Add EPG from multiple URLs

Lugie

Hi!

I am new to Tvheadend and XMLTV Grabber. I have spent hours trying to understand how it operates but I do not see how I can use the 10 different URLs that I have for all my EPG data. Like this one "http://epgshare01.online/epgshare01/epg_ripper_US1.xml.gz" and similar URLs ending with ".xml.xz".
I have been using those 10 different EPG sources in my Vu+ box with EPG Import plugin and I was hoping I could reuse them in Tvheadend also. However all of the xml files is compressed as you can see, into "gz" and "xz", will that be a problem for TVheadend and EPG Grabber or is there a module available that it works with?

Another way would be to use a separate software to download and merge them into one xml file that is stored locally for the XMLTV Grabber module to grab.

Any guidance or idea would be helpful.

Tony Wagner

Just download and uncompress each one, and then use tv_cat or tv_merge to combine them.

https://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/lunar/man1/tv_cat.1p.html

https://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/bionic/man1/tv_merge.1p.html

Lugie

Tony Wagner
Thank you, but how do I automate that process? Without the need of manually download and uncompress them?

Tony Wagner

Lugie You can automate downloading and uncompressing things too. Put all of the commands in a bash script.

Flole

No need to merge them, you can just dump them into the xmltv socket of Tvheadend. If necessary pipe them through gunzip first.

Lugie

Flole
When you say "xmltv socket" are you referring to a specific EGP Grabber Module I should use? I am still learning here so I need to take it step by step until I get the hole picture. I am thankful for all the help I am given. :-)

Flole

Lugie There is a socket that you can enable, then you can pipe data into it.

Tony Wagner

Flole Interesting! I did not know that.

In case anyone is interested, I found some sample commands here:

https://tvheadend.org/d/5768-xmltv-via-url/13

Tony Wagner

Here's a working command on my system:
/usr/bin/curl --silent "http://example.com/xmltv.xml" | /usr/bin/nc -w 5 -U /config/epggrab/xmltv.sock

Your paths might be different. You can find your xmltv.sock path in your TVHeadend web interface, Configuration -> Channel / EPG -> EPG Grabber Modules -> External: XMLTV (this is also where you need to enable the socket).

You can a step in between to uncompress, if you source needs it:
/usr/bin/curl --silent "http://example.com/xmltv.xml.gz" | /bin/gunzip -c | /usr/bin/nc -w 5 -U /config/epggrab/xmltv.sock