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MCEBuddy Season/Episode Information

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Brian
2020-04-17
2020-04-21
  • Brian

    Brian - 2020-04-17

    I am running into an issue where MCEBuddy is not able to find the season and episode information from the XML I am generating from EPGCentre/Zap2it. Does anyone know if there is a specific setting I need to apply on the output tab for WMC/MCEBuddy to recgonize this?

    I found this older thread that had a similiar problem:
    https://sourceforge.net/p/epgcollector/discussion/1125946/thread/7c71b39b/?limit=25&page=1

    Any help is appreciated!

     
  • Steve Bickell

    Steve Bickell - 2020-04-17

    I just ran a test with Zap2it input and XMLTV output and the standard XMLTV episode-num tag is generated correctly.

    Post your Zap2it file and XMLTV file EPGC generated from it.

     
    • Brian

      Brian - 2020-04-17

      Zap2it command I am running:
      zap2xml -d 14 -F -j -D -I -u USERNAME -p PASSWORD

      Attached is the XML. Thanks for looking into this Steve.

       
  • Steve Bickell

    Steve Bickell - 2020-04-17

    That worked when I ran it - episode-num tags look fine.

    As far as your parameters go, on the Output tab XMLTV section you should have 'Valid season and episode numbers only' selected and on the Import entry you should have 'Ignore non-standard episode tags ticked.

    Out of interest what are you selecting as the format of the channel ID tag? Is MCE Buddy OK with matching with whatever you have selected?

     
    • Brian

      Brian - 2020-04-17

      Ah ok. I think I might be seeing the issue. Should I have XMLTV Output also selected? Then I can select the two options you are mentioning. Screenshot of my output tab attached. I had also tried checking/unchecking append season information to description.

       
  • Steve Bickell

    Steve Bickell - 2020-04-17

    Apologies Brian, I completely misread the problem. I never bothered looking up what MCEBuddy does and assumed it used an XMLTV file as input for some reason.

    No don't enable XMLTV output. EPGC outputs season and episode numbers to the MXF file from the episode-num tags found in the Zap2it file. The MXF file is subsequently imported into WMC.

    My comment about the Import tab entry having 'Ignore non-standard episode tags ticked still stands.

    Do you know where MCEBuddy gets the season/episode numbers from?

     
  • Brian

    Brian - 2020-04-18

    Hi Steve, I attached a screenshot of my inputs tab. I didn't have ignore non-standard episode tags so I will apply that. For the 'Format of the channel ID' should I select the Zap2it option?

    I started a discussion of this same problem on the MCEBuddy discussion thread here

    This page has more information regarding the MCEBuddy metadata and how it is handled. It should be reading standard MXF metdata information I would think. I am going to do a bit more digging. Thank you!

     

    Last edit: Brian 2020-04-18
  • Steve Bickell

    Steve Bickell - 2020-04-18

    Yes, the format of the channel ID must be Zap2it/ Schedules Direct ATSC.

    The MXF file EPGC creates is perfectly standard. It's just a text file so you can look at it with any text editor. The season/episode numbers are in the programme entries.

     
    • Brian

      Brian - 2020-04-19

      Hi Steve, where does windows store the MXF that EPGCentre is updating? I came across this article regarding how to load an xml but it is not clear to me where the MXF is stored that WMC is using.

      I am also noticing that all of the shows within the XML file have a progid:
      <episode-num system="dd_progid">EP01738190.0003</episode-num>
      but that only certain ones contain a common:
      <episode-num system="common">S01E03</episode-num>

      Is the progid being collected from Zap and then the common is being populated by TVDB?

       

      Last edit: Brian 2020-04-19
  • Steve Bickell

    Steve Bickell - 2020-04-19

    EPG Collector creates the MXF file in the same directory as the EPG Collector log file.This extract from the User Guide tells you where that is

    Administrator

    Windows XP  C:\Documents and Setting\All Users\Application Data\Geekzone\EPG Collector
    Vista/W7    C:\ProgramData\Geekzone\EPG Collector
    
    User
    
    Windows XP  C:\Documents and Setting\%user%\Local Settings\Application Data\Geekzone\EPG Collector
    Vista/W7    C:\Users\%user%\AppData\Local\Geekzone\EPG Collector
    

    As I said before the MXF file is just an XML text file with specified tags and attributes present

    The MXF file is then transferred into the WMC database (mcepgx-x.db) when EPG Collector run the WMC utility LoadMXF. The WMC database is located in the Program Data/Microsoft/ehome directory.

    So WMC doesn't use the MXF fIle directly. It's just loaded into the WMC database and WMC uses the data from there.

    As to your second question I don't know where the 'common' attribute comes from. But EPG Collector doesn't use it to populate the MXF season and episode fields anyway. It uses the xmltv_ns format.

     
  • Brian

    Brian - 2020-04-19

    Thank you, this helps. It it looking like the shows I am trying to convert have a seasonNumber and episodeNumber associated with them in the MXF file so I am thinking I must not have a setting correct in MCEBuddy as I assume this data would also be present in the WMC database.

     

    Last edit: Brian 2020-04-19
  • Steve Bickell

    Steve Bickell - 2020-04-20

    They would be in the database but not necessarily for the programme entries that relate to the recordings you are interested in.

    When did you start using EPG Collector? Any recordings made before that date will be linked to a different set of programmes from those EPG Collector has created.

     
  • Brian

    Brian - 2020-04-20

    I just started using EPG (~1 month ago) because of Windows dicontinuing their guide service. It has been a bit of a headache but very gratefull for everyone providing alternatives like yourself to make WMC useable again.

    The way I have been testing my EPG changes is by rerunning collector and then selecting a random episode from the current guide to record. It seems like most shows work correctly and are able to find a season/episode. For some reason I have the biggest issue with late night shows and or specials (20/20, 60 minutes, dateline, etc.). None of these seem to ever find a season or episode.

    In regards to your comment about previous recordings being linked to a different set. You are talking about a past WTV that was previously recorded right ? Do I need to make any changes to my future recordings list (i.e remove the recording and then readd it) within WMC as well?

     
  • Steve Bickell

    Steve Bickell - 2020-04-20

    I think it's likely your issue with recording late night talk shows is that they start out with a generic desription in the guide and are updated to contain the guest list and season/episode numbers nearer the broadcast time.

    The EPGC version you are using will not however apply any updates to a programme in WMC. It will always have the original, generic description.

    I have attached a prerelease copy of the next version which fixes this issue. It's a complete release, not a fixpack so just run the msi to install.

    Leave your recordings list as it is while you try the attached version.

     
    • Brian

      Brian - 2020-04-21

      Thanks, I will give this one a go tonight.

       
  • Brian

    Brian - 2020-04-21

    THANK YOU! Not sure what you changed but the first few shows are being picked up correctly now. Any recommendations on how often I should be updating the guide? I have it set for everyday but maybe this is overkill?

    Do you have a donation/paypal link anywhere? Would love to support your efforts.

     

    Last edit: Brian 2020-04-21
  • Steve Bickell

    Steve Bickell - 2020-04-21

    I only became aware of this issue recently so can't really comment on how quickly the generic description of a programme is updated. Obviously if you are updating daily it will appear in your guide as soon as it is available.

    You don't say how many days data you are downloading each time but other Zap2it users have commented that they don't want to overload the site the data comes from in case it irritates the site enough to block Zap2it from funtioning so you might consider reducing the frequency.

    It's just a hobby of mine so no donation necessary but thanks for the offer.

     

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