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jksmurf
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Australia Network

Hi,
As described in my post in the ideas forum, while I can get EPG Titles for Australia Network using the current ini titles from the ini for my Cable Provider, the full details (descriptions etc) are only available from the original website.
Up until yesterday I ran TVxB succesfully on australianetwork.com but the site has now changed (australianetwork.com/tvguide) and I cannot configure TVxB to scrape the data from it.
Would I be able to request an ini please that downloads all the data, not just the titles? Francis kindly helped me with the Setanta ini (identical problem) a while back and that is working very very well, thank you.
Actually I have a similar request for Deutsche Welle as well.
Cheers
 
Kristian

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Hi Kristian,
 
I made a new australianetwork.com siteini . http://www.webgrabplus.com/sites/default/files/download/ini/info/zip/Networks_australianetwork.com.zip Indeed the site was completely changed. Because the different regions are set by changing the timezone value in the ini file you probably need to adapt it. There are a few files with info how to do that. It relies on the timezone functionality of the latest beta 1.1.1/53.16 http://www.webgrabplus.com/sites/default/files/patchexe_prebuild_2.zip , so you need that as well.
 
Next I will have a look at Deutsche Welle
 
Jan

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Thanks Jan!
I will give it a try and get back to you.
Any thoughts on my (related) post in the idea Box about a repoistary for inis for GLOBAL ini sites such as Asutralia Network, Deustche Welle etc??
http://webgrabplus.com/content/repository-collected-inis-specific-global-channels-epg-channels-tab
Cheers
Kristian
 

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Kristian

as promissed , DeutscheWelle : http://www.webgrabplus.com/sites/default/files/download/ini/info/zip/Networks_dw.de.zip

As with AustraliaNetwork it needs the last beta 53.16, in this case because the times are in UTC

 

Re your idea http://webgrabplus.com/content/repository-collected-inis-specific-global-channels-epg-channels-tab :

I am sorry but I don't understand what you mean by:

So if the specific sites are devleoped, then I think it would very useful for those that like more detail in their EPG and their provider provdes those channels, to use the specific web sites and just modify the TIME reference to match.

Can you be a bit more specific about what you want? Also, how are we to know what kind of details are provided by Cable providers? 

 

Jan

 

 

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Hi Jan,
My apologies, I have not explained it very well.
What I mean is this:

  1. The WG+ site ini package appears to provide inis for providers.
  2. Let's take my example, I live in Hong Kong, and NoWTV is one provider, iCable is another.
  3. These providers provide MANY MANY channels; some are LOCAL, some are GLOBAL.
  4. WG+ provides inis which capture 1 or more channels EPGs based on the Web Address => e.g. nowtv.now.com or epg.i-cable.com
  5. WG+ does a great job of capturing all the channles with one ini.
  6. However these web addresses provide very basic EPG info; in some some just SHOW TITLES (with times). That's it.
  7. Detailed EPGs for LOCAL channels may not interest too many folks, but the GLOBAL channels provided by these providers, (Such as Australia Network and DW) should interest NOT ONLY subscribers here in Hong Kong, but worldwide.
  8. As such there might be a provider in Germany, Holland, UK, France that shows Australia Network and DW.
  9. So you have now kindly provdied inis for BOTH those channels, which are applicable to ANY provider in ANY country, where it is shown, the only thing that needs to be changed is the TIME, which you say the latest WG+ allows.

So my request was very simple; for these SPECIFIC inis, unless I have missed them, rather than folks trawling the inis forum, or getting frustrated because the inis pack does not have specific inis, have a SEPARATE download or a specific ara on your website where these ainis can be downloaded. That's it!
Cheers
Kristian
 

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Kristian,

 

thanks, now I understand your point!

I think I need to explain how the times (start and stop) in xmltv are defined and how these times are used to get the correct ones for a user anywhere in the world.
In fact this is not a special WG++ issue but rather how these thing are specified in the xmltv standard.

- the times in xmltv are - always - in UTC! Xmltv allows several formats , the one WG++ uses :  guidedatetime+/-offset or  yyyyMMddhhmmss +/-hhmm . The guidedatetime is the one that wg++ grabs from the tvguide website. The offset is the actual timezoneoffset wrt UTC for the guidedatetime.
Example: suppose the guidedatetime is 5 may 2014 10:15 for a tvguide in Hong Kong , then the xmltv time would list as 20140505101500 +0800 The offset is +0800 because the 5 may 2014 10:15 is 8 hours later than the UTC time of it. So in fact the same time in xmltv could also be expressed as 20140505021500 +0000 or any other combination of time and offset as long as the result is the same time in UTC.

- Daylightsaving times: xmltv has no special listing of dst changeover dates. It simply relies on the offset. So if the guidedatetime must be expressed after a dst changeover, the offset must again reflect the actual offset wrt UTC. Most tvguidesites list their programs in 'local wall clock' times. And that is a difficulty that WG++ has to adress, because this local wall clock time must be converted in UTC, or which comes down to the same, the actual UTC offset needs to be figured out. Prior to the latest beta version, it did that by using the standard timezone utc offset, as specified in the siteini, (like timezone=UTC+08:00 in the case of Hongkong) and simply asuming that the dst changeover date is the same for the guidedatetime as for the computer on which WG++ runs. In most cases that works well (if the user of WG++ lives in the same timezone as the one for the guidedatetime). But that fails of course if the user lives in an area where the dst changeover is on a different date. It also fails if the tvguide site lists the programs in UTC (no dst!!) and not in 'local wall clock'.
With the latest beta that problem is solved. The timezone in the ini can now be entered as a timezone_id, like timezone=Asia/Hong_Kong , and the buildin timezones database calculates the actual UTC offset from the internatioanal timezone rules which are a part of that database. So in case of HongKong it will not apply any DST changeover because HongKong doesn't use DST in 2014..

- How about the timedifference for a user living in another timezone than that of the guidedatetime? This has to be taken care of by the xmltv importer of the PVR software. This was always the case and is not changed with the latest beta .

 

So, concluding, all WG++ siteini's can be used anywhere in the world , Without the latest beta there were a few limitations: For sites that are listed in UTC times and for user living in a timezone wit a different dst changeover date than the tvguidesite.

So these 'global' , mostly network tvguide sites can also be used by anyone anywhere. There are quite a few of them in the 'network' section and a few more in the 'international' section.

Does this answer your question?

 

Jan

 

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Quote:

Does this answer your question?

Yup!, Short answer, it's in the networking folder!
I have another two for that folder if you find a minute :-)
Fox Sports Asia and Star Sports Asia
http://tv.foxsportsasia.com
k.

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Quote:

Does this answer your question?

Yup!, Short answer, it's in the networking folder!
I have another two for that folder if you find a minute :-)
Fox Sports Asia and Star Sports Asia
http://tv.foxsportsasia.com
k.

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Hi Jan,
I thought I'd give some feedback on the inis for Australia Network and DW,. They both seem to work well, although the download time is a bit longer than the other channels.
I also note there's a LOT of activity in the logs for both of these. They show a lot of reconfiguring start times etc which I thought was odd. Can I assume this is normal?
I also get a lot of these "H\/Ls" (one fowrard one backward slash) in Star Sports?
I still can't get any mdb data AT ALL, but that's another topic :-)
Cheers
Kristian
 
 

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Hi Kristian,

Part of the exessive logging is due to a debug switch I seem to have left in DW. Open the ini and locate the following line:

title.scrub {single(debug)|<div id="bodyContent">|<h1>|</h1>|</h1>}

change that into;

title.scrub {single()|<div id="bodyContent">|<h1>|</h1>|</h1>}

 

I will have a look at the rest of the logging some time, but I don't think that there is anything serious. Its mostly due to differences between index_title and title.

 

Jan

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Cheers Jan,
Will do. Your help is much appreciated!
k.

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Hi Jan,
Just a minor observation for Australia Metwork, occasionally there are small (5 to 10 im?) gaps in the schedule, examples attached.
Thanks
k.
 

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Hi k. 

two issues:

1. The gabs in Austaralia network: The ini relies on the duration given on the site, assuming these are correct! But they aren't!! Have a look at:

http://www.australianetwork.com/tvguide and compare the starts + duration with the starts of the next program. Very messy!!

I think it is better to simply disable the duration lines in the ini, the stop time of a show then becomes the start of the next. So add a * to the two lines that start with index_duration, like this:

*index_duration.scrub {single|<p class="duration">||mins|</p>}
*index_duration.modify {calculate(format=timespan,hours)|60 /}

 

2. I noticed there is a debug swith in merge_xmltv.ini :

 

index_showsplit.modify {substring(debug type=regex)|"(.+channel=\"'index_variable_element'\">.+)"}

 

It doesn't harm but it fills your logfile with a lot of unnecessary lines.

You better remove the word debug from that line.

 

Jan

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Thanks Jan!

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Hi Jan,
 
For some reason AutraliaNetwork just throws up a lot of 404 results?
I attach the logs, it says things like suspicious title in inex page ... differs from title in showdetails 404?
 
k.
 
 

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Hi Jan,
The 404 error has gone, but the resultant EPG is one hour behind i.e. displayed shows are actually shown one hour later?
In theoy this shoudl not happen as shows should default to the correct times from the site, even with daylight saving?
k.
 
 

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Which region are you using or do you want to use? Did you follow the instructions in australianetwork.com_howto_set_the_regions.txt ?
(You didn't include the ini, so I can't see you timezone setting)
 
Jan

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WGMaker wrote:

Which region are you using or do you want to use? Did you follow the instructions in australianetwork.com_howto_set_the_regions.txt ?
(You didn't include the ini, so I can't see you timezone setting)
 
Jan

timezone=Asia/Hong_Kong which is the original ini file you made for me in any case "* @Remarks: for region Hong Kong, other regions through different setting of timezone. See australianetwork.com_regions_time_zones.xml"
So no need to follow the instructions as its already the default.
ini attach edin any case. Im 
I'm wondering of this is daylight saving related? Is that automatic?
 

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Hi Jan, any success with the site times - here's the comparison between the Actual Site (L) and WebGrab (R)?
 

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