Merging Guides

[snaitaz]

G'day... So I have more than 1 EPG from various suppliers and I would like to know if there is a way to combine the EPG's into 1 EPG. Thank you. Cheers!!

[Graham]

G'day... So I have more than 1 EPG from various suppliers and I would like to know if there is a way to combine the EPG's into 1 EPG. Thank you. Cheers!!

Are you saying that you have multiple xmltv .xml files from various sources?

[snaitaz]

Good day Graham...Yes, I first created the channel list from DTV and Sky for UK channels and some USA channels. Then I ran WG++ to create the EPG files. One is skyguide.xml and the other is USAguide.xml. I pulled each one separately because pulling both at the same time took over 2 hours and I have 4 pulls all together. It is much faster if I do each pull separately. Now i would like to join these EPG's (skyguide.xml and usaguide.xml) into one file to feed into NPVR. I originally created separate EPG folders for each pull USA, UK, etc. but the problem is that each time I added in another xmltv.xml file into NPVR the other channels that were mapped to their respective EPG folder would disconnect from their mapping and map to the new folder. For instance, I go through the process of mapping channel X to BBC1 in the UK folder, save and check and all is good. Then I map channel Y to CNN in the USA folder, save and check and all is good. However, the previous channel X is now showing a blank mapping when looking at the channel details or it indicates an incorrect mapping like "5star" (or whatever) because the "XMLTV file" in channel details indicates guide.usa.xml instead of the correct XMLTV file which in this example should be skyguide.xml with the correct mapping to BBC1 (or whatever).

So my thought is if I was to put all the EPG files into one EPG file, NPVR would not be disconnecting itself from the mapping. I first thought of using Notepad++ and just cut and paste but that would take some time to get this done. Hopefully, there is a much faster or simpler way to accomplish what i want to do because surely others have been able to do this as well. Thanks in advance for any assistance you can lend. Cheers!!

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[jrockow]

Don't know if it helps you or not, but I use MC2XML with the -I option to join 2 different XML files.

[snaitaz]

G'day jrockow...Thanks for the input. I used WG++ for my extracts so I don't know if MC2XML would work with those files but I will give it a go. I have used MC2XML in the past and the process seemed to work well but it is limited to a few providers like SD which i had used MC2XML to xtract from SD. However, I am pulling data from DTV (USA) and Sky (UK) which means I would need to switch to Metabroadcast, TitanTv or TVMedia. I have not used those providers but if I cannot find a way to join my EPG's as I have now, that may bemy next step. Thanks again. Cheers!!

[jrockow]

I'm finding the same problem; I can't get XML UK listings from SD.
I'm going to look into WG++.

I'm not certain, but I don't think MC2XML will just allow you to just enter 2 different XML files and merge them.
I think you need to at least be capturing one lineup, and at the same time merge it with a previously captured lineup.

Might have to use WG++ to capture the UK listings, then run MC2XML capturing the USA listings and merge it with the UK listing.
Wow, that was a mouth full!

[snaitaz]

G'day and thanks for the assist. Since I already have my channels list and EPG's for the regions wanted I am going to look around for a way to merge the EPG files. WG++ was extremely easy to run and one of the best features is that you can run multiple instance of the proggy thus why I have established separate folders for the each region. This way you do not have to change the WG++.config.xml file to pull USA and whatever other region you may want. I run 1 WG++.config.xml file for USA channels and another WG++.config.xml file for UK channels and so on. So now I just need to figure out a way to put them all together so that the mapping does not jump around. For now I think I am going to try the tried and true cut/paste option. Cheers!!

[jrockow]

Would you consider sharing your WG++ config file for the UK?
Having an example would help me get started.
Thanx!

[snaitaz]

A GLORIOUS g'day to everyone...I believe I have found a solution for this issue plus the issue i had posted here>>>https://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.ph...hannel-Map. In general, the loosing of channel maps I had established were being caused by the fact (IMO) that I had several channel lineups feeding into NPVR. For instance, I have UK, USA,TEXAS and NEBRASKA channels including various local channels for those regions also. I won't go into the details as they are already indicated in their respective threads. My "merging guides" thread was an attempt to merge the various EPG.xml files into 1 EPG files so that NPVR would not have to look into various EPG channel lineups and thus eliminate the issue of loosing mappings by just pulling the data from 1 file.

This particular find is written in C+ and takes the various EPG files and combines them into 1. I have tested this on my Windows box and I was able to combine 242 UK channels and 29750 programmes with 273 USA channels and their respective programmes into 1 file. According to the first result, this took 3.45 seconds of processing time!! The author/developer of this find used zap2xml but I was able to apply it to the results from my WG++ as the proggy just looks at .xml files and combines.

Here is my configuration...I created folder C:\tvguide and in there I created additional folder named USA, UK, Texas and NEBRASKA. I also created a blank guide.xml (you can name it as you like) at C:\tvguide. This guide.xml will hold the results of the combining of guides. In USA folder there is guide.usa.xml which is the file that was created using WG++. Likewise in UK, TEXAS and NEBRASKA folders, they will contain the original EPG that was created with WG++.

Also in C:\tvguide there is a batch file I named comby and another file called tvguidecombine.exe. Many thanks to Kmitch at Media Portal for creating this tool. you can get all the information you need to set this up at https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/threa...es.137805/.

After writing the batch file for my needs I found that executing it caused a very rapid process (remember 3.45 seconds) and I could not determine if in fact it was working as the guide.xml file was not getting populated. So i opened an elevated command prompt (DOS) window and entered the lines within the batch file and it in fact indicated what was wrong. A quick fix and voila it worked!

[snaitaz]

@jrockow Of course I would share my config files for USA and UK. Give me a minute to setup at mega.nz and i will pm you the creds...Cheers!!