[Lunatixz]

I believe I fixed my EPG issues.. but through a different method.

I've removed the functionality of time shifting in PTV.

What this means -

Currently you can scroll through every channel and every time and select any content to play at any time. My thought is this really does a number on true live tv and live streams as they cannot be played from the past or sometime in the future. Following along this process, one would have to assume the EPG does not care about this issue and still tries to shift accordingly. Boom, sync issue.

PTV is supposed to work like this:

Playlist of all local content with metadata lines up with EPG window
If at anytime you select content in the past or future, the EPG is updated along with the playlist pointer to shift the channel's programming schedule to match your selection.

This works for files, but for live streams? Impossible (at least in the future sense).

To eliminate this, I've wiped the whole function.

Rather than selecting a channel's content and skewing everything to match that new timeline, selecting content in the past or future on a specific channel merely selects the channel's currently playing content in time.

ie

You are watching channel 1 - 15 minutes into Friends
You open the guide, see How I met your mother coming on in 30 minutes on channel 2, but Family guy is now playing on that channel
You select HIMYM, channel changes and you're tuned into what is currently playing, Family Guy.

The EPG does not time shift, the channel becomes more like true cable tv programming, you're locked into what it's decided to display.

I enjoy this; however, this could be slightly modified to only shift the EPG if the channel is NOT live streams. I assume based on my original hypothesis that this will essentially shift the EPG for all channels other than those that cannot be shifted, and if you select a live stream channel in the past or future, it will ignore this and immediately display the "now" without an EPG shift.

If that function is desired, I can look into it. For now I am stopping, my wife and I pay cable now for the "programming" aspect, aka You will watch this now. We've had the ability to watch items on demand via OnDemand, Hulu, Youtube, HTPC, Amazon, etc, etc for years, yet we only find ourselves using that function 2-3 times a week to catch up on shows (easily done with XBMC elsewhere) and 2-3 times a month (in summer) to watch specific movies on demand.

Let me know your thoughts, I'm becoming somewhat of an expert in this add-on.

Blazin... Let me see some code...

---

EPG Sync issue is a pain! but I don't see what's causing it... PTV's m3u playlists look correct....

Found this myself, I'm looking into it. I think there is a very obvious answer for why MY EPG is all out of whack, if I fix it, I'll post it.

@blazin u running lunas beta? my ftp login isn't working, is yours?

Beta is closed...

[blazin912]

More digging into EPG issues:

XBMC Crashed last night.

Turned on this AM:

Live channel was exactly 18 hours ahead, M3U was regenerated, but it seems like the playlist point were not set to position 0 or 1, it was stuck at 26 based on the M3U files.
Playlist channel was 33 hours ahead ( this is based on the assumption that all channels should start at location 0 after a crash) or playlist position 20.

Based on this finding, I now understand why my EPG is skewed (I think..) I believe the M3U must be getting regenerated, but for some reason we are not resetting the playlist position for live channels. So we are keeping our playlist position at the last item, but since we skew our listings by 18 hours (26 items) our guide info does not align with our actual content, unless we rebuild the channel completely.

I'll see if I can validate this in the code, but it's the only thing that would makes sense at this point

[Lunatixz]

More digging into EPG issues:

XBMC Crashed last night.

Turned on this AM:

Live channel was exactly 18 hours ahead, M3U was regenerated, but it seems like the playlist point were not set to position 0 or 1, it was stuck at 26 based on the M3U files.
Playlist channel was 33 hours ahead ( this is based on the assumption that all channels should start at location 0 after a crash) or playlist position 20.

Based on this finding, I now understand why my EPG is skewed (I think..) I believe the M3U must be getting regenerated, but for some reason we are not resetting the playlist position for live channels. So we are keeping our playlist position at the last item, but since we skew our listings by 18 hours (26 items) our guide info does not align with our actual content, unless we rebuild the channel completely.

I'll see if I can validate this in the code, but it's the only thing that would makes sense at this point

Actually, the EPG M3U data is completely rebuilt after every start of PTV.. if you start, exit, start the data is in sync... over time it will lose sync...

Some time ago I looked into the same idea of some type of playlist position that is not being reset, but was unable to find anything in the code... If you find anything keep me updated!

If you want me to add your master/slave mod to my fork, please send me the code... All credit will be given.

[XvMMvX]

blazin & lunatixz

Thanks for all of your hard work on this. I am waiting patiently for a fix to the EPG sync.

if you start, exit, start the data is in sync... over time it will lose sync...

In my experience the EPG has never been in sync for me.



This is what mine does no matter what I try. It sets the current program as "starting now" as opposed to the correct time in the guide. In this pic the college basketball should have started at Noon and not 12:11 or whatever.

[Lunatixz]

blazin & lunatixz

Thanks for all of your hard work on this. I am waiting patiently for a fix to the EPG sync.

if you start, exit, start the data is in sync... over time it will lose sync...

In my experience the EPG has never been in sync for me.

This is what mine does no matter what I try. It sets the current program as "starting now" as opposed to the correct time in the guide. In this pic the college basketball should have started at Noon and not 12:11 or whatever.

are you still using the modified startime I gave you a few months ago?
do you have a channel rule for real-time?

you should have this: (can't tell you what line my build is different, its under buildlivetv in channellist.py).
dur = ((stopDate - startDate).seconds) - ((now - startDate).seconds)
the logic is correct.. should offset the show time by the current time...

[blazin912]

More digging into EPG issues:

XBMC Crashed last night.

Turned on this AM:

Live channel was exactly 18 hours ahead, M3U was regenerated, but it seems like the playlist point were not set to position 0 or 1, it was stuck at 26 based on the M3U files.
Playlist channel was 33 hours ahead ( this is based on the assumption that all channels should start at location 0 after a crash) or playlist position 20.

Based on this finding, I now understand why my EPG is skewed (I think..) I believe the M3U must be getting regenerated, but for some reason we are not resetting the playlist position for live channels. So we are keeping our playlist position at the last item, but since we skew our listings by 18 hours (26 items) our guide info does not align with our actual content, unless we rebuild the channel completely.

I'll see if I can validate this in the code, but it's the only thing that would makes sense at this point

Actually, the EPG M3U data is completely rebuilt after every start of PTV.. if you start, exit, start the data is in sync... over time it will lose sync...

Some time ago I looked into the same idea of some type of playlist position that is not being reset, but was unable to find anything in the code... If you find anything keep me updated!

If you want me to add your master/slave mod to my fork, please send me the code... All credit will be given.

Right. the M3U is rebuilt, and I saw this; however, based on the fact that the M3U's 26 item was what was showing on the guide after a restart as the current time item. That tells me that while the M3U is rebuilt, the playlist position is not reset, so 25 items that previously existed in the M3U prior to the first item (which is time NOW) were deleted on the restart/rebuild.

A second restart fixes the EPG, so yea there is more than one thing causing issues here, but that's definitely gotta be one of them.

If you have automatic rebuilding on, and that problem continues to plague the system, it would seem to do the same thing over time..

[Lunatixz]

More digging into EPG issues:

XBMC Crashed last night.

Turned on this AM:

Live channel was exactly 18 hours ahead, M3U was regenerated, but it seems like the playlist point were not set to position 0 or 1, it was stuck at 26 based on the M3U files.
Playlist channel was 33 hours ahead ( this is based on the assumption that all channels should start at location 0 after a crash) or playlist position 20.

Based on this finding, I now understand why my EPG is skewed (I think..) I believe the M3U must be getting regenerated, but for some reason we are not resetting the playlist position for live channels. So we are keeping our playlist position at the last item, but since we skew our listings by 18 hours (26 items) our guide info does not align with our actual content, unless we rebuild the channel completely.

I'll see if I can validate this in the code, but it's the only thing that would makes sense at this point

Actually, the EPG M3U data is completely rebuilt after every start of PTV.. if you start, exit, start the data is in sync... over time it will lose sync...

Some time ago I looked into the same idea of some type of playlist position that is not being reset, but was unable to find anything in the code... If you find anything keep me updated!

If you want me to add your master/slave mod to my fork, please send me the code... All credit will be given.

Right. the M3U is rebuilt, and I saw this; however, based on the fact that the M3U's 26 item was what was showing on the guide after a restart as the current time item. That tells me that while the M3U is rebuilt, the playlist position is not reset, so 25 items that previously existed in the M3U prior to the first item (which is time NOW) were deleted on the restart/rebuild.

A second restart fixes the EPG, so yea there is more than one thing causing issues here, but that's definitely gotta be one of them.

If you have automatic rebuilding on, and that problem continues to plague the system, it would seem to do the same thing over time..

Where do you get this info? observation or code? because the only position info "code wise" is reset when the m3u rebuilds... perhaps there is a mystery element I missed, but I need to see code. speculation can't get this fixed
I've spent a lot of time trying to figure out this problem, perhaps its an easy fix, perhaps it's not.

I don't want to step on toes, but your observations on how PTV works isn't completely correct (i've noticed this in your last few posts)... I would be willing to straighten out and help with any info you need...
I can safely say I do not believe the problem lies with playlist creation, and the logic that calculates duration... nor position information since live channels always start from the top of the playlist... and EPG info is collected from the m3u's...

If you want to focus on code, concentrate on how PTV shuts down, I believe the problem starts there.

Again any help you need just ask... I appreciate all the time your putting into this...

[puenktchen]

I'm not a developer so don't shoot at me if i'm totally wrong, but about the epg sync issue:
I think the problem lies in "overlay.py". There are some mechanismen to calculate the epg timeline position by the video position every time you
switch a channel. But a live stream has no seeking time and so the video position is alway 0, so the epg timeline is always at start of the video/live stream.
Maybe this a false assumption of me, but it's really hard to understand the code. There's so much code for similar actions spreaded over many "pys"...

[Lunatixz]

I'm not a developer so don't shoot at me if i'm totally wrong, but about the epg sync issue:
I think the problem lies in "overlay.py". There are some mechanismen to calculate the epg timeline position by the video position every time you
switch a channel. But a live stream has no seeking time and so the video position is alway 0, so the epg timeline is always at start of the video/live stream.
Maybe this a false assumption of me, but it's really hard to understand the code. There's so much code for similar actions spreaded over many "pys"...

I appreciate the feedback... I'll take a look :D
...
Found something interesting... making some changes now and i'll test, thanks...
...
Testing some changes now... keeping fingers crossed :)

[blazin912]

Where do you get this info? observation or code? because the only position info "code wise" is reset when the m3u rebuilds... perhaps there is a mystery element I missed, but I need to see code. speculation can't get this fixed
I've spent a lot of time trying to figure out this problem, perhaps its an easy fix, perhaps it's not.

I don't want to step on toes, but your observations on how PTV works isn't completely correct (i've noticed this in your last few posts)... I would be willing to straighten out and help with any info you need...
I can safely say I do not believe the problem lies with playlist creation, and the logic that calculates duration... nor position information since live channels always start from the top of the playlist... and EPG info is collected from the m3u's...

If you want to focus on code, concentrate on how PTV shuts down, I believe the problem starts there.

Again any help you need just ask... I appreciate all the time your putting into this...

Thought I found it in the code, but looking again, it seems that you're right. Assuming everything falls into place the ClearPlaylistHistory should be called everytime. Not sure why there are times my playlist is not cleared though.. I guess I'd need to leave the debugger on and hope to catch those occasions. Only thing I can think of to cause that (after injecting the fault) is to have a bad or missing XMLTV file, ie the link for the live tv channel EPG data is invalid. Or, if this statement isn't true:

Channellist.py line 405

Code:

if self.background == False and append == False and self.myOverlay.isMaster:

Not sure how that'd occur, but just throwing it out there.

Reason I'm digging and making assumptions is based on my lack of knowledge (still coming up to speed). Would be easier for someone more knowledgeable, obviously, but if they are unavailable, then gotta do what you've gotta do to get it done.

I'll send you my mod for that code again right meow.

[Lunatixz]

I'll look at the code for the mod, if it works I will add it... credit will be given of coarse...
as for knowledge... i'm no expert!
I only learned python for xbmc... it's just observations and speculations on how something works without looking at the code won't get you anywhere since there is a lot at play. PTV has so many elements all spread out in different files, its hard to paint the whole picture by one component...

Any help you need, just ask I'm hoping I can get the sync issue fixed so I can finish and release...

[blazin912]

I'll look at the code for the mod, if it works I will add it... credit will be given of coarse...
as for knowledge... i'm no expert!
I only learned python for xbmc... it's just observations and speculations on how something works without looking at the code won't get you anywhere since there is a lot at play. PTV has so many elements all spread out in different files, its hard to paint the whole picture by one component...

Any help you need, just ask I'm hoping I can get the sync issue fixed so I can finish and release...

Awesome.. can't wait..

I agree with you, every time I dig into a module I find something else that just showcases how live tv channels have sort of been shoe horned into the original architecture of PTV which works well for local content.

[Lunatixz]

Can someone help me?

After adding my HDhomerun channels with lunas tool my channels worked great, EPG worked great. Only problem is that randomly, around 75% of the time, if I open the EPG it will give me a bugged EPG with empty channel lists/lineups. When this happens, I can't press enter/esc to leave the EPG, and have to alt+f4 to exit xbmc, as it gets stuck. If I don't use the EPG at all, and just channel surf up and down, it works fine.
Another issue I have is that all the channels in the EPG are shown as starting 10 min into the future, even though I have the settings in PTV set to real-time.

Just to be clear, I'm trying this with the PTV in luna's sig, and a fresh install of XBMC and tvguide with no other media added other then then my HDhomerun live channels added with the help of luna's stream builder tool. It seems everything should be working, but it's not.. Help please..

Only epg issues you should be experiencing is a sync issue with timelines... empty slots and missing hdhomerun channels means there is no xmltv for the channel found... make sure debugging is on in xbmc and send me a pastebin link to your log....

[blobdole]

Can someone help me?

After adding my HDhomerun channels with lunas tool my channels worked great, EPG worked great. Only problem is that randomly, around 75% of the time, if I open the EPG it will give me a bugged EPG with empty channel lists/lineups. When this happens, I can't press enter/esc to leave the EPG, and have to alt+f4 to exit xbmc, as it gets stuck. If I don't use the EPG at all, and just channel surf up and down, it works fine.
Another issue I have is that all the channels in the EPG are shown as starting 10 min into the future, even though I have the settings in PTV set to real-time.

Just to be clear, I'm trying this with the PTV in luna's sig, and a fresh install of XBMC and tvguide with no other media added other then then my HDhomerun live channels added with the help of luna's stream builder tool. It seems everything should be working, but it's not.. Help please..

Only epg issues you should be experiencing is a sync issue with timelines... empty slots and missing hdhomerun channels means there is no xmltv for the channel found... make sure debugging is on in xbmc and send me a pastebin link to your log....

I have the xmltv, and the channels show up properly with all information in the EPG. The problem is that if I open the EPG it will sometimes show the correct information, other times it will open up bugged, forcing me to alt+f4 to exit.

I'll install everything from scratch again and see if it fixes the issue, if not I'll send the log. Thanks for the help btw, I really think this is going to be a great plugin.

[blobdole]

Could this be what's causing my problem?

Code:

type: LOAD_ON_GUI_INIT
15:25:22 T:2432   DEBUG: CGUIMediaWindow::GetDirectory ()
15:25:22 T:2432   DEBUG:   ParentPath = []
15:25:22 T:1832   DEBUG: script.pseudotv-TVOverlay: onAction 107
15:25:22 T:1832   DEBUG: script.pseudotv-TVOverlay: Unable to get semaphore
15:25:22 T:1832   DEBUG: script.pseudotv-TVOverlay: onAction 107
15:25:22 T:1832   DEBUG: script.pseudotv-TVOverlay: Unable to get semaphore
15:25:22 T:1832   DEBUG: script.pseudotv-TVOverlay: onAction 107
15:25:22 T:1832   DEBUG: script.pseudotv-TVOverlay: Unable to get semaphore

Here is what the EPG looks like:



What am I doing wrong?

Installed xbmc
Installed PTV
Installed TVGuide
Enabled IceLibrary
Configured stream builder for hdhomerun_config.exe/MC2XML.exe/Source.db/settings2.xml
Selected channels in stream builder and used the PTV addon to export.

Channels show up in PTV but EPG is bugged. Did I miss any steps?