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rikkiblue

Posted: Sun Mar 13, 2016 12:51 am

Regular contributor Joined: 02 Dec 2012 Posts: 31

I recently had a HD total fail, and because I am on a mac rather than PC, i've had to re-install MyStuff manually.

All seems to have gone well, except I don't have EPG data for ITV4 nor for the Horror channel. Both come up as black screens.

Using Channel Organiser 2.1, I see an error warning about my freeview.dat file as follows:

// Errors in 'Freeview.dat' detected by Channel Organiser B2.1 on 12/3/2016 at 23:36
// These will cause problems with status display, config files, and/or future LCN changes

SvcId for line starting: LCN=24 should be changed to 28032
LCN 30 name should be changed from '5*' to '5STAR'
LCN 721 name should be changed from 'BBC London' to 'BBCRadioLondon'
Mux name is apparently wrong for LCN 24 - it should be COM6

// Based of version of 'Freeview.dat' last updated at

Could this be the problem? If so, where can I download a latest correct freeview.dat file?
I'm also missing a few logos, though most are OK. Again I think I may have an older logos set. Can I download latest version from somewhere?

TIA

_________________
TF5800t, TS On, F/W: MS6 Recommended F/W 12/9/2009 -Te+EvTa
TAPs: EPG2MEI v0.96; MyStuff 6.6; EIT Sub (Game) v0.6; SecCache (UK) v0.4; Font Manager 1.0d; Extend v1.7; TAP Commander 1.34; PruneEPG 1.0; MyInfo B5.6;
Sig generated by MyInfo on 13/5/15

Bizman

Posted: Sun Mar 13, 2016 9:10 am

Frequent contributor Joined: 06 Apr 2010 Posts: 1707

You can edit Freeviw.dat in a text editor making the corrections you have mentioned. however I don't think that will solve your problem.

_________________
TF5810, F/W: 5.15.09T 4/9/2009 -FmTe+EzHsVb
TAPs: EIT Sub (Game) v0.6; SecCache (UK) v0.4; MHEG On/Off A3; MPDisplayLITE V1.2; MyInfo B5.6; PruneEPG 1.0; EPG2MEI v0.96; QuickJump 1.72; Extend v1.7; (fsSave 1.1);
Sig generated by MyInfo on 3/8/17
Other TAPs : FsCheck, Channel Organiser. PSU Caps 7/2/2011 Tx: Mendip. TV: Samsung (32"), NSLU2, STB: Labgear FV300. PC Acer Aspire One with Win7 Starter

Geoff Bacon

Posted: Sun Mar 13, 2016 10:17 am

Frequent contributor Joined: 12 Jan 2007 Posts: 4532

Freeview.dat is always out of date because it just represents a snapshot of what was available when the file was generated. Although there are frequent changes to the Freeview lineup, this file should be OK for the prime channels.
The file is hosted/"owned" by EMJB and he doesn't have much interest in it nowadays as he gets his EPG data via a raspberry Pi.
It takes a lot of effort to main this file; it was updated last time because I modified the file and asked EMJB to post it.

As Bizman says, you can edit the file yourself but this won't really effect what you are seeing; the messages are really just telling you how to edit the file.

Your post is a bit ambiguous:

Quote:

All seems to have gone well, except I don't have EPG data for ITV4 nor for the Horror channel. Both come up as black screens.

Does this mean that you have no EPG for these channels (which it states) or that you get black screens when attempting to watch one of these channels?

Suggest you post your MyInfo Log file.

TopManager might help you solve your problem if you can get it to run on your mac (other members have done this but I can't remember how they did it).

Geoff
[edit]I can recover files from a corrupted toppy disk (should it happen again)[/edit]

_________________
TopManager program
TF5800, TS On, F/W: MS6 Recommended F/W 12/9/2009 -Sy+EvEzPfUUuZ
TAPs: PcControl B1.4; StopExit v1.01; PruneEPG 1.0; fsSave 1.1; QuickJump 1.72; SecCache (UK) v0.4; EIT Sub (Game) v0.6; EPG2MEI v0.96; MyStuff 6.6; Bookmark 3.0; Extend v1.7; Font Manager 1.0d; MyInfo B5.6; MHEG On/Off A3;
Sig generated by EMJB's MyInfo.tap on 29/12/18â„¢

mstombs

Posted: Mon Mar 14, 2016 11:37 am

Frequent contributor Joined: 31 Dec 2006 Posts: 938

Lack of epg can be due to exclusions in epg2mei.ini. Those exclusions could be due to old freeview.dat because channelorganiser can update epg2mei.ini.

freeview.dat is always out of date for me, because the only time I re-scan is just after a channel change, so I no longer allow channelorganiser to update the ini files.

It is pretty inefficient for everyone to edit their own copy. Anyone any suggestions for hosting on Github or Google docs or some wiki page somewhere?

TF5800

Bizman

Posted: Mon Mar 14, 2016 12:05 pm

Frequent contributor Joined: 06 Apr 2010 Posts: 1707

It would make sense to host it on this site since only people on here use it.

EMJB

Posted: Mon Mar 14, 2016 12:55 pm

Frequent contributor Joined: 08 Jul 2005 Posts: 3645 Location: Maldon Essex

Bizman wrote:

It would make sense to host it on this site since only people on here use it.

The other issue is maintaining it. I am rarely interested in the new channels that appear, and my Toppy and EPG gathering is how I like it, so I just use it now rather than spend time tweaking etc. My aim is to migrate to an enigma2-based machine, but getting one to the same state of user-friendliness looks like being a challenge that will keep me occupied for some time.

If anyone would like to take on the task of maintaining this file, please feel free to do so.

EMJB

_________________
Silver 5800, Board Rev 1.2, MS recomm F/W, Sudbury Tx, varying TAP config

ccs

Posted: Mon Mar 14, 2016 2:39 pm

Frequent contributor Joined: 30 Oct 2007 Posts: 2642

EMJB wrote:

My aim is to migrate to an enigma2-based machine, but getting one to the same state of user-friendliness looks like being a challenge that will keep me occupied for some time.

It shouldn't take too long.

I guess it all depends on your definition of "user-friendliness ".

_________________
TF5810, F/W: MS6 Recommended F/W 12/9/2009 -FmXl+CtEzIScVdZ
TAPs: EIT Sub v0.6; EPG2MEI v0.96; MPDisplayLITE V1.2; MyInfo B5.6; SecCache (UK) v0.4; Extend v1.7; MyStuff 6.6;
Sig generated by MyInfo on 20/10/14 ccsx

Laser

Posted: Mon Mar 14, 2016 6:37 pm

Frequent contributor Joined: 10 Jan 2008 Posts: 441

One of the problems in maintaining the file (or modifying your own) is knowing where to get the information.

I looked on http://www.terrestrialtv.uk and found several transmission times disagreed with the file when I've retuned for the last year or so. It is very time-cosuming and error-prone to go through all of it and check. There may even be variations with region.

Are there reliable electronic source(s) of information that could be used if someone were to write some sort of automated conversion utility?

_________________
TF5800 250GB Black Panther FW 5.13.65 (Patched)
TAPs: MS6.6, EPG2MEI 0.96, Extend 1.7, SecCacheUK, EIT_Sub, UKSubtitle, SDS
TV: Pioneer PDP-4280XD. AVR: Denon AVR-X2600H. Transmitter: Tacolneston

ccs

Posted: Mon Mar 14, 2016 6:40 pm

Frequent contributor Joined: 30 Oct 2007 Posts: 2642

There is a lot of detail in freeview.dat. Does Channel Organiser actually use it all?

Bizman

Posted: Mon Mar 14, 2016 8:10 pm

Frequent contributor Joined: 06 Apr 2010 Posts: 1707

I get the information required from the error file FvDataErrors.txt and MyInfo Channel Data.txt. It can take a while because if the missing data relates to an LCN not on the Toppy, it has to be added, then MyInfo updated and the deleted again. Any other info doesn't seem to matter if it is put to zero or -1 as used by other examples. The FpdName I just make up by following other examples.
When I have got 'no errors' I delete FvDataErrors.txt since with no errors it retains the previous error list which can be confusing.

mstombs

Posted: Tue Mar 15, 2016 10:25 am

Frequent contributor Joined: 31 Dec 2006 Posts: 938

Laser wrote:

Short answer no, DigitalUK publish LCN, Channel Name and Mux on

http://www.digitaluk.co.uk/industry/Channels/channel_listings

But it is clearly manually updated, sometimes slow to respond to actual changes and get Channel name wrong, for example. The best source for SSID seems to be opensource projects where users in different parts of the country share PC TV card captured data.

For transmission times these change frequently and are used by ChannelOrganiser to set epg2mei exclusion times. One essential use of exclusion times is when channels broadcast a full epg, but not all available on Freeview, so potentially MyStuff would schedule a blank recording. Not sure any do that now, so main use of exclusion times is to reduce size of epg file by excluding all the info about overnight shopping programs (just to save RAM). But I have noticed that these times may vary day to day and weekday to weekend. If I notice blocks of teleshopping entries in epg I edit the epg2mei directly, and wait a week for changes to ripple through. To review the times you need to use the Toppy native per channel epg. My current restrictions are

Code:

[Restrict]
5 = 0310-0015
6 = 0600-0230
9 = 1900-0400
10 = 0600-0200
12 = 0700-0300
14 = 0900-0400
15 = 1100-0330
17 = 0800-0200
18 = 0730-0330
19 = 0600-0300
20 = 0700-0400
21 = 0900-0400
24 = 0600-0300
25 = 0700-0300
26 = 0900-0100
27 = 0700-0330
30 = 0900-0400
31 = 0900-0300
32 = 0900-0600
34 = 1800-0300
41 = 0600-0300
42 = 0900-0300
44 = 0900-0500
47 = 0900-0500
48 = 0600-0400
55 = 0900-0400
58 = 0600-0400
61 = 0600-0300
62 = 0600-0400
64 = 0830-0600
66 = 0400-0300
69 = 0500-0900
70 = 0800-0500
72 = 0900-0300
74 = 0730-0500
78 = 0900-0300

TF5800

ccs

Posted: Tue Mar 15, 2016 11:20 am

Frequent contributor Joined: 30 Oct 2007 Posts: 2642

I don't have any time restrictions, and don't get any problems...

Code:

# File updated by Channel Organiser B2.1 on 28/3/2015 at 10:37

[Control]
Output=EPG # Note: this is temporary and the output will eventually be EPG.mei
EuroDST
External=MyStuff
Demangle
MergeExt
UseExtGenre
#AddExtendedInfo
StripDups
Debug=Off
DescSeparator=¬
DescTerminator=

NB I don't allow CO to update config files, otherwise the above .ini file would be overwritten.

Geoff Bacon

Posted: Tue Mar 15, 2016 11:47 am

Frequent contributor Joined: 12 Jan 2007 Posts: 4532

All the fields in the file have a purpose - that is why EMJB put them in.

The file is used by both ChannelOrganiser and TopManager i.e. using incorrect fields could affect either program.

I originally thought that EPG2MEI used the restrictions fields to ensure that it had data for each of the channels before passing the EPG onto MyStuff.

When writing PruneEPG, I discovered that EPG2MEI isn't waiting for data on all channels, it is just waiting until the internal EPG buffer settles down i.e. has not received any new EPG records. This means that any time restrictions in the EPG2MEI.ini file are solely there to allow it to filter packets passed to MyStuff.

I think one of the main reasons for time restrictions in EPG2MEI.ini was that a channel (can't remember which one) was broadcast on both Freeview and Satellite and the supplier was using the Satellite EPG data for both services. As the Freeview broadcast window did not match that for Satellite, this meant that the toppy might attempt to record a program at a time that was only available on Satellite.

Setting all entries to have "StartTime=0000 EndTime=0000" should remove all restrictions from EPG2MEI.ini (If necessary, time restrictions could be reimposed for one or two of the obscure channels that really required them)
Making this change would greatly simplify maintenance of Freeview.dat. It would also make it easier for users in that it would eliminate lack of EPG data because of a bad entry in EPG2MEI.ini.

Geoff

Bizman

Posted: Tue Mar 15, 2016 12:34 pm

Frequent contributor Joined: 06 Apr 2010 Posts: 1707

Geoff Bacon wrote:

I think one of the main reasons for time restrictions in EPG2MEI.ini was that a channel (can't remember which one) was broadcast on both Freeview and Satellite and the supplier was using the Satellite EPG data for both services.

Examples are Dave on LCN12 and Really on LCN17.

Bizman

Posted: Tue Mar 15, 2016 2:04 pm

Frequent contributor Joined: 06 Apr 2010 Posts: 1707

EMJB wrote:

If anyone would like to take on the task of maintaining this file, please feel free to do so.

EMJB

As over 24hrs have elapsed and nobody has volunteered, I will attempt the task as I do it anyway for my own satisfaction. At the present time I just make changes sufficient for Channel Organiser to report 'No errors in Freeview.dat file'. Perhaps in time I will be able to update any other changes/corrections as my knowledge increases.
I will release the first update on the 22nd after 'True Crime' has launched.

All times are GMT + 1 Hour

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