Media Center not receiving listings past 6th December?

Tenshot · 05-12-2012 2:24am #1

So, my two Windows 7 Media Centers are both now reporting no guide listings beyond 6 December (1:45 am to be precise). I can update listings fine, and the event log shows the update completed successfully; it's just not receiving guide data beyond the 6th.

Anyone else seeing this? I'm on the NTL Analogue Dublin Listings package. In about 24 hours, all my scheduled recordings are going to go kaput.

(I attempted to follow this up with Microsoft and was informed I would possibly be charged $299 for the privilege of reporting it. I declined.)

Edit: I suspect someone in Microsoft or Zap2It noticed broadcast analogue services ceased with the changeover to Saorview in October, and decided that it must apply to analogue cable as well :-(

Alun · 05-12-2012 10:51am

It's possible I guess. There is actually a free way of contacting MS to report EPG problems,. Go to https://connect.microsoft.com/site1145, and sign in with a Microsoft Live account, but the responses are not very timely and often not really helpful beyond a "We'll forward this to our data providers ...". Maybe worth a try though.

Alternatively, download Guide Tool and just select corresponding EPG entries from other (digital) lineups ... http://1geek1tool.com/guidetool

kenmc · 05-12-2012 11:07am

Same problem here, I tried to reset my guide info last night, (selected chorus dundrum as I live in goatstown) and that doesn't work either.

Should be nothing to do with analog switchoff, as this is a cable system, not an antenna, which is what was affected.

Any reference I've seen to this issue in the past appears to need intervention by MS and/or Zaptoit to fix.

Alun · 05-12-2012 11:29am

I fear you've probably left it a bit late to contact MS about this. I keep an evil eye on my guide listings and jump on the internet if there's even one day missing, and even then it usually takes several days to get sorted with sometimes only a few days left in the EPG.

Again, I'd suggest using Guide Tool and seeing if there are any alternative lineups in the list that have more up to date info, although a preliminary peek at the available data using mc2xml shows that it seems to affect all the lineups if you select Ireland as the country. I've got mine set up for the UK which might also be an option as all the channels are in there somewhere even if you have to use Guide Tool and mix and match on which lineup you choose from the list. I don't know how difficult this is if you're using an analogue tuner, which I presume is what you're both doing.

Tenshot · 05-12-2012 11:43am

Alun wrote: »

It's possible I guess. There is actually a free way of contacting MS to report EPG problems,. Go to https://connect.microsoft.com/site1145, and sign in with a Microsoft Live account, but the responses are not very timely and often not really helpful beyond a "We'll forward this to our data providers ...". Maybe worth a try though.

That's exactly the link I was looking for - thanks! I've just submitted some feedback through it, so hopefully it will provoke some action.

Alternatively, download Guide Tool and just select corresponding EPG entries from other (digital) lineups ... http://1geek1tool.com/guidetool

Great; thanks for that too. I haven't come across Guide Tool before but sounds like it will get me sorted until (if?) Microsoft get the real problem resolved.

Thanks to kenmc also; useful to know it is happening on other lineups as well. And yes, I'm using analogue tuners.

kenmc · 05-12-2012 11:52am

Tenshot wrote: »

That's exactly the link I was looking for - thanks! I've just submitted some feedback through it, so hopefully it will provoke some action.

Great; thanks for that too. I haven't come across Guide Tool before but sounds like it will get me sorted until (if?) Microsoft get the real problem resolved.

Thanks to kenmc also; useful to know it is happening on other lineups as well. And yes, I'm using analogue tuners.

Whats' most frustrating is that it "downloads" the epg data "successfully", so there's no error notice until you're within 3 days of the end of the listings. Much more useful if it had failed to download the stuff 10 days ago, then we'd have known much earlier....

oh, and yeah analog tuners here too. anyone reckon it's worth getting a digital one?

Alun · 05-12-2012 11:58am

Tenshot wrote: »

That's exactly the link I was looking for - thanks! I've just submitted some feedback through it, so hopefully it will provoke some action.

I've given it a +1 and an "I can reproduce this bug too" as this might prod someone into action there. Good luck

Alun · 05-12-2012 12:00pm

kenmc wrote: »

oh, and yeah analog tuners here too. anyone reckon it's worth getting a digital one?

If you're receiving your TV signal via UPC cable, then a DVB-C tuner card won't work. The only option there is to sign up for UPC's digital+ service.

kenmc · 05-12-2012 12:07pm

Alun wrote: »

If you're receiving your TV signal via UPC cable, then a DVB-C tuner card won't work. The only option there is to sign up for UPC's digital+ service.

I have the basic of basic digital service from utv, but never use it, just the MC PC; it was cheaper to get the basic digital package years ago than to stay with analog! My UPC box doesn't even do timeshift! But it is digital, so that should be enough to work with a digital tuner card right?

Alun · 05-12-2012 12:14pm

kenmc wrote: »

I have the basic of basic digital service from utv, but never use it, just the MC PC; it was cheaper to get the basic digital package years ago than to stay with analog! My UPC box doesn't even do timeshift! But it is digital, so that should be enough to work with a digital tuner card right?

I think you mean UPC, not UTV, but no it won't work. Well, it will at a basic level, as the standard used by UPC is DVB-C and you can indeed get DVB-C tuner cards, but UPC will not provision (enable) any equipment on their network apart from what's supplied by themselves, so you're screwed.

kenmc · 05-12-2012 12:24pm

Alun wrote: »

I think you mean UPC, not UTV, but no it won't work. Well, it will at a basic level, as the standard used by UPC is DVB-C and you can indeed get DVB-C tuner cards, but UPC will not provision (enable) any equipment on their network apart from what's supplied by themselves, so you're screwed.

That's what I was afraid of; been a couple of years since I worked in that technology sector and figured it was still the case. ah well. if I ever buy my own house a sat dish and dvb-s cards are first on the shopping list

Tenshot · 05-12-2012 12:52pm

kenmc wrote: »

That's what I was afraid of; been a couple of years since I worked in that technology sector and figured it was still the case. ah well. if I ever buy my own house a sat dish and dvb-s cards are first on the shopping list

Ironically, I've spent the past two weeks assembling all the bits to move over to a Freesat/Saorview setup. Comprising:

- Windows 8 Media Center
- TBS-6280 and TBS-6981 dual tuner cards (Saorview & Freesat); four tuners in total
- New UHF aerial & freesat dish

I finished installing and aligning the dish at the bottom of the garden last night; I'm hoping to do the Saorview aerial today. (These short winter evenings are a curse - there's little useful time to get anything done outside during daylight.)

The new Media Center will live in the garden shed, using DVBLink to serve the channels back to the Media Center in the main house over some CAT5 I installed a while back.

All of this was planned before the listings mess-up; if I get the new system up and running today, it may provide me with an alternative solution :-)

I used to use NTL's digital STB, with the Media Center using IR to change channels etc. It was too unreliable -- the STB used to crash every week or two, and it might be a couple of days before I noticed my recordings were gone awry. Also, NTL charge extra for a second STB whereas I can record two analogue channels at a time on the basic package.

The impetus for the move to Saorview/Freesat is to get widescreen, high-def, generally improved picture quality, plus access to a few of the channels not currently on offer on NTL Analogue. We'll see how it goes. Won't be canceling the analogue subscription just yet...

heston · 05-12-2012 11:17pm

I noticed the same so at least I'm happy I'm not the only one.
I'm using the old Chorus, now UPC, analogue over the air system (special dish on the chimney). Had channels mapped from NTL Dublin.
I've tried all the irish channel mappings and none of them are working. So I suspect this is a problem with the general updating of the EPG. Hopefully MS and UPC will sort it out soon. If not then I'm not sure what to do. I've tried installing the guide helper program but I can't get it to work...
:mad:

Wheeker · 05-12-2012 11:38pm

Same problem here :mad:. I already use Guide Tool for my Saorview + Freesat EPG, using listings from NTL Digital Dublin, Astra 28.2 & Sky Ireland for every channel except the Saorview channels (in-band guide data) & ALL of them have No Data Available after midnight tonight. So it would seem that this is a general Irish EPG issue &/or Guide Data download issue

I will add a +1 to Tenshot's MS feedback. Any other suggestions?

Alun · 06-12-2012 12:08am

Wheeker wrote: »

Same problem here :mad:. I already use Guide Tool for my Saorview + Freesat EPG, using listings from NTL Digital Dublin, Astra 28.2 & Sky Ireland for every channel except the Saorview channels (in-band guide data) & ALL of them have No Data Available after midnight tonight. So it would seem that this is a general Irish EPG issue &/or Guide Data download issue I will add a +1 to Tenshot's MS feedback. Any other suggestions?

If it's affecting only the Irish feeds, you could try re-running TV setup specifying the UK instead and use SW1 7AA as the postcode which is what I do on my Freesat / Saorview setup. Works fine, and is still showing 14 days of EPG.

kenmc · 06-12-2012 9:43am

I installed MediaPortal last night, still fiddling with it but it seems to do everything that MC does, but with guide

)
MC was starting to annoy the crap out of me to be honest, have been running it since 2007 on Vista (yeah I know!) fine, upgraded to Win7 about a year ago and it's been not as good - moaning about stuff like "oh i don't know how to play that video" - which it recorded, or that tuners are unavailable or something, and taking ages to load a photo during photo browsing. Hopefully MediaPortal will be a better option now, and it's OpenSource as well which is always good in my book.

Alun · 06-12-2012 10:15am

I played with MediaPortal too but could never get it quite to my taste somehow, especially regarding EPG. Series link is important to me and it appears the only way to get this is to install some special build which I could never get working.

I must admit that MCE is getting on my nerves too, the biggest problem for me being the rigmarole you have to go through when satellit channels change transponder. Practically evey other available app manages it easier than MCE does. Also random strangeness like you described above, and my favourite "there is no space available for this recording" even when there's 1TB free

There's a new release of MediaPortal coming out soon (1.3.0) I may give that a more concerted try to get set up according to my tastes when it comes out.

Tenshot · 06-12-2012 12:29pm

I managed to get my Saorview + Freesat setup running with DVBLink yesterday evening, along with DVBLink's DigiGuide EPG loader for populating the guide data.

Everything went surprisingly smoothly - a little bit of a learning curve for DVBLink itself, but once I'd played around with it a bit, everything worked very well; now I have about 80 TV + Radio freeview/saorview channels, a big improvement from my 14 analogue channels. I particularly like having the ability to so easily edit the guide lineup, merge channels, etc, plus easy distribution of the channels to other Media Centers around the house.

Adding or changing a transponder looks like it will be a piece of cake, with Media Center barely being aware that anything has changed (DVBLink syncs any changes you make to DVBServer to each Media Center client each time Media Center starts up, or on demand via an Extras icon.)

This was all with DVBLink 4.5.1. The only thing not working was streaming live channels to the iPhone/iPad, a known compatibility issue with Windows 8.

So, this morning I upgraded to DVBLink 4.5.2 Beta 1 which fixes the streaming issue -- and now I'm nowhere

I suspect a full re-install rather than upgrade will sort it out, but hoping to avoid that...

Thanks for that SW1 7AA post code, Alun - very handy!

Alun · 06-12-2012 12:32pm

Yeah, I've actually been considering using DVBLink's TVSource on my standalone Media Centre box, just to make the whole channel scanning/sorting stuff easier. Does the DigiGuide EPG give you series link functionality within MCE?

Tenshot · 06-12-2012 11:10pm

Alun wrote: »

Does the DigiGuide EPG give you series link functionality within MCE?

Yes, it appears to -- Media Center automatically picked up on my old wishlist recording for Prime Time, and was happy to let me schedule a series recording for RTE's 9 O'clock news based on the Digiguide listings.

One of the annoying things about the standard Zap2Com Media Center EPG data for RTE is that it often incorrectly tagged programs as part of a series as one-time broadcasts, so that not only could you not record the series, but it would often consider the second episode a repeat showing of the first, and just ignore it. I'm hoping Digiguide's data will be much better for this sort of thing.

Wheeker · 07-12-2012 11:27am

Alun wrote: »

If it's affecting only the Irish feeds, you could try re-running TV setup specifying the UK instead and use SW1 7AA as the postcode which is what I do on my Freesat / Saorview setup. Works fine, and is still showing 14 days of EPG.

Thanks a million Alun, last night I wrote down my EPG channel numbering order, did a back-up of my TV Tuners on Guide Tool (requires a donation to enable this feature) & then re-ran TV Set-up using UK - SW1 7AA as my location. Worked a charm

all the Guide Data is back & in fact now I have a better list of (UK) guide data providers to choose from in Guide Tool, so I managed to get guide data for channels I couldn't get before :cool:

The Guide Tool restore TV Tuner line-up kinda works, it got most but not all of my channels back to where I had them before, still took a bit of tweaking though. I was glad I had written down the channel numbering before to enable me to quickly fill-in the gaps.

Tenshot & kenmc- I hear you, the default MC guide data can be a bit patchy sometimes (Series link, New-re-run, Original Air Date etc). I also notice I sometimes get a summary description of a program at the bottom of the main EPG screen, but when I look at program details there is no description at all

. Would be interested to hear how you get on with Media Portal/DVB-link. Another feature I would love is Season # & Episode # displayed, can they do this?

Tenshot · 07-12-2012 1:14pm

Wheeker wrote: »

Tenshot & kenmc- I hear you, the default MC guide data can be a bit patchy sometimes (Series link, New-re-run, Original Air Date etc). I also notice I sometimes get a summary description of a program at the bottom of the main EPG screen, but when I look at program details there is no description at all . Would be interested to hear how you get on with Media Portal/DVB-link. Another feature I would love is Season # & Episode # displayed, can they do this?

Unfortunately, the DigiGuide data doesn't seem to include season/episode #, or if it does, DVBLink isn't displaying it.

After wasting a fair bit of time trying to get DVBLink 4.52 Beta 1 running, I've given up and gone back to 4.51. I imported my previous saved config and everything is running smoothly again, so I'm pretty happy with it now.

One slight annoyance is that DigiGuide's Web Premium service (£2.99/year), required for DVBLink, doesn't let you mix & match channels arbitrarily -- you have to pick from a pre-defined lineup. There's a vast array of lineups available, but I haven't been able to find one with all the Saorview channels AND all the freesat channels - closest I can get is Freesat + RTE1 / RTE2 but without the other Saorview stuff. Not a big deal, since DVBLink is doing a good job of picking up the in-band guide data for TV3/TG4/etc.

The only other issue is that channel change time is quite slow (5-10 seconds initially, often faster for subsequent changes). From a bit of research on the DVBLink forums, this seems to be a driver issue with the TBS6981 satellite card - there is a fixed driver at http://forum.dvblogic.com/viewtopic.php?f=56&t=20248 which I'm about to try to see if it improves things.

Out of curiosity, what sort of signal quality readings are other people with Freesat setups getting? On my cheap LIDL settop box, I'm reading about 75% signal quality (80% signal strength) on most Astra 28.2 channels; about 80% signal quality when I do the reading through the PC's satellite tuner. Most channels are perfect, but I've noticed occasional patches of brief pixelation on BBC1 HD (about every 10-20 mins, usually affecting just a small rectangle of the picture); I haven't watched enough TV yet to see if this is going to be a regular occurrance.

spooner_j · 07-12-2012 9:02pm

Alun wrote: »

If it's affecting only the Irish feeds, you could try re-running TV setup specifying the UK instead and use SW1 7AA as the postcode which is what I do on my Freesat / Saorview setup. Works fine, and is still showing 14 days of EPG.

Im having the same trouble with my Windows Media Center. I tried setting it to the UK as suggested with that postcode but when it scans for the channels again it only comes back with 8... And worse still, 3 of them are blank.

Did you re-scan with the UK set as your country? I have the Guide Tool installed so once I have the channels coming through I should be able to get the listings back...

spooner_j · 08-12-2012 12:01am

Right, I found a way to get the guide (mostly) working again... Basically you have to follow the instructions in this site to add another country for guide listings:

http://experts.windows.com/w/experts_wiki/add-multiple-guide-listings-to-windows-7-media-center.aspx

I set my second country (which he refers to as the US in his guide) as 400000 which is supposed to be the guide for Belfast. Once I fixed the custom files mentioned in the guide, then ran the script I could reconfigure the listings for the channels so they work again now.

Some still dont seem to work, namely TV3, 3e, and Setanta. My guess is its because they arent available in the UK at all, while the others are...

Doubt.It · 09-12-2012 2:11am

I managed to mend Freesat / Saorview for my Windows 7 Media Centre, just using the trick of putting in a Belfast postcode. I did a separate scan for the digital terrestrial channels but that seemed to work fine with the NI locale too.

In fact I think the experience is better. With the Windows EPG you always get situations where the broadcast is on one channel but the data is on another, and you have to spend a lot of time tying up the loose ends manually. Even then I could never find anything except the current-and-next show data for some channels. Seems like there was much less of that with the Northern Ireland version, so I guess not every broadcaster was making its data available in Ireland anyway. Now I have full EPG on all the channels I watch, even normally elusive ones like ITV2 +1.

(I then used a free program called mcBackup to save the sorted-out setup. I can send this profile to anyone who wants to shortcut the process.)

Still don't know why they vanished of course, but if it turns out that Irish broadcasters lobbied Microsoft to stop providing us with the competition's data I shall be very cross with them.

razorlynch · 09-12-2012 7:54pm

has anyone got any updates on this problem?

kenmc · 09-12-2012 9:12pm

Doubt.It wrote: »

(I then used a free program called mcBackup to save the sorted-out setup. I can send this profile to anyone who wants to shortcut the process.)

I'd love that file if you could send it to me please?
Thanks
K

HLF · 10-12-2012 12:48am

Using a Northern Ireland postcode worked great. Just had to manually scan for C4 HD and BBC HD and then use the Guide Tool to tidy things up. Thanks

Alun · 11-12-2012 10:03am

I used a Belfast postcode initially as well, but I'm sure there was something that wasn't quite right so changed to the SW1 7AA one. I can't for the life of me remember what it was now, and I'm not changing it now

dynamize100 · 11-12-2012 12:17pm

Alun wrote: »

It's possible I guess. There is actually a free way of contacting MS to report EPG problems,. Go to https://connect.microsoft.com/site1145, and sign in with a Microsoft Live account, but the responses are not very timely and often not really helpful beyond a "We'll forward this to our data providers ...". Maybe worth a try though.

I too am having the same problem with my guide. I would like to plus one your comment I can't find it. Could you post a link to the comment or give me the title of your comment so that once I get to the link you have provided (Brings me to the home of the WMC feedback page), I can search for your comment.

Alun · 11-12-2012 12:24pm

Just go to the link I gave, sign in with your Live ID, and then click on Feedback. The feedback thread is about 8th in the list entitled "NTL Analogue Dublin listings no longer updating".

There's no sign of MS even bothering to reply yet though.

dynamize100 · 11-12-2012 12:24pm

heston wrote: »

I noticed the same so at least I'm happy I'm not the only one.
I'm using the old Chorus, now UPC, analogue over the air system (special dish on the chimney). Had channels mapped from NTL Dublin.
I've tried all the irish channel mappings and none of them are working. So I suspect this is a problem with the general updating of the EPG. Hopefully MS and UPC will sort it out soon. If not then I'm not sure what to do. I've tried installing the guide helper program but I can't get it to work...
:mad:

I am using a dish and free / sat and it was working beautifully last week, this week however the guide has stopped downloading. (Actually it probably started to go wrong before the day I noticed it.) The last day the guide has is the 06/12/2012.

Its really frustrating as when the system works it's awesome but when it fails like this...... All your recordings series link and all stop working

dynamize100 · 11-12-2012 12:29pm

Alun wrote: »

Just go to the link I gave, sign in with your Live ID, and then click on Feedback. The feedback thread is about 8th in the list entitled "NTL Analogue Dublin listings no longer updating".

There's no sign of MS even bothering to reply yet though.

Cool.

I have added my 2 cents to that comment now. I hope we find a resolution.

dynamize100 · 11-12-2012 12:31pm

heston wrote: »

I noticed the same so at least I'm happy I'm not the only one.
I'm using the old Chorus, now UPC, analogue over the air system (special dish on the chimney). Had channels mapped from NTL Dublin.
I've tried all the irish channel mappings and none of them are working. So I suspect this is a problem with the general updating of the EPG. Hopefully MS and UPC will sort it out soon. If not then I'm not sure what to do. I've tried installing the guide helper program but I can't get it to work...
:mad:

As I have said. I am having the problem with freesat so it's noting to do with NTL I am afraid.

dynamize100 · 11-12-2012 1:24pm

Doubt.It wrote: »

(I then used a free program called mcBackup to save the sorted-out setup. I can send this profile to anyone who wants to shortcut the process.)

Hi Doubt.IT,

I would love if you could send me on a copy of the profile. I will try to fix my guide listing tonight. I will document the process for fixing it and I will post a link to it tomorrow, (If I manage to fix the issue)

Thanks a million.

mossym · 12-12-2012 10:24am

for those of you who used the uk postcode method, are any of you using a DVB-T tuner to get the irish channels OTA, and if so is the epg for those still working after using the uk code?

Alun · 12-12-2012 11:05am

mossym wrote: »

for those of you who used the uk postcode method, are any of you using a DVB-T tuner to get the irish channels OTA, and if so is the epg for those still working after using the uk code?

Yes, and yes. Both the over the air EPG and the MS EPG work fine, but to get the MS EPG you'll have to use Guide Editor to manually allocate the appropriate entry from one of the available lineups to the channel.

Libera · 12-12-2012 8:01pm

Any idea which type of tuner would work with UPC cable and if that would give EPG by tuning through the UK setup, as suggested?

My confidence for a fix to this problem is not growing, so looking at alternatives - my current analogue tuner won't work on the UK tuning method.

spooner_j · 13-12-2012 12:00am

Libera wrote: »

Any idea which type of tuner would work with UPC cable and if that would give EPG by tuning through the UK setup, as suggested? My confidence for a fix to this problem is not growing, so looking at alternatives - my current analogue tuner won't work on the UK tuning method.

Use the link I sent in the previous page, my analogue tuner has listings for most of the channels again now by adding in a second guide listings source.

Doubt.It · 13-12-2012 4:53am

kenmc wrote: »

I'd love that file if you could send it to me please?
Thanks
K

dynamize100 wrote: »

Hi Doubt.IT,

I would love if you could send me on a copy of the profile. I will try to fix my guide listing tonight. I will document the process for fixing it and I will post a link to it tomorrow, (If I manage to fix the issue)

Thanks a million.

Sorry this took so long, I've had exams!

The saved selection of sorted-out channels can be download from here. You'll need to unzip it before use.

You install it by doing a restore with a free program called mcBackup. You can get it here. It seems to be only for Windows 7 sadly; I haven't tried it on any other version.

It should create a new category in the Windows Media Center EPG I've called "Best", which contains 35 channels:

Irish digital channels from Saorview, and from Freesat all the BBC channels, ITV1 to ITV4 including the +1 versions, Channel 4 and variants (More4 etc.), Channel 5 and variants (for what they're worth...), plus a few favourites of my own. All the EPG data is fully working. RTE2 and ITV1 are in their HD versions, but BBC HD isn't there because for some mysterious reason Windows Media Centre can't decode it for me.

Remember you first need to set up Media Centre to think it's in Northern Ireland and scan for satellite channels, so find or make up a NI postcode.

Obviously, I can't guarantee this will work with your set-up! But it could save you a couple of hours' work if it does.

coolaboola · 13-12-2012 11:23am

Hi folks,

Anyone making any more progress with this problem? I've tried some of the fixes suggested above but without success.

I set the region to UK and put in a Belfast postcode... still lots of 'no data available'... There was some improvement though - the categories list was back (Movies, Sport, etc) But with so much missing data the categories are mostly empty.

I tried the Canadian fix but came unstuck with the XTML file where when you run it as an administrator there are only US/Canadian options ... where did I go wrong?

c

Libera · 13-12-2012 12:06pm

spooner_j wrote: »

Use the link I sent in the previous page, my analogue tuner has listings for most of the channels again now by adding in a second guide listings source.

Thanks, I did look at that the other day when posted but I'm not on Win7...XP and Vista, which worked perfectly fine for my needs until the EPG vanished!

spooner_j · 14-12-2012 8:11pm

coolaboola wrote: »

I tried the Canadian fix but came unstuck with the XTML file where when you run it as an administrator there are only US/Canadian options ... where did I go wrong?

c

Open CustomGuide.mxf and replace everywhere you see 189833220 with 400000. Do the same with ImportATSCCustom.xml. Once you have done that, run the USGuide.bat file and then select option 7. Once that completes, load up Media Center, then edit the listings source and you should be able to see all the UK channels.

McAlban · 17-12-2012 12:27pm

Been bogged down with Christmas exams and went to recorded TV last night for a catch up, just to find nothing has recorded. Then saw this issue. I still get the Saorview stuff. But I only really record of RTE2 HD on that. All the NTL Digital listings are gone.

FrankGrimes · 18-12-2012 3:24pm

I'm using Saorview for Irish channels and Freeview via satellite for UK channels. What's the best way to go about getting the channel listings for the UK channels (Irish ones working fine) - do I need to do the more complex editing outlined above, or should changing the postcode to the Belfast one help? All my UK channels have none or very little guide data at the moment.

I installed MCE Guide but amn't too sure how to use it. I clicked BBC1 in the left pane, selected NTL Digital in the right-hand pane and subscribed to BBC1 in that list but there was no change. Should I just try that but with a UK listing?

I've lost a lot of time trying to get this sorted in the past so would really appreciate if anyone has an overview of the most successful steps to follow. Using Windows 8 by the way in case there's any difference to Windows 7.

Alun · 21-12-2012 1:38pm

Grrrrr. Now even the UK listings aren't going past 31/12/2012. What a bunch of incompetents.

spooner_j · 21-12-2012 8:21pm

Alun wrote: »

Grrrrr. Now even the UK listings aren't going past 31/12/2012. What a bunch of incompetents.

Was just checking to see if it wasnt just me noticing this too...

Great, was happy enough to get the UK workaround up and running, only to find that the UK listings are disappearing now too... Are MS ditching Windows Media Center listings totally? Anyone seen anything elsewhere about this?

Alun · 21-12-2012 8:31pm

I haven't seen this case mentioned anywhere yet.

It's happened before with the UK listings, and usually it gets resolved after a while, but sometimes with less than 7 days to go, and given the time of year, and people who are supposed to be monitoring this potentially being on holiday, I'm fearing the worst!

I've opened a feedback item on the MS Connect site, although given the lack of response to the Irish EPG disappearing from the face of the earth, I'm not sure why I bothered. The only thing I can hope for is that there's a bigger cohort of UK based MCE users out there, so hopefully they can be a bit more vocal in getting something done about it.

Carter P Fly · 28-12-2012 9:25pm

I just did a re-install of my media center and cant get most of my guide to work at all.

Having done this several times I find ( I always use a belfast post code) thats I have to play about with the epg sources to pick a good one. Its mostly the sky ones I selected this time around and I dont think any of them work so Ill be giving a few others a try.

I think when I'm done Ill post the list here for reference sake

Wheeker · 29-12-2012 11:01am

*sigh* here we go again. I see this has been reported on the Microsoft Connect website https://connect.microsoft.com/site1145/feedback/details/775012/no-uk-guide-data-past-01-01-2013

I can't believe that only 22 people have been affected by this in the UK, though you do have to register on Connect to report the bug & probably most people are just keeping their fingers crossed that it will be resolved by 1/1/13. Anyway, if you are affected then report it.

In the meantime I'm wondering what my options are:

In-band: does Freesat provide (good) 7-day in-band guide data?

EPG Collector: free

Big Screen EPG: subscription

DVB Link TV Source: subscription

Media portal: WMC alternative?
Any other suggestions?

Alun · 29-12-2012 11:16am

I'm currently giving EPG Collector a go as a stop-gap solution, then planning on taking another look at Mediaportal after New Year.

I think FreeVIEW (not FreeSAT) in the UK provides an in-the-clear OTA 7 day EPG if that's an option for you, but otherwise you're dependant on either an external EPG provider like DigiGuide, or a 3rd party tool like EPG Collector that can decode the FreeSAT EPG.

Media Center not receiving listings past 6th December?

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