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Irish DTT (Saorview) EPG Updating


Cian

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Hi,

 

I have both Irish DTT via USB and UK FreeSat via PCI cards. The FreeSat EPG updates without a problem. However, the only way I can get a proper EPG update on the DTT is to enable the "remember last channel" option, select an Irish channel and re-start DVBViewer.

 

If I just switch to an Irish station, some of the days/channels update and some don't leaving blanks in the middle of the EPG.

 

Has anoyone had similar experiences, or an idea as to how I might solve it?

 

C.

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  • 1 month later...

Just to add additional information on this, it appears that RTE are not observing the Nordig 2.0 standard as they should be. It seems that they are using "ENG" as the language descriptor rather than "eng". This has given risae to a similar problem on set-top boxes also (see this post).

 

Mobiwan, if you are reading you might make up for my lack of detail please. Thanks!

 

Is it possible to modify the code to account for this variation?

 

Thanks,

 

Cian.

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If I just switch to an Irish station, some of the days/channels update and some don't leaving blanks in the middle of the EPG. {...} It seems that they are using "ENG" as the language descriptor rather than "eng".

It's quite unlikely that DVBViewer drops only some of the EPG items due to "ENG". If that was the reason, DVBViewer would drop them all. Maybe RTE messes the Event IDs up (e.g. same ID for different events). Some time ago we've experienced a similar issue with Swiss TV due to messy Event IDs.

 

I would use the TransEdit Analyzer (download from the members area) for inspecting the EIT. It even allows to record the EIT as TS (best together with PAT, PMT and SDT). You can upload the file somewhere, thus giving us an opportunity to have a closer look at it.

 

P.S. For pinpointing the Swiss EPG issue it was necessary to compare the EIT data of two subsequent days, because on each midnight EPG update SRG assigned different IDs to the events ;) Maybe RTE is using the same faulty encoder. If yes, closing DVBViewer, deleting the file EPG.dat in the configuration folder and relaunching DVBViewer will fix it for one day.

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Hi Griga,

 

Thanks for the reply. I have recorded two streams on either side of midnight and they are located here and here

 

Since my original post, the problem has changed slightly in that re-starting DVBViewer on a DTT channel does not complete the EPG. It just likes gaps.

 

Thanks,

 

Cian.

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On first sight I can't see any double / differing Event IDs. Are you sure that RTE updates the EPG at midnight?

 

Does DVBViewer capture the complete EPG after deleting the file epg.dat in the configuration folder (while DVBViewer is closed)?

 

Does the TransEdit Analyzer list the missing events in the EIT? Use the Analyzer search function for finding event names.

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Sorry about the delay in replying Griga - been busy. I do no tknow if RTE update at midnight. If you like I can capture the data 24 hours apart. I have gone through some of the EIT fields. There does seem to be some wierd things going on. Deleting the epg.dat did not change anything. The missing events are listed in the EPG for the few that I tried.

 

In some cases, the event number is re-used, but for the same programme on a different day - perhaps this is for a series link type of system (not yet introduced by RTE), bu the ID's are used more that once. Sometimes the name in the top event ID does not match the name in the Descriptor field.

 

A couple of observations that may or may not help. Firstly, the Now and Next does not always appear.

 

Second, last night, I wanted to record a film that was on in an hours time. The EPG was displaying the Now and Next, but the film (which was after that) was not displyed, but the program after it was. I looked at the gap in the EOG and manually programmed the timer for the film. When I went back to the EPG, the film was now listed in the EPG, but not the two earlier and one later programs - these were now blank.

 

Don't know if these are of any significance, but it might help.

 

Do any other Irish users have this problem?

 

Cian.

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The problem does seem to be the duplicate event ID's.

 

My Sony TV can construct the the EPG almost completely so obviously it is these constantly re-used ID's that are causing the problem.

 

Apparently, RTE should be using the Nordic Spec (thanks STB!)

Edited by Cian
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We've been following this problem on an Irish bulletin board also. I've concluded that it's the duplicate EventIds that are causing the problem and posted to Cian on that board. Griga, can you tell us why DVBViewer requires these IDs to be unique? The DVB spec does say that they should be unique, but other TV and set top box implementations seem to just parse the EPG entries based on date/time. I've attached an XML dump of the EIT (i've cut it to fit upload restriction) for one channel so that you can see that there are duplicates (Event ID 351 is one example).

Terrestrial (EUR) 722000_17.xml

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Griga, can you tell us why DVBViewer requires these IDs to be unique?

Ambiguous IDs are deadly for applications that are handling/storing the EPG in database-like structures (see configuration folder -> epg.dat), in order to make the data persistent and available even if the transponder on which the data is broadcasted is not tuned/received in a DVBViewer session.

 

Events are referenced by the path Network ID -> Transportstream ID -> Service ID -> Event ID, as intended by the DVB specifications. It's like a path to a file on your hard disk, where double filenames within a folder are forbidden as well (try to rename a file to an already existing name...). The start time of an event is not reliable enough, because it may change. The Event ID is supposed to make an event recognizable even if the start time changes.

 

So, if DVBViewer receives another event with the same path resp. Event ID, it assumes that the start time has changed and drops the previous event associated with this ID. Like your OS, if you copy a file to a folder where a file with the same name already exists. It will be overwritten.

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Thanks Griga. It confirms my thoughts as regards unique identification of events needed to prevent ambiguity.

Interestingly, though, in the UK Freeview and Freesat EPGs the Content Reference ID (CRID) is used within the EIT to uniquely identify a programme episode and the series to which it belongs. Freesat/Freeview branded PVRs use this CRID info (rather than the EventID)to recognise the start of a particular scheduled recording and to "Series Link" those recordings. This type of approach is mandated in the Nordig specification on which the Irish Saorview service is based. It would seem that the EPG metadata is being "played with" by the service provider at the moment and it has caused problems for various boxes which have not gone through the Saorview approval process. I trust that the issue will be resolved by the service provider and that they will ensure the metadata conforms to the DVB standards, eventually.

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in the UK Freeview and Freesat EPGs the Content Reference ID (CRID) is used within the EIT to uniquely identify a programme episode and the series to which it belongs. Freesat/Freeview branded PVRs use this CRID info

There's something similar in Germany/Austria and other European countries - the PIL (Programme Identification Label), which is more or less the originally intended start time. It doesn't change if the actual start time changes and is particularly designed for PVRs. The PDC data (Programme Delivery Control) is broadcasted within EPG and Teletext streams. Lars is currently working at it, in order to let DVBViewer recordings start/stop more precisely at the right time.

 

Hovever, PDC has been part of the European TV specifications ever since. Not that kind of splendid Freeview/Freesat isolation :) Nevertheless it would be good to know more about the CRID specifications...

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Just to say that RTE have now modified their Event ID structure and have now 5-digit rather than 3-digit ID's and I now have a fully populated EPG.

 

There seems to be almost no repeat ID's (I found one, but it was for the same programme that is on two channels at the same time, so I assume that this is allowed - or even preferable if there is a change in the time.)

 

Thanks Griga for your help and advice.

 

Cian.

Edited by Cian
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but it was for the same programme that is on two channels at the same time

That's no problem, as long as the transport stream and/or service ID (part of the path) is different.

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