Where can I download mcBackup?

[laptv77]

I using EPG123 with WMC now, and I need to save my new WMC Channel Lineup and the mcBackup app is recommended by some sites online but I just can’t find where to download it, can anyone help?

Long Life to WMC!

[garyan2]

The [Backup] button in the EPG123 Client does that as well. No need for mcBackup.

[laptv77]

Thanks Gary, I appreciate your help! Happy 2020!

[sgbroimp]

The [Backup] button in the EPG123 Client does that as well. No need for mcBackup.

Just click on it and that is all one needs to do?

[garyan2]

Yup. Takes a few seconds.

[jonwz]

I'm not having any luck backing up my curated lineup on my test system and restoring it to another system using epg123 client.

Can anyone give me a download URL to mcbackup 3.0 to try?

Thanks.

The [Backup] button in the EPG123 Client does that as well. No need for mcBackup.

[garyan2]

For what you are trying to do, I think only Guide Tool will work. What backups from EPG123, mcBackup, and Sean's WMC Backup do will only work on the same machine the backup was made from. This is because your lineups are tied to tuner channels and each of your tuners will have a random GUID. The machine you are trying to restore to will have different IDs. Guide Tool, I believe, takes a different approach and recreates your lineups from a backup.

Problem is, to use that feature, you need an activated Guide Tool and it is now abandonware with no support. There was a hacked version created by a member here but we will have to find it again. It's been a few years.

[jonwz]

Thanks for the reply.

I've looked for an activated guide tool with no success. All the links in previous posts fail. Can anyone help? Bueller??

But seriously, I can't be the only one that wants an accurate pruned channel guide. 7MC's movie guide seems really useful if the guide accurately reflects the channels that you actually get.

For what you are trying to do, I think only Guide Tool will work. What backups from EPG123, mcBackup, and Sean's WMC Backup do will only work on the same machine the backup was made from. This is because your lineups are tied to tuner channels and each of your tuners will have a random GUID. The machine you are trying to restore to will have different IDs. Guide Tool, I believe, takes a different approach and recreates your lineups from a backup.

Problem is, to use that feature, you need an activated Guide Tool and it is now abandonware with no support. There was a hacked version created by a member here but we will have to find it again. It's been a few years.

[Space]

The movie guide would be much better if it allowed you to limit the channels to a favorites list. I only want to record movies from premium channels, so displaying movies from commercial channels mixed in the with premium does me no good. Being able to limit it to just display movies from the premiums would be very helpful.

[garyan2]

This would be one of the reasons it is a good idea to not download guide data for channels you don"t get.

[Space]

I don't like recording movies from commercial networks (due to getting the "TV" version of many movies) but that does not mean I don't subscribe to them nor that I don't record TV series from those channels.

[tonywagner]

The movie guide would be much better if it allowed you to limit the channels to a favorites list. I only want to record movies from premium channels, so displaying movies from commercial channels mixed in the with premium does me no good. Being able to limit it to just display movies from the premiums would be very helpful.

Can't you just make a favorites lineup with only those premium channels? Then just switch to that for browsing movies to record. Yes, you can't also filter by movies in that favorites guide, but movies should still be color coded if you have that guide option selected in the WMC settings.

[tonywagner]

This would be one of the reasons it is a good idea to not download guide data for channels you don"t get.

Is that channel download list saved/transferable between EPG123 setups?

[garyan2]

Yes. Just copy over the c:\programdata\garyan2\epg123\epg123.cfg

[Space]

...
Can't you just make a favorites lineup with only those premium channels? Then just switch to that for browsing movies to record. Yes, you can't also filter by movies in that favorites guide, but movies should still be color coded if you have that guide option selected in the WMC settings.

Yes, but that is much more stuff to sift through, every movie is listed multiple times (for every airing). In the move guide the movie is only listed once and then you can choose what airing you want to record by selecting it.

[tonywagner]

Yes, but that is much more stuff to sift through, every movie is listed multiple times (for every airing). In the move guide the movie is only listed once and then you can choose what airing you want to record by selecting it.

I've never actually used the WMC Movie Guide. But it looks like it can filter by Genre. So as long as you're generating your own listings with Schedules Direct and EPG123, you could cheat by adding an additional custom category ("Premium"?) to listings on certain channels.

Perhaps Gary could let you know if that would be do-able for EPG123, otherwise you could perhaps hack something together with a bash script run on the MXF file before importing.

[tonywagner]

But seriously, I can't be the only one that wants an accurate pruned channel guide. 7MC's movie guide seems really useful if the guide accurately reflects the channels that you actually get.

According to Gary above, in EPG123, when you select channels within a Schedules Direct lineup, those get saved in the EPG123 config file. And then EPG123 automatically disables other channels in your WMC guide after you import the listings.

So you could restore from that same EPG123 config in the future, or copy it over to another machine, etc., to get that same channel list again.

Is that the functionality you were looking for?

[Space]

Yes, but that is much more stuff to sift through, every movie is listed multiple times (for every airing). In the move guide the movie is only listed once and then you can choose what airing you want to record by selecting it.

I've never actually used the WMC Movie Guide. But it looks like it can filter by Genre. So as long as you're generating your own listings with Schedules Direct and EPG123, you could cheat by adding an additional custom category ("Premium"?) to listings on certain channels.

Perhaps Gary could let you know if that would be do-able for EPG123, otherwise you could perhaps hack something together with a bash script run on the MXF file before importing.

Good idea, but genres are associated with the movie itself, not "this movie on this channel" and if the movie is airing on both a premium channel and a non-premium channel it could be a little messy. But given that, I still think it might work (for the most part).

Selecting the "Premium" genre would only list movies that are airing a non-disabled premium channel and then when selecting it, you could just be sure that that airing is on a premium channel, and if not go to "other showings" and select the one that is on a premium channel to record.

One problem with this would be how would EPG123 know which networks are premium but I am sure a list of premium movie channels can be maintained in some way.

The biggest problem with this (for me) would be when you sort the movies "By Start Date" (after selecting the "Premium" genre), which is what I would use to determine what to record during a free preview weekend. It would sort them by when they first air, but that first airing may be on a non-premium channel, with premium channel airings not on during the weekend at all. In this case, it would list movies that I could not record during the weekend, and therefore ultimately movies I would not want to see listed (at least not near the top of the list).

Even with this problem, it would probably greatly simplify the project of choosing what movies to record during a preview weekend. Currently I enable all the channels that are having the free preview (for instance all HBO and Cinemax channels) then on the day before the preview starts, I go to each channel in the guide and select the "More Info" option, which gives a chronological list of all programs airing on that channel. I scan through it until I hit airings that are past the end of the preview weekend, then go to the next channel and do it again...

Having all the movies in one chronological list would make this task much easier, even if an occasional non-premium airing got mixed in the middle. Currently doing this is not possible because there are so many non-premium airings that it would be too difficult. But if you limit those non-premium airings to just the movies that are also airing on enabled premium channels, then I'm sure it would be quite manageable.

[tonywagner]

]
Good idea, but genres are associated with the movie itself, not "this movie on this channel" and if the movie is airing on both a premium channel and a non-premium channel it could be a little messy. But given that, I still think it might work (for the most part).

Better idea, I just read in another thread about Typecast, a program to browse listings and schedule recordings. Looks like it has more advanced search functionality than default WMC:

https://12noon.com/?page_id=204

[Space]

Hmm, never heard of Typecast before. Looks like it has WMC integration!

I'm not sure if it can do the type of query I am looking for, but I might look in to it once I have a Schedules Direct account.

It appears you may be able to do a query for all programs from a group of channels and display them in a single chronological list, which is cool, but there will still be duplicates of the same movie listed multiple times rather than just listing the first airing of a movie and then being able to see all airings by selecting it.