This is fantastic thanks - I have been using epg collector for ages but the last few weeks “something” has not been working properly and it is not grabbing any info. I tried going thru all my settings but can’t find anything wrong. This make my brain feel much better. Thanks.
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Just wanted to chime in and say thanks to @shea9872. Really appreciate you doing this for your fellow kiwi Freeview viewers!
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Edit: Both versions of the guide are now the same, so it is recommended to just stick to the normal guide.xml (however guide-v2.xml just points to this one, so it shouldn’t really make a difference)
An often requested feature is the removal of the ‘New:’ and ‘All New:’ titles on shows. However one of my goals for this XMLTV is to be ‘set and forget’, so a change like this would likely break several recordings. To combat this I’ve created two guides:
- The original guide, containing the ‘New:’ and ‘All New:’ prefixes, available at the original URL (https://nzxmltv.github.io/xmltv/guide.xml)
- The updated guide without the ‘New:’ and ‘All New:’ prefixes, available at a new URL (https://nzxmltv.github.io/xmltv/guide-v2.xml)
Both of these guides will continue to receive new features and bug fixes, however I recommend switching to the new version, simply because it fixes several issues with Plex matching of recorded programs. Programs that formerly had the All New or New prefix will be marked as ‘new’ by Plex. Additionally, as Plex is phasing out its default EPG for several regions (including New Zealand), I want to get this XMLTV working as seamlessly as possible.
If anyone has any questions I am happy to answer them.
I thought I might share my current roadmap for this guide:
- Addition of SKY Go and Maori TV as metadata sources
- Creation of a separate SKY guide (however due to limitations of my data source, the metadata will not be as good as this Freeview one)
If you have any suggestions I can add them to this list.
PS: I also noticed we got a shoutout on the XMLTV support page!
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Amazing work.
Found this through the latest Plex email.
Already looks far nicer than I’ve ever seen it.
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I’ve just done quite a big update to posters. I now use Sky Go as a source, so programs on prime should have better matches. Additionally for the main channels I have replaced those bland default posters (the one with a grey background and orange text) with generated posters that fit the aesthetic of each channel. I’ve added this to the main channels.
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Hiya, you’ve done such a great job! Seriously a life saver for so many. Also love this new update, there seems to be a bit more metadata and the fillers with the aesthetic of the channel look awesome. Just thought I’d point out (you probably already know) that some of the shows with long titles that have the poster filler are having the titles overlap the logo. Not really an issue but just something to add to the list to make ur xmltv even better I guess? Also quite a few of the shows I watch/record have metadata that is not a portrait poster but landscape art. This causes it to be displayed all distorted and stretched so not pleasant to look at lol. Again, not a huge deal as it’s better than nothing but I know there are portrait posters for many of the shows that don’t have them. I have a lot of posters in my library for NZ shows and can provide others for you to add to the xml if you need.
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Awesome to hear! I’m pretty happy with the channel filler posters (especially the Three and TVNZ ones), so its good to hear someone else likes them as well!
Yep, funnily enough, I’m working on that exact issue at the moment!
Yes, this is absolutely less than ideal, however it is all I can do with metadata from places like TVNZ OnDemand, since they only supply landscape images. May I ask what client you are using? My main clients (web, Android and Android TV) seem to handle them (relatively) elegantly, so I’m curious what clients it doesn’t look as good on. I can override the metadata for specific shows, so if there is a poster you want added I can easily add it.
I dont actually use Plex – I use Emby Server. Same thing basically, just different interface and more of the features I want (I am able to add multiple TV sources and EPGs instead of just one, like on Plex, seemed to tune to channels a bit faster, quicker/easier to navigate Live TV on my Android TV). Any time it has art that is not the regular portrait dimensions, it either squeezes them to fit or just shrinks the image to fit into a poster (depends on the menu I’m on).
That would be awesome if you can do that, do you need me to send you the poster images? It’s no trouble.
I’ve been using your guide for a few months now, and I think it’s time to pass on my thanks - awesome effort and thank you so much for doing it.
The latest updates are especially good - I always hated the needless “All New” prefix so many NZ channels seem to find necessary, and it’s great not to see any grey boxes with orange text at all (I deactivate the radio and several more minority channels).
One thing I just noticed after refreshing the guide to enable the latest artwork feature is that some Prime shows that used to have artwork now have the channel themed card instead - Agatha Raisin S1 being one I happened to notice for example. Not a big deal and far from a complaint, but may mean something to you so pointing it out. I can’t think of anything I know for sure is on Prime to check it has proper artwork, but my guess is that most shows are working purely based on the relatively small number of Prime placeholder cards I see (but some placeholders don’t have any obvious oddities like the “S1” unnecessary suffix above).
Last thing worth mentioning is that I see most people who have posted client versions are running Android. I’m wall to wall Apple with most of my client time being Apple TV, and the majority of the rest being iPad. Even my server is a Mac mini. I also have a Roku Streaming Stick+ I can test with, but I tend not to use that for Plex as a rule. Anyway, if you ever want any Apple client feedback, by all means hit me up.
Thanks again.
That would be helpful thanks.
I’ve had to clear the cached metadata for a lot of these shows, which means if the script can’t find a match (usually because of those oddities you mentioned). I’ll look for a way to remove these oddities.
Cool. How do you want me to send the files? Email, Google drive, Dropbox, etc?
Are you able to just message them through here. If you click my profile there should be a big yellow message button.
And thanks from me too!!!
I’ve finally got around to producing the SKY XMLTV. This uses the same metadata engine as the Freeview guide, however as SKY supplies far less data than Freeview the matches will be not as high quality. This means if you run a Freeview only system, it is strongly recommended to use the Freeview specific guide.
A few things to note:
- I don’t have Sky, so I’m not able to test the guide fully, however basic validation checks out (and since the code is the same as Freeview, there shouldn’t be any problems).
- The script to produce the guide is entirely seperate to Freeview, so this means any new features may be delayed (or not make it to sky at all). I will try to keep them both updated though.
- SKY has been known to take down XMLTV guides based on its content. I don’t anticipate this happening, but if it does then I will give as much notice as possible.
I’ve also updated the original post to give more information about the guide and how to set it up.
I’m currently working on a rewrite of NZXMLTV, with the goal of making it more maintainable and easier to add new metadata sources. As a part of this, I am updating to a source that doesn’t have the ‘All New’ tags on programme titles, this means it is no longer feasible to continue maintaining the original guide.xml. This means at some point in the next month or so guide.xml will have identical contents to guide-v2.xml (ie no All New prefixes).
In order to prevent recordings from breaking when this change is made, you can switch to the new guide-v2.xml file (http://nzxmltv.github.io/xmltv/guide-v2.xml) when convenient and then switch over any recordings that are set with the ‘All New’ or ‘New’ prefixes.
If you use the Sky or the v2 guide already then you have nothing to worry about. If any changes happen to these sources I will make a post closer to the time.
If you have any questions feel free to let me know.
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Thanks very much - I’ve switched over to v2 and everything is looking good.
Really appreciate the time and effort you put into making this work!
Any chance of getting Redbull TV into the freeview guide?
It is slightly out the scope of the project, but I may be able to figure something out with the rewrite. How are you accessing Redbull TV?
Matt Huisman’s IPTV has a red bull feed. I sometimes just wing it from time to time and am always amazed with what I see 
