live tv software?

Well I'm finding media portal better than wmc.
Yes it's not as easy to set up, but it's not that difficult.
Although epg still isn't working, need to bring the install guide back up and see what setting I've missed out.

On plus side I know have bbc3 which never worked on wmc and a couple of other channels which I'm not bothered about.
 
No you're right its not that difficult. But its still not as simple. Lets face it if you still dont have epg working, thats hardly a great start. And thats my point really. For me on the tv side of things wmc just worked with all the program data etc.

Anyway good luck though :) For me the image quality I'm getting through the tuners own playback software will have to do for now for me. Its superb quality anyway in HD with Nvidia control panel doing the interlacing etc.
 
Glaucus said:
Well I'm finding media portal better than wmc.
Yes it's not as easy to set up, but it's not that difficult.
Although epg still isn't working, need to bring the install guide back up and see what setting I've missed out.

On plus side I know have bbc3 which never worked on wmc and a couple of other channels which I'm not bothered about.
Click to expand...
I ditched WMC in favour of MediaPortal for TV purposes several years ago and haven't looked back. In particular, MP can record any number of channels on a single tuner if they're on the same mux (DVB-T) or transponder (DVB-S), so one dual-tuner card is normally enough to cover pretty much any eventuality.

Having said that, setting up the EPG is a royal pain in the arris until you get the hang of it - have a look at this guide at AVForums if you haven't already. It's a bit out of date but still useful, and the EPG walkthrough (section 7) is very helpful.

You can also use DigiGuide for your EPG data if you have a subscription (well worth it), but unfortunately the setup is even more convoluted (see here: http://forum.team-mediaportal.com/threads/confused-by-different-epg-types-use-digiguide.104010/). At least you should only have to do it the once... :)
 
That's a great guide on AVForums. :) Thing is, I don't mean to sound overly negative. But do you not think that the epg is frankly rather silly. Getting a seperate app to download it and then setting up an import schedule to import it etc. Well, for me its just rather allot of faffing around just to get something which in media center, for me at least, simply just worked.

I guess if you're a power tv user then fair enough. But for me, lifes too short really, especially when all i really watch in telly these days is a bit of political debate on BBC.

WMC made it simple for me and the alternatives so far for setting up simple series recordings are frankly a bit pants and far from user friendly imo. I shouldn't have to be reading manuals and installing multiple apps just to get things to easily set up. This is simply tv. And its a bit silly that its so problematic imo. Another example: The pinacle dvb-t tuner I use is great, but the software on that simply has chunks of epg missing. I just dont feel this stuff should be rocket science.

In summary it all makes me sigh. Looks like I'll just stream it, which of course gives convenience at the cost of quality.
 
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KingDazza said:
That's a great guide on AVForums. :) Thing is, I don't mean to sound overly negative. But do you not think that the epg is frankly rather silly. Getting a seperate app to download it and then setting up an import schedule to import it etc. Well, for me its just rather allot of faffing around just to get something which in media center, for me at least, simply just worked.
Click to expand...
It's a lot of faff initially, yes, no arguments there. But once you have it up and running, you leave it alone and it does "just work," or at least as much as anything PC-based can be expected to.

I eventually lost patience with WMC when it stupidly refused to record consecutive back-to-back programmes (on the same channel) without truncating at least one of them, unless I manually set the before/after padding to force it to use two tuners. As well as being inconvenient, this "feature" tied up two tuners for the duration of the overlap, and given WMC's one-tuner-one-recording limitation it led to a fair few missed programmes when I needed to record something at the same time on a different channel.

I suppose at some point streaming/catchup services will make live TV recording redundant, but for me the picture quality is just not there yet.
 
Yeah I agree, its the picture quality that leaves me not too happy at this moment in time. I might have more of a tinker at some point. Most of what I watch these days is on blu ray, so TV isnt a great factor for me anymore. But its still enough to leave me feeling a bit disappointed. Thanks for the link either way though. :)
 
Just an update. I'm using NextPVR mentioned kindly on a previous page. Seems to be working well, but really designed for remote set up (which mine is). Also requires your own codecs (of which there are free ones of course). Its epg functionality appears to be great so far.

Will let you know how it goes over the next few days.
 
MediaPortal is very good for live tv as well as scheduling recordings. Have been using it for a couple of years or more. The epg works without too much hassle with the guide broadcast with freeview/freefiew hd. The guide has improved over the years, on a lot of shows you now get series and episode numbers. You can also setup with lots of custom options on a channel by channel basis.

I've not used them but is probably worth checking out other addons specifically for organising films and tv shows with meta data and artwork.

Codecs wise, i find it works best with lav filters (there automatically installed anyway) but not a good idea to use k-lite etc.
 
If you are using media portal and having issues with EPG

get xml tv
http://www.birtles.org.uk/xmltv/

get the media portal plugin for media portal and config it from there, my media PC in the living room runs xml tv evey start-up

Other channels not on xml tv , I use the inbuilt EPG handler
 
I've just realised I can use KMPlayer to open the file recorded by NextPVR live as it buffers, meaning I can use KMPlayer's awesome skip forward/backward (instant rewind/ff) for live TV.

That's me sorted then. Stuff their interfaces - I'll be using KMPlayer to play whatever's recording. :D

I assume it will work with ProgDVB, DVBViewer, etc recordings too.
 
As long as they output transport stream files (e.g., the raw mpeg recording) then I should think so. VLC will also open currently recording files :).

I'm not a fan of the NextPVR interface either which is why I use Kodi/VLC.

There's also a web interface you can use for scheduling recordings from another PC easily by the way.
 
CaptainCrash said:
I ditched WMC in favour of MediaPortal for TV purposes several years ago and haven't looked back. In particular, MP can record any number of channels on a single tuner if they're on the same mux (DVB-T) or transponder (DVB-S), so one dual-tuner card is normally enough to cover pretty much any eventuality.

Having said that, setting up the EPG is a royal pain in the arris until you get the hang of it - have a look at this guide at AVForums if you haven't already. It's a bit out of date but still useful, and the EPG walkthrough (section 7) is very helpful.

You can also use DigiGuide for your EPG data if you have a subscription (well worth it), but unfortunately the setup is even more convoluted (see here: http://forum.team-mediaportal.com/threads/confused-by-different-epg-types-use-digiguide.104010/). At least you should only have to do it the once... :)
Click to expand...

Any chance of a bit of help please

Download and configure Digiguide with all the channels you require.

Download and unpack DG2XML.rar

Copy the "xmltv.dgscheme-web" folder in its entirety into your "C:\Program Files\DigiGuide TV Guide\schemes\server skins" folder

From the DigiGuide application select Tools->Customize

Click on Webservice and in the dialog that appears check 'Enable Web Service' and set a password you know.
Start XMLTV GUI

Select Tools->Settings

From the 'Global Settings' tab
Set the filename to save listings to, I use E:\EPG\TVGuide.xml

Click the 'Grabbers' tab

Tick the 'UK_Digi' Grabber and optionally move this to the top of the list.

Highlight the 'UK_Digi' Grabber and click the settings button

The first box should be filled correctly with the DigiGuide webservice connection info

http://localhost:2402/

Eneter the password you set in the DigiGuide application in the second box and click OK

Click OK again to get back to the main XMLTV GUI screen and click 'Grab Listings'

This should then start downloading the data and when finished you will have a TVGuide.xml in the folder you specified.
Click to expand...

Done the bit in bold, but what the hell is xmltv GUI? I'm assuming media portal has been updated substantially since 2011 and thus this part has changed /moved.
 
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Thanks, done that.
opened up MP tv server configuration > plugins > xmltv
imported the file and mapped it to channels.

still nothing in the epg though. but I do notice in xmltv under plugins it says it should have a file called xmltv.dtd which isn't there?

also no where have I used DG2XML skin

Edit
Epg is finally working.
However I don't get how TVGuide.xml would ever update? Unless I do a manual grab?
 
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Glaucus said:
Thanks, done that.
opened up MP tv server configuration > plugins > xmltv
imported the file and mapped it to channels.

still nothing in the epg though. but I do notice in xmltv under plugins it says it should have a file called xmltv.dtd which isn't there?

also no where have I used DG2XML skin

Edit
Epg is finally working.
However I don't get how TVGuide.xml would ever update? Unless I do a manual grab?
Click to expand...
In the MediaPortal Digiguide thread, post no #6 by "trevor" lists all the steps in order.

To get the EPG updating automatically, you need to schedule updates for both Digiguide *and* XMLTV GUI (so that the latter can find Digiguide's updated data). Digiguide automatically updates itself, but for XMLTV GUI you have to create a Windows scheduled task to run the command-line utility afterwards. Provided you've unpacked the DG2XML skin in the right place, configured XMLTV GUI correctly to find the Digiguide data and drop it into "C:\ProgramData\Team MediaPortal\MediaPortal TV Server\xmltv\tvguide.xml" (where MP's xmltv.dtd is located) everything should then run without further manual intervention (MediaPortal's own XMLTV plugin checks periodically for an updated tvguide.xml, so you don't need to force updates unless you want to).

I've got Digiguide updating at 03.00am every day (in the desktop app it's Tools > Customise > Advanced > Updating > Time to check for listings updates), and then in Task Scheduler I have a task running "C:\Program Files (x86)\XMLTV GUI\XmltvConsole.exe" at 04.30 every day.

Yes it's all a flipping mess, but I've had it running without problems for a couple of years now. :)
 
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Thanks, will give it a go.

Why oh why dont they just program this in. Doesn't seem like it should be hard to do.


However I think I will be happy, it's found so many more channels than wmc ever did.
 
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I'm in the same boat as OP.. way back in XP days, I set up parent's TV with a quad freeview tuner and Media Center + Linksys Extender. Upgraded to an i3 running W7 and haven't moved any further. They love it and won't use anything else (too slow, clunky, expensive etc).

Something to watch out for is HDHomeRun's network tuners and their new software solution. Their Kickstarter has finished now, but you should be able to buy it later on https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1275320038/hdhomerun-dvr-the-dvr-re-imagined/description

Fingers crossed it'll be easy enough to use - but they've already said no horizontal EPG as its patented apparently.

Matt
 
If your using freesat with MP then you can use the sky epg grabber plugin (you can tell it to ignore scrambled channels), saves so much faffing around and much easier since i went down that route! Even sorts the channels and tuning out.
 
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