8 replies to this topic

[adrianc1982]

hello, I started studying programming almost 2 years ago I have done a couple of proyects on php and python, 3 private plugins for enigma2 also which turned out to be very good one of them being video on demand movies plugin with posters, cached images and what not, ill post a picture even so you can see a little of my work.

Im studying now c++ and would like to fix once and for all the epg problem for north america on enigma2. I know it can be done since I have 2 images one being the DSM image and the other a sif team extreme modified image which have a working epg for north america. The problem? Well this needs to be ported to newer images and more enigma2 receivers since I only have these images for dm800 and I feel other receivers would benefit greatly from them.

So Im about to start looking into the source code of enigma1 to try to figure out how you guys are pulling the epg for north america and make some sense out of it and try to port whatever knowlegde I gain to the enigma2 development. What do you guys think? Any tips and pointers would be GREATLY appreciated. Thanks.

Heres a screenshot of one of my plugins made for enigma2

Attached Files

•  megafilmsscreenshot.jpg   74.73KB   117 downloads

Edited by adrianc1982, 9 January 2013 - 22:12.

[Erik Slagter]

The first task to be carried out is to change the whole EPG-implementation, you will get nowhere with the current implementation. The current implementation stores EIT records purely in RAM. This is wrong. It should be stored as a source-independent format in the first place, preferably on disk, although there a few catches in that. Now the big problem is that many plugins assume the EPG data to be in the current format. One would have to adapt all these plugins!

(this information comes mostly from pieterg and MiLo)

[pop_eye]

I do agree with Erik, pieterg and MiLo. The epg implementation is more a "hack" then anything else.
The ideea of reading the stream and save the buffers as a file on timely basis (60 minutes as I recall) is not the best.
This is why sometimes the epg is lost after sometime, or the information is not entirely complete or accurate since the providers ammend corrections
which need to be reflected in epg collection aswell. I am aware that such implementation exists and certain corrections can be done.
In my research I have found some providers use a complete sepparate tuner demod for the epg stream, which means constant refresh
for accurate informations. Let`s just say for north american purpose if you setup properly the epgimport from an external source you can get much better results.

Edited by pop_eye, 10 January 2013 - 19:44.

[adrianc1982]

If this is a hack it would be nice to have an option to enable or disable such a hack and store this value for other plugins to know if the hack is enabled or not. If the plugins dont want to update to add this fix or hack thats okay if we need new plugins im willing to make them happen. Having a hack is better than having nothing, because i havent seen an external source for the NA epg big provider.

I hope pieterg or any of the devs can shed a little more light so I can look into it. Thanks!

[mirakels]

Didn't we have NA epg support in enigma1? Maybe you can have a look at it...

We also had epg in a database in the enigma1 lifetime. So that may be a link too...

I also guess plugins use proper function calls to get epg data. So you might create stub function that mimic the old behaviour but get the data from the new source. If not, such plugins must be considered bad code and be ignored.

[pop_eye]

Actually there are some free sources you can grab the information from. One of the projects is called mc2xml and hemi
knows much more about it. Some of them are free and some you need to pay for.

Taking the time to setup your xmlimport is much better spent then adding a hack into openpli code.
I have tested it and while it is looking nice at first glance the timers do not work always, I love testing new things
for me is always a challange. I will be happy to try your implementation since you have already tested sifteam mod.

Bringing a "hack" in the main openpli code is not sometihng I wish to do. You also need to increase the number of tables
and the sections enigma is reading from and remove the UTF8 code which is breaking it.

Edited by pop_eye, 10 January 2013 - 22:28.

[adrianc1982]

Didn't we have NA epg support in enigma1? Maybe you can have a look at it...

We also had epg in a database in the enigma1 lifetime. So that may be a link too...

I also guess plugins use proper function calls to get epg data. So you might create stub function that mimic the old behaviour but get the data from the new source. If not, such plugins must be considered bad code and be ignored.

Yes we do have north america epg on enigma1, and it works GREAT. Thanks for your reply, this is the kind of reply that really was looking for, I was going to look at the source code of enigma1 to see how its done and how it can be implemented on enigma2, im still learning the basics of c++ but i have experience in other programming languages so I hope i can really start messing around with the actual code in a month or two. Do you have any links I could use?

[adrianc1982]

Actually there are some free sources you can grab the information from. One of the projects is called mc2xml and hemi
knows much more about it. Some of them are free and some you need to pay for.

Taking the time to setup your xmlimport is much better spent then adding a hack into openpli code.
I have tested it and while it is looking nice at first glance the timers do not work always, I love testing new things
for me is always a challange. I will be happy to try your implementation since you have already tested sifteam mod.

Bringing a "hack" in the main openpli code is not sometihng I wish to do. You also need to increase the number of tables
and the sections enigma is reading from and remove the UTF8 code which is breaking it.

Well it doesnt have to go into the main code. Just have a modded image for anyone that wants to use it, and believe me there are thousands of users in north america that would love to load a modded open pli image because we dont have EPG working thats why. We dont have the option thats the main problem

Edited by adrianc1982, 10 January 2013 - 22:33.

[mirakels]

ehr, this is the enigma1 tree: https://openpli.svn....svnroot/openpli