Cross EPG v Open TV for 28E /19E

[John57]

Hi Rob,

After reading various feedback from a previous thread reference Cross EPG/OpenTV I thought I would start my own thread about this very subject

I was reading with interest your views about using CrossEPG v Open TV as I feel I am in the same boat as you in that I am currently living in Germany watching UK, German, and Dutch TV from a single dish with quad feed (I think thats correct - Two Fuba LNBs feeding two VU+Solo2 units) I have noticed that my limited EPG data that I get when I select the channels I am watching is never complete but I have lived with it and would now like to have it working better.

Rob, your preferred option is as you say, OpenTV for the UK-services, XMLTV (I use the dedicated XMLTV-importer, as it does a better job then Cross in this respect) for other packages and 'EPG-Refresh' for packages that can be read directly from the transponder (such as Dutch/Belgian/German services). Only thing is that those 'imports' should not run concurrent.

OpenTV for the UK-services, XMLTV (I use the dedicated XMLTV-importer, as it does a better job then Cross in this respect)

Rob, will Open TV work for German and Dutch TV as well as UK TV?

Is Open TV a plugin found in the plugin menu?

Last part of my question, should this data be stored on my internal HD or should I get a large USB Flash Drive - in another post Andy suggests that it should be kept internally

Kind Regards

John

[ronand]

Open tv is not a plugin - it's the data stream coming direct by satellite. You select it as a provider for 28e within crossepg. Then download the other data with xmtvimport from the web. I have mine scheduled to update every morning with a 5 minute gap between them.

[Rob van der Does]

ViX has a number of 'native' EPG-readers; you see them in the EPG-settings. One of them is 'EIT' which is a.o. used by Dutch/Belgian/German services. As long as a service uses one of those native readers, it's sufficient to tune to one or more services that provide these data.
For the Dutch & Belgian services: tuning to one station loads all the EPG-data for all the services of those providers.
For the German services it's slightly different: you need to tune to several services, each of which loads the data for a number of them. This clearly shows in the multi-EPG: if it's empty tuning to a service will bring up the data for several.
The plugin 'EPG-refresh' can be used to automatically zap to services you want EPG-data from. In the above example zapping to one Dutch, one Belgian and several German services will keep the EPG up-to-date. Say you do this at 04.00and it takes some 15 minutes.

Open-TV is a data-format used by UK-services. ViX has no native reader for that, but the plugin 'Cross' has. So Cross can be used to load all UK-EPG (e.g. once a day, say at 04.30, so you're sure EPG-refresh is ready).

On top of that I want EPG for French services, for which there is no native reader. I use the XMLYV-importer for that, set to 08.11 as by then normally the daily import from websites should be ready. And to prevent many users at the same time overloading the website, a time like .00, .05, .10 etc should be avoided.

I hope this clarifies things a bit.

[John57]

ronand /Rob

Thank you both very much for your detailed explanation both explanations where really helpful and useful.

Last night I implemented CrossEPG for the first time and saw it going through the install-process, just a question I would like to ask, while downloading and installing for the first time I noticed the overall file size was not that large, say 15 megs, will it remain at this size or does it increase/decrease over time only asking because I have a 500gb hd installed and not sure if I need to do some form of maintenance over time to keep as much free space on my hd as required

Rob, I need to follow your steps very closely

Many thanks to you both

John.

[John57]

Rob

Just installed EPG-refresh' on one of my VU+Solo2 box (running hades)and it is working well, scanned all German TVs and populated the required epg data, also the dutch programme no issue, wanted to do the same with my initial first VU+Solo2 box but as its running Apollo 160 there is currently no plugins as the software is now no longer supported, is there a possibility to transfer the EPG-refresh' from my second VU+Solo2 box or am I best taking the necessary steps and upgrade this receiver to the latest VIX image?

Regards
John

[ronand]

Dont worry about the epg data eating up your hard drive. It probably will use less than 100Mb in total. Old data will be purged from the database.

[Rob van der Does]

1- I would upgrade (flash) the Solo2 to the latest image. Your's is very old and no longer supported.
2- Set EPG.dat (in EPG-settings) to use either the internal HDD or an USB-stick, but certainly not to flash. Sometimes the file gets corrupted and may 'eat' all available flash, hence giving a lot of trouble.
3- Cross will place it's database in the same location, and maintains it. This will never grow too big.

Be aware that all EPG-data is always in memory (RAM). The file EPG.dat is only there to save the data when the box goes down; then it will be saved to be read again on start-up.

[John57]

Ronand,

I appreciate your update,

Many thanks
John

[John57]

Rob

Thank you for all three suggestions, I really appreciate the really input from both of you, I never take it for granted that so many on this site are will to help and offer valuable experience.

Many thanks
John.