Complete Guide setting up automated EPG for OTA on Windows 8.1 WMC

[xyn19]

WMC forever!!

This is how I set up my Windows 8.1 WMC with fully automated EPG for OTA in USA (San Francisco Bay Area) as of Apr 15, 2020. This procedure should be very similar, if not the same, for cable/satelite receivers as well.

It's been working perfectly including one-time and series recordings for over 2 weeks! Best of all, no annual fees, completely FREE!

My locale

1. PC: Windows 8.1 with WMC with all updates, with offical(stable) display driver installed, and with TV tuner drivers installed. More details: I'm on AverMedia A180 and A188C TV tuners. Highly suggest only use drivers from Microsoft Update Catalogue or WHQL drivers, much more stable, particularly when you use PC wake/sleep features, message here if you need URL/search strings for those drivers, in case Windows can't find them.

2. Region: US San Francisco Bay Area

3. TV Signal: Over the air (OTA)

(!!!) means CRITICALLY IMPORTANT, don't miss or make a mistake!

Part 1: Backup WMC PC (there's always a reason you might want to go back!)

1. Install MyChannelLogos XL (if you have custom channel logos setup in WMC)

2. Install EPG Collector (I’m on FP23).More details: For newbies, you need to download both the main program and FP23. Install the main program first, then copy FP23 files into the installation directory, not like a typical Windows program install. Also install it in the default directory, changing it to a different directory broke EPG Collector -- missing a file during launch.

3. Install zap2xml (just put it somewhere sensible. I put it in D:\EPG\zap2xml folder, I also have D:\EPG\epg123 folder there.

4. Backup your WMC PC with your favorite backup program. If something went haywire, you can always bring it back and start over!
   More details: I used EaseUS Todo Backup, the backup was successful, even verify image was successful, but when I did a restore, it said corrupted. Checked the image again, it still said good. Mounted the image, did a chkdsk, 500+ files corrupted. Learned a lesson, will not use them again.

Part 2: Set up zap2xml

1. Here’s my command line: zap2xml.exe -u user@email.com -p password -i "C:\ProgramData\MyChannelLogos\Logos\Custom" -d 15 -N 2 -F -T -D -I
   More details:
   -u -- create and use your own zap2it account
   -p -- your zap2it password
   -i ... -- to also download channel logos, I'm putting them in MyChannelLogos custom logos folder for use by MyChannelLogos (optional)
   -d 15 -- get 15 days of program guide, zap2it contains more than 14 days sometimes
   -N 2 -- delete and don't use first 2 days of cache and download them instead (optional)
   -F -- for easy matching with WMC channels, more in WMC section below
   -T -- don't cache programs with empty titles, those show up as "To Be Announced" in WMC
   -D -- include whatever extra details there's in the guide
   -I -- (it's an I in "I am" not an "L") include program icon URL's (only needed if you're also download those), more in EPG Collector section below

Highly suggest everyone favorite the channels on Zap2It that you want to download their program data to reduce the load on zap2it servers and speed up the download. -A switch did not do anything useful, could be harmful messing with program titles, don't use. Also don't use -O -9 -j switches. -j switch is particularly bad, it messes up guide listing by turning all TV programs into series, it causes havoc in recording scheduling, make it unusable, don't use -j switch.

1. If you can’t connect to Zap2It anymore, or can’t open their listing site with your web browser anymore, that probably means you have reached their connection limit and your IP is banned for a few hours. You can work around that by using VPN. But seriously, play nice and don’t abuse their servers. Once a day program guide download is enough for me.

2. I have scheduled a task to run it once a day. The task has the following settings:
   a. Using SYSTEM account
   b. Run with highest privileges
   c. Triggers: Daily, set a time, Stop task if runs longer than 8 hours, Enabled, all other boxes unchecked
   d. Actions: Start a program.
   i. Program: UpdateWmcEpg.cmd (name of my script below)
   ii. Add arguments: > UpdateWmcEpg.log (that's a greater than sign followed by log file name)
   iii. Start in: (e.g. D:\EPG)
   e. Conditions: Start only if the following network connection is available (pick the right one), all other boxes unchecked
   f. Settings: Checked:
   i. Allow task to be run on demand
   ii. Run task as soon as possible after a scheduled start is missed
   iii. Stop the task if it runs longer than 8 hours
   iv. If the running task does not end when requested, force it to stop
   v. Choose “Do not start a new instance”

3. To start downloading, just run the zap2xml command line in step #1, not the Scheduled task because we have not set up the rest. It takes less than 10 min to download each day. First download takes much longer to build up a local cache, to avoid losing the cache if your restore system HDD, suggest putting zap2xml cache on a different drive (D: in my case).

Below is my UpdateWmcEpg.cmd, update for your own use:

@pushd .
@echo ---------- %date% %time% START

pushd D:\EPG\zap2xml\zap2it\ && ..\zap2xml.exe -u user@email.address -p password -i "C:\ProgramData\MyChannelLogos\Logos\Custom" -d 15 -N 2 -F -T -D -I && pushd "C:\Program Files (x86)\Geekzone\EPG Collector" && .\EPGCollector.exe /ini="D:\EPG\zap2xml\zap2it\EPG Collector - OTA(short)+Zap2It.ini"

@echo ========== %date% %time% END
@echo.
@popd

Part 3: Set up WMC

1. Install EPG123

2. Open EPG123 Client

3. Click Backup, and copy the backup file to a thumb drive just in case you want to go back to what it was like before without restoring your entire system HDD. Also used to save your TV recording scheduling, so you can restore them later, and don't have to enter them manually again.

4. Click Client Setup

5. (!!!) Uncheck Automatically proceed...

6. Click "Step 1: Clean Start" ~~~ then wait until it's done

7. Close Client Setup, click Yes

8. Open WMC

9. Click Live TV Setup

10. Region: USA

11. Zip Code: 00000 (since we’re not using MS servers anymore, we don’t want anything from them)

12. Program Guide: I agree

13. Microsoft PlayReady: I do not agree (no need for OTA), click Next, Yes

14. (!!!) Update TV Setup Data: No (!!! we don’t want to use any TV setup data from MS servers !!!), click Next, Yes ~~~ wait until search done

15. TV Signal Detection Result: No, let me configure..., click Next. (I choose this because I have 4 tuners, and I want to prioritize them for WMC.)

16. TV Signal Type: Antenna, click Next

17. TV Tuner Selection: select the tuner(s) you want WMC to use first, click Next

18. TV Source Setup Finished - Do you want to set up another TV signal? : Yes, click Next

19. (repeat TV Signal Type above until all tuners are set up), click Next

20. TV Channel Scan ~~~ Get coffee and wait until scan is complete, I get 113 channels where I live, click Next, Finish

21. (!!!) Goto Settings > General > Automatic Download Options > UNcheck Automatically download WMC data. If you don't do this, your imported Zap2It data maybe wiped clean (!!!) You may also need to do this again, if you rescan for channels.

Part 4: Set up EPG Collector

1. Open EPG Collector

2. Create a new profile.

3. Setting on different Tabs:

Imports
a. Path: find the xmltv.xml file created by zap2xml.exe
b. Language: Undefined
c. Processing mode: Replace with import
d. Format of the channel ID: Zap2It
e. Time zone: local
f. (!!!) All check boxes UNchecked. Possible exception: check "Store images locally" if you want to have program icons (not channel logos) in WMC. Caution: daily guide download takes much longer than without. Also see above under zap2xml.exe section.
g. (!!!) Click the "Add" button.
h. Click the "Load Files" button. The Display Name is the call sign of the channels from Zap2It. Open WMC and get the OTA call sign and enter them under the Call Sign column. This is a sure way to match the channels up correctly. If there's any channels you don't want to match with in WMC, click the Excluded checkbox, and no data will be imported to WMC for that channel.

Output
a. (!!!) General Options: ALL boxes UNchecked (I don't want to muck with data from Zap2It.)
b. Windows Media Center Output: checked
c. Import Name: XMLTV (or something short and easy to tell) After importing this into WMC (which we have not done yet), they will show up as channel data, e.g. KQEDDT-XMLTV in WMC > Tasks > settings > TV > Guide > Edit Channels > (any channel name) > Edit Listings.
d. Check only: Automatically map EPG data to channels, Run standard tasks after import. You may also check Disable in-band guide loader. This is not necessary if you followed the steps in WMC section above to disable automatic update.
e. Click on File menu and Save As... I save it in "D:\EPG\zap2xml\zap2it\EPG Collector - OTA(short)+Zap2It.ini" . You can see this in my script above.

1. Now it's time to test our EPG Collector profile.
   a. Click Run > Collect EPG Data...
   b. Wait until it's done, it takes about 5 min for my setup. You should get an exit code of 0, meaning it has completed successfully. Click Window > Collection Parameters if you want to go back to your profile.
   c. Open up WMC and spot check for guide data.
   i. Some manual reassignment of guide data for specific channels may be necessary. Do what you like it to be!
   ii. I noticed some channels have no data, simply because Zap2It doesn't have it. I added those channels to the Tuning tab trying to get data from OTA. (Let me know if you are doing this and if you want me to expand on this!)

2. If you backed up your TV recording schedule, you can restore them now
   a. Open EPG123 Series Recordings Transfer Tool (in EPG123 install directory)
   b. Open your backup file
   c. Pick the ones from the left and move them to the right
   d. Check WMC they're imported

3. Schedule any new recordings necessary.
   a. You may notice some series are messed up in a way that a single series shows up as two seperate serieses, that your series recording does not catch them all. This is most likely a Zap2It guide issue, and you can double check that on zap2it.com, and see the list of those programs in EPG Collector log file. My suggestion here is to 1) report to zap2it through "Contact us," and 2) set up 2 series recordings to catch them all, and not mess with EPG Collector settings, cause you never know what else you'll mess up if you change something in EPG collector.

Part 5: (Bonus) Set up channel logos

1. Open My Channel Logos XL
2. Go to settings tab
3. Make sure "Lock manually added logos" is checked, other diamond boxes unchecked (no need to check for updates, no longer maintained)
4. I leave everything default on guide tab. If you reduce spacing in logo cell, some channel names maybe cropped in WMC.
5. Go to logos tab
6. Check "B" for big logos is enabled
7. Check "HD" is enabled
8. Click "auto-populate logos"
9. Add your own custom logos if logos missing or you don't like them. You can google TVStation logo png to find them. If you make your own, make sure their aspect ratio is not greater than 4x1 for vertically centered display in WMC, try to use rectangular logos over square ones, cut out all black/blank borders for maximum logo size. Color on transparent background is the best. Save them in PNG with transparent background.
10. I have made a decent set of custom logos for San Francisco Bay Area, message below if you want a copy. I can post.

[Dave Evans]

Thanks for the post, I hope to see you get a little deeper on it.

I am NOT using OTA, I am using Cable... same kind of setup and can be setup the exact way, as you are importing the XMLTV from Zap2it, just like cable users are.

I have some questions....
1. -i "C:\ProgramData\MyChannelLogos\Logos\Custom" - Once you get your guide with the logos working good....Shouldn't you remove this part? Do you need to keep downloading all the guide logos every update ? (never mind like 10 of mine didn't work, so I had to manully copy from Zap2it and name them the channel into the same folder). this DID help with getting MOST of them working.

1. -N 2 - How long should somone actually keep the cache ? I normally clean it out (del . in the folder) before every download.

2. Are you getting images in Windows Media Center ? TV shows, News, or Movies show no images at all. Selecting the option of "Store images locally" does work but, it takes over 3 hours to download 7.9gb of images and messes up the guide, in my case it took my guide 5 hour off, unselecting this, shows an accurate guide.

[xyn19]

Yes, you can remove downloading channel logos after the first download, but then you'll miss new logs on new channels etc. Depending on how many channels you have, it may be a quickie to download them. In fact, I don't like most of their logos anyways, and I made a bunch of them myself, MUCH better. Anyone also in the San Francisco Bay Area wants my logo set, let me know.

About -N 2, it's not recommended to clean them out completely before each download, it takes much longer to re-download everything, and puts a much heavier load on Zap2It. I've updated the guide with additional information on -N 2.

You're correct about getting program images. I don't get them, I talked about them in the updated guide in the first post also.

Have fun!

[Dave Evans]

Thanks. The KEY thing with images, is you really should MARK the channels you get for FAVS... So on my cable system (using a cablecard) I get only about 120 channels but out of those, only about 70 are usefull to me (Who watches SD any more ?) and there is over 250+ on the system.

When I first checked that box (download all Images), I didn't have any favs marked, it downloaded over 6gb of images from Zap2it(took HOURS)... I went in and marked my channels, It dropped it down to a little less than 2gb. It must of been downloading every image for every channel. Now all shows will have an image with it and taking a minium of hit on Zap2it... and it takes a LOT LESS time to run...

Right now, my WMC setup is better than it ever was on Rovi !

Thanks !

[BrianD]

I recently did a reset, your guide is a great refresher, and all in one place.
When I used 00000 (zip), my set up didn't scan VHF locals 7,8,13, I went back and re-ran setup with my local zip, and then I was able to match all channels.
Are all your locals on physical UHF channels? A commenter on another post mentioned WMC doesn't scan VHF, but I'm wondering if WMC finds the local data file from zip code, it will then scan for the channels if they are there?
Thanks for the screenshot, I didn't import images, but it looks so nice I just might.

[s armstrong]

VERY nice start! Look forward to the rest.

Couple of quick ?s.

F switch personal preference or make it work better with some other things? Haven't tried it, just curious.

L switch - have you noticed any functional benefits to using this? Seems I tried it at some point but didn't notice anything.

Thanks much for this!

[xyn19]

Sorry for the delay in response, long story short, I wrote up my long guide above from actually doing it on that machine, so the procedure is accurate. Then I went to restore the system from the backup, and hell broke loose, the image is corrupted, even the image was/is still validated ok (thanks EaseUS, but no thanks, switching to a different backup, any suggestions?). I'm trying to retrieve the files in the image, avoid a complete re-install of OS and everything else. Still fighting with it, appreciate any suggestions, help etc.

To answer your questions on F and L switches without my WMC up, I'm recalling from memory:
1. I think F switch is one of the requirements for EPG Collector to correctly map Zap2It channels call signs to OTA channel call signs. I'll talk more about that when I write the rest of the guide.
2. It's not an L switch, it's an I (like I'm...) switch!

[s armstrong]

Very sorry to hear about your system issues. Hope you get them sorted soon.

I've had good luck with macrium reflect (free for personal use) but there are certainly others that may be more flexible. Others may have experience with multiple packages and can comment.

[xyn19]

Been super busy, just got a chance to work on reviving my WMC...
I have also updated all my two postings above on zap2xml switches.

[Adam Woodroof]

Thanks for putting this together!!! Can you explain a little bit more about the - N switch when you have a minute? I don't quite understand what it does.

[xyn19]

Hi, the N switch deletes what is the cache for N days from today and download them newly. I just want to make sure I get the most up-to-date guide data in case it was changed from the cache and got missed from updating somehow.

[Steve Bickell]

Dave - downloading the logos takes a long time the first time but after that it only downloads new ones so is much quicker. Logos no longer in the guide are deleted after 14 days.

This issue you had with the guide being wrong by 5 hours sounds like you didn't have the timzone on the import entry set to local.

[Dave Evans]

Thanks, been playing with this all day and got information and images working...and only 2gb of images for the guide..

I used My Channels XL to import the logos in the guide, they stil will disapear ? I used that on Windows 7 for the longest time, it kept the same logos in the guide for well ove a year. Interesting... I have moved over to 8.1....so it's a new setup.

Thanks for your info...

[Dave Evans]

Steve, One question for you. Does your image downloader check for current images so it does not re-download, or does it automaticly re-download them all again ?

Refering to the C:\Users\<user name="">\AppData\Local\Geekzone\EPG Collector\Images</user>

This is from the XML import (from Zap2it), as it lists all the images and if it did a check and only downloaded what it neeed to update, it would take less of a hit on Zap2it...

Was kind of hoping this would make it go quicker...

[Steve Bickell]

If you import a Zap2it file with EPGC, any existing channel logos from another source should remain although I haven't tested that is the case. Let me know if it isn't.

The programme logos will be those downloaded by EPGC from the Zap2it file.

[Adam Woodroof]

Dave -- what are the images you're referring too? Do you mean when you click on the description of a show, it shows like a screenshot sort of? How did you get that working?

[Dave Evans]

Yes, Images for shows/movies, etc. I went on Zap2it... Faved all the channels I get (so it does not download EVERY IMAGE for every channel), then where you set your XML file, Select "Store Images locally" . This IS downloading the XMLTV from Zap2it as shown above here, it is a feature of the program once you mark a channel as a fav, it will only download data for those channels.

Keep in mind this dowloads every image for every show/movie in your current guide, if you let it do all, in my case cable, has 300+ channels, it downloaded 7+gb of images and most channels I didn't even get...

After selecting my 70 or so channels (as favs on Zap2it and using Zap2XML to download), it got down to about 2gb of images... and that was 69 png files and 19990 jpg files...

[xyn19]

Just wanna chime in on images for shows (not channel logos). I downloaded them once, took a very long time first time, still much longer on subsequent downloads than without image downloads. The images are mostly, if not all, "after market," not original, not that appealing IMO, so I disabled image downloading all together now.

[Dave Evans]

I noticed that too, not orginal but images that refer to the show... and I think it looks so much better with an image there.

Rovi matched up images maybe 25% of the time correctly...

[Adam Woodroof]

Thanks!

I'm not getting images to show. I have the -I tag in my batch file and I checked "store images locally. I didn't mark any favorites, but I only have about 50 ota channels.

[Steve Bickell]

Dave - yes it only downloads images it doesn't already have stored locally. Old images are deleted after 14 days if they are no longer referenced in the Zap2it data.

There are some stats in the log that shows what occurrred each time you run EPGC. Just above the XMLTV Categories Used heading.

[Adam Woodroof]

Steve -- where are images stored? I can't find anything in program files or program data. Am I missing a step? I have - I in my batch file and selected store images locally in EPG Collector, but nothing is showing in WMC guide. I just about have everything else working very smoothly. Thanks!

[Steve Bickell]

Post your EPG Collector log file.

[Adam Woodroof]

Here you go. Thanks for looking!

[Steve Bickell]

Can you see if you have a file called EPG Collector Network.log in the same directory as the normal log and post it.

The software that downloads the images is failing to load for some reason.