MediaPortal XMLTV guide

[dancake]

Myself, and a few others, have found that the Mediaportal TVservice will crash if the TV card is used to capture the EPG directly.

The solution is to use a WEB based EPG. I have wriiten this TUT if you are interested (NB Mistakes may be down to OLd speckled Hen)

Assumptions

YOU are using Vista
YOU have set MP/ TV service 1.0.0.0 correctly and mapped the channels/ groups how you want
Everything works APART from EPG

Installation

Firstly, start TVserver config, go to TVservers/ XXX-PC/ your card/ edit and uncheck "Allow this card to be used for EPG grabbing"

Go to "Plugins" and enable XMLTV

In the XMLTV config, set the TVguide.xml folder to

C:\ProgramData\Team MediaPortal\MediaPortal\xmltv

Click the "Mappings" tab and click load/ refresh. You should see something like this NOTE: IF YOU GET AN ERROR TVGUIDE.XML CANNOT BE FOUND, SKIP THIS STEP, FOLLOW THE XMLTVGUI INSTRCTIONS AND GO BACK TO THIS STEP! sorry




Click on save. Now to use yor XMLTV grabber

[dancake]

The grabber I am using is the excellent XMLTV GUI
It is much more user friendly than WEBEPG and the creator is lightening fast with any updates that are required. Download and join the forum here:

XMLTV GUI

Ok Now install the proggy and start it up
Go to tools-settings and make sure your timezone is correct

Set your "save listings to" directory to the same as the XMLTV plugin directory
ie C:\ProgramData\Team MediaPortal\MediaPortal\xmltv\ *SAVE AS TVGUIDE.XML


Go to tools/ grabbers and tick UK_RT
Highlight UK_RT and click on channels

Her is where you will set your channels up. YOU MUST RENAME YOUR CHANNELS IN MP TO THE SAME AS IN THE RT LIST!

I like to open the MP tvserver config alongsde XMLTVGUI so I can edit both at once like this:




Make sure your channel names are correct and click on the > button to add them in XMLTV gui

Now click the OKs and you get to click the "Grab listings " button. You should see this:


*This is what I like about this over WEBEPG; you get a staus bar! Furthermore, the update will Hang on any problematic channels meaning you can identify them easily, remove from your channel list and run the grab again!


Now you have grabbed your EPG it is time to insert it into mediaportal

[dancake]

Ok now enter the TVserver config app again and navigate to the XMLTV plugin IF YOU MISSED OUT THE MAPPINGS STEP, DO IT NOW OTHERWISE IT WONT WORK. AFTER MAPPING REMEMBER TO SAVE :P

click on "IMport" and the tvguide.xml created by XMLTV gui should be imported

NB the tab import new files in TVguide.lst should be UNCECKED



Now start MP and (it will take a good few minutes to populate) you should have an EPG

The next thing to do is to set up windows task sceduler to run XMLTV GUI automatically every day to update. Set task sceduler to run XmltvGUI.exe /Grab at an interval of your choosing.

*NB I am working that out now.

The reason I wrote this is that MP is let down by its guide. Hopefully, I know 2 sceptics who will now embrace MP as the best Media Centre in the world

lol

[dancake]

to make the GUI operate daily, open windows task sceduler, create basic task and name it what you want. select "run a program" and point path towards xmltvgui.exe

put /grab in the arguments box

I chose 4.30 every morning as a time; it ensures MP checks the tvguide.xml and poulates fully for when i wake up!

[deepcat]

Excellent guide thanks

just a quick question when you say tv server would crash if EPG is grabbed via card,

Was this crashing as soon as you checked this option?

[dancake]

It was quite random with me but a friend of mine had worked out that the EPG grabbing was constantly causing him crashes; I disabled EPG grab from card and stability was 100%

[tdw197]

Good Tutorial, very easy to follow.

But does anyone else find that the channel names are very out of date - and consequently v.difficult to map?

[Confused Stu]

Brilliant tutorial Dancake - very nicely written & presented. Should I ever get divorced from my love affair with VMC, I'll be looking this up for sure.