FYI.

For anyone using a device other than a PC (Pi, tablet etc) you are better off to create a separate bouquet with the channels you need on it and configure VU plugin to only download that bouquet.
Works a lot better.
Have a PI in daughters play room with raspbmc and about 40 channels in a bouquet (SD works better) and takes about 90 secs to download epg on boot up.
Have another upstairs with another bouquet mapped so at least it boots faster than loading all bouquets.
On core i7 PC I let them all load and it flies through them.