Announcement: GuideHound EPG v1.0 released

Forums › Home Theatre (including HTPC and EPG Collector) › Announcement: GuideHound EPG v1.0 released

andrewderekjackson

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#66666 21-Aug-2010 10:55

I'm proud to announce that GuideHound EPG v1.0 has been released.

GuideHound is a program for importing electronic program (EPG) guide data into Windows Media Center 7 and is designed specifically for New Zealand sources. It works seamlessly with the EPG Collector as well as other online sources (including screen scraped ones). In addition to importing guide data, there are other features such as category detection and metadata lookup which you might find useful.

For more information, please check out the website: http://www.tvguidehound.com

Please feel free to provide feedback in the feedback area on the website or on this forum. (A big thank you to those who tried the beta versions and provided comments and suggestions.)

Ragnor

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#371121 22-Aug-2010 18:07

Looks good.

Satch

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#371448 23-Aug-2010 12:04

Serious question - why should I consider this over using Big Screen EPG?

Ragnor

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#371675 23-Aug-2010 17:13

The free version of Big Screen EPG is fairly limited
http://bigscreenglobal.com/bgepglicensing.aspx?PID=BSEV1

Nety

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#371738 23-Aug-2010 18:27

Satch: Serious question - why should I consider this over using Big Screen EPG?

Correct me if I am wrong but I think the advantage that GuideHound EPG has at least in NZ is that it scrapes the data itself? BSE relies on a source that can provide all the data pre-scraped and massaged. With the likes of Sky sending take down notices to sites that supply that pre-massaged data having a tool that can do the scraping itself is a good thing.

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freitasm

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#371751 23-Aug-2010 18:41

Nety:
Satch: Serious question - why should I consider this over using Big Screen EPG?

Correct me if I am wrong but I think the advantage that GuideHound EPG has at least in NZ is that it scrapes the data itself? BSE relies on a source that can provide all the data pre-scraped and massaged. With the likes of Sky sending take down notices to sites that supply that pre-massaged data having a tool that can do the scraping itself is a good thing.

I thought GuideHound relied on other software to find the data - such as the EPG Collector for example.

Satch

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#371785 23-Aug-2010 19:46

freitasm:
Nety:
Satch: Serious question - why should I consider this over using Big Screen EPG?

Correct me if I am wrong but I think the advantage that GuideHound EPG has at least in NZ is that it scrapes the data itself? BSE relies on a source that can provide all the data pre-scraped and massaged. With the likes of Sky sending take down notices to sites that supply that pre-massaged data having a tool that can do the scraping itself is a good thing.

I thought GuideHound relied on other software to find the data - such as the EPG Collector for example.

That was my understanding too. I'm just interested in what benefits this software has over BSE.

RustyGonad

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#371787 23-Aug-2010 19:59

They definitely both do the same thing, albeit in slightly different ways.

Guidehound does some nice things with both the "category" library ie user defined categories, as well as the metadata lookups, which augments the data, adding movie info etc, neither of which BSE does.

On the other side BSE also does some nice things, like auto-channel mapping (much faster to setup), show/series artwork etc.

They're both pretty good programs...

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browned

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#371796 23-Aug-2010 20:09

licensed version is $15nzd...that's it (my license expires on 31/12/9999).

It can be run on 5 PC's with a single license.

I was going to go with BSE, but after testing EPG Importer (Guidehound) for a month or so decided it was a better option for me. Simplier layout, easier setup, runs flawlessly.

They basically do the same thing.

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andrewderekjackson

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#371876 23-Aug-2010 22:32

Satch: Serious question - why should I consider this over using Big Screen EPG?

This is a very good question. Let me share my main reasons:

1. Designed in New Zealand for New Zealand sources.

Both GuideHound EPG and BigScreen EPG have the same end result in mind - to import a guide into media center - but both products get there in slightly different ways and have different goals in mind.

If you have a high quality guide full of information (with categories, series numbers, etc) that you would like to get into Media Center then BigScreen EPG will probably work well for you. Unfortunately, this is not always the case with sources typical in NZ. Screen scraped sources are usually very thin.

This is where GuideHound EPG comes in.

GuideHound EPG is designed to take a relatively thin EPG source and using various techniques, try and fill the data up to provide something more useful. These techniques include, keyword and category detection and movie/TV series metadata lookups. These features allow you to take advantage of features in Media Center that you would not normally have been able to make use of (e.g.: colour coding in the guide, etc).

2. Affordable and very lenient licensing.

There is nothing worse than being restricted by licensing. You should be able to rebuild your machine without licensing hassles. Once you have purchased a license, its yours. No subscriptions, no stripped down versions, no limiting to 4 days, etc. Oh, and you can use it on as many machines are you want (up to 5 but I'm not counting).

GuideHound EPG has a trial available. I encourage you to give it a try and then make up your mind :-)

For more information: www.tvguidehound.com

rvangelder

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#371986 24-Aug-2010 10:40

I'm looking at the categories screenshot - how these get updated? Is it a downloadable update / crowdsourcing. What is the pattern matching like. regex?

How do I attach season/episode data, or must I use another program first?

I want to run the "manager" app on my PC in the computer room, but have the media center under my tv do the media center updates. can i run in this configuration?

Cheers

andrewderekjackson

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#373387 26-Aug-2010 22:25

Hi.. sorry I've taken so long to reply - its been a bit of a hectic week.

rvangelder:
I'm looking at the categories screenshot - how these get updated? Is it a downloadable update / crowdsourcing. What is the pattern matching like. regex?

How do I attach season/episode data, or must I use another program first?

I want to run the "manager" app on my PC in the computer room, but have the media center under my tv do the media center updates. can i run in this configuration?

Hopefully these wiki entries will answer some of your questions:

How do category mapping and keyword detection work?

How do metadata lookups work?

As far as running the GUI program on one computer and performing the import on another goes: The GUI is just a easy way to edit a configuration file and only needs to be done once (unless you want to make changes, of course). You will probably find it easier to just do your maintenance on your HTPC but there is nothing stopping you installing the product on multiple machines and copying the updated configuration file to your HTPC over the network (for example). Next time the importer runs it will pick up the new configuration.

Let me know if you have any more questions.

mentalinc

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#373670 27-Aug-2010 16:58

How do category mapping and keyword detection work?

How do metadata lookups work?

Does this then cache locally? e.g. so you don't need to download all the show images etc every week?
If not, a suggestion for next version.

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Niall

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#376222 3-Sep-2010 12:40

Hi,

Since there was some BSEPG vs GuideHound discussions going on here I thought I'd better address some of the comments above - as I think BSEPG is perhaps being a little misrepresented.

1. BSEPG was very much created with NZ and AU users in mind and was built to work well for users in both these countries (in fact there was an even number of users from both these countries in the beta program - the two largest contingents of global users). More recently - a lot of work was done with sjb from the EPG Collector project to ensure the output from that program could be tightly integrate with the way BSEPG worked for both FreeView and OpenTV extractions (which included support for detection of unique Series and Episode id's to ensure series recordings worked properly).

2. Metadata lookups/artwork functionality works very differently between these apps. When BSEPG processes your data - no 'external' metadata searches need to be done against any online providers. For TV Series - the inbuilt (and continuously updating) database will do all the matching for you - currently it supports over 22,000+ series. For Movies - no lookups are actually required as 7MC will actually do this for you via the AMG lookups (and is the only way to fully populate the information you see in 7MC like reviews, similar movies, full plot etc).. Once artwork is downloaded (which is done for you by Media Center - and not required to be done by the grabber) - it is cached into 7MC - so doesn't need to be done every time you do an import.

3. The full licensing is for 2 years as there is a lot of ongoing work being done and product is constantly being updated. When used on 5 machines that works out to around USD$0.17 per month - or USD$0.83 if only one machine - not something I believe anyone could consider to be 'too much' or 'too expensive' or 'restrictive'. (and given most of you would have spent $1k+ on your machine hw and lots of money per month for paytv access - this is a completely insignificant fee - but one which enables me to put in a lot of time into the product). While a lifetime license is not offered with BSEPG - it's really debatable whether windows7 will still be the latest Windows O/S in 2 years time.

4. The free version is as mentioned free - and there is no expiry date at all. (I don't believe such a version exists of guidehound). While you are on the trial version however - you get to try 100% of the functionality on offer (so nothing stripped down there) - and it falls back to the free version and continues to work once trial is completed.

5. The genre assignment functionality in BSEPG works a little differently to GuideHound - however if used with XMLTV Alter (which recently expired) - or upcoming XMLTVAlter replacement (which will be built into BSEPG) - then actually it does all the same stuff - plus a actually does a lot more (ie. auto genre assignments per channel and advanced mapping functionality).

6. Both programmes require you to get your XMLTV data from somewhere - however BSEPG does have inbuilt presets/discovery functions - so this might actually make this process easier (if using online sources). Otherwise it will actually detect specific feeds (such as ones coming from EPG Collector - and auto configure itself for that).

7. BSEPG will do a lot of additional work/massaging/pimping of your xmltv data prior to import. This doesn't actually require you to have a 'complete' xmltv data source - however if you do it will do an even better job.

8. If you compare the UI's you can see just how much additional and comprehensive functionality is provided, exposed and is configurable compared to GuideHound. If you don't want to use these functions - you simply don't need to configure/touch them - however most of these things are stuff you will eventually want control of if you want to get the full 100% feature EPG experience in 7MC.

9. BSEPG provides a lot of additional tools which are really needed to manage your EPG and setup- such as ability to disable inband channels, database reset function, unlock unlimited tuners, toggle epg channel logo support, preset images and a lot more..

but the point which is probably most important is that -

10. BSEPG does a LOT of additional 'hidden' stuff during the import, to your data and to the MCEPG database - which makes it work very well in 7MC - and goes well beyond the published MXF spec/api. This took over 18+ months to get right - and involved a lot of beta testing in a lot of different scenarios. I'm not mentioning exactly what all of these things are here (nor on the product site) - as I'm not about to give away a list of features to 'clone/copy' for rival products. However - if you have been a regular user of BSEPG - and appreciate having a very stable/reliable recording system and top quality 7MC EPG as a result - you probably have a good understanding of what these things are already.

As Andrew says, please try them and see what you think - however please do ensure you do a full MCE DB reset inbetween switching so you don't get the two data sources mixed up or corrupt your database (and so you can really understand/appreciate the differences between the two offerings).

Anyhow - my 2 cents.

Niall /
author of BSEPG.

Niall Ginsbourg / bigscreenglobal.com

Microsoft Windows Media Center MVP - 2007-2009