RFE: Better out of the box support for EPG

  • Hello,


    I have come across the following pages with the attempt to structure yavdr into several areas. There is however another topic that might deserve a separate area: EPG.


    I would suggest to add it with two subsections:
    - EPG received from the broadcast
    - EPG fetched from the Internet


    There are already at least partial solutions for both subsections, but I don't think that it makes sense to go into details at the moment. Nevertheless, here two starting points:
    - There is for example the vdr-plugin-eepg; but how to make it work out of the box?
    - There is for example the vdr-plugin-xmltv2vdr; the problem: to much user intervention to get it working and lack of non-german grabbers.


    I hope that the EPG will get a separate area into the yavdr structure and that it might trigger some progress for a better EPG experience for the non-german yavdr user.


    Thanks in advance for looking into this.

  • Hello,


    I have to admit that I have never used the eepg plugin - according to it's README a special configuration is only needed to copy epg data between channels - the plugin seems to do nothing for you if you are using DVB-T(2) or DVB-C, so I don't know if it would be helpful to add it as a dependency (especially because it does not work with VDR 2.3.3 at the moment and there has been no development activity since 2015).


    xmltv2vdr was intentionally designed by the author to be configured mostly (except the parser configuration) using the vdr OSD - I don't see how one would be able to preconfigure it to works for more than a given set of channels (and for the german users using the epg2vdr plugin is often a good alternative).


    Lately I have been thinking about allowing the user to customize the setup process by replacing the installation medium with a fixed set of features by customizable Ansible Playbooks - you can find an early proof of concept in https://github.com/yavdr/yavdr-ansible
    This would allow someone to add a custom pre-configuration and additional features and enable them to share and use their customization at scale.

    yaVDR-Dokumentation (Ceterum censeo enchiridia esse lectitanda.)

  • Hi

    Zitat

    - There is for example the vdr-plugin-eepg; but how to make it work out of the box?


    Nothing to do for you at all. Just install and run it. On 28.2E, Free-to-Air only, it will expand the EPG data from 'now - next' to a 7-Days in future EPG.


    Zitat

    - There is for example the vdr-plugin-xmltv2vdr; the problem: to much
    user intervention to get it working and lack of non-german grabbers.


    I totally agree with you on this.



    Tom

  • Hi,


    First of all, thanks for your replies.


    Over time, I was able to set up a rather satisfactory epg on my system (mostly based on the vdr-plugin-xmltv2vdr), though I have to regularly make adjustments, for example when channels move. But the intention of this thread is not to get help with my particular system; it is to improve the EPG handling experience for the yavdr users.


    If I am not mistaken, the yavdr team constructed for example the templating system. This means to me, that they are also prepared to contribute new features to a VDR installation. Thus, considering that the team is reflecting on dividing yavdr in separate areas, I thought it might be the moment to start getting something done for the epg by making it a separate development area in the yavdr structure.


    In fact, IMHO, the epg really needs some love, especially for the epg of non german channels, to get a decent epg out of the box. (People watching german channels might not be fully aware of the problem, because they get decent epg from the broadcasted channels.)


    The emphasis here is "user friendly" and "out of the box", for example like a menu, where the user can activate the epg for different bouquets.


    That said, here my reply to your points:


    Zitat

    xmltv2vdr was intentionally designed by the author to be configured mostly (except the parser configuration) using the vdr OSD - I don't see how one would be able to preconfigure it to works for more than a given set of channels


    I already filed an RFE bug against xmltv2vdr with an idea for a "preconfiguration". It could for example be done by an xml file that maps broadcasted channel ids to the channel ids in the grabber. This file would be shipped with the grabber. The xmltv2vdr plugin would only pick the broadcasted channel ids from the mapping file that are also present in the channels.conf. The existing channelpedia could be a starting point for the set of broadcasted channel ids to use in the mapping file.


    Moreover, since the idea of the unique channel idea for the grabber has not really caught, the mapping file could map sets of broadcasted channels to sets of channel ids of xmltv files...


    Zitat

    and for the german users using the epg2vdr plugin is often a good alternative


    I can imagine that offering epg for non-german channels could increase the attraction of yavdr for non-german users.


    Zitat

    Nothing to do for you at all. Just install and run it. On 28.2E, Free-to-Air only, it will expand the EPG data from 'now - next' to a 7-Days in future EPG.


    My experience was not so smooth with eepg, but I am not using 28.2E; I am using hotbird and astra 19.2e. I see eepg in the log working on every channel change, but most of the times it does not get anything, apart for some specific channels. Thus, the user has to look up what channels he has to tune to get the data. And in my case, it is on channels I usually don't watch... (bye bye ootb ;D ) Maybe that on 28.2, there are more transponders broadcasting the epg.


    Thanks to everybody reading this, and especially to the yavdr team, as I am asking them to make an ootb epg experience one of the topics to care about.

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