More extensive EPG options?

[garyread]

I have a SkyStar 2 card set up and all is working well. The EPG options are very limited though (I am on the Astra satellite, all I have is 'now' and 'next') are there any other options open to me to integrate with something like Digiguide or similar?

 

It becomes tiresome to manually input recordings and not have the ability to schedule series etc.

 

Thanks

 

Gary

[Guest Lars_MQ]

Well, some channels only have now and next entries.

 

Which Channels do you use?

[garyread]

I use all the FTA channels on Astra 2.

 

Gary

[Guest Lars_MQ]

Well then you should have a little more EPG. Notice that EPG will only be updated if you tune the transponder/channel.

 

Also have a look into the DVBViewer options teletext/epg if there is something disabled.

 

lars

[garyread]

No, regrettably I only get 'now' and 'next' :-(

[mrr19121970]

I'm also looking for a solution to this. The best case I only get now & next and in some cases no EPG info. Not all BSkyB (Astra 2d - 0282) broadcasts have teletext, so this is probably the reason.

 

Here is a website that claim to have a tool that sits between Digiguide and DVBViewer called 'DABDig ' http://www.spidersweb.freeserve.co.uk/dab/dabdig.htm

 

I'm looking forward to trying it out tonight.

[Paul Webster]

I'm also looking for a solution to this. The best case I only get now & next and in Here is a website that claim to have a tool that sits between Digiguide and DVBViewer called 'DABDig ' http://www.spidersweb.freeserve.co.uk/dab/dabdig.htm

Unfortunately ... I wrote it in the days of setup.ini ...

I will have to read through the updates to see how the scheduled events are now stored or if there is a command line option.

I suspect that I need to write to timers.xml but will dig around the manuals (I don't have the supported hardware - so testing is not so easy).

If someone can post a link to help me find things more quickly then I would be grateful.

[mrr19121970]

Hi Paul !

 

So here's the XML I managed to create !

 

Description;

Channel_No ?|Channel_Name;

Date; (DD.MM.CCYY)

Start_Time; (HH:MM.SS)

End_Time; (HH:MM.SS)

Action_On_Close; (0=Do Nothing,1=Shutdown,2=Standby,3=Hibernate,4=Close,5=Start_Playlis,6=Slumbermode)

Dayof_Week; (7 bytes, '-'=False,'T'=True

Action; (0=Record,1=Change Channel,2=Record With Audio Plugin,3=Record With Video Plugin)

Enabled; (false or true)

Disable_AV; (false or true)

 

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<settings>

<section name="VCR">

<entry name="0">Description;6827747|RTL Television;12.01.2006;09:59:00;10:00:00;0;-------;0;true;false</entry>

</section>

</settings>

 

 

Regards. Mike.

Edited January 11, 2006 by mrr19121970

[Guest Lars_MQ]

It might be easier if you use the COM-Interface

 

Docu can be found www.DVBViewer.com in the downloadarea.

[Paul Webster]

I originally added support for DVBViewer follwing a direct request from Gary Read just after he started this thread.

Having now seen the detailed sample of the timers.xml I can see that it is very similar to the format used in the old software.

The data line is configurable in DABDig and I have just sent Mike a simple config change to generate the data in the right format. Clearly it will not be correctly inserted into the timers.xml at the moment - but he can prove that it works (or not) by editing by hand from the setup.ini that I write out.

I will try to find time tonight to make a new version of DABDig that can put the data into the XML file.

 

It might be easier if you use the COM-Interface

 

Docu can be found www.DVBViewer.com in the downloadarea.

I have just collected it and will have a look - but I expect that for tonight I will go file-based.

Might be an idea to update the description on the download area to refer to COM as well as Delphi - I initially skipped it because I don't use Delphi.

Edited January 11, 2006 by Paul Webster

[mrr19121970]

I believe that the "TV-Genial Plugin 0.9" could also be usefull here, if not at least as a work around.

 

Can we please have some English documentation ? Where can I download the V0.9 source ?

 

Here are the command line parameters currently available:

 

-d = description

-c = channel

-e = date DD:MM:YY

-s = start_time HH:MM

-p = stop_time HH:MM

-u = update_viewer

-a = action_after_recording (0=Do Nothing,1=Shutdown,2=Standby,3=Hibernate,4=Close,5=Start_Playlis,6=Slumbermode)

-t = timer_action (0=Record,1=Change Channel,2=Record With Audio Plugin,3=Record With Video Plugin)

 

This would mean that to record from digigide you'd assign dvbv_tg.exe as the alert program and the following alert comand line:

 

-d "$ProgrammeName" -c $ChannelID -e $TimeStart(%d:%m:%y) -s $TimeStart(%H:%M) -p $TimeEnd(%d:%m:%y) (now corrected thanks Paul)

 

It might be a problem when $ProgrammeName contains some invalid characters, I'll just have to see.

 

- - - - -

 

Wishlist:

 

A command line parameter is not available, but would be nice to have is:

 

-disable_AV

 

One drawback that I can see here is that when Digiguide fires off the command then all that happens is it gets added to timers.xml. DVBViewer is not actually started, so an 2nd extra command might be of use:

 

-start_dvbviewer

Edited January 11, 2006 by mrr19121970

[Paul Webster]

Looks like you have the -s and -e around the wrong way (date v time) plus the export of the endtime from DigiGuide has the wrong parameter name.

 

As for starting DVBViewer - a quick hack would be for you to launch a batch file rather than dvbv_tg.exe. Then have this batch file pass the parameters to dvbv_tg.exe and then have the batch file invoke DVBViewer..

 

Mike also mentioned in his latest email to me that modifying the timers.xml (even when DVBViewer is not active) and then starting DVBViewer made all of the entries disappear!

Is DVBViewer remembering some data about the file when it writes it and then checking it is the same when it restarts and ignoring it if different?

[mrr19121970]

modifying the timers.xml (even when DVBViewer is not active) and then starting DVBViewer made all of the entries disappear!

 

using utraedit seemed to be the culprit here. it added 3 hex bytes to the start of the XML file x'EF BB EF' (to show UTF-8 encoding) which obviously meant DVBViewer ignored it.

Edited January 11, 2006 by mrr19121970

[mrr19121970]

Paul has now made the necessary mods to his script. Now the Digiguide EPG can watch/play both video and radio in both the free DVBViewerTE (updating the setup.ini) and DVBViewer Pro (using the COM-Interface) versions. All commands work whether or not DVBViewer is running or not.

 

Many thanks Paul !

 

Additionally, if anyone is interested - this also means that a command line option is available to start DVBViewer from other sources:

 

dabdig.vbe "PLAY" "ChannelName" "ChannelAssignment" "ProgrammeName"

["StartYear" "StartMonth" "StartDay" "StartHour" "StartMinute" "Duration"

["Description" ["CategoryName"]]]

 

dabdig.vbe "REC" "ChannelName" "ChannelAssignment" "ProgrammeName"

"StartYear" "StartMonth" "StartDay" "StartHour" "StartMinute" "Duration"

["Description" ["CategoryName"]]

 

where:

- Date/time/duration fields are all NUMERIC and represent local time.

- Square brackets indicate optional parameteres - do not put the brackets on

the command line.

 

e.g.

"Record" "ARDDasErste" "123" "James Bond 007 - Leben und sterben lassen"

"2006" "1" "14" "20" "10" "155" "(Live and let die) Spielfilm Großbritannien

1973" "Film"

 

or

 

"Play" "ARDDasErste" "123" "James Bond 007 - Leben und sterben lassen"

"2006" "1" "14" "20" "10" "155"

 

or

 

"Play" "BBC Radio 4" "704"

 

You can change the dabdig.ini (PLAYOUT & PLAYIN) to pad your recording automatically with minutes before and minutes after. Also now the script sends an dynamic OSD message to the DVBViewer screen. The OSD text is user configurable (eg program name, time, action - the choice is endless)

Edited January 14, 2006 by mrr19121970

[rpettipher]

That looks very good, but where do I find the updated version?

Paul Webster's site still has the December version.

[Paul Webster]

That looks very good, but where do I find the updated version?

Paul Webster's site still has the December version.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Just contact me directly for now.