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[RELEASE] PseudoTV Addon: Virtual EPG and TV Channel Surfing Script - Printable Version

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- jtucker1972 - 2011-02-03

goldfinger7476 Wrote:Is anyone creating a collection of premade playlists? I love this script but I keep putting off using it because it's daunting to think of all the channels I want to make

Yes. I am. I will be posting them to my google docs for anyone to download. I've spent the last couple days created a bunch of general channels based on the XBMC categories for tv shows and movies. I will upload what I have so far today and post a link for you to look at.

I hope this will be useful.


- jtucker1972 - 2011-02-03

@jason, do you have an idea on when you may have the feature to skip channels (playlists) which don't have any shows in them? I know it's on your feature wish list, but not sure when this is planned on your roadmap.

The reason I ask is that my channel setup would work seemlessly if this was added. As of now, if a user doesn't have any western tv shows, then the script crashes on the Western TV channel.

By the way, my playlists which include playlists in them work fine in Pseudo-TV. Wasn't sure based on some of the posts whether this was a problem or if this was just related to mixed movies and episodes playlists.


- BigDaddyRal - 2011-02-03

Sranshaft Wrote:I'd be happy to include my channels for anyone to use. The current list of channels I have are:

Adrenaline Network
Animation Station
Asimov Network
Chiller - Includes all horror and thriller movies
Comedy Network
Crime TV
Drama Network
Explore / Explore HD
Family Movie Channel
Flix Comedy
Flix Drama
Flix One HD - Includes any movie from 1990 that is in HD
Flix Romance
Flix Scifi
Flix Two HD - Includes any movie older than 1990 that is in HD
Kid TV

Download here.

Thanks for this! Can you share your logo images as well?


- jtucker1972 - 2011-02-03

Below is the link to the Pseudo-TV playlists I have been working on.

http://tiny.cc/xbmcplaylists

I am open to suggestions. Here is the readme information.

Pseudo-TV Playlists

Purpose:

Provide a set of pre-defined channels for use in Pseudo-TV add-on for XBMC.


Limitations:

1. Current version of Pseudo-TV does not support empty playlists. Therefore, I am unable to provide a preset list of channels since any channel that returns an empty playlist will cause Pseudo-TV to fail.

2. Current version of Pseudo-TV does not support mixed (episodes and movies) playlists.


Workarounds:

1. I have provided a set of channel playlists which can be copied and renamed to the Channel_X.xsd format. Select the channels which work for your XBMC video content and rename accordingly, Channel_1.xsd, Channel_2.xsd, etc.


How They WorK:

There are four types of playlists:

1. Channel Playlists
2. Episode Playlists
3. Movie Playlists
4. Pseudo-TV Channel Playlists

Each Channel playlist contains one or more of the episode playlists or movie playlists and provides the limit and order type setting. They are named as follows:

channel - (type) - (genre) - (format) - (limit) - (order)

type = movies or tv
genre = action, drama, comedy, etc.
format = sd or hd
limit = limit number of items in the list: none = all
order = order of the playlist: random, season asc (ascending), etc.

The Episodes playlists are used in the tv channels to determine which episodes to list for the channel. These should not be changed and are required for the tv channels to work.

The Movies playlists are used in the movies channels to determine which movies to list for the channel. These should not be changed and are required for the movie channels to work.

The Pseudo-TV Channel Playlists are provided as samples of a Pseudo-TV channel listing. Each one is a copy of a channel playlist with the smart playlist name changed to a shorter version for the EPG, i.e. Action TV or Comedy Movies.


How To Install:

1. Download the four zip files (channels.zip, episodes.zip, movies.zip and Pseudo-TV_Channels.zip). The files are versioned, so download the latest versions.
2. Unzip each file to your video playlist folder.
3. Select the channels you want to use from the Pseudo-TV Channels (Channel_X_Name) and rename them to Channel_1.xsd, Channel_2.xsd, etc. to build your own channel listing.

You can also copy any Channel playlist and rename to Channel_X.xsd. For example, if you want your Current TV channel to show all episodes aired in the last 4 weeks instead of 2 weeks, you would replace "Channel_1_Current TV.xsd" with "channel - tv - last 4 weeks - 50 items - none.xsp" and rename the playlist name to "Current TV" or whatever you want.


To Do:

1. Still working on what is the best number of items for each channel. This is subjective so I may include different channels with different limits, i.e. 25 items, 50 items, 100 items, etc.
2. Need to add HD TV channels. I don't have any but I am sure other may.
3. Need to add HD Movie channels to Pseudo-TV Channels. Just ran out of time for this release.


- Jason102 - 2011-02-03

@jtucker1972: Very nice, this is something that this script needs. I will work on getting the "empty channels don't work" issue resolved. It's also worth nothing that the next version will have "mixed" playlists working. I hope to have this version out pretty soon...still working out some skinning issues with Sranshaft.


- jtucker1972 - 2011-02-04

@Jason102 - here are a couple feature requests. Not sure if they would be possible or if you have reasons not to have Pseudo-TV do this.

1. would it be possible to add a feature to save the last channel you were watching and having Pseudo-TV switch to that channel when you open it? Right now it always goes to Channel 1.

2. Could the refreshing of the channel list be scheduled? i.e. have Pseudo-TV update the listing every day, every week, every month at X time? Have this as part of the Settings.

@Sranshaft, is there a way to have refocus open to the Pseudo-TV instead of Home Screen? It's not an option in the Settings so wondering if this is a limitation with te core XBMC GUI.


- Jason102 - 2011-02-04

Actually the first request is already in the stable-pre branch, so it will be in the next version.

The second request is a good idea. I like the way it refreshes right now, but there have been a few people (besides yourself) that have wanted a different way of doing this. If you have a couple channels that don't have a lot of items in there, I can certainly see this as a reasonable option. I can't guarantee that it will be in the next version, but I will look into this...I don't think it will be that difficult.


- Sranshaft - 2011-02-04

jtucker1972 Wrote:@Sranshaft, is there a way to have refocus open to the Pseudo-TV instead of Home Screen? It's not an option in the Settings so wondering if this is a limitation with te core XBMC GUI.

Aye. I really don't think that is possible. The only suggestion I can make is to have a menu shortcut on the home screen to PseudoTV. If you download the latest version of the reFocus skin you'll find a replacement home.xml file which will do that.


- jtucker1972 - 2011-02-04

Jason102 Wrote:The second request is a good idea. I like the way it refreshes right now, but there have been a few people (besides yourself) that have wanted a different way of doing this. If you have a couple channels that don't have a lot of items in there, I can certainly see this as a reasonable option. I can't guarantee that it will be in the next version, but I will look into this...I don't think it will be that difficult.

I was thinking this feature would be better for those of us who have a lot of channels and don't want to wait for Pseudo-TV to load them when we start. I just tell it when to schedule the update (assuming the Pseudo-TV add-on stays open and running) while I am sleeping.

I am still experimenting with different size limits on the playlists and how they impact the load time for Pseudo-TV versus the trade-off of not refreshing as often. However, there are some channels I want to refresh on a daily basis, i.e. my current tv channel, so I can see the latest episodes as they are added.

You mention an idle timer feature in the readme. How does this timer work?


- Jason102 - 2011-02-04

The idle timer runs all of the time, and if you don't interact with PseudoTV for some amount of time then the script will end. If you press any key then the timer will be reset. My wife and I use this at night...we start the script and it will turn off after a couple of hours. This is just so that your computer doesn't sit there processing forever. You can disable this feature from the configuration screen.


- derekos - 2011-02-04

Sranshaft Wrote:I hope you'll be happy to know I'm working on sprucing up the default skin. This is where I am at the moment. Just need to fix one or to things (the time bar needs to be drawn above the show listings and inclusion of the info window into the official branch) before I can send it to Jason for his official approval.

@Sranshaft It looks fantastic! Crossing my fingers it works with Alaska. ;-)


- Sranshaft - 2011-02-04

derekos Wrote:@Sranshaft It looks fantastic! Crossing my fingers it works with Alaska. ;-)

You'll be happy to know everything should work out of the box with any skin. Eventually I might start looking into creating additional skins, Alaska and Confluence being at the top of the list.


- zepfan - 2011-02-04

I had the script working a week ago, decided to stop and delete all my info on Tv shows so that they'd all work. Every tv show episode now has duration. I downloaded the pre-release version, deleted the old one and added the new one. I hit refresh all under settings and i now get a message saying it can't find info on Channel 1. I've tried changing info on the playlist to all possible combos and can't get anything. They are properly named as Channel_1.xsp. Any thoughts?

Edit I use Alaska now but I've had the same issue with all skins.


- Jason102 - 2011-02-04

Not sure, zepfan. Mind turning on debug logging, reproducing it, and sending me the log?


- zepfan - 2011-02-04

Jason102 Wrote:Not sure, zepfan. Mind turning on debug logging, reproducing it, and sending me the log?

xbmc.log
Channel_1.xsp
Code:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes" ?>
<smartplaylist type="tvshows">
    <name>Comedy TV</name>
    <match>one</match>
    <rule field="tvshow" operator="is">30 Rock</rule>
    <limit>10</limit>
    <order direction="ascending">random</order>
</smartplaylist>
After looking at the log, it looks like it can't find any episodes. They all have duration that show up in confluence.