[mythtv-users] grabbing epgdata and related questions

[Nick Morrott]

On 28/08/2009, Stefan G. Weichinger <lists at xunil.at> wrote:
>
>  Greets, mythtv-users,
>
>  yesterday I wanted to make my life with mythtv somewhat more comfortable
>  and chose to get a 1y-subscription at epgdata.com to be able to retrieve
>  program data via tv_grab_eu_epgdata.
>
>  I am located in Austria, EU, so for getting proper program data this
>  seems the way to go.
>
>  Got my PIN and started.
>
>  Now I am drowned between channel_ids and xmltvids, editing tables and
>  stuff and wondering why I have to edit stuff when the relations between
>  channels etc. should be clear in times of digital television ...

I think all MythTV/XMLTV users feel your pain. This issue is currently
being discussed on the xmltv-dev mailing list. We are trying to get
configuring XMLTV as simple (and automated) as possible.

>  I don't want to rant, I just want to ask before I completely lose track
>  here.
>
>  I added xmltvids via mythweb, but only see some program data shown.
>
>  I had to get tv_grab_eu_epgdata 1.30 to get things running, what about
>  that /usr/share/xmltv/tv_grab_eu_epgdata/channel_ids ? I substituted
>  this as well, afai understand it helps the grabber to write a fitting
>  xml? Do I have to edit channel_ids? I think no ...

Definitely not. The channel_ids file is an internal file that the
grabber uses (it maps XMLTV IDs to the grabber's source
data/provider).

You need a grabber configuration file, which lists the channels that
you want to grab listings for, and any grabber options you are asked
during configuration. If you already have your channels setup in
MythTV, it's probably easier to configure XMLTV outside of MythTV, and
then manually edit the channel entries to add the correct XMLTV IDs.

>  I have two DVB-S cards. Is it possible to use EIT/epg-data plus grabbed
>  epgdata, for both cards? I was only able to link the 2 cards to either
>  the eit-source or a source using the grabber (right now I have only the
>  grabber-source configured). I don't fully understand yet, I see the
>  column in the db (use epg or no), but there is nearly no program data
>  visible right now.

If you are mixing XMLTV and EIT data, you *must* ensure that you do
not have EIT enabled (via the useonairguide flag) for channels using
XMLTV data.

When you create a new video source, you can select the XMLTV grabber
*and* you can also select "Perform EIT Scan". This should allow you to
mix both EIT and XMLTV data. This single video source can then be
linked to the card inputs on the Input Connections screen.

>  channel-infos? Why do all the howtos tell me to fiddle around with all
>  this ... (and some scripts which promise to help are offline) ?

Because no one (or group) has yet spent *their own time* getting this
working. We are working on this problem now and would hope it's
available for users of the 0.23 release of MythTV (likely release Q2
2010).

>  I had more program-data available yesterday, with epg only ... *sigh*
>
>  I really tried hard, starting over several times, removing cards and
>  sources, rescanning etc ........

It's due to a misconfiguration of the XMLTV grabber and your channels
in MythTV. You need to ensure that all of the channels that you have
configured with an XMLTV ID are included in the grabber's config file
and do not have the useonairguide flag set in the MythTV DB.

If you configure the epgdata grabber outside of MythTV, the default
grabber config file is probably called
~/.xmltv/tv_grab_eu_epgdata.conf. However, when MythTV runs the
grabber automatically it expects the config file to be in a different
location (~/.mythtv/<videosourcename>.xmltv). If you do configure the
grabber outside of MythTV you can copy/move your XMLTV config file so
that MythTV can find it).

You can also run the grabber manually via a daily cron job, and then
run mythfilldatabase using the "--sourceid n" option with the
grabber's XML listings file. If doing this, configure the video source
as "EIT only" but remember to assign XMLTV IDs to those channels you
want the grabber to provide listings for and disable useonairguide.

Cheers,
Nick

-- 
Nick Morrott

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