[plugin] XMLTV Importer

[StephaneM]

Originally Posted by naarada

This is a subscriber edition of Snapstream that came with the Diamond XtremeTV card and it had 60-day trial license to Snapstream.Net but full license to use Beyond TV.

Okay, I'm not sure, but as the BTV guide upadter engine is the same wether you use XMLTV or SnapStream.Net, then maybe importing XMLTV is also disabled (once trial is over).

I'll contact SnapStream to see if this is true. You can also contact SnapStream technical support to ask them the same question.

Regards,
Stéphane.

[StephaneM]

Originally Posted by naarada

This is a subscriber edition of Snapstream that came with the Diamond XtremeTV card and it had 60-day trial license to Snapstream.Net

I have the confirmation form SnapStream that currently the BTV Subscriber edition doesn't allow users to acces the guide unless you have paid for a subscription (even if you are not a North American user). So you would have to subscribe to use XMLTV.

Regards,
Stéphane.

[optikhog]

Originally Posted by naarada

Has anyone got this working with BTV 3.5.2 in US. I am using tv_grab_na_dd and the xmltvimporter says import is done but i do not see anything in the BTV logs or the channep lineup.

I have tried everything in the guide as well as the various forums posting about xmltvimporter.

Thanks

I am currently using tv_grab_na_dd without issue. Have you confirmed that your XML file is populated with data? The easiest piece of this process to misconfigure is the XMLTV potion, IMHO.

[naarada]

So seems like I am screwed. I have to pay up $70 lifetime charges to just get snapstream.net even though beyond tv works fine.

Dont know how to get around it for now.

Thanks for the suggestions.

[optikhog]

Originally Posted by naarada

So seems like I am screwed. I have to pay up $70 lifetime charges to just get snapstream.net even though beyond tv works fine.

Dont know how to get around it for now.

Thanks for the suggestions.

I feel like I'm missing something here - why are you not able to use the north american feed thru XMLTV?

[naarada]

Originally Posted by optikhog

I feel like I'm missing something here - why are you not able to use the north american feed thru XMLTV?

I have subscriber edition of Beyond TV 3.5 which means there was a 60-day trial for snapstream.net but this is a full version of Beyond TV 3.5.

So according to Stephane, Snapstream does not allow XMLTV importer to update their guide somehow. I have data in all the xml files and import says its done. But there is no log or any indication in Beyond TV that something has changed. I have checked all their config files and other xml files that Beyond TV uses.

What version of Beyond TV do you have?

[optikhog]

ohhhhhh, I get it. Man, I need some more coffee.

[optikhog]

Stéphane, forgive my ignorance, but I'm about to add another tuner card to my second BTV system and have been trying to figure out how to get multiple lineups to work with the importer - I'm going to be using a cable box for the new card but analog cable for the original card. I see in the channel editor that I can have separate channel lineups, so is it then a function of XMLTV to get the multiple lineups into a single XML file since the importer can only import a single file?

Thanks!

[StephaneM]

Hello,

Originally Posted by optikhog

I'm going to be using a cable box for the new card but analog cable for the original card. I see in the channel editor that I can have separate channel lineups, so is it then a function of XMLTV to get the multiple lineups into a single XML file since the importer can only import a single file?

Starting with version 3.1 you can import more than one XMLTV file.

Just click on the "+" button near the XMLTV Source drop down list to add a new XMLTV Source (a source = a new XMLTV file). To see this control you must use the "classic" interface and not the wizard (check the "don't show this wizard again" box in the Wizard then close it and open again the Importer to go in the "classic" interface).

Adding a new XMLTV source let's you define per source :

* XMLTV File
* Time Offset
* Detection method

Change the drop down list and you'll see that these fields change when you change the selection in the list.

When you have more than one XMLTV source the Importer does behave as if you have only one XMLTV file. So the channel editor works the same way : it will list all channels from all XMLTV files and you can distribute them among lineups.

To take fully advantage of your dual tuner setup, I advise you to:

* plug your analog cable to your two capture cards
* create an analog lineup with channels that have on analog cable and assign this lineup to your two cards on analog input
* plug your digital cable box to one of your capture card
* create a digital lineup with channels on the cable box only (that is don't put channels that exists also on your analog cable), assign this lineup to the digital cable box video source.

Regards,
Stéphane.

[optikhog]

Excellent, thanks for the tips! I did not previously see the dropdown for the source settings - I appreciate your help.

[optikhog]

Originally Posted by StephaneM

To take fully advantage of your dual tuner setup, I advise you to:

* plug your analog cable to your two capture cards
* create an analog lineup with channels that have on analog cable and assign this lineup to your two cards on analog input
* plug your digital cable box to one of your capture card
* create a digital lineup with channels on the cable box only (that is don't put channels that exists also on your analog cable), assign this lineup to the digital cable box video source.

Hmm, so I followed your lead and now the card hooked to the STB has a lineup of only digital channels, which doesn't help much. If I add the 2-99 channels to my "additional channels" list, would that solve the dual-tuner/lineup issue?

[StephaneM]

Originally Posted by optikhog

Hmm, so I followed your lead and now the card hooked to the STB has a lineup of only digital channels, which doesn't help much.

Why?

I will try to guess: you want to have full benefit of multi-tuner, and I suppose that you have shared channels between anlog and digital.

The way BTV works, if your shared channels have the same number for analog and digital (ex CNN is 2 on analog and also 2 on digital) then BTV can see them as the same channel, otherwise not.

If I add the 2-99 channels to my "additional channels" list, would that solve the dual-tuner/lineup issue?

Perhaps: if channel 2 on digital = channel 2 on analog yes, otherwise you'll see two channels in your guide and so BTV will not automatically select a free tuner to record a program.

If you do create an "additional channel" to duplicate an existing channel on another lineup (rather than to use a lineup on multiple source), you must use the same channel ID and channel number for the newly created channel. This should works.

Regards,
Stéphane.

[optikhog]

Originally Posted by StephaneM

I will try to guess: you want to have full benefit of multi-tuner, and I suppose that you have shared channels between anlog and digital.

The way BTV works, if your shared channels have the same number for analog and digital (ex CNN is 2 on analog and also 2 on digital) then BTV can see them as the same channel, otherwise not.

Yes, that's exactly what I hope to accomplish.

Originally Posted by StephaneM

Perhaps: if channel 2 on digital = channel 2 on analog yes, otherwise you'll see two channels in your guide and so BTV will not automatically select a free tuner to record a program.

Yes, in my scenario, channels 2-99 are available on both digital and analog, so I'm hoping to take advantage of BTV's "smart" channel abilities.

Originally Posted by StephaneM

If you do create an "additional channel" to duplicate an existing channel on another lineup (rather than to use a lineup on multiple source), you must use the same channel ID and channel number for the newly created channel. This should works.

Excellent, I will try this tomorrow. Ultimately my curiosity was whether or not the importer would scan the XML for the channels listed in the "additional channels" list. I'll give it a shot and see what happens.

Thanks for your help, as always. I love this program!

[optikhog]

OK, follow-up time. I abandoned the dual-file xml import since the analog cable lineup is a subset of my digital lineup; now I am importing only the digital cable lineup. I then went into my channel definitions and set all of the channels in my main 'channels' page to be part of lineup #2 (digital cable) and then simply duplicated the analog channels on the 'additional channels' page, setting all of them to be part of lineup #1 (analog cable). I then ran the import again and all is now working perfectly.

Thanks again!

[StevenR]

Would it be possible to have an option for incremental updates in the importer?
Currently if I run the import every day I lose old listings from the guide(everything from before the import was run) and I still sometimes like to refer to these.
It would be useful to be able to run a daily incremental update (keeping the old listings) and run a less frequent full update (deleting old listings).