DVB - PC Cards XP MCE Channel sorting

[neathdrew]

Hi got me floppydtv yesterday, fitted and installed no probs, using xp mce tried scanning and found 595 channels. lots of doubles, bbc regions etc but thought that was pretty good. tried cam and card which immediately cleared ppv channels, well chuffed. looked to sort channels but there doesn't seem a quick way of doing this and no way of deleting ones not required....am i missing something, is there a transponders / service file u can edit?

the channel frequencies stated seem to have no relationship to a dbox service file

any suggestions?

cheers

edit: i got a copy of vista mce does this address the problem?

 

[cafe.racer]

If you go to Settings > TV > Guide in MCE you can "edit channels" and "change sort order". You can also "Add Listings to Channel".

There's a could of files you'll want to make a copy of after you've done the changes, one is prefs.xml in the ehome directory, the other I can't remember. Actually there might only be one.

Have you done the guide/headend hack to get the guide?

P.S. So, let me get this straight, you chucked it in, booted it up and got 595 channels on your first scan? I hate you.

 

[cafe.racer]

Actually, thinking about it, I'd try nd get the guide working before you sort all the channels - you'll probably end up having to do it again after you add th guide.

 

[neathdrew]

If you go to Settings > TV > Guide in MCE you can "edit channels" and "change sort order". You can also "Add Listings to Channel".

There's a could of files you'll want to make a copy of after you've done the changes, one is prefs.xml in the ehome directory, the other I can't remember. Actually there might only be one.

Have you done the guide/headend hack to get the guide?

P.S. So, let me get this straight, you chucked it in, booted it up and got 595 channels on your first scan? I hate you.

i can edit the channels by moving in single steps, theres no move to the first position like the vm menu and as the bbc / itv regions i want are currently positioned in the 200's somewhere, this method will take forever.

about the guide, that's a good bit of advice i got the terrestrial channels guide as mce thinks it's a dvb-t but i'll see if i can get the xmltv grabber working first...maybe after the rugby though...saying that i probably would have had too many sherbets by then.....

thanks for the advice.....

ps just checked it was actually 588 channels but like i said loads of regional, doubles, audio etc theres only about 100 i'm interested in.

 

[elyl]

Is it actually possible to get the guide working for every cable channel in MCE?

 

[cafe.racer]

@Neathdrew - yep, I know what you mean. I wonder if you look at prefs.xml after you've don't a few changes if you can spot how to do it manually? If not all the channels are listed in prefs.xml, I read somewhere about moving the last channel all the way to the front...

@elyl - I don't know how to put this, yes all the channels are listed in the guide, you still get some channels that have missing info, though. Sky One and Sky Two are still listed...

 

[neathdrew]

Is it actually possible to get the guide working for every cable channel in MCE?

at the moment only the terrestrial channels are listed the ppv show no info...am looking to download all the listings for 2 weeks from the radio times website using xmltv to grab the data then either bladerunner. smartguide/webguide2 or quckguide to transfer the data into the correct folder in mce 2005 to hopefully populate the guide. got it working on my pc at the mo but i haven't had chance to try on the htpc yet, can't get on there, maybe later tonight.

cheers

 

[neathdrew]

@Neathdrew - yep, I know what you mean. I wonder if you look at prefs.xml after you've don't a few changes if you can spot how to do it manually? If not all the channels are listed in prefs.xml, I read somewhere about moving the last channel all the way to the front...


cheers, i'll give that a whirl....

 

[whitey]

There is a useful guide and tools in this thread here that should be helpful

http://www.avforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=499892

Whitey

 

[elyl]

Can anyone tell me what the problems are with using the headend registry hack to get a full EPG? Seems like this would be a simple solution, so I'm guessing there is a bit of a flaw with it otherwise everyone would be using it?

 

[whitey]

Can anyone tell me what the problems are with using the headend registry hack to get a full EPG? Seems like this would be a simple solution, so I'm guessing there is a bit of a flaw with it otherwise everyone would be using it?

The XMLTV/Bladerunner solution offers more channels of guide info than the standard MCE guide. Also with using the XMTV solution you can generate the +1hr channels where they aren't available for download. But I think the major bennefit is that you can re-name the channels to match the DVB channel name so MCE automatically pairs them up saving alot of time.

The major disadvantage is that the series link feature does not work with bladerunner

Whitey

 

[cafe.racer]

I've done it whilst playing/tinkering, but not yet it an ongoing "stable" setup. I think the problems will be that when you scan for channels , the channels seem to get first come fisrt served channel numbers.

So BBC1 might be on channel 14, but is channel 101 in the cable guide. You can tell MCE to use the guide from 101 as the guide for channel 14, but I remember that there's some tricky bits to do with it, sort of, auto-updating and over-writing your changes.

There's lots of posts in European and particulalry Australian MCE forums about going about it the way Neathdrew is doing, but they're doing it that way because there's no native guide for their channels on the microsoft guide service. Frustrating to go out and hack it when we've got a native guide.

I haven't really played yet because I've struggled to get channels scanned in my area :-(