. Ultimately if some company wants access to the source code, they can negotiate that too (for the right price).

I looked at the Donate button and it only accepts CC. Do you ever take Paypal payments? I think you would get more donations that way at least from USA/Canadian users.

The donation buttons just take you to PayPal. You can use any of it's payment methods.

A bug I noticed is if NextPVR is frozen and you force close it. Sometimes you can't relaunch NextPVR. The only way to fix this is to shutdown the NextPVR from the Services by stopping it and then restarting and this kills any recordings currently happening.

If you want to post the logs when this happens, I'm happy to take a look what is causing it. For support for issues, you really need to post a new thread that focuses on that single issue, providing a good description of the probelm, and the logs.