Media Center EPG

Gerry Wicklow

Has anyone else found that their SaorView EPG is no longer working on Windoze Media Center? I no longer even get Now and Next. Although I'm using a Presely postcode to keep the FreeView LCN's correct I don't think this is a factor. I have the same problem on two different PC's
MHEG5 text is still working BTW.

watty

Full EPG and Now&Next are both OK on:
LG 42LD450 HDTV
Windows XP with DVBviewer

Must be something messed up on your Win7 MC.

If it's not Win7, then either use DVB Viewer or upgrade to Windows7, The Earlier Windows Media Center versions don't work properly.

Gerry Wicklow

It's affecting two PC's one using Win7 64 bit and the other Win7 32bit. The 64bit one petered out last night, the 32 sometime over the weekend. I know WMC downloads it's 14 day EPG for FreeView via the web but don't know how or where the SaorView comes from.

mullingar

My EPG for the Irish stations went too (W7MC).

I just changed the EPG source to the alternative one on W7MC

Gerry Wicklow

mullingar wrote: »

I just changed the EPG source to the alternative one on W7MC

What alternative?

mullingar

eg for RTE1, Edit channel, "edit listings", scroll down the 1000's until you find an RTE1 that has a little info. Select. DONT combine if prompted, just swap.

Gerry Wicklow

I don't have an option to change EPG source when editing channels. Must be a different version of WMC. At least I know it's not just my setup so thanks anyway.

Alun

There's a a couple of threads on it over here http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=643 too.

You can use guidetool to choose alternative sources for the channels, but really it's MS, or their EPG supplier (zap2it?) who are at fault here.

watty

When we installed USB DTT on Win7 MC, we told it not to use Internet for Irish EPG (as RTENL broadcast full EIT based EPG). That's your problem It's using Internet instead of Broadcast. If it's Win7, then there is a setting SOMEWHERE to use broadcast instead of Internet.

John mac

I set up a usb stick on my brothers win 7 laptop on sunday using microsoft media center,

the epg data was not working for rte1 and 2,

The usb stick on my pc XP using Total Media software was giving full epg.

Gerry Wicklow

It seems the M$ data is corrupted somewhere along the way.
See also
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056211861

watty

The Win7 by default uses Internet EPG. For Ireland you need to choose Broadcast.

philahern

watty wrote: »

The Win7 by default uses Internet EPG. For Ireland you need to choose Broadcast.

I had mine set to the broadcast one and they disappeared recently, had to set it to Internet one instead.

Alun

watty wrote: »

The Win7 by default uses Internet EPG. For Ireland you need to choose Broadcast.

Well I'm pretty sure that mine was using the MS supplied Internet one until recently although I can't be sure seeing as I can't recall any setting, or choice during setup to choose one or the other and it was working OK until a few days ago like everybody else here is reporting.

Any idea where this magic setting is?

philahern

On the guide, hit left then "Edit Channel" then "Edit Listings" (I think)

Gerry Wicklow

Seems to be resolved. Someone in M$ must have fixed a file.

Alun

It's OK I found it ... 'Edit Channel', 'Edit Listings' and then 'Use listings from broadcaster'. Doing it for one channel only populates the whole EPG, not just for that channel, so you only need to do it once. The other channels then offer a new option 'Disable Inband' in that menu.

I'm a bit confused now as to what has happened precisely to be honest. I don't recall changing anything in my setup recently.

Alun

Gerry Wicklow wrote: »

Seems to be resolved. Someone in M$ must have fixed a file.

That's bizarre, so you didn't change any settings and it started working again all on it's own?

watty

Alun wrote: »

It's OK I found it ... 'Edit Channel', 'Edit Listings' and then 'Use listings from broadcaster'. Doing it for one channel only populates the whole EPG, not just for that channel, so you only need to do it once. The other channels then offer a new option 'Disable Inband' in that menu.

Yes, by default MS uses Internet, not DVB. This is because the original MCE didn't support DVB at all! (Analogue TV cards)

So 'Use listings from broadcaster'. and Inband really means "DVB" and 'Disable Inband' or Don't use Listings from Broadcast means use Internet. Which needs Internet (Broadband really) and is pointless with Saorview. The DVB-EIT will be better.

Gerry Wicklow

Alun wrote: »

That's bizarre, so you didn't change any settings and it started working again all on it's own?

I was about to install 'Guidetool' when I noticed it was working again without me doing anything

@Watty what I have never fully understood is how a sudden schedule change on, say, BBC is immediately implimented. I can only guess that WMC must use a combination of web and off-air. I can't imagine FreeView would have live access to M$ files. (if that makes sense?)

Alun

Gerry Wicklow wrote: »

I was about to install 'Guidetool' when I noticed it was working again without me doing anything

Interesting. I have a laptop here (with a virgin Win7 installation) that I only yesterday installed my DVB-T stick drivers on to test the reported EPG problems and then it exhibited the behaviour reported by both myself and others, i.e. all EPG entries blank except TV3 and TG4.

I've just started it up now, and the EPG is fully populated without me changing anything at all. The settings under 'Edit channel', 'Edit Listings' appear to be 'Use listings from broadcaster', again without me deliberately choosing this above the MS Internet supplied EPG at any point either during installation or afterwards.

Maybe it was using the inband EPG all along, and something changed temporarily on the RTE side that meant that only MCE wasn't recognising it for some reason? I say this as apparently people with TV's and set top boxes don't seem to have had the same problems.

desaparecidos

Gerry Wicklow wrote: »

Windoze

Gerry Wicklow wrote: »

M$

If you dislike Microsoft so much then try Linux with MythTV.

But then again you will probably come back to boards with a pile of threads regarding tuner hardware support issues, software stability issues, poor graphics card drivers leaving the CPU to do all of the decoding, poor quality mpeg2 and h.264 decoders, poor remote control support, pain in the arse getting everything set up, Linux kernal update breaks your existing setup, automatic updates install wrong graphics cards drivers which screws up the system and the easiest thing is to wipe and start from fresh, poor sleep and hibernate support, achieving audio over hdmi without going grey during the process, clunky MythTV interface, scheduled recordings failing to wake the PC, among other things.

Gerry Wicklow

@desaparecidos

Been there, done that and couldn't find a compatible tee-shirt:)

philahern

Alun wrote: »

Maybe it was using the inband EPG all along, and something changed temporarily on the RTE side that meant that only MCE wasn't recognising it for some reason? I say this as apparently people with TV's and set top boxes don't seem to have had the same problems.

I'm pretty sure this is what happened as we all had the problem at the same time and I checked mine and it was set to take it from broadcaster. I "fixed" it by choosing the one from the guide listings. Also bit of a coincidence that we all still had listings on TG4

watty

Gerry Wicklow wrote: »

@desaparecidos

Been there, done that and couldn't find a compatible tee-shirt:)

I ran out of coffee

tlaavtech

.. and I ran out of patience (a few times over the years actually :rolleyes:)

watty

Actually Me TV on Linux /Ubuntu is easy to setup. But the starting point is to read Linux sites and buy an absolutely 100% supported tuner.

Getting a really good VGA monitor to run at 1920x1080p50 on Linux is straight forward. Getting HDMI and esp. Sound on HDMI isn't. Also you need serious CPU as the codecs for MPEG4 HD are seriously poorer performance (same as VLC or ffmpeg in Windows actually).
http://www.techtir.ie/node/1003625
and http://www.mpeg4ireland.com/saorview-dtt-linux