Anybody notice that the epg.geek epg listings are not available now?

Forums › Home Theatre (including HTPC and EPG Collector) › Anybody notice that the epg.geek epg listings are not available now?

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6 posts

Wannabe Geek

#308290 17-Mar-2010 14:05

Anyone got any futher news on this? very frustrating but I suppose we've all had a good run over the last year or so with this free service - good on you whoever was hosting this!

hads

392 posts

Ultimate Geek

Trusted

#308296 17-Mar-2010 14:15

ctrent: Anyone got any futher news on this? very frustrating but I suppose we've all had a good run over the last year or so with this free service - good on you whoever was hosting this!

There is fully compatible (Freeview only) data at nzepg.org

nicegear.co.nz - VoIP, DVB and other Linux compatible hardware

MCEabused

30 posts

Geek

#308326 17-Mar-2010 15:12

to rustyG & Dvee8
About MHEG-5: it's better and worse than you think

The mheg-5 (ISO/IEC 13818-6 type B) data stream is available while you watch, record, or purposely tune-in to get an epg from any NZ MUX
The Elementary Stream for mheg ISO/IEC 13818-6 type B runs at ~ 237kbs, VS the EIT which contains 16 channel(s) and 3482 event(s) runs at ~ 175kbs and the programme names are redacted of course.
ISO/IEC 13818-6 standard alone is a 37Mb pdf

From 10 000 miles up

Step one: a filter is required to dump out the DSM-CC object carousel which is what win7's media center and dcdvbsource does while your watching a channel. Way less than 5 minutes to do if it works.

Step two: Make sense of the data via the countries specific format e.g. UK's DTG published D-Book 6, or NZ's Freeview profile from http://www.freeviewnz.tv/supply_chain_registration.
This is where Win 7 MC's support breaks currently
This should yield the MHEG-5 App "a" and data objects, the app is a modified Java clone that runs to decrypt the data objects on the fly inside the receiver, one of which is the EPG.

Step Three: decode externally or run a sandboxed copy of "a" to recover the EPG data

Step Four: format the EPG data for and XMLtv file or bung it straight into a real database. mheg2xmltv from Leith Bade with some work?

Step five: repeat step three every time they modify the Java coding of the EPG data object, (I really hope they don't play this game)

The UK's DTG D-Book 6 has some interesting stuff to maintain the Broadcasters control of their viewer's compliant hardware, look and feel, Broadcasters and content suppliers IP.
-PSI SI—content management signalling to meet requirements of studios for HD content. The BBC lobbied the govt. hard on this, basically they can hide channels from non compliant receivers (HTPCs) to stop them recording restricted content (e.g. Hollywood movies), oddly some UK HTPC owners were less keen on the BBC doing this to them.
-MHEG—extensions for HD resolutions, network return channel that can enable broadband television streaming services (IPTV).
Etc

mheg5 also includes this extension
-CI plus conditional smartcard access to encrypted channels off air/IP based

edited as I got the mheg2xmltv name wrong

mm1352000

1149 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#308344 17-Mar-2010 15:46

Anyone keen for a project?!?

Seriously though, I'm a software engineer and I'd be willing to help if I could. I'm no project manager or anything but I've always wanted to get my hands dirty with anything related to media/codecs/video streams. This isn't quite in that domain but it sounds like a great start to me!

amigo

161 posts

Master Geek

#308359 17-Mar-2010 16:14

RustyGonad: If all you want if is a simple Freeview solution, then the solution put together by rvangelder is all you need.

http://vangelder.orcon.net.nz/files/FreeviewToXMLTV.zip

Its simple, fast, and effective (it even runs in plain old Windows for dummies like me, no need for Perl necklaces, or big Pythons). It doesn't rely on any third party hostings services, so unless Freeview decided to C&D themselves (I'd laugh, except anythings possible with Freeview), it should have a large degree of permanance.

It should also feed into any of the Media Center software solutions out there. It even has the HD flags set correctly! Its generates a single Freeview.xml file, locally on your own machine, which doesn't require any scripting with wget etc.

Did I remember to say it doesn't rely on any third party hosting.

Yeah, this works great! Thanks rvangelder!

For Media portal just put it in the TV Server directory and get Task Scheduler to run a simple batch file daily that deletes the old tvguide.xml file runs FreeviewToXMLTV.exe then renames the resulting freeview.xml file to tvguide.xml.

Plasmadog

40 posts

Geek

#308375 17-Mar-2010 16:41

...then renames the resulting freeview.xml file to tvguide.xml.

The config file specifies the name of the output, so you can just change freeview.xml to tvguide.xml in there.

rlevis

347 posts

Ultimate Geek

#308401 17-Mar-2010 17:31

Plasmadog: The config file specifies the name of the output, so you can just change freeview.xml to tvguide.xml in there.

So it does. If your running MediaPortal you can also specify the name of the XML file it checks for, so no renaming is required either way.

Wise

Send money globally for less with Wise - one free transfer up to NZ$900 (affiliate link).

ctrent

6 posts

Wannabe Geek

#308465 17-Mar-2010 20:51

hads:
ctrent: Anyone got any futher news on this? very frustrating but I suppose we've all had a good run over the last year or so with this free service - good on you whoever was hosting this!

There is fully compatible (Freeview only) data at nzepg.org

Thanks Hads - that's mint, freeviews all I need.

Ceecees

38 posts

Geek

#308558 17-Mar-2010 23:45

Well, this is all a bit sad, I have had my Win 7 Media Centre EPG auto updating for awhile now via BSE. Glad it didn't take much to get it back on track though. Thanks very much to those who were able to get a quick fix out for this! Much appreciated.

Is there anyway to get the genre info into the xml file? Would be cool to have shows colour coded in the EPG depending on genre. This is purely a nice to have though. It is all very functional otherwise atm. Err, except for Tv3+1. I don't get guide data showing up for that channel even though it is in the xml.

sbbaxter

27 posts

Geek

#308581 18-Mar-2010 07:20

RustyGonad:

these files aren't xmltv, but with a little conversion they can be.
my program downloads and converts those files into xmltv.
http://vangelder.orcon.net.nz/files/FreeviewToXMLTV.zip
i tried running it, it seems to still work. just freeview channels. no sky.

i used to use this as an external app for epgstream.net but since epgstream is not yet windows 7 compatible, i just use the inbuilt dvb-s eit stream.

This is great, especially directly referencing freeview's website. But could you provide a "look under the covers" to help out us Linux users??

Thx
Simon

rvangelder

352 posts

Ultimate Geek

#308585 18-Mar-2010 07:56

sbbaxter: This is great, especially directly referencing freeview's website. But could you provide a "look under the covers" to help out us Linux users??

It's a .NET executable. It's not doing anything specific to Windows. Run it under Mono and it will probably work.

davidcole

6034 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#308588 18-Mar-2010 07:58

sbbaxter:
RustyGonad:

these files aren't xmltv, but with a little conversion they can be.
my program downloads and converts those files into xmltv.
http://vangelder.orcon.net.nz/files/FreeviewToXMLTV.zip
i tried running it, it seems to still work. just freeview channels. no sky.

i used to use this as an external app for epgstream.net but since epgstream is not yet windows 7 compatible, i just use the inbuilt dvb-s eit stream.

This is great, especially directly referencing freeview's website. But could you provide a "look under the covers" to help out us Linux users??

Thx
Simon

if it's anything like the little app I've written and you're expecting an XMLTV format file it goes something like the following:

Download the XML file for a channel for 7 days (there's one for each freeview channel)

Create a blank combined file root element tv

Create a "tv/channel" node , create the id attribtute using the name attribute ("/listings/channel@name") from the downloaded file

Iterate through the /listings/channel/programmes/programme in the source file and create tv/programme elements with (at a minimum) attribtures for start, stop and the channel. channel attrbribute = one of the "id"s created in the 3rd step.

For each programme set a title element to the title, and a desc element to the description.....there are a bunch of other fields that can be used here for quality, aspect ratio etc, but the freeview files don't have too many attributes (does have the HD flag though - I just added it to the desc).

Get next source file.....

Definitely easier if you have a fully formed xmltv format file in front of you, but this was what i found was the minimum needed (for gbpvr, but I don;t see why it wouldn't work for mediaportal/mythtv and maybe MCE with some massaging).

Hope that helps someone.

Previously known as psycik

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hads

392 posts

Ultimate Geek

Trusted

#308608 18-Mar-2010 08:39

sbbaxter:This is great, especially directly referencing freeview's website. But could you provide a "look under the covers" to help out us Linux users??

Thx
Simon

Why bother, there's been a Python and a Perl version posted in the thread already. The Python version was part of the site which this thread is about.

nicegear.co.nz - VoIP, DVB and other Linux compatible hardware

Deev8

481 posts

Ultimate Geek

#308618 18-Mar-2010 09:02

MCEabused: to rustyG & Dvee8
About MHEG-5: it's better and worse than you think

The mheg-5 (ISO/IEC 13818-6 type B) data stream is available while you watch, record, or purposely tune-in to get an epg from any NZ MUX
The Elementary Stream for mheg ISO/IEC 13818-6 type B runs at ~ 237kbs, VS the EIT which contains 16 channel(s) and 3482 event(s) runs at ~ 175kbs and the programme names are redacted of course.
ISO/IEC 13818-6 standard alone is a 37Mb pdf ...

I have no doubt that extracting the necessary data from the broadcast MHEG-5 EPG will require some complex code, and producing that will be a non-trivial effort. However I'm also convinced that obtaining EPG data for a HTPC from the actual broadcast EPG is the best solution.

It's an unfortunate truth that the best solutions are often not the easiest solutions.

rvangelder

352 posts

Ultimate Geek

#308625 18-Mar-2010 09:12

Deev8:
MCEabused: to rustyG & Dvee8
About MHEG-5: it's better and worse than you think

The mheg-5 (ISO/IEC 13818-6 type B) data stream is available while you watch, record, or purposely tune-in to get an epg from any NZ MUX
The Elementary Stream for mheg ISO/IEC 13818-6 type B runs at ~ 237kbs, VS the EIT which contains 16 channel(s) and 3482 event(s) runs at ~ 175kbs and the programme names are redacted of course.
ISO/IEC 13818-6 standard alone is a 37Mb pdf ...

I have no doubt that extracting the necessary data from the broadcast MHEG-5 EPG will require some complex code, and producing that will be a non-trivial effort. However I'm also convinced that obtaining EPG data for a HTPC from the actual broadcast EPG is the best solution.

It's an unfortunate truth that the best solutions are often not the easiest solutions.

Are you able to extract and e-mail me the "a" file. I've been so far unable to extract the MHEG-5 app via my satellite connection (I know less about satellite tuning parameters than I do about processing data files). I have the PDF files you mention. PM me [email removed]

[Mod (N8): Removed email so you don't get spammed]

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