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Cliff Watson EPG add-on for MyHD, FusionHDTV, and HD Homerun - Page 2

post #31 of 3803
3/26/06 at 6:44am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sarcoma View Post

I decided the easiest way to implement CW_EPG would be to place it in the folder with MyHDAuto. I made the appropriate name change for MyHD.exe and copied the new version of MyHD.exe to the MyHD folder. Now I was ready to rock!

I started CW_EPG and immediately got this error message:

The ONLY file from MyHDAuto that is compatible with CW_EPG is the "Watchlist.csv" file. Using the "ch_maps.txt" from MyHDAuto will cause you problems, so unfortunately you have to delete it and re-map.

Are you using the "-640" command line switch???

The only known problem I've had was using this switch. The first time would cause an error, but then it is fine after that initial acknowledgement.

Quote:


2. Zap2It allows you to have multiple lineups. In my case I have one for DISH Satellite Programming and one for the antenna. The program that was used in conjunction with MyHDAuto allowed you to choose which lineup to download (although based on time, I believe it downloaded both lineups but only saved one). CW_EPG uses all lineups by default. This caused VERY slow operation until I figured out that I had an extra couple hundred channels that CW_EPG was trying to manage. It would be helpful if CW_EPG allowed us to choose which lineup to use.

CW_EPG processes ALL channels that you defined in your Zap2It! setup. That is why there is this warning in the Readme file:

"NOTE: The more channels you select, the longer it will take to process the guide data. It is HIGHLY recommended to select only the channels that you actually wish to record for display in MyHDs' OSD EPG."
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post #32 of 3803
3/26/06 at 6:54am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sarcoma View Post

1. An option to clear the program schedule before scheduling the new programs.

You have confused me. What do you mean by clearing the "program schedule"? The recordings that are already scheduled?

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Upon further investigation, the conflict was with the show that "was not scheduled."

Again, help me out here. This is a new problem if I understand you correctly. You're saying that a program was not scheduled because of a conflict that didn't exist? Or, it actually did exist but you didn't realize it, thus you are asking for the option to clear them out first?
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post #33 of 3803
3/26/06 at 7:52am
Quote:
Originally Posted by hdtvincr View Post

CW_EPG processes ALL channels that you defined in your Zap2It! setup. That is why there is this warning in the Readme file:

"NOTE: The more channels you select, the longer it will take to process the guide data. It is HIGHLY recommended to select only the channels that you actually wish to record for display in MyHDs' OSD EPG."

Question on above from a lazy member - (who has MyHDAuto set up and working fine for the last couple months)

I get around 80 clear QAM channels and to address the downloading issue only have 10-12 in my Zap2it setup

I am thinking that the principal advantage of the Cliff Watson Electronic Program Guide for me would be to populate the OSG data - but if there is an operational limit to the data; and I get a lot of the DTV data via PSIP for the selected channels set up in MyHDAuto already, seems like there is no real benefit.

Ideally I would like to input the 30-40 channels I may actually watch (I could watch a lot more than I would be interested in recording). Is this really feasible or should I just stay with a great working MyHDAuto setup?
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post #34 of 3803
3/26/06 at 8:19am
Version 0.9.1.1 is now posted on the website. It corrects the following bugs:

- Access Violation error when running in 640X480 Mode
- Some MyHD OSD 10 day EPG entries were not being written
- Added "-120dpi" command line switch for those 120DPI users.
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post #35 of 3803
3/26/06 at 8:29am
Quote:
Originally Posted by RalphArch View Post

I get around 80 clear QAM channels and to address the downloading issue only have 10-12 in my Zap2it setup

I am thinking that the principal advantage of the Cliff Watson Electronic Program Guide for me would be to populate the OSG data - but if there is an operational limit to the data; and I get a lot of the DTV data via PSIP for the selected channels set up in MyHDAuto already, seems like there is no real benefit.

Ideally I would like to input the 30-40 channels I may actually watch (I could watch a lot more than I would be interested in recording). Is this really feasible or should I just stay with a great working MyHDAuto setup?

Ralph - There are a few bugs from MyHDauto that have been corrected in CW_EPG. Mostly minor, but there was a couple of scheduling bugs that could be critical.

Secondly, everyone has their own opinion as to what is too slow and what is not. I only receive about a dozen channels and have cable high speed internet so it takes little time to D/L & process. Sterno is getting around 50-55 channels IIRC and has told me that his pprocess takes a couple of minutes or so. I don't think that is too bad considering the amount of data being processed.

Eventually I would like to add the option of allowing EPG processing without scheduling. Other things to do right now though.
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post #36 of 3803
3/26/06 at 9:13am
Quote:
Originally Posted by hdtvincr View Post

Version 0.9.1.1 is now posted on the website. It corrects the following bugs:

- Access Violation error when running in 640X480 Mode
- Some MyHD OSD 10 day EPG entries were not being written
- Added "-120dpi" command line switch for those 120DPI users.

My screen resolution is 896 x 504 which is close to 480 vertical scan lines (the TV views it as a wide screen 480p output) but no where near 640 wide so I never thought of trying the -640 option. But at any rate, the 0.9.1.1 version got rid of the error so I'm happy!

Thanks for the quick turn around time!
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post #37 of 3803
3/26/06 at 9:34am
Thread Starter 
Sarc--

Try the 0.9.1.1 update for a fix to your Access Violation error. {I see that you did before I posted--CW_EPG was detecting that you needed the 640 option, so you don't need to use the command-line switch} I thought that there already was a command switch for clearing all scheduled captures...but it seems not to be in the ReadMe, so maybe my memory's AWOL again. Good idea but dangerous, IMO. We'll have to think that one through. We may want to have CW_EPG keep track of which captures it scheduled and selectively clear those to allow for edits to start/stop times etc.

To deal with the different lineups, I suggest that you establish multiple Zap2It accounts so that you can let CW_EPG have its very own. {Ralph, I think that this addresses your question too}
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post #38 of 3803
3/26/06 at 10:08am
I wrote a long message to try to clarify what I wrote the first time (I meant to clear the "recording schedule" when I wrote "program schedule"--an incorrect term on my part). I then promptly closed my browser without hitting submit. But it is not a great loss! From reading Terry's response, I need go no further because he succinctly covered all of the topics I was trying to bring up.

And the appropriate answer to my signature question would, at least for today, be, "NO!" I'll try to make more sense in the future.

Sarc
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post #39 of 3803
3/26/06 at 11:15am
[Caveat: This post is an example of grasping at straws, beating a dead horse, and just plain crazy, but I'll throw the idea out anyway.]

I haven't tried this yet, so I know nothing about it other than reading what's been written here. But it makes me wonder if this could be modified to effectively do what was one of Cliff's least favorite topics: Effectively create a quasi MyHD BDA functionality?

What I mean by that is this. Presumably MCE, SageTV, etc. all have some data stored somewhere which indicates what the recording conflicts are present. If this program could be modified to periodically obtain that data, and then record such conflicts with the MyHD program, you'd effectively create a system where MyHD would work with MCE and SageTV. I'd suspect this would require at least one BDA tuner for MCE or Sage to work with, and/or perhaps even a way of telling this program how many BDA tuners there were. But the idea is basically to capture the conflict information to record programs with MyHD, rather than the method that's been used with this program.

[Okay--flame away or just let me know I'm crazy, that it's too hard, etc.]
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post #40 of 3803
3/26/06 at 11:22am
Amazing stuff, guys! This is a huge step forward for MyHD. It's got me to stop thinking about MyHD/Sage integration (and there was much cheering).

I especially like the About tab. I miss Cliff.

And now for for the obligatory suggestions.

Re: the clearing of scheduled recordings before scheduling thing: If you kept track of what was scheduled by CW_EPG and checked those against the latest xmltv data, to see if the time/channels are still the same, you could delete only the ones that changed. For extra credit, change the schedule to match the new data. Oh, wait, this is essentially what Terry said. So consider this a vote for doing that!

Scheduling farther out than 26 hours: I know we went over this a bit in MyHDAuto, but I still like the idea of scheduling out farther than 26 hours, mainly because there can be cases where zap2it is down, the computer is down during scheduled task time, your ISP is on the fritz, your zap2it account has expired and you haven't renewed, etc. Missing a day would result in marital discord around this house--anyone else? Maybe going 2 or 3 days out would do the trick.

Managing previously watched stuff: If, in the future, you add the ability to not record that which was previously recorded, then add another tab to manage the list of previous recordings--that management being to clear the "I recorded this before" flag. I'd like this because there are things I record that have glitches, and I'd like to be able to re-capture.

Get those in, and I'm DONE. But besides all that--this is so fundamentally wonderful right outta the box, I'm beside myself. You guys are heroes!

LDog
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post #41 of 3803
3/26/06 at 11:25am
Thread Starter 
Kary--

I don't think that it's "too hard" or "crazy" but it is orthogonal to the direction our team has taken. Perhaps your friends at SageTV, etc., could take up this challenge? My understanding is that Kei Clark can assist developers interested in working with MIT on integrating the MDP-1x0 into their products.

P.S. to all (channeled from CW): I hereby ban all further discussion of "BDA drivers" from this thread!
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post #42 of 3803
3/26/06 at 11:28am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Karyk View Post

[Caveat: This post is an example of grasping at straws, beating a dead horse, and just plain crazy, but I'll throw the idea out anyway.]

Salsbst is doing something like this, specifically for Sage by writing a custom Sage Network Encoder interface (not a psuedo BDA driver, which is probably quite a bit more painful). He got some--ah--insights recently on how to proceed, so I'm hoping for some good news from him shortly. What he did could be applied to beyondtv, too, I'd wager; there's another guy that posted in the Sage forums that he had an encoder interface about working there.

Now if MCE had an encoder API, instead of only walking up to BDA drivers, this kind of implementation could work there, too.

(Geez, this coming right after I swore I was done thinking about Sage/MyHD integration...)
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post #43 of 3803
3/26/06 at 11:31am
Thread Starter 
LDog--

On the 26-hour limit: Yes, it's subject to rehashing, but I note that we already have 10-day data from Zap2It, so if your ISP/Zap2It link is unavailable for a couple of days the consequences are minimal, since the daily scheduling can go on unabated.

On the "New to Me" scheduling: It's on the list.
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post #44 of 3803
3/26/06 at 11:37am
I totally agree with #2, but #1 is a prerequisite in order to do this properly. [edit] in fact #3 is also a pre-req. You need to track the episode ID, to do the matching. other wise it would look like just any old conflict even if your favorite show mearly added 2 minutes to the previously scheduled recording. The reason we hadn't scheduled out further than 26 hours is because the odds of it changing would be greater the further out you went.[/edit]

#3 is on the radar, but involves a little more complexity (a db to track what was recorded, considering deletes without watches, partial records like you said, etc...). That's why we're saving it for later.
Quote:
Originally Posted by lonndoggie View Post

Amazing stuff, guys! This is a huge step forward for MyHD. It's got me to stop thinking about MyHD/Sage integration (and there was much cheering).

I especially like the About tab. I miss Cliff.

And now for for the obligatory suggestions.

Re: the clearing of scheduled recordings before scheduling thing: If you kept track of what was scheduled by CW_EPG and checked those against the latest xmltv data, to see if the time/channels are still the same, you could delete only the ones that changed. For extra credit, change the schedule to match the new data. Oh, wait, this is essentially what Terry said. So consider this a vote for doing that!

Scheduling farther out than 26 hours: I know we went over this a bit in MyHDAuto, but I still like the idea of scheduling out farther than 26 hours, mainly because there can be cases where zap2it is down, the computer is down during scheduled task time, your ISP is on the fritz, your zap2it account has expired and you haven't renewed, etc. Missing a day would result in marital discord around this house--anyone else? Maybe going 2 or 3 days out would do the trick.

Managing previously watched stuff: If, in the future, you add the ability to not record that which was previously recorded, then add another tab to manage the list of previous recordings--that management being to clear the "I recorded this before" flag. I'd like this because there are things I record that have glitches, and I'd like to be able to re-capture.

Get those in, and I'm DONE. But besides all that--this is so fundamentally wonderful right outta the box, I'm beside myself. You guys are heroes!

LDog
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post #45 of 3803
3/26/06 at 11:47am
Quote:
Originally Posted by TPeterson View Post

LDog--

On the 26-hour limit: Yes, it's subject to rehashing, but I note that we already have 10-day data from Zap2It, so if your ISP/Zap2It link is unavailable for a couple of days the consequences are minimal, since the daily scheduling can go on unabated.

Wasn't sure how the 10-day data was used. It gets a 2-day and a 10-day schedule, yes? So if the 2-day is out-of-date, it cuts over to using the 10-day? Cool and very clever, but maybe you could quit getting the 2-day, just get the 10-day and only display the next 26 hours worth of programming?

I figured the 10-day was used for the EPG only, and the 2-day for scheduling. Maybe. Not sure. For sure, 10 days worth of programs don't show in the scheduling window, and I haven't really explored what's in the EPG yet (but I am exporting the data).

Quote:


On the "New to Me" scheduling: It's on the list.

Most excellent!

LDog
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post #46 of 3803
3/26/06 at 12:06pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by lonndoggie View Post

Wasn't sure how the 10-day data was used. It gets a 2-day and a 10-day schedule, yes? So if the 2-day is out-of-date, it cuts over to using the 10-day? Cool and very clever, but maybe you could quit getting the 2-day, just get the 10-day and only display the next 26 hours worth of programming?

The idea of getting the 2-day data is to make sure that the scheduling is done with the most recently available information without downloading the full boatload every day, which would be an added burden for both user and Zap2It.

I actually don't know if Tim anticipated your multiday ISP/Zap2It interruption scenario to fall back on the 10-day data, but by now he's probably recoded it into the next beta release, if not.
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post #47 of 3803
3/26/06 at 12:56pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by lonndoggie View Post

Wasn't sure how the 10-day data was used. It gets a 2-day and a 10-day schedule, yes?

Yes and yes. However, the 10 day is only retrieved every 5th day. {EDIT: And oh by the way, when the 10 day grab is executed, it is actually picking up from the point that the last 2 day grab left off, so it is not a FULL 10 day grab.}

Quote:


So if the 2-day is out-of-date, it cuts over to using the 10-day?

No, but worth looking into. Because of the way the data is structured from Zap2it, basically the entire data file has to be processed. This would be time consuming, thus the limit of 2 days, which is actually the current day PLUS 2 more days. If your ISP is down that long, I'd look elsewhere.

Quote:


I figured the 10-day was used for the EPG only, and the 2-day for scheduling. Maybe. Not sure.

That is correct. But that is why we wanted to get it out to the public. It is worth looking into falling back on the 10 day, but ONLY if necessary as Sterno has pointed out that it is more likely to contain errors.

Until we get the database implemented, I do not want to schedule more than a day ahead for fear of changes.
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post #48 of 3803
3/26/06 at 1:42pm
MyhD must not be running for either EPG population to take effect OR new schedules to be added to the list; is that correct?
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post #49 of 3803
3/26/06 at 1:50pm
The 2-day grab gets the job done; miss a day, and you've still got x hours ahead , enough to cover at least out 'til your next scheduled download. Very cool. The cutover to use the 10-day would be necessary if there were multiple failures, but only if.

In testing, I noticed in the log that it tells me that it didn't download data, either the 2 or 10 day, because it's too soon. What's the "ok to download" boundary on the 2 day file?

Mr. Disaster Planning here still wonders about how we might be made aware of certain failure scenarios. Like what happens when your zap2it subscription lapses? I'm guessing you won't get data until you re-up...and if you happen to miss that email, you may go several days without data. Not sure how best to alert the user--initially I thought sending an emai, but you'd have to get the smtp server info in setup, as well as an address to send to. Event log entries would go undetected by most. Maybe a popup upon non-command line startup if the previous attempt to download failed?

Or maybe I worry too much...
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post #50 of 3803
3/26/06 at 1:58pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by netman View Post

MyhD must not be running for either EPG population to take effect OR new schedules to be added to the list; is that correct?

Must not be running for either EPG population - true

new schedules to be added to the list - false
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post #51 of 3803
3/26/06 at 2:01pm
Quote:


What's the "ok to download" boundary on the 2 day file?

6 hrs
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post #52 of 3803
3/26/06 at 2:01pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by hdtvincr View Post

Must not be running for either EPG population - true

new schedules to be added to the list - false

Ha! I was hoping you would say that.
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post #53 of 3803
3/26/06 at 2:31pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by hdtvincr View Post

Must not be running for either EPG population - true

This is a little misleading, I think, because there's really no reason that MyHD cannot be running, it's simply that the current MyHD.exe only reads the cw_epg database at startup, so while the database may be updated while running MyHD, the result doesn't (currently anyway) appear in the OSD table. IMO, this design decision does not cause major drawbacks, since the updates are (usually) only once a day. It will force both of those folks who run their PCs 24/7 with MyHD.exe continously running to change their habits to see the OSD table. But maybe they'll then learn how to hibernate their PCs and the planet will benefit.
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post #54 of 3803
3/26/06 at 2:41pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by TPeterson View Post

Kary--

I don't think that it's "too hard" or "crazy" but it is orthogonal to the direction our team has taken. Perhaps your friends at SageTV, etc., could take up this challenge?

I don't think they'd have a bit of interest. I've had a hard enough time getting them to create a TS file that plays with the MyHD hardware. Maybe one of the folks that makes the third party add-ons might take it up.

Now I'll go sulk off and look up what orthongonal means.
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post #55 of 3803
3/26/06 at 2:41pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by TPeterson View Post

It will force both of those folks who run their PCs 24/7 with MyHD.exe continously running to change their habits to see the OSD table. But maybe they'll then learn how to hibernate their PCs and the planet will benefit.

Hey! Next time you are on the east coast you come out here and check out Andy's carbon load. I bet he does pretty darn good despite one 24/7 computer which serves files and won't be shutdown. I will also invite you out to the data center where I work; now that WILL give you a heart attack! Air conditioner compressors running all winter long (cold northeast winter) BUT I am currently designing a new data center and I am trying to introduce energy efficiency into the design. Not sure how that will go but I am working on it. Anyway back to on topic.
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post #56 of 3803
3/26/06 at 3:19pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by TPeterson View Post

This is a little misleading, I think, because there's really no reason that MyHD cannot be running, it's simply that the current MyHD.exe only reads the cw_epg database at startup, so while the database may be updated while running MyHD, the result doesn't (currently anyway) appear in the OSD table.

Thanks Terry. Another outstanding job of covering points that I missed!
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post #57 of 3803
3/26/06 at 5:06pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by TPeterson View Post

Me too. It seems that TimeShift is hosed in the modified MyHD.exe. Thanks!

That would explain my hang too; I'm a full timeshift guy on the rare occasion that I watch live tv.

--Dale--
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post #58 of 3803
3/26/06 at 5:09pm
Thanks guys, so far so good. I would agree about the 2 days of scheduling, so we'll have to see.

Other then that, I'll be watching it for a bit and will get back to you guys.

Great work again!

Russell
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post #59 of 3803
3/26/06 at 5:19pm
I noticed that 24 was not scheduled to be recorded. Any one else notice this?

Russell
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post #60 of 3803
3/26/06 at 5:29pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by russwong View Post

I noticed that 24 was not scheduled to be recorded. Any one else notice this?

Are you saying it did't show up in the matches? Because I just tried it, and it did show up there.

--Dale--
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