Free Working Vista EPG Setup that Works

[Neilwa]

Having just completed the setup of my new VISTA Media Centre, and having found several threads concerning the EPG unanswered, here is a description of how Free-EPG and Oztivo has been working for me. The following basic instructions list the successful proceedure after weeks of trying many combinations and making sure everything works properly. My old notes below are now not needed (to which many of the problems cited by people in this thread refer to) but I've left them for historical purposes.

BASIC INSTRUCTIONS THAT WORK:
1. Log on as Administrator. Disable mcupdate in the scheduled tasks. Go to Control panel > System & Maintenance > Admin Tools> Task Scheduler. From the Task Scheduler Library pane, select Media Centre>mcupdate and click disable in the Actions pane. Restart your computer.
2. Install the Keyguard service by Simuant http://www.simuants.com/download/ant...ny_1_00_00.zip then restart your computer. (Thanks must go to Simuant and EPGStream for this)
3. Register with FREE-EPG. Go to http://www.epgstream.net/FreeEPG/tabid/54/Default.aspx and click Register. They will email you your Username details and a verification code. You need to use the verification code when you log into their website and complete the Register/Setup process.
4. Once you have successfully registered with FREE-EPG, install the free EPG grabber. Go to http://www.epgstream.net/FreeEPG/XPM...6/Default.aspx and download the Free-EPG Setup and run the Setup. You must ensure you have Internet Explorer for it to work. Use your registered name and activation code to complete the install. Close Media Centre and start it again.
5. In Media Centre, set up your guide by going to Tasks>Settings>TV>Guide>Setup Guide Listings. Enter the postcode of the major transmission city that services your area. Services will be scanned and you should then be given several guide selections (e.g. Oztivo, Free-EPG, IceTV...). Select Oztivo (considered to be the best free guide for program detail and usually having 4 to 7 days of programs at any one time). After it completes the guide setup, close Media Centre, restart Media Centre and check to see how the channels and guide look. You may find Channel 1 shows no guide data yet shows channel 10. You can reassign guide to other channels by going to Tasks>Settings>TV>Guide>Add Listings to Channels. I had to force assign guide data to channel 1 (fo ten listings) and channel 2 (for ABVTV listings). A word of warning, it has been noted by other users that rearranging channel order and renaming channels has caused conflict under certain conditions when the guide is updated so I advise not to reconfigure the default scanned channels beyond reassigning guide data.
6. Manually download latest guide listings by going to Tasks>Settings>TV>Guide>Get Latest Guide Listings. Check to see if any change to the guide. There will probably be no change, but this action will confirm whether you were successful in maintaining a guide setup.
7. Turn mcupdate back on in the scheduled tasks by following step 1 above, restart your computer and check media Centre and its guide.
8. To quote Epgstream, there is also an option to, "set your EPG download schedule too! Check out the "C:\Program Files\Simuant\Simuant Ant Colony\Configuration\Colonies\Windows Media Center\Ants.xml" for configuration."

As usual, any problems with this setup will be edited if noticed but I'm confident now that it has been working as it should - updating the guide automatically, preserving guide integrity and allowing mcupdate to perform as it was intended to.


PAST OLD INSTRUCTIONS: (Not required now - only reference)
If you choose to install Simuant as mentioned in point 6, to do it after you temporarily disable mcupdate in point 7.

1. Go to http://www.epgstream.net/FreeEPG/tabid/54/Default.aspx and click Register. They will email you your Username details and a verification code. You need to use the verification code when you log into their website and complete the Register/Setup process.

((2. Go to Oztivo and register here http://minnie.tuhs.org/twiki/bin/vie...kiRegistration It's been brought to my attention that you don't have to register with Oztivo if you already do point 1 above. However, if you decide to change grabbers later (e.g. to Bladerunner etc...) then you'll probably need Oztivo registration. FREE-EPG should take Oztivo listings according to the postcode/region you entered when you register with FREE-EPG. Compared to the Free-EPG listings, the Oztivo listings are available for all states and many regions and they provide individual program detail write-ups. Make sure you set your Oztivo preferences so the Oztivo server knows what it has to provide your grabber with - use this page to get to the Preferences http://minnie.tuhs.org/twiki/bin/view/TVGuide/MCE ))

3. Once you are registered with Free-EPG (and Oztivo if you wish), you are ready to install the free EPG grabber Free-EPG. Go to http://www.epgstream.net/FreeEPG/XPM...6/Default.aspx and download the Free-EPG Setup and run the Setup. Be sure to select your region and Oztivo for your listings source. I'm in SA and it automatically configured all SA TV and time zones.

4. As Administrator Windows logon and within Media Centre, go to the TV Settings and Scan for services then see whether the channels were assigned automatically the way you would like in the Assign Channels. I found I had to force the Digital Ten and ABC TV listings to the 1 and 2 channels even though they looked like they were being picked up but weren't.

5. Exit Media Centre and restart your rig or, prior to restarting (incase Media Centre resets the guide after a restart) install Keguard as per point 6 and diable mcupdate as per point 7, then restart.

For me, everything was there perfectly.

6. Finally, after a few days, I noticed the EPG was not automatically updating. When i went to download the guide manually, Windows Media Centre told me that I didn't have it set up. This seems to confirm the problems others have been having. As of 12th March 2007, after reading extensively the forums, no one has been able to specifically identify the primary cause(s), however there have been 4 suggested "fixes";
1) To simply reinstall FREE-EPG using its Repair function then rescanning for services in MC and assigining the guide. But you'd have to do this regularly - maybe even twice a day in the case of some users!
2) To install Keepkey (has proved to be unstable for some users)
3) To disable MC Update and assign read only status to MC Prefs (complex and not proven, some people are still having issues).
4) To install Keyguard service by Simuant at http://www.simuants.com/download/ant...ny_1_00_00.zip To quote Epgstream, there is also an option to, "set your EPG download schedule too! Check out the "C:\Program Files\Simuant\Simuant Ant Colony\Configuration\Colonies\Windows Media Center\Ants.xml" for configuration."

7. Disable the mcupdate task. Go to Control panel > Task Scheduler. From the Task Scheduler Library pane, select Media Centre>mcupdate and click disable in the Actions pane.

I arrived at this conclusion after several days of trial (performing dozens of usage variations such as sleep/wake/restart/manual guide download etc....) I notice that the Simuant fix failed at a particular point (e.g. restarting from shutdown immediately after a mcupdate task has been completed then attempting to immediately download latest guide listings manually) causing Media Centre to return the error - No guide listings for your region and prompting to setup the guide again. Of course, if this happens, you have to re-start FREE-EPG program and select Repair. Then you have to start Media Centre and select Tasks>TV>Guide and run the guide setup, putting in the postcode for the main transmission city that services your suburb/town, select a guide provider (Oztivo in my case) then rescan for services. The guide will come back and all your scheduled programs will still be there without having to reassign. After a restart, the guide was still there and I was still able to download guide listings manually.

I chose to install Simuant's Keyguard as it was recommended by EPGStream and I did not find anyone posting errors/problems regarding it since it was made available over a month ago (8/2/07) but when I tried to run it and click repair, after the experience noted in 7 above, I got the error message 2869. I have reported this to EPGstream. Will keep this issue posted.

I also noted that my machine failed to record a program one day because Windows woke to a request for licensed Product Key to be re-entered. I was puzzled by this and thought it may have something to do with mcupdate task being disabled. Hence the reason for the above revised instructions which turn mcupdate back on but only after things have been done in a specific order that I have learnt by trial and error.

After much trial and error, I have it working perfectly, updating automatically. The new instructions are posted at the beginning of this post.

[kerr1602]

Hi Neilwa,

Sorry this maybe a stupid question but how or were did you download Oztivo listings because I can't seem to find it or do I have to do the ISO image CD and boot off it to configure? Also did Vista Media Centre dectect your TV cards? Also do have foxtel?

Cheers

Rach

[Neilwa]

Hi Kerr1602,

This page explains how to register and set up with Oztivo so you get the listings according to your region and time zone. http://minnie.tuhs.org/twiki/bin/view/TVGuide/MCE Sorry, I should have put that link in my original post. I've since edited the original post to take it into account. No CD or images required. Instead of using BladerunnerPro3.5 (sorry Monster, it crashed on my Vista - some people have had some success with BladerunnerPro3) use FREE-EPG as the grabber. I loved Bladerunner for MCE2005 and might have to go back to V3 if nothing better and/or FREE-EPG creates problems.

Hopefully you'll be able to get it working by following their step by step instructions. Basically, after you register with them, your config settings on the Preferences page, held by them on their server, feed your grabber (e.g. FREE-EPG) automatically when the grabber wants it.

As far as Media Centre detecting your cards go, that is an essential element after first installing your hardware - that is, Windows should detect your tuner card(s) and then the drivers should install automatically or via you directing the install to where the drivers are (e.g. on CD). Now, there aren't a lot of working drivers available for Vista at the moment. I decided to buy a new Pioneer DreamVision rig with most of the technical stuff sorted out. However, even they are waiting about another month for drivers to be completed for 2 x dual HD/SD cards - thereby enabling 4 tuners. So, if those guys are having trouble getting 4 tuners to work under Vista then little old us will too. So, in the meantime I'm testing it's entire functioning with the 2 tuners and have been promised an onsite upgrade to 4 tuners when they come out next month. I've only had the rig for 2 days so far but the EPG and sleep/recording modes all functioning well.

I'm not up to speed with Foxtel integration and I don't have Foxtel but the Free-EPG site says - "Cable and Satellite guides now available! - Tuesday, November 28, 2006New guide feeds for FOXTEL Digital, Optus TV and AUSTAR are now available thanks to the guys from ozTiVo! Never miss your favourite shows with Media Center ... especially if you don't have FOXTEL iQ!"
. I'm amazed at the free Internet streaming available in the new Vista Media Centre - gollygosh even a Comedy Central type area with streaming shows and free!

So far I'm keeping my eye on how the guide is behaving - e.g. updating, scheduling recordings and integrity after sleeps and restarts. Will keep you posted.

[Neilwa]

Please note that i have updated my first post with Point 6. :-)!

[juzdownunder]

This is really bugging me, I used this post to install FreeEPG using OZTivo listings, used the guide, set up some series recordings, all ok.

Then after rebooting, sure enough the guide is gone, and trying to set it up again gets the good old "you can't use a guide in this region". So i uninstalled FreeEPG and re-installed, but keep getting the message about not being allowed to use a guide.

I notice since I first tried your edit regarding this stuff, but the problem is, even after 'repairing' or even un/re-installing FreeEPG i can't get MC to let me use the guide again....argh...will keep trying.

[Neilwa]

Hi juzdownunder.... you've posted at the same split time that i added point 6 above. Hope it helps you out. BTW, I am into my third day with it working OK - and it was good to note in my case that the recording scheduling was not affected when i had to rescan and install Simuant's fix - but I will keep things posted here just in case!

[Matt]

Nielwa,

Just letting you know I'm using FreeEPG and the simuant app and my channel 7 did eventually go bung. Took about 4 weeks from the first install. So far I don't believe there is a 100% working solution.

Cheers,

Matt.

[juzdownunder]

Thanks, i spotted your point 6 edit after posting my reply, so i've edited accordingly. I'm posting this from my HTPC, having just done a "repair" of FreeEPG, and run through the guide setup once again, still says that the guide is unavailable when i use my postcode. I'm really ****ed now that I can't get the guide back at all.

[juzdownunder]

Ok, after trying numerous things, I found the only way to get Vista to allow me to set up the guide was to install the simuant software mentioned elsewhere, then run through the whole guide setup again. I now have a working guide, simuant and i've disabled the mcupdate scheduled task. Fingers crossed!

My next task is to find out how scheduled recordings work in relation to the HTPC being in standby mode...

[coma]

Ok I may be way off the mark - but here goes.

I understood that registering with Oztivo allowed you to select your specific guide requirements eg exactly which fta stations and foxtel options you had. This was used in the Bladrunner solution because you specifically entered your Oztivo registration details in Bladerunner setup.

Under FreeEPG it selects a generic Oztivo feed based on your postcode and doesnt - at least I didnt think so - allow you to grab the guide based on your Oztivo registration.

I hope i am wrong. If not then the bit about registering with Oztivo, Minnie.tuhs etc wont do anything.

Coma.

[Astrotoy7]

I use the Oztivo feed as well, but dont have a separate oztivo reg, that I know of!

I use simuants keyguard, which I installed *after* free epg. I get updates every saturday or so, but I intermittently get the SBS and SEVEN blues. Im not sure what is causing that, I leave it be until it starts annoying me sufficiently that i tidy it up in guide settings.

annoying to be sure, but hey - ya gets what ye peays fer, so Im not going to whine incessantly about it.

astro