Automate Mixing of External and Antenna EPG

[Delphi]

I have experimented a bit with EPGFlag from Recording Service and found out that it defaults to 0 and is 3 if I uncheck "DVB EPG" and "SFI, MHW(+) EPG" in DVBViewer channel editor. Obviously, when a bit is set the type of EPG in question is forbidden.

And it works in RS! The external EPG is not overwritten. I think it did in some earlier versions of RS?

 

It is tidy to do these settings manually using the channel editor.

 

The Request:

Since Xepg and any other importers knows the EPGChannelIDs for the channels which should only have external EPG it would be nice to have some way to programatically automate it.

 

Or maybe DVBViewer/RS could more expilcitly support it in options->EPG/Config->EPG having something like

 

TLabeL: Only use external EPG for channels in file(s):

TEdit/TListBox: Full Filename(s) (separated by ; if TEdit) (Pairings.xml in case of Xepg)

 

 

I don't think it that simple to implement and cannot know if it is possible at all:

 

 

For channels not in the file(s) the EPGFlag should be set to default value. Maybe a problem?

Since pairings can change over time, maybe an activate button is needed or DVBViwer/RS can check the files periodically.

If no files are present the EPGFlag should be set to defalt for all channels.

 

 

Well, some way to deal with this would be really cool!

 

 

TIA

[Lars_MQ]

It's quite a problem, because the RS only reads the channels.dat and doesn't write it, because it doesn't "own" it.

All changes would only be temporary and must be applied after every start again...

[Delphi]

So, it does not make any sence in RS config or using the api.

 

For now it would still be usefull to do it in DVBViewer only (COM or Options).

 

If using COM I could then force DVBViewer to save Channels.dat: SendMessage(Handle,0xB2C2,0x1032,0);

Then I could tell the user to stop and start RS. Then it is permanent, right?

 

I will write a Step by step instruction in the help file.

 

Not the most elegant solution, but maybe some time in the future RS will "own" channels.dat?

[Delphi]

I have now long time tested EPGFlag=3 and indeed, the EPG is never overwritten for such channels by RS.

 

My Request is then something like (If I remember COM theory right an IDVBViewer3 is needed):

IDVBViewer3.SetEPGFlag(EPGChannelID: int64; EpgFlag; byte);

IDVBViewer3.SaveChannels; //Force channels save

I know it is not as easy to implement as it looks, but it will really save the user a lot of mouse clicks.

 

Since further Xepg development depends on future plans for RS, maybe you will reveal a bit about that:

 

Are there plans for letting RS take control over hardware, channel scan, channel editor,... and then have a thin DVBViewer client?
To me it seems to be more clean approach.