[mythtv-users] How do programme categories work?

[Stephen Worthington]

On Fri, 22 Jun 2018 17:52:29 +0100, you wrote:

>On 22 June 2018 at 17:08, Ian Campbell <ijc at hellion.org.uk> wrote:
>
>
>>     MariaDB [mythconverg]>
>> ??
>> select title,category,category_type from program where title = "5 Live
>> Formula 1";
>>
>
>
>?Thanks for the reply.?
>
>??I use EIT for all my listings data (haven't found the time to set up SD
>yet) but I have to say that I don't have a clue how MythTV extracts /
>processes the EIT data.??
>
>?I get this response to the same database query:
>
>?title                          category                   category_type
>5 live Formula 1        Sports
>5 live Formula 1        Sports
>5 live Formula 1        Sports
>5 live Formula 1        Sports
>5 live Formula 1        Sports
>5 live Formula 1        Music/Ballet/Dance
>5 live Formula 1        Music/Ballet/Dance
>5 live Formula 1        Music/Ballet/Dance
>5 live Formula 1        Music/Ballet/Dance
>5 live Formula 1        Music/Ballet/Dance
>5 live Formula 1        Music/Ballet/Dance?
>
>The five 'Sports' shows are in the past and are split across 2 radio
>channels (BBC R5L and BBC R5SX). The six 'Music/Ballet/Dance' shows are
>also on the same 2 channels in the future.
>
>Maybe as you suggest it is coming direct from EIT and is not (as I thought)
>being selected by MythTV from a list of available categories.
>?George
>?

The category information comes from your EPG data, so that is where
the problem lies.  Here is an example of the EIT data I collect from
my pay satellite service, converted to XMLTV format:

<programme channel="sport2.sky.co.nz" start="20180624170000 +1200"
stop="20180624173000 +1200">
        <title lang="eng">The F1 Show</title>
        <desc>SKY Sport brings you the only weekly Formula 1 show
worth watching. Tune in for in-depth interviews with drivers, a wrap
of the week's action and more.</desc>
        <category>sports</category>
        <category>Motor Sports</category>
        <rating system="SKY-NZ">
                <value>G</value>
        </rating>
</programme>

That example has good category data.  They often get it wrong.

Your example above looks like you have EIT data collection and are
getting both long term EIT data (1 or 2 weeks ahead) plus now/next EIT
data.  They two types of EIT data are usually broadcast as separate
streams on the transmitter.  If I am right, your long term EIT data
has the wrong Music/Ballet/Dance category, but the now/next EIT data
that arrives just before the programme is actually broadcast has the
correct Sports category.  To see if that is what is happening, if you
are around while the programme just before the affected one is
playing, take a look and see if the category of the affected programme
has changed then.

If you want to look at your EIT data you may be able to use epgsnoop
to capture it.  That is how I gather my EIT EPG:

https://launchpad.net/epgsnoop

Or on a Windows box you can use EPG Collector (which has a GUI):

https://sourceforge.net/projects/epgcollector

I do not use metadata lookup, but I think it is possible for that to
override the data that is received from the EPG.  So doing metadata
lookup might help fix your problem, if the TMDB database has good data
for your programmes.  But with bad EPG data, getting the correct
metadata from the database can be difficult as the wrong programme can
be looked up.