SchedulesDirect major changes

[drmargarit]

I was changing my lineup on SchedulesDirect and there's an announcement about them changing listing providers and consequently making major changes to the service. The new feeds will include season/episode info (yay!).
This all happens November 1.
Hopefully sub is already aware of this?!

Jim Margarit

[drmargarit]

After reading further on their forum regarding the changes, there's at least one question posted by sub.
I assume we will see an update by the end of the month? No pressure.

Jim

[johnsonx42]

yes, sub is aware. we are testing a pre-release version with the new schedules direct support, it works great.

[mvallevand]

yes, sub is aware. we are testing a pre-release version with the new schedules direct support, it works great.

Great indeed and much faster (maybe because there aren't many users)

Also there is another second approach that we aren't testing http://forums.schedulesdirect.org/viewto...f=8&t=2591 allowing existing users to just modify their host file.

Martin

[drmargarit]

Great indeed and much faster (maybe because there aren't many users)

Also there is another second approach that we aren't testing http://forums.schedulesdirect.org/viewto...f=8&t=2591 allowing existing users to just modify their host file.

Martin

Looks like a temporary patch at best. But since they gave so little notice of a major changeover, it could buy time for those who simply cannot recode before Nov 1.

Hopefully it didn't cause too much hair pulling for sub. I'm sure he didn't appreciate having to drop everything else and spend days/weeks on this issue.
Is he the only developer working on the core program or are there others who contribute? Just curious.

Jim

[sub]

I was pretty much ready to do the next public release of NextPVR when it Schedules Direct first let me know, so the release was held off for a bit to include this. I'm now intending to do the release when I'm back home in New Zealand around the 20th. Hopefully by then Schedules Direct will have finished productionizing their new interface.

I've tired to make things as seamless as possible for users, with auto migration of existing lineups etc to their new system.

[johnsonx42]

Also there is another second approach that we aren't testing http://forums.schedulesdirect.org/viewto...f=8&t=2591 allowing existing users to just modify their host file.

Indeed, those of us in the testing group who run test builds on their main HTPC (i.e. me, not sure who else does that) can't test the alternate legacy schedules direct interface even if we want to because the new version of NPVR no longer supports the legacy interface.

Perhaps an enterprising few ought to try out the alternate service before Nov 1st, particularly if you don't plan to update to NPVR 3.3.x right away. You can report any problems in the linked thread at Schedules Direct, so hopefully they can fix them in time.

[christheman]

Indeed, those of us in the testing group who run test builds on their main HTPC (i.e. me, not sure who else does that) can't test the alternate legacy schedules direct interface even if we want to because the new version of NPVR no longer supports the legacy interface.

Perhaps an enterprising few ought to try out the alternate service before Nov 1st, particularly if you don't plan to update to NPVR 3.3.x right away. You can report any problems in the linked thread at Schedules Direct, so hopefully they can fix them in time.

Any word on whether or not mc2xml will still work? Would it fall into the category of applications that could work under the host file mod?

P.S. Or maybe I would just need to recreate the mc2xml.dat file??

[dljones8053]

I've had a couple of issues with mc2xml over the years and removing the .DAT file let's me run it again with the new info I enter, works every time clearing up the issue I had.

dj

[johnsonx42]

Any word on whether or not mc2xml will still work? Would it fall into the category of applications that could work under the host file mod?

If you are talking about using MC2XML to download Schedules Direct data into an .xml file (not exactly a common usage), then yes, it should continue to work with the hosts file mod.

Most people are using MC2XML to pilfer Microsoft's Media Center EPG data (which as far as I've ever been able to tell was the exact same data as Schedules Direct was providing), and that won't be affected.