Getting the best EPG Data in UK

Ash Guest

i've recently upgraded to 4.3-905~g9bed2c7 as setting serial linked recordings has been implemented into Kodi 18 (not that i had any problems with AutoRec!)... but hey i always want the newest things!

Originally ive was using Schedule Directs XMLTV as the primary source to complete my EPG, but i believe this doesn't hold serial link data, so i set up both Freesat and EIT with higher priorities, i have a couple of questions:

1, I use BBC1 HD set as channel 1 (i'm not that fussed about local programs), however, no programs on this channel are serial linked, although my local SD BBC Channel (BBC One East Midlands) does... am i right in think that the BBC dont broadcast Series link ID for HD channels?

2, Will setting the the XMTV as a lower priority means i still get 14 days worth of EPG, but the first 7 days will be over written by the over the air Freesat grabber? and the EIT will overwrite the now and next? are my presumptions correct?

3, i'm interested in "accurate recordings", i've set this up for the 1st 5 channels, i am right in thinking that this will solve issues when programs over run e.g a sporting event that goes into extra time etc?

all the best

Ash

Ash Guest

Anyone can help? Anyone from the UK?

mpmc

I'm receiving from Sutton Coldfield, but can also receive Waltham.

I'm seeing Series linking on BBC One HD no problem in the WebUI (record series button).

Ash Guest

Ahh ok thanks Mark, i'm using DVB-S, i'm not getting the record series button for any program on BBC one HD or BBC Two HD other HD channels such as ITV HD works ok??

mpmc

Ash Guest wrote:

> Ahh ok thanks Mark, i'm using DVB-S, i'm not getting the record series button for any program on BBC one HD or BBC Two HD other HD channels such as ITV HD works ok??

I'm using DVB-S as well. What grabbers do you have enabled?

Ash Guest

The EIT grabber with the higest prority then the freesat OTA grabber. I’m also subscribing to Schedule Directs XMLTV grabber to give me full 14 days - but that shouldn’t overwrite over the other 2 should it ? It’s a lower priority.

Ash Guest

ok after a bit of testing and playing around.... if i turn on "Over the air EIT" as well as the Freesat grabber (set with the highest priority) i dont get the series link button just the Autorec button... turning off the EIT grabber and leaving the Freesat grabber results in the BBC HD channels having the series link button... my theory in turning of the the EIT grabber was i thought it would give greater program start/end times and more accurate changes to the schedule...

however thats not the case either!" i'm not getting changes to the schedule e.g for example tonight on BBC one HD my EPG is showing "Silent Witness" but it should show "MOTD 4th round FA cup replay" (Silent Witness is now being shown tomorrow) my local East Midlands BBC EPG is correct...

is this just the BBC no updating their EPG data?

Bobby Lockwood

Hi Ash,
I use TVHeadend for Freesat and Freeview so hopefully I can help.
Re the EPG data not updating. I assume you've check that the updates are scheduled on the EPG Grabber panel? You should have something like 4 2 * in the Over-the-air Cron multi-line: box for the over air grabbers.
I find accurate recording on freesat works perfectly for the BBC and C4 channels but not for ITV and C5 (although both of those work fine on freeview, so I use that platform for recording from those channels). I have the EIT grabber set as higher priority than the Freesat grabber as I found that accurate recording only works that way around (its the other way round on freeview).
Cbeebies is good to test with as it has short shows which rarely start on time. The service.log in kodi userdata/addon_data/service.tvheadend42 is useful for seeing exactly when the recording starts and stops.
For series link I either use the TVHeadend android app (very good BTW) or the web gui. I don't use Kodi to set timers. I find using the web gui the only way to get 100% reliable series linking, by that I mean it doesn't record the repeats. It seems to set the right crid more reliably that the phone app.
Good luck with it. I found there was a lot of trial and error but it is worth it when you finally get it setup.
Bobby.

Ash Guest

Thanks Bobby,

i currently have Schedule Directs XMLTV to give me 14 days of data and also enabled the Freesat over the air grabber set at a higher priority which i believe gives 7 days of data and therefore overwrites the next 7 days in the EPG, which appears to give me good series link data.

The problem with this set up is i'm not sure how good the accurate recording is, i will use your suggestion and test Cbeebies - thanks for your help.

Ash

A L

This is a really interesting thread - I have been wondering something very similar.

I use DVB-S2 only and, at the moment, only use my Schedule Direct account (tv_grab_zz_sdjson_sqlite grabber) for my EPG.

For some reason, I am getting the option of series link option for lots of the recordings.

I was under the impression (as Ash says in his first post) that series link data was not provided by Schedules Direct. Is this not now the case?

Robert Cameron

Around the beginning of the year Schedules Direct had their UK lineups changed by their upstream provider (Gracenote). I wonder if this might be related to this transition.

You might want to head over to Schedules Direct's forums to get more information.

A L

Thanks - I have asked for confirmation in the SD forum and shall revert when they have responded.

In the meantime, do you happen to know how CRIDs are provided to individual episodes?

For example, if an episode of programme X is shown on ITV HD, will it have the same CRID on ITV SD and ITV+1?

Of all my years of DVR software, I have never bothered with series link - I always assumed that criteria based scheduling was superior.

However, thinking about it, if I can see that it is appropriate in certain situations (it definitely improves WAF).

Em Smith

In the UK, CRIDs can vary between ITV regions for the same programme, but tend to be the same for SD/HD. Channels also have "authority" (such as "bbc.co.uk" or "www.uktv.co.uk") which is used to generate the unique ID, so if BBC shows "Top Gear" then the re-broadcast on Dave channel will have a different authority, hence a different id.

UK Freeview and Freesat frequently have different authority (and subtly different channel names) to make things difficult. So you used to have five.tv and channel5.com, Picktv.sky.com and sky.com, and numerous others.

Series link on xmltv SD is different to actual series link on OTA. Series link on OTA links a broadcast (such as Thursday night at 9pm on E4) and is completely different to the re-broadcast (Thursday 10pm on E4+1, Tuesday 9pm, etc.)

SD series link is based on the fact that known series have the same prefix on their program ids, so it should probably pick up all repeats and then filter based on duplicate policy so you might not notice much difference. However, years ago I used to record the 3am versions of SHIELD since they had 10 minutes fewer adverts than the 9pm version, so you could probably do this with OTA series link not xmltv series link.

For the original question, mixing and matching xmltv and OTA for the same channel seems like a bad idea to me since programmes can have different names on SD vs OTA. So you could end up scheduling a programme using SD at +8 days and find it doesn't record because the OTA name at +7 days has changed. It might not affect you on old versions, but newer versions are more strict about descheduling recordings that no longer match criteria.

Brendon Bell

Hi there,

I am using an IPTV sub and having issues with EPG data on some channels.

Would anyone be able to assist?

Not sure what information is required (hardware, software etc)

Thanks

A L

Sorry to resurrect this old thread, but I would be really interested to hear from any of you and how you got on with this - what settings are you currently using?

I use Schedules Direct only for 99% of all my channels, with OpenTV for the remaining couple that are not covered.

I am pretty curious about the tactic of using other grabbers with higher priorities, for the benefits that this might bring (proper series link, last minute schedule changes etc.).