New QuickGuide Release Candidate 2 - Updated Release May 30^th

Releases (and source code) are now available on the QuickGuide Workspace on GotDotNet.

Simple App for translating XMLTV (http://www.xmltv.org) compliant feeds into MCE 2005 EPG Data.

Calls MCE 2005 EPG Helper to load guide data.

Based on SmartGuide - many thanks to Rienhard for his permission to use his source code for SmartGuide.

Please read release notes below before updating.

New Features (Feb 5^th Release):

• Full, Multi-Category Support.
• The program lists un-mapped categories - found in XMLTV file, but not in EPGXMLWriterParts\categories.txt (did not work due to a bug).
• You should add un-mapped categories to the categories.txt file - make sure it is still valid XML.
• Maps to Defined Categories for SPORT, NEWS, SPECIALS, KIDS, MOVIES.
• Full support for Credits (Actors, Directors, Guest Stars, Hosts/Presenters).
• Supports Episode Titles (Program Sub-Titles)

New Features (Feb 9^th Release):

• Full, Multi-Category Support (bugfix).
• The program lists un-mapped categories - found in XMLTV file, but not in EPGXMLWriterParts\categories.txt - fixed
• You should add un-mapped categories to the categories.txt file - make sure it is still valid XML.
• If you've customised your categories.txt, don't just replace yours with the one in the distro, or you'll lose your customisation.  Make your categories.txt READ ONLY.
• Supports XMLTV grabbers that don't provide a stop time for all programs (but doesn't add these programs to MCE - MCE doesn't support programs without a duration).
• Supports XMLTV grabbers that don't provide seconds in the program time (bugfix).
• Better handling where duplicates are defined in ChannelInfo (informative error message, not just stack trace).

New Features (March 26^th Release):

• Movie Detection
• If you've customised your categories.txt, don't just replace yours with the one in the distro, or you'll lose your customisation.  Make your categories.txt READ ONLY.
• You'll need to add qgtag="MOVIE" to your high level Movies Category, and make sure it has id="MSEPGC_MOVIES" and mscname="MSEPGC_MOVIES" - see the example in newcategories.txt.
• If you are installing for the first time, rename categories.txt.rename to categories.txt.
• Support for Previously Shown element (equates to "Repeat") indication for progam.
• Support for program attributes such as widescreen (will probably be implemented as letterbox in MCE), HDTV, subtitles (probably will be implemented as closed caption in MCE).
• Support for Ratings.
• Date Handling Fixes.
• Duplicate Program Fixes.
• Numerous Minor Fixes.

This release is Release Candidate 0.

New Features (March 31^st Release):

• Schema Changes to:
• Fix icon handling (icons are ignored, but their presence in the XMLTV file was causing a problem).
• Relax some constraints on programme elements (for XMLTV feeds that weren't truely XMLTV compliant).
• Changed delimiter for actor (and other "credits" elements) to / as suggested by STu - thanks, STu.
• Some Minor Fixes.

This release is Release Candidate 1.

Bug Fix (May 30^th Release):

• Truncate Descriptions longer than 507 characters if there is also an episode title - was causing crashes for some people.

This release is Release Candidate 2.

See Link for download at top of this post.

If you post for help, please post any error messages and the full stack trace if provided.  Please zip up your XMLTV file, your ChannelInfo.XML, and your QuickGuide.exe.config, and attach to your post.

Please do not PM me with support questions: chances are - if there's no error, but MCE isn't working the way you expect it to - it's down to something where I don't know the answer and can't help.  I'll just guess.  Much better that your question is read by everyone, becuase chances are someone else does know the answer.

If you have a genuine bug, please post it to the bug tracker on the GotDotNet workspace (see link at the top of this post).  If you want to contribute, please join the workspace.

Let's keep general questions here, but bugs on GotDotNet.

BJ

QuickGuide 2005 Installation Notes, based on SmartGuide Installation Manual by Thomas, originally posted on The Green Button

1.      Install required prerequisites:

·          Install .NET Framework 1.1 (I guess this is installed by default in MCE 2005 OS). Otherwise use Windows Update for this.>>

2.      Install and configure QuickGuide:

1.      Download QuickGuide. Look for the stable version or the latest test version in the first post in this thread.

2.      Copy the contents fromthe Binaries dir into the Windows\eHome directory + create shortcut to quickguide.exe.
(Alternatively, you can copy all *.dll files from the eHome directory to the QuickGuide directory).>>

3.      Double click the C:\WINDOWS\eHome\ MCE2005_EPG_Enable.reg.

4.      Run CasPol.exe -s off . It shold be in C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v1.1.4322.

5.   If you need / want to customise your channel order / displayed channels in MCE, etc, do it now, before running Dumper.

6.   Dumper.exe. This program will dump a sample DerivedChannelInfo.XML file based on your current channels defined in MCE.  Simply rename the channelIDs in this file to those in your XMLTV file, and rename it to ChannelInfo.XML.

7.   If you're installing for the first time, rename categories.txt.rename to categories.txt

5.      Edit c:\windows\ehome\quickguide.exe.config file using notepad:>>

·          XMLTVFile. Make sure this points to your XMLTV file. Note that if you're using TVHarvest, you must use listing2.xml.

·          ChannelInfo. Set this to the location and name of your ChannelInfo.XML file.

·          Have a look at the other settings - there's plenty of scope to customise movie detection and other features - but no doco (yet).

·          It should not be necessary to change anything else.

6.  Start “c:\windows\ehome\quickguide.exe”.

·          Look for either a success statement, or an error message.  If there is an error, you'll get a stack trace, and this is likely to point to the problem (perhaps quickguide can't find your XMLTV file?).

·          Look for a list of un-mapped categories - these are categories that were found in your XMLTV file, but were not found in your Categories.txt file.  You will probably want to add these to your categories.txt file.  Make sure that your categories.txt file is valid XML - copy it to categories.xml, and check that it is valid (e.g. you can display it in internet explorer).

·          Make your categories.txt read only so you don't overwrite it with a later release.

7.  Start MCE and confirm that you can watch TV and have Guide data: you will probably have to re-customise the channels, and add guide listing to channels, but should only have to do this once.

8. Run Dumper again, and compare the new derivedchannelinfo to your current channelinfo - differences will be due to channel order customisation, and addling listings to channels - these may have changed your virtual channel numbers in MCE.  If there are differences, then update your ChannelInfo - if ChannelInfo matches MCE, then next time you run QuickGuide, the guide listings should be added to your channels, and you should not need to re-customise.

>9. From now on it is only necessary to start QuickGuide. >

4.      Setup batch job for importing

• Call your grabber.
• cd C:\WINDOWS\ehome\
• quickguide /batch

>>

If you have problems please read the posts in this thread first.  If you post for help, please post any error messages and the full stack trace if provided.  Please zip up your XMLTV file, your ChannelInfo.XML, and your QuickGuide.exe.config, and attach to your post.

I'm not getting the list of un-mapped categories. Not sure if it's something I did wrong or a bug.

 

Other than that it seems to be working fine as far as I can tell, though I haven't had a chance to play around with it that much yet.

Thanks for the feedback.

At a guess, that simply means that all categories in your XMLTV file are already in your categories.txt

Sorry, no. It's not quite THAT simple, I'm afraid

Most of my categories are in swedish...

In any case, a couple of days ago when I was experimenting and letting my grabber download categories I actually DID see a list of un-mapped categories. But that was with the previous beta where categories were supposed to be non-functional if I'm not mistaken. Now, however, using the NEW beta, that list doesn't appear. Go figure.

It isn't a big deal, especially since I'm rewriting the categories.txt completely anyway (translating everything swedish). But when my number of categories has become big enough, such a list would definitely be helpful.

Finally, I really appreciate your work with this project. Quickguide is great!

Ahh well, a bug then.  I'll look into it when I get back to town.

First off I want to congratulate you on a great job on this application. Although I'm not the most techie of users, I did manage to set it up the first time. Reading the instructions to setup Smartguide was daunting and Quickguide made is so easy.

I wanted to ask for your help to solve an issue that I have with Episode titles. For some reason, this is not showing up on my MCE 2005 guide. I'm not sure if this is related to my xmltv file so I'll just post an snipplet here and see if you have any ideas.

--start--

-

Erin Brockovich (Chinese Subtitles)


--end--

In the above case, "Holiday Movie" is shown as the title but you never get to see "Erin Brockovich" in the program description....hope this is clear.

Any ideas?

Hi, kardtoon, unfortunately the XML didn't show up properly in the post.  Feel free to try again, or zip the entire file and post it or PM it too me.

BJ

I should have checked my post ;-(

Will zip up the file and email to you.

@Kardtoon

I can't reproduce this problem - I see the subtitle.  The subtitle shows up in MCE in quotes at the start of the description.

You must, however, be using the lastest Test release.  Subtitles isn't supported in the previous beta.

BJ

Ahh... I was using the files from the binaries folder instead of testbinaries. Just tried it again with the test binaries version and it works great. Thanks for looking into it so quickly.

New version in the first post of this topic.

http://www.thegreenbutton.com/community/shwmessage.aspx?ForumID=27&MessageID=90637&TopicPage=1

BJ

thanks bj for all your help, i got rid of the virtual conflicts, but now got:


Error: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
Stack Trace: at QuickGuide.EPGXMLWriter.GetProgramsAndSchedule(String start,
String stop, DataView programs, DataView channels)
at QuickGuide.EPGXMLWriter.Create(DataSet XMLTV, DataSet Channels, String fil
ename)
at QuickGuide.QuickGuideWorker.CreateXMLFile(String& encryptedFile, String XM
LTVFile)
at QuickGuide.Starter.Main(String[] args)
****** XML Creation failed

Press 'Enter' key to exit.

(Use /batch parameter to suppress this prompt.)

I have not tried this tool yet, but wanted to know if the following is possible.  Can we add missing guide data for only a subset of channels?  I know most people are doing an entire import of their XMLTV data, resetting channel numbers, etc.  This effectively turns off the guide data download via the MS servers.  I would like to continue the existing guide data download via the MS servers, keep existing channels numbers, but replace the guide data on only a handful of channels with XMLTV data.  Is this possible?

I get the following error when running quickguide.exe, files attached.

Einschränkungen konnten nicht aktiviert werden. Mindestens eine Zeile enthält We
rte die die Einschränkungen non-null, unique or foreign-key verletzen.
   at System.Data.DataSet.FailedEnableConstraints()
   at System.Data.DataSet.EnableConstraints()
   at System.Data.DataSet.set_EnforceConstraints(Boolean value)
   at System.Data.XmlDataLoader.LoadData(XmlReader reader)
   at System.Data.DataSet.ReadXml(XmlReader reader, XmlReadMode mode, Boolean de
nyResolving)
   at System.Data.DataSet.ReadXml(String fileName, XmlReadMode mode)
   at QuickGuide.QuickGuideWorker.CreateXMLFile(String& encryptedFile, String XM
LTVFile)
 ****** XML Creation failed

Press 'Enter' key to exit.

(Use /batch parameter to suppress this prompt.)

What am I doing wrong?

Hi, and thanks for this excellent pice of software!

I'm happy Norwegian MCE 2005 user who just got everything up and running. I use a Swedish pice of software called o2grabber to grab XMLTV data for all the chans can watch on my MCE.

After configuring QuickGuide and mapped it to a ChannelInfo.xml file and a XMLTV file and run it, i get a list of missing categories and a message that the import was sucessfull. I've addedd all the missing categories to the categories.txt file, but the categories containing special Norwegian (or Swedish) chars isn't recognized.

The chars are as follow: æ, Æ, ø, Ø, å, Å, and in Sweedish they use ä and Ä. Chars like ` cause problems as well. Could this be a encoding usse in the XSLT file?

Second off is the mapping of my "unknown" chans in MCE to the EPG listening chans. I get all the chans mapped up to the correct chan in the guide. Then i re-arrange the order of the chans to make more sens, and life is good!

If i re-run QuickGuide all this information get's resetted and i have to re-mapp the chans. I've tryed running dumper.exe and replace the ChannelInfo.xml file before re-running QuickGuide, but no luck.

Allso looks like the app have some problems with long channel id's, like "Discovery Channel", "National Geographic". It looks like there is a max char limit. Is this a issue o2grabber needs to sort out, or is this a issue in QuickQuide?

Anyhow, thanks alot for a nice pice of software. And, I'm getting really close to a perfect Norwegian MCE2005 setup!