Hi. I'm using the merge-xmltv tool available at http://www.webgrabplus.com/sites/default/files/download/ini/info/zip/Misc_merge-xmltv.zip to generate a single EPG file for use in Kodi with the IPTV Simple Client. I'm using 2 different xmltv files as the source. Each xmltv file works fine with IPTV Simple Client and displays show times in the guide at the proper times for my location (pacific time UTC-08:00). However, after merging the files with merge-xmltv, and displaying the resulting xmltv file with IPTV Simple Client, all show times for every channel have shifted 19 hours into the future. I've kept the 'EPG timeshift hours' setting in IPTV Simple Client at 0.00 for these tests.
To try and understand this problem, I compared the EPG data for the exact same episode of a particular show. In one of the source xmltv files, the episode displays the start and end time followed by a timeshift value of -0500. This episode displays at the correct time in IPTV Simple Client. In the merged xmltv file, the same episode displays start and end times followed by a timeshift of +0000. This episode displays 19 hours ahead. This is all very strange and confusing. I don't understand why -0500 and +0000 values are chosen or why a change of value from -0500 to +0000 would shift an episode ahead 19 hours in the Kodi guide. More detail on this comparison is shown below.
My question - is there a setting in merge-xmltv.ini that preserves the -0500 timeshift values so that the guide displays correctly in Kodi? I tried experimenting with different timezone values in the ini (e.g. timezone=UTC-08:00) but still got a timeshift of +0000 in the merged xmltv file.
Comparison detail:
Global Montreal
Jan 10, 2017
Til Debt Do Us Part
Plays from 12:07-12:37am in my timezone
Source xmltv - in IPTV Simple Client, guide displays it as 12:07-12:37am on Jan 10
Merged xmltv - in IPTV Simple Client, guide displays it as 7:07-7:37pm on Jan 10 (19 hours ahead)
EPG detail - Source xmltv:
<programme start="20170110030700 -0500" stop="20170110033700 -0500" channel="Global Montreal">
<title lang="en">Til Debt Do Us Part</title>
<sub-title lang="en">The Princess and the Paupers</sub-title>
<desc lang="en">Rosyln and Kevin have thousands of dollars in debt and hide purchases from each other</desc>
<category lang="en">Reality Show Program</category>
</programme>
EPG detail - Merged xmltv:
<programme start="20170110030700 +0000" stop="20170110033700 +0000" channel="Global Montreal">
<title lang="en">Til Debt Do Us Part</title>
<sub-title lang="en">The Princess and the Paupers</sub-title>
<desc lang="en">Rosyln and Kevin have thousands of dollars in debt and hide purchases from each other</desc>
<category lang="en">Reality Show Program</category>
</programme>
Any help is greatly appreciated.
-Al
Thanks again Blackbear for your help.
Yes, both of my xmltv sources are using the same time offset (-0500 in my case).
I tried setting 'timezone=UTC-05:00' and 'timezone=America/Toronto' but I still get +0000 time offset in the merged output. See attached merge-xmltv.ini.
I'm using Kodi RC 17. I suspect things may have changed regarding IPTV Simple Client because changing the time offset (+0000,-0500) actually does affect the tv guide.
-Al
Update - this is what worked for me. I added a tvg-shift at the top of my M3U playlist file:
#EXTM3U tvg-shift=-19
-Al