Would Appreciate a Review Before Going Live with NextEnd & TV Listings

[GWCowling323]

I am planning to use NextEnd and TV Listings to meet four objectives:

1. Extend sports (particularly NCAA football)
   
2. Watch Recordings without commercials
   
3. Extend post-sports programs on Sunday night
   
4. Customize TV Guide with groups, order, genre colorization, append "Further Showings," etc.
   

I started with the sample batch files from the wiki to create PostStartup, ParralelProcessing, PostProcessing, PostUpdateEPG, and UpDateEPG .bat files.

I have attached the UpDateEPG file. I would appreciate general feedback on that as well as responses to more detailed questions which I have included in REM statements. If that batch file is good, I am confident the other four will be good to go.

Thanks to Martin and Graham for all the help they have provided thus far. And to Sub for establishing such an outstanding process.

[Graham]

I have attached the UpDateEPG file. I would appreciate general feedback

My opinion is that you are being wildly overoptimistic if you attempt to implement everything all at once. I strongly recommend that you do one thing at a time. For example, put NextEnd to one side for now and get GuidePlus to do whatever it is that you are aiming for.

That said, your updateupg.bat has ...

%NSHELPER% -isInUse >> %LOGFILE%
%NSHELPER% -isInUse | find "NOT RECORDING"

but I can't see that the variable %NSHELPER% is set to a value ... I expect that that the variable should contain the executable command to run nscripthelper.exe.

Plus ... have you tested that you get a result from the command ...

mc2xml -d 240

Does this command produce an xmltv file and are your channels configured at Settings --> Channels to get EPG data from the xmltv file?

[mvallevand]

I would weigh how much you need some of those things. The default TV guide does channel groups and genre colourization already so that would eliminate the need for running mc2xml and GuidePlus since using the built in Schedules Direct support is very reliable and straight forward.. You can introduce features when you are comfortable with your system and that batch file makes a lot of assumptions that you probably don't understand and it like won't work.

Martin

[BrettB]

I would weigh how much you need some of those things. The default TV guide does channel groups and genre colourization already so that would eliminate the need for running mc2xml and GuidePlus since using the built in Schedules Direct support is very reliable and straight forward.. You can introduce features when you are comfortable with your system and that batch file makes a lot of assumptions that you probably don't understand and it like won't work.

I would echo Martin's comments. The TV Listings plugin seems to basically unsupported at this point and hasn't been updated in quite a while. And most of the features that it added are now included in the standard TV Guide screens.

[Tacoma]

I found the TV Listings recording UI use caused the NextPVR UI to crash. I still use the TV Listings UI TV schedule, but have reverted to the default recording UI.

[johnsonx42]

It does seem like Alibert has lost interest... he's not been on the forum since July, and TV Listings is in need of an update to work correctly with 3.8.3 (in fact it's not been updated for nearly two years now). As Martin correctly says, the stock TV Guide does most of what you want now anyway.

[GWCowling323]

Regardless of whether or not I implement Comskip first or TV Listings first, I need to UpDateEPG. I have no idea what mc2xml -d 240 does, but what I want is the Schedules Direct command that is equivalent to that. This is from my UpDateEPG batch file:

:LOOP
start /b "" "%PROGRAMFILES (X86)%\NPVR\NScriptHelper.exe
if NScriptHelper.exe -isinuse
Call :LOGMSG Recording in progress, take timeout.
timeout 60
GoTo :LOOP
Call :LOGMSG No recordings in progress, update the EPG.
mc2xml -d 240
Call :LOGMSG EPG Update complete
GoTo :EXITJOB

[BrettB]

Regardless of whether or not I implement Comskip first or TV Listings first, I need to UpDateEPG. I have no idea what mc2xml -d 240 does, but what I want is the Schedules Direct command that is equivalent to that.

No. As long as you use the Schedules Direct support built-in to NextPVR, you do not need any UpdateEPG.bat file. NextPVR will do everything on its own.

[Graham]

I want is the Schedules Direct command that is equivalent to that.

No. As long as you use the Schedules Direct support built-in to NextPVR, you do not need any UpdateEPG.bat file. NextPVR will do everything on its own.

What he said.

The NextPVR update EPG process is a two part process and part 1 is optional. Part 2 is where NextPVR loads EPG data from your chosen EPG source into the NextPVR database. When the source is Schedules Direct ... NextPVR reads the data direct from Schedules Direct via the Internet. Likewise, when the EPG data source is ATSC/DVB (over the air broadcast data) ... NextPVR reads the EPG data direct from the broadcast stream via the antenna. Part 1 of the two stage EPG update process is only required when the EPG data source is xmltv and it is necessary to run a program to get the xmltv data from somewhere and create a file on the local disk that NextPVR can then read.

You do not need a updateepg.bat if you are getting EPG data from Schedules Direct. However, NextPVR will always run updateepg.bat if it exists ... even when NextPVR is obtaining EPG data from Schedules Direct.

[GWCowling323]

What he said.

You do not need a updateepg.bat if you are getting EPG data from Schedules Direct.

Does that include pausing when a tuner is in use? The local PBS station rebroadcasts programs at all hours of the day and night. I will never be able to accurately predict when NextPVR will reschedule PBS programs when they conflict with other scheduled recordings.