Added to the issue I raised with our provider
Thank very much
Pop Channel 206 on freeview showing âmonster high electrifiedâ for 22 hours this Saturday 24th October. We really want to record the Miraculous New York special airing at 10am as per this page: Schedule | POP but we are unable to set it.
I have the " Freeview West OTA Broadcast" DVR setting 
Thanks in advance!
New user to Plex, and seeing the number of comments on this thread I can see that using it for recording TV in the UK is going to be frustrating (from a brief browse through the messages I suspect Iâm going to have problems with: Issues with EPG, recording conflicts, not recognizing new series & repeats etc)
But my question is more fundamental.
In the UK (and I believe other European countries) the broadcasters send signals when a programme actually starts and finishes so the necessity to add padding to the start or end of timings is not required.
I know this doesnât happen in the US so thatâs why the padding fields are offered in applications like Plex.
Why canât Plex offer the facility to use these real-time signals? Physical DVRs seems to manage it so why canât their software equivalents? (and whilst weâre on the subject why canât the Freeview EPG thatâs transmitted over the air be used as well rather than Plex having to source it from a 3rd party)
If any of the Plex competitors would offer this functionality Iâd jump to it like a shot but I suspect they are all equally bad.
Any likelihood of Plex offering this functionality in the future?
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I donât think any software DVR supports accurate recording on UK Freeview (send me a personal message as Iâve programmed my own DVR software which does if you are interested).
I obviously donât know for sure but I suspect there are two main reasons for not using the over-the-air EPG.
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It requires coding support for the DVB data and the UK simply isnât a big enough market to warrant the costs. They would rather use an external source and supply regional XML files to populate a guide, keeping the code the same for all territories.
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To use over-the-air EPG data AND to show the HD programs in the EPG requires entering into an agreement with Freeview, this agreement means the recorder must encrypt HD content on to the disk (usual paranoia by the film industry). By law over-the-air TV programs in the UK are not encrypted as they are free for all so anyone with legally and freely available hardware can record unencrypted shows in HD, as Plex does now. However to sort of force the hand of PVR manufacturers the HD programming EPG data is obfuscated, and to get access to it requires entering into an agreement that the PVR will encrypt HD content. Encrypted HD content causes all sorts of issues for Plex as you canât stream it elsewhere for example (re-broadcasting basically), defeating the point of Plex.
So the likely hood of Plex offering this functionality is basically zero.
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Thanks so much for your comprehensive reply.
The reasons you give for not using the over-the-air EPG certainly make sense.
But not being able to use the start & end signals broadcast in the UK is very annoying.
I realise the market for software DVR is small but relying on the times in the guide and having to pad out at the start & end seems so 1980s!
Iâll certainly send you a PM to find out more about your DVR software youâve developed
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There are some sequencing issues on CBBC (Channel 201) and CBBC HD (Channel 204) on Friday 30th October as follows:
17:30: Mimi & Co: Listed as â30/10/20 - Spookedâ but should be âS1 E3 - Spookedâ.
18:05: Scream Street: Listed as â30/10/20 - Double Troubleâ but should be âS2 E5 - Double Troubleâ.
18:20: Dragons: Race to the Edge: Listed as â30/10/20 - Dragons: Race to the Edgeâ but should be âS3 E1 - Return of the Bonecrusherâ.
18:40: Monsters vs Aliens: Mutant Pumpkins from Outer Space - Marked as a TV show with episode data of 28/10/09 but it is a one off short film so should be marked as a film.
19:50: Mimi & Co: Listed as â30/10/20 - Spookedâ but should be âS1 E3 - Spookedâ.
For example:
Note: I only checked Friday afternoon after noticing an issue with one of my scheduled recordings.
It seems that the guide for 4 Music (Channel 029) is one hour out / appears to be stuck on BST 
Plex:
Freeview:
As such all my âMalcolm in the Middleâ and âCharmedâ episodes that are scheduled to record this week are scheduled to start at 19:00, 19:30 and 17:00 rather than 18:00, 18:30 and 16:00 respectively.
For example. Malcolm in Middle currently looks like:
PS. Anyone else fancy a game of Plex based Amidar 
Similar to this, UK Freesat has also added Sky Arts to channel 147 (Replacing Challenge +1 I believe) but this is not reflected in the guide yet.
Slightly unrelated, but would it be possible to add a channel without any guide information? Or even map two channels to the same guide data? There are a few channels that are unencrypted on satellite that arenât officially on Freesat, and therefore plex contains no guide listings. An example of this would be channel 4 HD which was removed from Freesat due to licensing costs but still remains unencrypted and viewable. In this case it would be good to be able to map both Channel 4 and 4 HD onto the same Channel 4 guide data as they have the same listings.
Paramount (Channel 031) is also a little screwed up during the early hours of Tuesday morning (27th October) due to some missing and overlapping programmes.
Whilst it is too late to correct my scheduled recording of âTakenâ which according to Plex starts 15 minutes later than what Freeview quotes there might be other adverse effects due to this or other instances through the week.
Plex:
Freeview:
In summary things seem correct until the third episode of Designated Survivor:
Plex:
00:45 to 01:45: Designated Survivor - S1 E4 - The Enemy
01:45 to 02:35: Designated Survivor - S1 E5 - The Mission
02:35 to 04:15: Designated Survivor - S1 E6 - The Interrogation
04:00 to 05:00: Taken: S1 E6 - S.E.R.E
04:15 to 05:00: Taken: S1 E6 - S.E.R.E (but it shows in the guide up to 06:00 despite the times quoted)
06:00: Teleshopping
Freeview:
00:45: Designated Survivor - S1 E4 - The Enemy
01:45: Designated Survivor - S1 E5 - The Mission
02:35: Designated Survivor - S1 E6 - The Interrogation
03:30: Wynonna Earp: S3 - War Paint
04:15: Taken: S2 E1
05:00: Teleshopping Block PN2
06:00: Teleshopping
Using latest EPG data (available after refresh at 10am today) I can see discrepancies in start times (5 min out) / duration and also a few for programs when checking 27th and 28th October
I have referred this to our provider
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Thank you for reporting this. I have referred it to our provider to correct
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I have referred this to our provider to request sequencing. Note that not all shows are sequenced with season/episode numbers and some are date based. Of course, if we have evidence that a show was sequenced before but is not now then that would be a clear error
I did see that this was sequenced before eg 21 - 23 October. I have referred this to our provider to ensure we have consistency with sequencing
The season numbers are out by 2 because they appear to be seasons for the âDragonsâ rather than the subset series âDragons: Race to the Edgeâ
see List of DreamWorks Dragons episodes - Wikipedia
Also IMDB has the season as 5 instead of 3
The CBBC channel clearly identifies these as season 3 and so does the guide on freeview - so I have asked for this to be corrected
The one you highlighted for 30th October 2020 is S3 E6 Return of the Bonecrusherâ. - This appears as S5 E6 in the EPG. You mentioned E1 - i presume this was a typo.
Unfortunately - airings classed by our provider as type: other, we create them as TV and not movies. All this will change when we switch to a new provider
Did this resolve itself closer to the 24th ? It was at the end of available program data with it being the last EPG program for the channel as showing on the 21st.
I would expect the following dayâs EPG refresh to have corrected that.
At the moment the channel does appear to have 10 full days of EPG data (after EPG refresh this morning) - on the 20th October the channel only had 4 days of data and hence the issue with that airing for the 24th
It did thank you 
Had one happy son as I managed to set it to record.
This is something I have struggled with for well over a year. Mostly I just give up, but Iâve got so fed up I felt I needed to contribute, seeing as SO many people seem to have poor results with LiveTV&DVR in the UK. On the whole the Plex setup is fantastic, but I have huge problems when I try and schedule a recording. Probably only 50% of the time (if that) do I get a successful recording. The latest aborted effort was ITV4âs La Vuelta highlights. In the TV Guide, I click on the record button and in the guide, everything looks good to go. However, when I then check the âDVR Scheduleâ, nothing is shown as being scheduled to record (and of course, nothing then records). This has happened for numerous programs on numerous channels and is massively frustrating. As I said, the Plex setup in general is fantastic, but this huge problem is killing all my positive feelings about itâŠ
Thank you - I thought I would perform a refresh today to see if things were looking better, prior to âMalcolm in the Middleâ airing at 18:00 tonight, As such I kicked off a refresh somewhere around 17:30 / 17:35 and it had finished around 17:45 so just in time 
However, whilst it seems that the data is starting to correct itself for 4 Music there are a couple of strange oddities:
a) Additional âMalcolm in the Middleâ repeats - There should be two showings each day (18:00 and 18:30) but Plex is showing the correct episodes at 18:00 and 18:30 but then two additional airings at 19:00 and 20:00:
Plex (Today after the refresh):
Plex (Tomorrow):
Versus Freeview (Today):
It is also the same on Friday and Monday (Iâve not checked further into next week).
b) My DVR Schedule still shows the old recording schedule (prior to the refresh) being an hour out - not even the odd 19:00 and 20:00 airings that I highlighted above:
When should it update to match the refreshed guide?
Hi,
Is there any time frame to the request. 615 EPG is still incorrect. Many Thanks!
Iâve got listings not being flagged as new. The latest is tonight - Paddington Station 24/7 on 5 HD. S4E2. It is brand new but isnât flagged.
Other providers seem to be doing this too. I think itâs because Channel 5 put the last season as Season 4 as well, but backtracked after and is now reusing Season 4 for this new season.
