EPG Refresh, iEPG and VPS

[birdman]

Well done for making progress with this. Re: P3 I was talking about removal of absolute import.

Nothing to do with me. All I changed was a set of def () statements (and the calls to their intercepted originals) and removed a bit of code that was no longer necessary.
No changes at all to any imports.
So if P3 has a problem with them I'd need to know which they are to see what the problem might be.

EDIT: By P3 do you mean Python3? I was going to look at that, but I've done nothing that isn't Py3 compatible.
(I did remove an attempted import of six, as the associated hack is no longer required).

[birdman]

Please don't spend your time trying to fix the PLI version. Ideally, we should add the fixes/improvements from PLI to our version.

That was basically what I was going to do.
(Although originally all I was going to do was to fix the fact the code couldn't handle the "justLoad" optional parameter.)

So if anyone knows of anything that the PLi code can do that the Vix code doesn't it would help me whilst I look.

[birdman]

Turns out the code I put in for the optional widget parameter in the new_TimerEntry_createSetup() function was wrong.
Oddly, thanks to Pythons bizarre mixing of its two parameter passing methods, it would actually work. Not sure that Vix ever sends one anyway (PLi does, but it always sends it).

I also notice that the Information screen doesn't actually show all of the text that it should (is there a length/line limit to a ScrollLabel() text?).
And the part that gets chopped off is quite important...

[Huevos]

Gordon, my mistake. I was diffing against the Dev branch.

[Huevos]

Turns out the code I put in for the optional widget parameter in the new_TimerEntry_createSetup() function was wrong.
Oddly, thanks to Pythons bizarre mixing of its two parameter passing methods, it would actually work. Not sure that Vix ever sends one anyway (PLi does, but it always sends it).

I also notice that the Information screen doesn't actually show all of the text that it should (is there a length/line limit to a ScrollLabel() text?).
And the part that gets chopped off is quite important...

Info screen works for me.

Can you post your updated version please.

[alexwilmac]

I was really sceptical about this claimed workaround because I knew I must've already tried almost everything. And, as a matter of fact, it doesn't work.
As before, it seems to accept the VPS setting but, if you enter the timer immediately after having created it, it is set to NO, as before.
And, anyway, it'd be a very limited workaround as 99% of the non-Autotimer created timers come from EPG, not from a totally new setting from scratch.

[Joe_90]

Yes , I found that the the manual timer setting just doesn't stick. Only timers generated by AutoTimer seem to work. Furthermore, I can't get the plugin to work at all on Irish terrestrial TV (Saorview), only on satellite. I think the VPS plugin is possibly looking for the presence of the PDC_descriptor field (0x69) in the EIT and it won't activate if it doesn't find it. One of the devs here is tweaking the code to see if he can get manual EPG timers to work. To be honest, I think the plugin has limited scope without a lot of work. Ordinary AutoTimer works most of the time for most users.

[ronand]

I did a test yesterday on vix 5.3 using epg data downloaded with crosspeg and it seems to work very well with autotimers on 28e. Recordings started and stopped on event change as expected. I wouldn't be expecting much of saorview though - they haven't grasped the concept of surround sound or full HD yet. If manual epg timers can be got working then I would imagine it to be quite useful.

[Joe_90]

Yes , I found that the the manual timer setting just doesn't stick. Only timers generated by AutoTimer seem to work. Furthermore, I can't get the plugin to work at all on Irish terrestrial TV (Saorview), only on satellite. I think the VPS plugin is possibly looking for the presence of the PDC_descriptor field (0x69) in the EIT and it won't activate if it doesn't find it. One of the devs here is tweaking the code to see if he can get manual EPG timers to work. To be honest, I think the plugin has limited scope without a lot of work. Ordinary AutoTimer works most of the time for most users.

Actually - scratch that. That PDC descriptor field is not present in the satellite EIT stream, so it must be something else that it is looking for. Maybe I'll have a look in the code to see if I can see what it's trying to find. It works fine, though, on autotimers on satellite, providing the broadcaster is sending the now/next changes accurately. Channel 5 seems to trigger the running status change based on a clock timer (the EPG scheduled time) rather than the actual transmission. BBC/ITV/C4 are all ok.

[ccs]

Freeview seems to work ok (only) using autotimers ....

[ccs]

Here's a complete bbc1 recording, padding had it originally timed from 12:55 until 13:35. The end of the recording missed about 1 second.

(Debug logs only show the same details as timer/info.)

[birdman]

Info screen works for me.

That looks as though the Simple_1080 skin has produced that?

I use ViXBMC_Confluence_1080, and with that it uses the compiled-in skin. And with that the final lines don't show.

Can you post your updated version please.

I will once I make a few more changes. The "correction" I mentioned will make no difference at the moment (possibly never, but...).

[Joe_90]

I've looked at the code and the plugin is definitely looking for the PDC (Programme Delivery Control) descriptor (0x69 or 105 decimal) in the EIT. I don't see any PDC when I analyse the EIT on 28.2. If I look at the plugin's vps.xml file in /etc/enigma2 it contains the entry "has_pdc=0" in each line, however it seems to work ok on autotimers on satellite and now apparently on Freeview.


@ccs - I get the same on satellite. My original padding is ignored (as expected) and the recording starts and stops on the broadcast programme boundaries.

[birdman]

Gordon, my mistake. I was diffing against the Dev branch.

You mean the dev branch.

Hmm...so there's a dev branch, and I'm fixing master. Does that make sense?

Much of the "messy" change to Modifications.py in dev goes away once you handle all incoming args "properly".

[ronand]

I suppose that the plugin is targeted at German channels and they probably use that descriptor in their EIT. Its probably a needless compatibility check on manual timers but then again some some of check would be advisable. I had noticed it when setting up manual timers that this check was failing and it would proceed in "safe mode".