Issue with In-band EPG Data in UK

[rosbaldeston]

I'm having issues keeping the listings for Spike (UK) updated. It seems Spike isn't covered by the MS EPG listings (for Mendip) no entries for Spike (full wipe & retune late last week). So I'm using the in-band EPG data. But it appears I can only get the in-band updates if I tune live tv to Spike for 10-15mins. Tuning into another channel doesn't appear to populate Spike? Not any of the BBC channels or ITV, Channel 4 ones at any rate.

I'm wondering how the in-band EPG matches the Channel ID to the EPG? Do I have to name the channel the same as the EPG name? and how do I discover that? or is the in-band data only shared across the channels in a particular mutex?

Or is this how the in-band works and I have to tune into every channel without listings for at least 15mins per week?

[Blue407]

I'm having issues keeping the listings for Spike (UK) updated. It seems Spike isn't covered by the MS EPG listings (for Mendip) no entries for Spike (full wipe & retune late last week). So I'm using the in-band EPG data. But it appears I can only get the in-band updates if I tune live tv to Spike for 10-15mins. Tuning into another channel doesn't appear to populate Spike? Not any of the BBC channels or ITV, Channel 4 ones at any rate.

I'm wondering how the in-band EPG matches the Channel ID to the EPG? Do I have to name the channel the same as the EPG name? and how do I discover that? or is the in-band data only shared across the channels in a particular mutex?

Or is this how the in-band works and I have to tune into every channel without listings for at least 15mins per week?

Spike has never worked for EPG on my Win 7 PC. Never bothered to spend the time trying to fix it....
If you get a easy solution, please let me know

[rosbaldeston]

Its not even related to this particular channel, applies to any in-band only EPG (the official feeds aren't that great). More how does the in-band data find the correct listings in MCE to update? In the UK the channel names and numbers change every couple of months, even if you don't manually move the channel number (and I have).

[Arfer Daley]

holy moly booted up today found all my channels back on the epg freesat & freeview thank you whoever sorted out the problem I don't have too keep getting out of my chair now to set a record of mind you it did force me to install the remote that came with the card 2yr ago

[Arfer Daley]

discaboobarations the epg for freesat gone again freeview ok

[IT Troll]

Its not even related to this particular channel, applies to any in-band only EPG (the official feeds aren't that great). More how does the in-band data find the correct listings in MCE to update? In the UK the channel names and numbers change every couple of months, even if you don't manually move the channel number (and I have).

There is a background task which periodically scans for changes to the channel line up. This is how new channels will suddenly appear in the Guide. This can also be annoying as previously hidden channels will reappear if they move.

There are a number of channels which are missing from the downloaded EPG. Thankfully nothing I am particularly interested in. In my experience the in-band EPG is only populated if you actually tune into the channel (or one on the same mux). As you have discovered it takes 10 -15 mins to populate.

Remember though that Media Center cannot decode the in-band EPG from HD channels so these will never populate from OTA broadcasts (without the use of third party tools). The same tools can actually be used to inject OTA EPG into Media Center on a scheduled basis. This will avoid the need to manually tune into a channel to populate the EPG. However it is a bit tricky to setup and not something I would recommend you do for this alone.

[CyberSimian]

I'm having issues keeping the listings for Spike (UK) updated. It seems Spike isn't covered by the MS EPG listings (for Mendip) no entries for Spike (full wipe & retune late last week). So I'm using the in-band EPG data. But it appears I can only get the in-band updates if I tune live tv to Spike for 10-15mins. Tuning into another channel doesn't appear to populate Spike? Not any of the BBC channels or ITV, Channel 4 ones at any rate.

I used WMC on Vista for 5 years, but migrated to MediaPortal 12 months ago. MediaPortal can receive the broadcast EPG, including the EPG for the HD channels (something Win7 MC cannot do).

From experimenting with the MediaPortal EPG settings in recent months, I can confirm that in the UK, every MUX contains the EPG for itself and for all other MUXes. It is therefore necessary to tune to only one channel in order to receive the entire EPG using MediaPortal.

However, just because a MUX contains the entire EPG does not mean that WMC will receive the entire EPG. Although I used Vista for 5 years, I did try Win7 for a couple of weeks, and my observations confirm yours -- WMC accumulates the broadcast EPG only for the MUX to which it is tuned.

The following solution may work for you:

(1) Identify the channels that currently lack EPG info and which you want to watch (e.g. Spike).

(2) Identify the MUXes that contain the channels that you want to watch. You may find that several of these channels reside in the same MUX.

(3) Set up overnight recordings for one channel from each MUX that contains a channel that currently lacks an EPG and which you want to watch. Do this using the "VCR" programming technique, i.e. you specify the start time, end time, channel number, and "repeat daily". On MediaPortal, 10 minutes is enough to receive the entire EPG, so you might specify a start time of 03:00 and an end time of 03:10. Specify the name of the recording as something like "EPG Recording". Then, once a week delete all of the recordings with this name that have accumulated over the week.

I have not tried this, so cannot state that it will definitely work.

-- from CyberSimian in the UK