I admit, a lot of challenges (and frustration) with the EPG, ever since the move to the “new” one. I’m seeing several items, was waiting to see if they worked themselves out, but not so far … so let me capture them, below. Please let me know if these are expected, and/or if others are seeing similar things. And of course - any workarounds that you have would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
I’m recording from the Plex DVR, and even though the program name in the guide is correct (PGA Tour Golf, as an example), it gets changed after recording, due to matching (incorrectly, in this case it becomes A Cook’s Tour of Spain … not even close … LOL). I get tired of unmatching manually all the time - why not use the guide / EPG information?
As part of the matching, it is selecting an incorrect poster (and banner). It used to be right, before the EPG change, but now it seems to force a match, no other option.
The episode information (that used to exist) is no longer existing. This is a bit of a problem, as then all the shows in the “series” display with the same name … and even worse, when synced to my mobile they have EXACTLY the same name. Can’t tell which is which.
I do see that the directory name inside “TV Shows” has changed with the new EPG (or at least, the year) … perhaps this is part of the issue.
Searching the new EPG won’t fine some / many items. Again, in the case above (PGA Tour Golf), I can manually find an episode, and the name is an exact match, but searching doesn’t work (at least on my Linux PMS).
Again, if you have any pointers or workarounds, please let me know.
Which country are you? …look for an existing country thread on this issue (there are many) and add your specific issues (as well as reporting them with the form - belt and braces) and @sa2000 will look at them for you.
The only alternative is to use another EPG (XMLTV feed) or another EPG/DVR.
I completely agree! I was thinking the same - EPG driving all of this. I had even started to look at a custom EPG (XMLTV) feed … and would have tried it, except I have to delete my DVR completely. That’s pretty painful to try something out … . Too bad I can’t just add an EPG source, select one or the other.
Country - US. I’ll try to find a thread. And I’ll post the specific issue, thanks!
Hmmm, a guess, but … you in the UK? Only saying that because of “belt and braces”. In NA we tend to say “belt and suspenders” … LOL.
If you have a 2nd machine, you could set up q 2nd server on it and try out the new DVR with XMLTV without deleting your first. Or you could use NextPVR are your DVR and leave Plex for the playback.
I don’t think XMLTV supports series linking in the data, correct me if I’m wrong.
I’m currently programming my own DVR which downloads the Freeview EPG and so supports proper series linking using real IDs (rather than the guesswork aspect that seems to come from other EPG sources). I’ve also added support for accurate recording that we have in the UK. Testing so far is working great but still have quite a bit of work to do, if I achieve something complete I’ll see about making it available for others, currently it will support the HDHomeRun tuners and Windows.
I do have a second machine, but it doesn’t have a DVR device (tuner) connected - that’s what I had actually tried when I was playing with XMLTV, but not having the tuner the channels don’t show up … . Let me see what I can figure out though, that is a good idea.
On NextPVR - I do like that idea. Hmmm. How does Plex get / show the information then? What I mean is … will I still have the issue that it goes off and does incorrect matches?
Sorry! Very poorly worded on my part. What I really meant was … if I use NextPVR, how will that fix the naming, poster / banner, etc. issues? Thinkin that Plex will still go get that info for itself, no?
Posters and banners etc come from thetvdb but the media needs to be saved with the correct name, year, series/episode for Plex to lookup correctly against thervdb.
The better epg will ensure your media is named correctly.
OK, on a second PC I removed and re-added the DVR, but with XMLTV data instead. Unfortunately though, on the EPG / Guide I can already see the match messed up. The problem is that theTVDB doesn’t contain the show I’m working with to debug (PGA Tour Golf), so then it proceeds forward with the incorrect match. No way to avoid that?
In the Plex universe and generally for sports recordings, do you want to we are eight a separate Library and make of a type “other videos”. Then select that new library as the destination for your sports recordings. They won’t necessarily get named, but they won’t be mismatched either.
And that’s OK - just trying to work through this. What I’m still trying to wrap my head around is the change in the match (to theTVDB). It sounds like perhaps that’s the filename? So perhaps renaming can help here? I’m OK doing that (I run a post-processing script anyways), just not sure how to get it working right.
BTW, I think part of this also is … where he heck did the poster come from before? Saying that because it used to be correct, but now it’s match based (and incorrect). So it used to come from somewhere else?
My XMLTV file calls out a specific program image (icon), but it’s not being used => rather, seems to be replaced by (incorrect) theTVDB match?
<programme start="20191030210000 -0500" stop="20191031030000 -0500" channel="I93.14899.zap2it.com">
<title lang="en">PGA Tour Golf</title>
<sub-title lang="en">WGC - HSBC Champions, First Round</sub-title>
<desc lang="en">The final leg of the PGA's Asian tour begins with the first round of the HSBC Champions in Shanghai. Xander Schauffele returns to defend his crown at this event, having outlasted Tony Finau in a playoff to take last year's event at Sheshan Golf Club.</desc>
<date>20191031</date>
<category lang="en">Sports</category>
<length units="minutes">210</length>
<icon src="https://zap2it.tmsimg.com/assets/p17285511_b_v9_aa.jpg" />
<url>https://tvlistings.zap2it.com//overview.html?programSeriesId=SH00554472&tmsId=EP005544726517</url>
<episode-num system="dd_progid">EP00554472.6517</episode-num>
<new />
</programme>
Been digging in to this, but not sure how to stop the EPG from going out and trying to match shows it displays in the actual guide (like the snippet above). I can try to mess with Agents and Libraries, but this isn’t about the EPG … right?
FYI, I borrowed a (completely different - vendor, model, etc.) tuner from a friend, to see if this was related to my DVR. Tried it on both Linux and Windows servers (one using the built in EPG, the other XMLTV input) - in both cases, the EPG seems to be getting modifed by the Agents (i.e. searching theTVDB).
. Too bad I can’t just add an EPG source, select one or the other.