Kodi Community Forum

All,

I'm using FTA in Houston, TX to receive 20 or so channels to my MP backend. All works fine with MP and XBMC except I've got two channels that xmltv data is not available for so i am forced to leave these without data. Now the problem is if they have no data the channels do not show up in the EPG at all and i have to go to the channel list (which they do appear in) to switch to them.

Is there any way to frigg it so XBMC will show the channels with no guide data? I dont care what the EPG says for these channels

p.s. i have seen the do not show "no information available" toggle in setting but it doesnt do squat to show these missing channels

Any ideas?

Thanks

It is possible to generate "fake" xmltv data for such channels but it's not a particularly easy thing to do if you are not a programmer. Once you have generated the fake file, you can get mc2xml to import it using the -I switch. If you're using something other the mc2xml then I don't know how you would do it.

The real problem is that you can't just make a single fake file and import the same one every day, you have to have a program that generates a new fake XML file each day because the date information has to be correct. So basically what you have to do is create correctly-formatted channel and programme blocks in XML. If you want the programme blocks to just contain something generic, like "Channel X at 4:30 AM", that can be done without too much effort. However, if you want the programs to actually contain real data for programs you might want to watch (so, for example, you aren't recording a one hour program in two half hour segments), that is a little trickier.

I actually have a program that does such a thing but since I am not a programmer, it is written in FreeBASIC, and it's really pretty basic (no pun intended). It has to be compiled on whatever machine you want to run it on which means you'd actually have to install FreeBASIC and learn how to compile a BASIC program. FreeBASIC is available for Windows and Linux (not OS X, though). The Perl or Python guys could probably come up with something that is a lot better and more compatible, but when I was trying to knock something out I wanted to be able to do it in a few hours, not spend days on the project.

If you are a programmer I suggest you look at the format of an XMLTV file, since there are only two things to be concerned about - the channel blocks at the top where you specify your channels, and the programme blocks, which can be stripped down to about four or five lines tops (you don't need data for genre, etc.).

Since I don't know what your experience level is I'll stop there. But yes, there is a way, it's just going to take some effort unless someone with more programming experience than I wants to step up and develop an easier way.

Why don't you just map it to an existing channel guide data? I have the same issue here in Dallas. There is no guide data yet for Grit Tv (KSTR DT3) using MC2XML so I have mapped it to KSTR DT2. It shows up in my epg but I know the data is incorrect. I'm still waiting for the correct data to populate in the guide service.

Grit TV is one of my culprits!! Yeah I thought about using another channels data but in terms of WAF (wife acceptance factor) a bunch of incorrect listings just spells confusion for her and headache (from the moans) for me.
Escape TV (45.3) is the other rogue channel without data available and I've now tried mc2xml Microsoft legacy and donator and schedules direct... None of these sources have data for these two channels but curiously Titan TV does yet I can't figure out an easy way to use that source.

@xbmclinuxuser thanks for the detailed response, it's appreciated. Unfortunately my programming skill is virtually zero and by the sound of your solution it would take me forever to figure out how to do it.

Surely there is an easy fix out there after all is this not an XBMC bug?

What you can do is such a situation is this:

Go to the Wikipedia page for the network, for example this one for Grit TV.

Find another affiliate of the network, preferably one in a very small market (they are less likely to preempt shows with local crap).

Look up that station on Wikipedia and find out where it is located.

Go to any zip code finder on the Internet and find a valid zip code in that locality.

Create a new directory temporarily (so you don't overwrite your mc2xml data) and copy mc2xml there and run it with the new zip code to create a new mc2xml.dat file for that directory. Rename the created mc2xml.dat to something like grit.dat. Also, examine the xmltv.xml file to find out two things: The exact call sign (display name) for the channel in question, from a channel block near the top of the file, and also whether there appears to be actual program data for that channel. If there is not, you will need to select a different channel from that network and repeat the above process.

Once you have a valid dat file for a channel with good data, copy it back to your original mc2xml directory (don't forget to rename it first!). Now, create a .chl (such as grit.chl) containing only the exact call sign (display name) of the single channel you want. This is so you don't get a bunch of data for channels you cannot receive.

When you want to get listings for that channel, use something like: mc2xml -D grit.dat -C grit.chl -o grit.xml

It will put those listings into a file called grit.xml. Now when you do your main run of mc2xml, you can use the -I option (I for "Import", not a lowercase "L") to also import the data from the other channel (mc2xml -I grit.xml .....). This should produce a combined mc2xml file carrying all the listings.

For the second station with no listing, if it also has a station carrying it in the same locality as the Grit station, you can just add its display name to the .chl file so you get data for both stations. Otherwise you can chain runs of mc2xml for different localities, always using the -I flag to bring in the data from the previous run on each successive run.

Don't forget to remap the channels in your backend and to delete any temporary directories you created.

Then you can check your local listings again in a few weeks, because sooner or later you may actually start getting valid guide data for those channels in your own city. Good luck!

By the way, there is supposed to be a way to get TitanTV data using mc2xml but it requires some kind of 30 character ID string that identifies your account, and no one, not even the creator of mc2xml, seems to know how to get that 30 character string. The search for that information is akin to the search for the holy grail!

Also by the way, I am amazed that you can get a good signal on Grit via FTA - they have one of the weakest signals I have come across in a long time!

Hmmmmmm that seems like good idea! I'll give it a try when I get home and give you feedback
Thanks again for the detailed response and yes TitanTV seems to be a holy grail lol

Back in touch soon......

Ok so I've spent the weekend fiddling around and unfortunately the guide data from other regions does not exist for Grit TV or Escape TV there. I tried a spread of 5 random locations for each channels data and mc2xml still can't pull in data for them. The channels just don't exist in mc2xml unfortunately. Thanks for the suggestion, it was a good idea.
Still TitanTV is the only source for these channels and that's a lost cause.

Any way I can get this added to xbmc as a bug or improvement?

That was going to be my guess. Once a week I open MediaCenter to see if GritTv has data ... nothing yet. I visited their web site and saw people asking them to get epg data published, soon after it showed up in TTV and Zap2it but nothing in WMC yet.

Have you thought about using WebGrab+ and pulling the data from Zap2it? I already have MC2XML set up and working so I hope the data will eventually populate in WMC.

EDIT: I considered trying Schedule Direct but don't know if they have that epg data yet.

Man, I wish tvguide.com could somehow be incorportated for getting EPG data. This is the only site I have found that seems to stay up-to-date with channel changes. Grit and Escape shown below for my local stations (Philly).



Now, I will plead ignorance...

I have never really messed with mc2xml. Can that be used to pull my guide data from tvguide.com? I have only ever used the PVR software's guide grabbing mechanisms.

John

There is an alternative to mc2xml called zap2xml that gets listings from zap2it but you don't get program descriptions with it, only the titles. When running it you only need to use the -u and -p options; everything else is optional. If you can find the channels on that service then you can use it to create an xml file for those channels, then use mc2xml for the rest of your channels but add the -I (capital I. not lowercase L) option to also merge in the data from the file created by zap2xml. Might at least work until mc2xml can get data for those channels, IF you can find any channels carrying those networks on the zap2it service.

By the way it is not that zap2it doesn't have program descriptions, it's just that apparently they are presented in such a way that zap2xml can't scrape them easily.

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(2014-09-16, 16:47)johnodon Wrote: [ -> ]I have never really messed with mc2xml. Can that be used to pull my guide data from tvguide.com?

No.

More on zap2xml: There are some instructions at a site that seems to be having some problems right now but here is an excerpt:

Quote:As for zap2xml, it works in much the same way but uses listings from Zap2it. The difference is that with this service you first create an account at the Yahoo! TV branded version of the Zap2it site (NOT at the main Zap2it site) and then you can create a list of favorite channels using the “Change My Location” and “Set Preferences” options. Note that in preferences you should check the boxes next to “Show six hour grid” and “Show only my favorite channels in the grid”. After that, if you change your location you will still see all your previously selected favorite channels in the grid, which means you can add channels from multiple locations. This may make zap2xml the preferred software for those that can receive channels from multiple broadcast markets, or via other means such as free-to-air satellite.

A few installation hints for zap2xml: If you are using the Yahoo-branded site we suggested above, then you want the zap2xml2 software (note the “2” at the end). Only use the original zap2xml software if you happen to have an account on the original Zap2it site (as far as we can tell, they are not accepting new registrations there). Also, on Debian/Ubuntu/*buntu/Mint/etc. Linux, prior to installing do a full system update and then install the build-essential package:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt-get install build-essential

Then the first time you run the zap2xml software it will probably complain about missing perl modules, so you can run sudo perl -MCPAN -eshell and install the missing modules. We had to install these:

HTML:arse
HTTP::Cookies
LWP::UserAgent

Hope this helps if you are trying to get this running.

I guess my main problem is that I am using serverwmc which pulls guide data right from wmc. Unless I can find a way to get the guide data for these channels into wmc I'm pretty much screwed (I think).

FYI...I know this is an MP forum but I can't remember how I ended up here.

Great news! Grit TV is showing up in the epg guide data in Dallas for WMC as of this morning.

Man i got behind on posts.....

OK so Escape TV has reached MC2XML now here in houston so hopefully Grit TV will come along soon aswell. I can always pull in the data from Dallas and combine but it seems they are rolling it out so i'll just way rather than messing on. My HTPC has taken far too much of my life time away recently.....

By the way im sure MC2XML gets its data from (or via) zap as it is mentioned in the cmd line data when you run MC2XML. Whatever the case, i tried signing up for zap, i got no email so cant login other than through facebook (uuuurrrgggh) which zap2xml doesnt seem to like using the login details for. In other words zap2xml seems a headache so i'll stick with what i know and go with MC2XML

Actually i just realised i deviated from my point that XBMC should show channels with no epg rather than missing them from the guide all together. Is there not a suggestions/bug fix thread i can put it in?