Using EPG Collector FTA channels from Sky UK EPG

[cybersheep]

On the old 4TR forum I had a thread ongoing about this with some suggestions from Benoire and andrewNZ. Was going to reply this morning, but as that's gone, posting here instead...

To get around the problems I had with EPG Collector letting rogue channels through, and of 4TR creating channels rather than ignoring these entries, I created a program which can process an XMLTV file and keep info for only channels specified in a text INI file. That way i can just run EPG Collector with no rules/filters at all, and use my program to chop the resulting file down to containing only exactly what i want in there.

I assume the XMLTV import in Argus TV is currently unchanged from 4TR, so anyone want my exe please do let me know and I can post to the forum. (is still a work in progress though, so may be buggy)

[Jimbo23]

Hi Cyber,

I'm very interested in your program! I always thought that EPG Collector had options in it for specifying which channels were to be pulled in, but I guess since you've written this program, that's not the case!

Thanks,

James.

[Benoire]

Hi Jimbo,

Yes EPGCollector does have a channel remove function but it requires that the channels are static on every scan as I don't think it uses channel name matching or something similar... So Cybersheeps case, if Sky Atlantic keeps moving around then it will show in the guide as EPGC will not block it sometimes.

[cybersheep]

yeah, EPG Collector can INCLUDE or EXCLUDE channels, but neither particularly suited my needs:
- You can exclude channels by name. That's all fine on the day you create it, but inevitably once more channels are found they will then not be in your exclude list and therefore creep into the resulting XML file
- You can include channels by listing some ID numbers (I forget which). I guess this is fine in principle, but I found it a real pain getting 4 x IDs for each of maybe 50 channels, and then inputting them all. not to mention the hassles of maintenance if these IDs change.

I will tidy up my program and post in a few days, perhaps at the weekend.

[Swifty]

I would be interested in this.. just started looking at EPG Collector myself, and it looks very useful!

[cybersheep]

Have attached my program to this post. Usage is basically:

Code: Select all

XMLTVTrim.exe <ini_file> <input_xml_file>

e.g:

Code: Select all

XMLTVTrim.exe XMLTVTrim_SkyTV.ini SkyTVGuide.xml

The program will then parse the input XML creating an output file with the name: <input_xml_file>_trimmed.xml.

The output file will contain data for only those channels specified in the plain text <ini_file>

The coding was quick and dirty, but it works OK for me. It's not region aware, so if it finds multiple channels with the same name, it will just keep EPG data for the first (I think) instance, and other instances of that channel will be ignored.

The zip contains the exe and the two ini files I use - one to parse Sky UK EPG for the TV channels I'm interested in, and one to parse the Freesat UK EPG for the main BBC raidio channels.

Hope it works and is useful for others too!

[Swifty]

Thanks for the tool, I'll be checking this out once I can get EPG Collector to play nicely with MePo TV Service (currently only works if the TVService is stopped :/)