17 replies to this topic

[JediMaster420]

This is a big project and I need lots of help, so I'm posting this whatever I can because my previous posts have gone unanswered. The DM500 doesn't have enough memory to load the EPG for on screen access. However, it should have all the tools it needs to rip the epg from the stream on to Network Attached Storage (NAS) and format it to something a little more universal. What I need help with is putting it together.

Step 1: Ripping the EPG
- North America uses a 2 day and 9 day epg. I don't care which one I can get to work.
- The MV plugin seems to read better than the box's regular epg but doesn't always work.
- I'll use DVBSnoop if I have to to rip raw data.
In any case, the EPG needs to be complete (2 or 9 days) and saved on NAS. Also, any help you can offer in triggering any of this in the command line would be of great assistance.

Step 2: Processing the data
- The Rytec XML plugin imports XML but I don't think i exports it. Let me know if it can.
- The web IF has some way to make HTML out of he epg, but I can't get it to load any data. My efforts are going to start in trying to figure out how this works while I wait for other responses.
- The SQL EPG may be an option. But I haven't had much luck opening it with anything.
- The dreambox doesn't have to be the machine that does this step. But it appears to have the most embeded tools to do it.
In any case, it has to be read by the source in step one. I don't care what format it comes out as long as it can be read by office type or other commonly available software (text, spreadsheet, web browser, w/e)

Please help me. I've been working on this a while now and I'm not getting anywhere.

[hemertje]

please don't double post!

[dAF2000]

I don't have a clear solution or answer for that. I would take one step at a time.
By the way, the North America EPG produces a lot (really a lot) of data and storing it on a NAS would be the only real solution. Did you try that?

[JediMaster420]

Yes, I have it on NAS right now. But the dreambox will not load it in to memory. Sometimes it doesn't load any data for a chanel, sometimes it only shows what is on and next. I don't know if the full guide is being downloaded because I can't find a way to view the downloaded guide on a computer. Let me go over what I have found with further testing:

- The WebIF uses an external source to load the data for the full epg so it is out.

- 2 day seems to be easer for it to parse than 9 day (9 day has a lot of errors even when using MHW and Bev/Dish option)

- XMLTV plugin will not export enigma data as XML

- Still having no luck viewing mysql EPG in any database program.

The more research I do, the more it seems like the solution is to dump the guide with DVBsnoop and parse it with something else. But I'm still clueless as to how to do that.

[dAF2000]

I'm sorry I can't help you. I have no experience in NA EPG (obviously) and don't know if it's just a memory shortage on the DM500.
Maybe one of our American external PLi members may help you.

[hemispherical1]

Main NA provider (DishNetwork) is around 10 MB per day of EPG data & sqlite is horribly slow over a network... I tried to explain that to jedi elsewhere, but I don't think he liked the answer...


--
hemi

[JediMaster420]

I got SQL lite to work ok, I just can't load it in to any external sftware to view it to see if I had the whole thing. Now I just want to use my box to dump it. But I think I am too far in over my head and no one wants to help me along. I'm probably going to have to give up.

[QUMAN]

Hemi's been trying to help you,you just gotta pay attention.
You appear to be new so you prolly don't know,if there ever was a DM500 guru for NA Hemispherical1 is it.

[JediMaster420]

I am listening but all I hear is "your box can't do it". I don't know if there is something I missed, but that seems to be the only response I get.

[QUMAN]

I am listening but all I hear is "your box can't do it". I don't know if there is something I missed, but that seems to be the only response I get.

Ding ding ding.NA providers,particularly the southern one,have a very large amount of epg info.
This is very hard for a box like DM500 to deal with.Even with DM7020 using USB or harddrive to cache epg info doesn't work great.I can get 2 days epg at best lately.On the other hand,with the northern provider I can get 4 days(thanks to updatelee for that).
There is not any development for the 500 that I'm aware of,you might consider upgrading to a DM600,there are many of these for sale on fleabay for very reasonable price.I even saw a used one with a harddrive when last I checked.
Lucky for you that you don't have a E2 box,now and next is the best you could hope for,and that only with one particular image.

[JediMaster420]

"buy a new box" is not a solution. What I have planned will work, but I have people like you and ABML (probably the same person) keep wasting time flamming instead of helping. If you're not intrested in helping, just go away. Spending your life trying to dump on people is pretty sad.

[WanWizard]

With all due respect, you don't seem to get the message.

You've bought a bicycle, and now complain that you can't use it to move crates. If that is what you want, you should have bought a truck.

A DM500 has very little memory, both Flash and RAM. It has no option to extend local storage (no disk, no USB, no CF), and has a network interface which is quite slow. It's the cheapest lowend box you can get. DM doesn't make the 500 anymore (not for a number of years), so all you can find now are cheap imitation copies of questionable quality.

For enigma1, the only option is to extend EPG storage beyond the memory available in the box is SQLite. I've tested this extensively on a DM7000, which can be compared with a 500 on performance, but does have all the storage extensions. With a 15Mb SQLite database (= 1,5day of NA EPG), no matter where I stored it, it took anywhere from 5 to 30 seconds (or more) to scroll to the next page in the channel list. Using a network mount, it was even slower. Some debugging in the past showed that the problem here is concurrent access. When information is received OTA which Enigma needs to write to the database, queries are queued. It's a limitation of SQLite.

Using a real database (p.e. MySQL) might be an option, but requires full database drivers in the image (no space), and a server to run the database (not always present in a home situation).

If performance is not an issue, why not use the SQLite option? There are plenty of development environments that can access a SQLite database. Either way, EPG data is always stored in raw EIT format, so you'll have to dig in either the Enigma1 source code or the DVB standards to find the format. I don't think it's reasonable to expect people here to sort this out for you.

[JediMaster420]

Your analogy is flawed. What I bought wa s a satelite reciever that runs linux. I've given up on it loading the EPG to it's ram. What it will do is dump the guide from the stream on to NAS. It's not hard if you know how to do it. I just don't know how.

I have tried using SQL lite. The box still won't load a 24hr guide and I cannot find any software that will let me view it. If you know a way for me to view it I could use the help.

I don't expect you guys to write anything from scratch, I just need some help figuring out how to use the tools that are already there. If you don't want to help, that is your choice. I don't deserve to be flamed because I'm not ritch and can't afford better hardware.

[dAF2000]

We want to help, but we just don't know a good working solution. Of course, many of the (NA) users already tried EPG related stuff on the DM500 and decided themselves it's difficult, "impossible" or "can't get it working."
If we would have clear answers, we would give them of course.

[WanWizard]

If you google "sqlite database browser", the first link returned gives you a tool to read SQLite database files.
In the past, I've used PHP to access the epg.db created by the DM7000 without problems.

[Sjaaky]

You did try to store it in memory with a swap-file on a network share?

[JediMaster420]

Someone recomended that on IRC too. I have no clue how to do that.

[dAF2000]

This (old) thread may help you:
http://www.pli-image...3800#post_53800