Live TV EPG - The update you’ve been waiting for

[rossinior]

@cire12

Current & Future Trouble Tickets

Managing resources to address outstanding trouble tickets will be receiving some additional resources soon. While we expect the two initiatives mentioned above will make a positive impact for many users, it will not solve everything and these cases will have to be shepherded through the resolution process with our EPG partner. Additionally we’re making some modifications to our internal tools to provide better visibility and organization to help facilitate this. Continue to use the Google Form to submit issues, and as always provide as much information as possible. It’s also important to be cognizant of items that are actionable given the providers sometimes long lead time to resolution of up to 14 days. Things like:

One Time Events
A Christmas special might be scheduled to air the day after tomorrow but it’s not being reflected in the guide. If not already flagged by the provider it’s unlikely to be resolved and published in time. Alternatively, a time slot that consistently displays the incorrect program week over week (e.g. Seinfeld instead of Family Guy) should be reported.

“New” or “Premier” tags
Similar to the reasoning above, guide data providers don’t always nail this one 100% and there is a high likelihood that the episode airs before the issue is resolved. However, if the problem is persistent or pervasive (i.e. “New” tags aren’t being displaying on ANY programming) then submit a ticket.

Series Sequencing
Probably the number one issue submitted revolves around user complaints with how a guide data provider has chosen to sequence a series. Anyone that’s been in the personal media game for long enough knows that S/E variations between TVDB, TMDB, IMDB, TiVo, Gracenote, and even Wikipedia can quickly turn into a religious debate. Sorry, Gracenote isn’t going to change their mind on how they’ve decided to sequence the Downton Abbey Christmas specials.

Dear @cire12
thank you for the detailed and profound response.
It’s good to have you back in the driver’s seat.

Regarding trouble ticketing - may I invite you to read the following:
I took some time to present some thoughts which would make troubleshooting easier for the user (only one part of the post). You might find an idea or two from that list interesting, I hope…

Plex DVR: Becoming even smarter – the next level

Plex DVR: Becoming even smarter – the next level. Cutting the cord is an excellent and modern idea. Recording OTA programs is just fitting in nicely in the concept of managing local and remote media. But becoming the one-stop recording solution in any Plex household is a challenging task since there is no single road to achieve this goal. Recording TV series and movies by simply managing those recordings just as you manage your local and remote media is a perfect foundation. People want that.…

[paulplexOK]

@cire12

Split Movies (Freeview UK)

Resolution of the split movie scenario stalled as we attempted to reach out to our EPG partner in hope of a direct resolution but the networks are insisting that programming be scheduled accordingly (Movie Pt.1 > News > Movie Pt.2). As pointed out by some users in the thread, split movies were not affecting Schedules Direct EPGs, who also source their metadata from Gracenote, which was curious but we were assured that any “reassembly” of the two part movies was not being performed by them. We’re in the process now of speccing out a solution to properly identify split movies and reassemble them into a single program. I know it’s not the update you were looking for but that’s all I have right now.

As well as Gracenote on Schedules direct
Other stuff that does not have the split movie issue
Software
TVHeadend - which uses OTA EPG
Channels - Don’t know who their provider is
Hardware
All UK freeview PVR boxes, Humax, Manhattan etc
UK Virgin Tivo PVR

There is loads of info on various ways this can be implement as I have posted previously
Here is one of the threads Feature #1303: Recording split programs - Tvheadend
I have pretty much given up on Plex to record Movies and TV so a fix is very welcome

Cheers for the update

[psykix]

Channels is Gracenote.

[mattd_robinson]

Could you elaborate on what you mean by trouble tickets please? To me this would be something like Zendesk rather than filling out a Google Form. I did use said form to report a local channel which was missing EPG data back in December and note that this remains the case. Thanks.

[cire12]

We don’t have a ticketing system that can be exposed to end users, and neither does Gracenote unfortunately. So we’re taking in “trouble tickets” via the Google Form submission, evaluating it to see if it is something that Plex can address internally or if it’s an issue that needs to be forwarded to Gracenote for resolution. Typically it’s going to be the latter, but as noted in the case of something like split movies we’re going to have to solve for that in house.

[JCHH]

@cire12

So we’re taking in “trouble tickets” via the Google Form submission

HI @cire12 I mentioned above that It would be a lot easier, faster (and possibly more accurate) if we could to report issues within the Plex app itself by right-clicking on the problem show in the EPG lineup (for example). This would then:

• copy the pertinent info:
  → EPG lineup,
  → channel,
  → show
  → season/episode
  → title
  → times
  → etc
• users only need to add a comment on the problem.
• Perhaps some check marks for things like “whole season effected” or “other channels effected” etc etc

[HomeMediaServer2018]

@JCHH It’s a bit of a Chicken and the egg one really. What comes first, fixes for the issues or a fix to report new issues. I would love to see this feature, but not at the expense of current issues not being fixed first.

[JCHH]

I totally agree - I was not implying that

This dilemma is not unique to Plex and the solution isn’t rocket science - given that 2 different skillsets are involved, Plex should/could put more (perhaps temporary) resources on it and do both.

[sa2000]

Split Movies Fix

The solution we will be implementing will cover the following UK Channels. If there are any channels in other countries having the same issue - please let me know the country, post code, lineup/guide, channel number and name and an example of a split movie airing

[rv112]

I’m using Tvheadend with DVB-C with Vodafone Cable Germany. Unfortunately with the new EPG I can’t select my provider anymore. There are a few but not Vodafone. Whatever I chose the EPC and channels are completely wrong.

[Afullmark]

Only ITV HD logo missing now; BBC FOUR HD popped in yesterday.

[captain_caveman2k]

@Afullmark

Only ITV HD logo missing now; BBC FOUR HD popped in yesterday.

The logo for ITV HD seems to be good here but I did see similar for some of my non-HD logos a couple of days ago but these have also returned now.

This could be a temporary effect of new logos rolling out as see that I have new logos for the following channels:

• BBC1
• BBC2
• Channel 4
• SkyArts
• Drama
• Yesterday
• Yesterday +1
• Channel 4 HD
• BBC News
• BBC Parliament

[Claret]

@Afullmark

Only ITV HD logo missing now; BBC FOUR HD popped in yesterday.

Same for me.

[cire12]

@rv112 can you send me a snapshot of the lineups you are being presented with and if possible a link to the EPG/lineup for your service provider and I’ll see what I can find out from Gracenote. Oh, and also your postal code.

[JCHH]

My ITV 1 stands out more than yours (not a brag):

These two (non HD) aren’t so great though:

[cire12]

I did a little bit of investigation and it looks like Kabel Deutschland became Vodafone and then at some point Vodafone began to brand their cable product “GigaTV”. I do see a GigaTV lineup being returned when I use postal code 10781 (I just picked a random one). Is this lineup not accurate or appropriate for the service you have?

[captain_caveman2k]

@JCHH

These two (non HD) aren’t so great though:

I’ve updated my post from earlier today to highlight which have been updated recently but in summary the following are unfortunately still unreadable:

• E4 - Well the 4 is !!
• 4 +1
• E4 +1 - It looks like a more readable E4 logo but the +1 is not readable
• CBS Justice
• Horror Channel
• Jewellery Maker
• Hochanda

And the following are just plain wrong:

• TJC - The TJC Choice logo from Sky and Freesat seems to be used
• TCC - Shows the Togetther TV logo

Examples are shown here.

[rossinior]

@cire12

I did a little bit of investigation and it looks like Kabel Deutschland became Vodafone and then at some point Vodafone began to brand their cable product “GigaTV”. I do see a GigaTV lineup being returned when I use postal code 10781 (I just picked a random one). Is this lineup not accurate or appropriate for the service you have?

There’s nothing like a single “GigaTV”.
I checked my own postal address and they throw the product “GigaTV Cable” at me. This is nothing else than their version of “Kabel Deutschland” cable TV.
They provide that service via cable, fiber, LTE and DSL - not every technology everywhere.
Channel line up is different from “product” to “product”. Here’s info from their web page:

Derzeit werden bis zu 58 HD-Sender ins Netz von Vodafone eingespeist. Davon sind bis zu 27 frei empfangbar. Mit GigaTV Cable erhältst Du somit Zugriff auf zusätzlich 31 HD-Sender. Außerdem werden bis zu 95 TV-Sender in SD ins Netz von Vodafone eingespeist. Davon sind bis zu 74 frei empfangbar. Mit GigaTV Cable erhältst Du somit Zugriff auf zusätzlich 21 SD-Sender. Für den Empfang ist eine Smartcard bzw. eine GigaTV Cable Box erforderlich, dies gilt nicht für die öffentlich-rechtlichen HD-Sender sowie die Sender QVC HD, HSE24 HD und viele SD-Sender (Stand: August 2020). Zusätzlich werden derzeit im Rahmen von Vodafone Premium bis zu 21 HD-Sender ins Netz von Vodafone eingespeist. Voraussetzungen für den Empfang aller Sender sind der Anschluss an das auf 862 MHz modernisierte Vodafone Breitband-Kabelnetz und ein 862-MHz-Hausnetz. Sie empfangen weniger Sender, wenn mindestens eines dieser Netze nicht auf 862 MHz modernisiert ist. Weitergehende Informationen über die aktuell an Ihrer Adresse empfangbaren Sender erhalten Sie unter [www.vodafone.de/tv-sender]([https://www.vodafone.de/tv-sender])

• GigaTV Cable inkl. Vodafone Premium* Erweitere Deine TV-Sender von 74 auf 95 in SD und von 27 auf 58 in HD
• GigaTV Cable * Erweitere Deine TV-Sender von 74 auf 95 in SD und von 27 auf 58 in HD
• HorizonTV Cable * 85 TV-Sender in SD und 50 TV-Sender in HD
• GigaTV Net * Bis zu 65 TV-Sender in SD und 51 in HD
• GigaTV-App * Bis zu 65 TV-Sender in SD und 51 in HD
• Basic TV * Erweitere Deine TV-Sender von 74 auf 95 in SD und von 27 auf 58 in HD

All from Vodafone - same product, different brands, different technologies, slightly different channel lineups

[andyev26]

For Plex, are you aware of this issue?

HD channel incorrectly labelled as SD

HD channels are being marked as SD rather than HD so when choosing “HD” only recordings, nothing is getting recorded for that channel. In the UK, BBC 1 SD is on channel 001 and that is being used for a recording instead of 101 which is BBC 1 HD. Both SD and HD channels can be played and watched and the HD channel is clearly marked as HD in the EPG. Anyone else having this problem?

[Bazrat]

Country: UK
EPG: Local Broadcast Listing
Postal Code: GU34

In addition, even though reported in the Beta before the new EPG was even released (and a few times in this thread), there are still channels being detected as HD when they are only SD. This was correct with the previous EPG.

Channels 050, 056, 064 and 080 (configured on my guide) are SD channels. And (also reported a number of times) as you can see from the screen capture when applying the ‘HD Channel Only’ it is still showing Unknown Airings’. Also mentioned in the post linked by @andyev26.

It’s fine when the ‘All Channels’ filter is applied:

The HD HomeRun is clearly not marking them up as HD:-

@cire12 It would be good if this was acknowledged like the other bugs reported in this thread.