NextPVR - EPG Setup - XML/XMLTV EPG - Zap2it & Zap2xml

[Erdrick]

Hello Everyone,

Please forgive if I posted this in the wrong area.

This tutorial will show you how to install zap2xml so that NextPVR can auto update the data for the TV guide.

I am writing this tutorial to help those, who like myself, banged their head against a wall trying to get EPG data for OTA digital broadcasts. Now for me, the DVB/ATSC EPG did work but only contained 2 days at most for some channels and less than a day for others. That just wasn't going to work. Everywhere I looked said the easier solution was to just go to SchedulesDirect. While $25/yr doesn't sound like a bad deal, the whole reason I opted to cancel my cable and build this setup was to avoid paying for services like that. I finally have a setup that works. I didn’t do this alone. I found the answer here in the NextPVR forum. I am putting all the steps together in this step by step guide. Do yourself a favor and completely read through this once before actually going through the process.

First I want to point out the original thread and those that posted everything to help me get here.
Original Thread: How-to-setup-Tv-Guide
Thanks to: sub - pBS - Graham - GeoLaw

1: zap2xml
Zap2xml is a small program that will pull the guide data out of zap2it.com or tvguide.com.
Go to Zap2xml and download zap2xml-install.exe. You can find it about half way down the page.
Run the installer and install Zap2xml to the Scripts folder in NextPVR database folder. On my system it is located at: “C:\Users\Public\NPVR\Scripts”.

2: zap2it
This is one of the EPG data sources that zap2xml can use. Originally, I registered with this website and created a user account, it’s free. You can use that username and password within zap2xml to get the data. It is possible to get the data without being registered. Both ways work and currently I do not know of any pros or cons either way. If you want to register to create an account, do that now. If you do create an account, goto 'change my location', enter zipcode and select provider. Then goto Set Preferences and check "Show six hour grid".

3: Create UpdateEPG.bat
In windows files explorer, navigate to the Scripts folder in the NextPVR database folder “C:\Users\Public\NPVR\Scripts” ( this could be different for you).
Right click an empty area and go to New and click Text Document. Then rename the text doc to UpdateEPG.bat.
Make sure that in doing so you change the .txt file extension to .bat.
If you do not see the .txt file extension, goto windows folder options and uncheck ‘hide extensions for known types’.
Right click on the UpdateEPG.bat and click edit. Add the following text to the file.

Registered with Zap2it website? Add the following lines to the bat file and change USERNAME (actually your email address) and PASSWORD to what you created at Zap2it.

cd /d C:\Users\Public\NPVR\Scripts
C:\Users\Public\NPVR\Scripts\zap2xml.exe -o C:\Users\Public\NPVR\Scripts\epg.xml -u USERNAME -p PASSWORD -d 1 -S 1 -D -A "new live" -E "amp apos quot lt gt" –F

If you are not registered with Zap2it or just don’t want to login to get the data, add the following lines to the bat file and change both ZIPCODE entries to your zipcode.

cd /d C:\Users\Public\NPVR\Scripts
C:\Users\Public\NPVR\Scripts\zap2xml.exe -o C:\Users\Public\NPVR\Scripts\epg.xml -Y ZIPCODE -Z ZIPCODE -d 1 -S 1 -D -A "new live" -E "amp apos quot lt gt" -F

Save and close the bat file.

4:
Open a command prompt, type the following and hit enter:
(this should match the location of your Scripts folder located in NextPVR database folder)

cd /d C:\Users\Public\NPVR\Scripts

5:
In the command prompt, type ‘UpdateEPG.bat’ and press enter.
When it is finished running, you should see something like the following:

Writing XML file: C:\Users\Public\NPVR\Scripts\epg.xml
Completed in 3s (Parse: 2s) 56 stations, 944 programs, 1734 scheduled.

If you see something like that, skip 6 and go to #7.

If you see it return something like this, continue to #6

Can't locate URI.pm in @INC (@INC contains: CODE(0x2b65e64) C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\Temp\par-47656f72
6765\cache-709d80414085c53abfd80ec559ac37c4061ccf1b\inc\lib C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\Temp \par-47656f72
6765\cache-709d80414085c53abfd80ec559ac37c4061ccf1b\inc CODE(0x287d624) CODE(0x2
87d924)) at (eval 18) line 2.

6:
Go to the location C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\Temp : This will be different for you. Get the address from your command prompt.
Now delete the folder proceeding C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\Temp\par-47656f726765. This will be different for you. Get the folder name from your command prompt.
Install Pearl for Windows Pearl

Open a CMD prompt then type:

cd /d c:\windows\system32

Then type

ppm install TimeDate

Once complete, return to the start of #5

7:
In the scripts folder, C:\Users\Public\NPVR\Scripts, you should not see a file labeled epg.xml. If not, go back to step #5 and try to run it again. If you still do not have the epg.xml file, ask for help in this forum as you are experiencing something I haven’t.

8:
Open NextPVR
Go to Settings
Click on Channels
Do the following for each channel listed.
Double click the channel
Under EPG Source, select XMLTV
Browse to C:\Users\Public\NPVR\Scripts and select epg.xml
Under Mapping, select the appropriate channel
Hit ok once all the channels are mapped.

9: Test it out
While still in Setting under Channels, hit Empty EPG to clear it out and then Update EPG to get the EPG data. If everything goes right, you should have 1 days of data for every channel in your guide. Now this is getting the data from the epg.xml in the Scripts folder.

10: Last step

Now that we have everything setup and working, let’s set this to get more than just 1 day of guide data.

Back in the scripts folder, C:\Users\Public\NPVR\Scripts
Right click the UpdateEPG.bat file and click edit.

What you are looking for is the –d 1 in the string. The lower case d, not the upper case D.
Change the 1 to 10 or whatever you would like.
You string should closely match one of the following two, depending on whether you are using a registered account or not.
Verify your file locations and change USENAME (actually your email address), PASSWORD & ZIPCODE where appropriate.

C:\Users\Public\NPVR\Scripts\zap2xml.exe -o C:\Users\Public\NPVR\Scripts\epg.xml -u USERNAME -p PASSWORD -d 10 -S 1 -D -A "new live" -E "amp apos quot lt gt" –F

C:\Users\Public\NPVR\Scripts\zap2xml.exe -o C:\Users\Public\NPVR\Scripts\epg.xml -Y ZIPCODE -Z ZIPCODE -d 10 -S 1 -D -A "new live" -E "amp apos quot lt gt" -F

Right now I am not sure why but clicking Update EPG button in NextPVR>Settings>Channels does not populate the epg.xml file.
You can manually run UpdateEPG.bat or setup a timer to run it to generate the epg.xml file.
I will update once I get the Update EPG button figured out.

Let me know if I missed something and ask if you have questions.

[ElihuRozen]

Thank you for all the effort to create this, even though I won't be using it. A few comments - why don't you request an account as a wiki author & then you can post it there so others can more easily benefit from it. In step 4, you could add the "/d" flag. That way, if the user has more than one disk, it will behave correctly. Something like "cd /d C:\Users\Public\NPVR\Scripts". Near the end, you have a typo in the extension for epg.xml. If executing zap2xml.exe creates output, you might want to redirect that to a log file for debugging.

[Erdrick]

Thank you for all the effort to create this, even though I won't be using it. A few comments - why don't you request an account as a wiki author & then you can post it there so others can more easily benefit from it. In step 4, you could add the "/d" flag. That way, if the user has more than one disk, it will behave correctly. Something like "cd /d C:\Users\Public\NPVR\Scripts". Near the end, you have a typo in the extension for epg.xml. If executing zap2xml.exe creates output, you might want to redirect that to a log file for debugging.

Thanks for the response and input.

I actually just joined the site today once I got this figured out. Honestly, I didn't know there was a wiki section. Now that I do, I will do that once I get this polished off.

I fixed the xlm typo at the end. Thanks again.

[RustyChain]

I originally tried grabbing zap2it listings without setting up a registered account, but the zap2xml.exe routine kept failing early in the parsing process. Error message was:

"[1/4] Parsing: cache/1450393200000.html.gz"
"Error: The grid is not being displayed, try logging in to the zap2it website"
"Deleting: cache/1450393200000.html.gz"

After creating a new account on the zap2it website and updating my batch file to match: Success!

The actual zap2xml epg update process ended up taking several minutes to complete, but I now have a proper epg.xml file in my NPVR\Scripts subdir.

[M_ampersand_M]

It took me a few days before I finally stumbled across this post while I searched for a free XMLTV option - my windows media center stopped giving me guide data at the start of the New Year, and now that it's all working, I'm rather liking NextPVR.

Thanks for the great guide! I got it all set up nicely thanks to you.

I will add that i ended up removing the '-S 1' portion of the .bat file. It had been about ten minutes and it was still running the first time I tried it, but after removing that sleep option it completed in 8 seconds.

Cheers!

[jcole998]

An interesting alternative to SD. Is there a content difference between zap2xml and SD? Does SD provide information used by NextPVR that zap2xml does not provide? I've got my system humming perfectly with SD but I'm game to try new(read cheaper) things. But I must not lose any functionality or information.

[Handy.Man]

The latest version of zap2xml http://zap2xml.awardspace.info/ can also get it's data from tvguide.com, the info I get is not the same as from zap2it.com, so I am still using zap2it.com

[scJohn]

Not sure if NextPVR will pick up the Season-Episode information from either tvguide.com or zap2it.com. I know when I was using tvguide.com, NextPVR did not pickup the Season/Episode information. I had to use IGLite. Once or twice a year tvguide.com will change their web page format which will break what ever program your using to grab the information. I got tired of going thru that mess and changed to SD.

Maybe some one can comment how NextPVR handles the Season/Episodee information from those two sources.

[sub]

Maybe some one can comment how NextPVR handles the Season/Episodee information from those two sources.

It can read the season/episode information from xmltv files, as long as they're in the standard <episode-num system="xmltv_ns"> format. You can find info about the 'xmltv_ns' format used for this info here:

http://xml.coverpages.org/XMLTV-DTD-20021210.html

[fame1418]

Can some one help me use this with grablite .also cant find