Windows Media Centre in UK - some channels' listings are missing

[NY]

Does anyone (in the UK) still use Windows Media Centre to record TV
programmes?

If so, have you found a workaround for a few channels (eg Film 4+1, Talking
Pictures TV, Channel 4+1 HD, 4seven HD) having "No data available" in the
Guide?

I've done a Tasks | TV | Guide | Get Latest Guide Listings but this makes no
difference.

It looks as if these channels do not appear in the channels for which
listings are downloaded. If I do Tasks | TV | Guide | Edit Channels and
scroll down to a channel with no listings (eg 81 Talking Pictures TV) and
select it and do Edit Listings, I see a list of channels but Talking
Pictures TV is not in the list.

I'm sure at one time there was an option to set a given channel to use the
broadcaster's listings in the Freeview datastream instead of the downloaded
listings from BDS, for just this eventuality, but I can't find it now and
nothing relevant is coming up when I Google for "Use listings from
broadcaster".

It should be nice to be able to schedule programmes to be recorded from
these channels, but without anything in the guide it's a bit of a problem.

There's definitely something a bit weird because I can't even add a manual
"Time and channel" event for 81: it lets me define channel, times, date etc
but when I click Save, nothing is added to the list of events whereas it is
for other channels.

I can definitely receive the channel because I can tune to it in WMC and I
can make a manual recording by pressing the Record button while watching.

This is on Windows 7 Home Premium with a PCTV 291e DVB-T2 tuner.

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

In message <xtmdnXuvIqOTBovL...@brightview.co.uk>, NY

<m...@privacy.net> writes:
>Does anyone (in the UK) still use Windows Media Centre to record TV
>programmes?

[]

>scroll down to a channel with no listings (eg 81 Talking Pictures TV)
>and select it and do Edit Listings, I see a list of channels but
>Talking Pictures TV is not in the list.

[]

>There's definitely something a bit weird because I can't even add a
>manual "Time and channel" event for 81: it lets me define channel,
>times, date etc but when I click Save, nothing is added to the list of
>events whereas it is for other channels.
>
>I can definitely receive the channel because I can tune to it in WMC
>and I can make a manual recording by pressing the Record button while
>watching.

[]
I can't find a channel 81; nothing between 74 (VIVA) and 120 (CBBC). Or
Talking Pictures TV on any other number. [SD FreeView box; good signal.]
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

... each generation tends to imagine that its attitude to sex strikes just
about the right balance; that by comparison its predecessors were prim and
embarrassed, its successors sex-obsessed and pornified. - Julian Barnes, Radio
Times 9-15 March 2013

[Andy Burns]

NY wrote:

> It looks as if these channels do not appear in the channels for which
> listings are downloaded.

I've heard problems started when they changed the EPG data provider,
someone in another group (who works for MS) seems to think it won't get
much priority ...

[UnsteadyKen]

In article: <hGjjxWH3...@soft255.demon.co.uk>

J. P. Gilliver (John) says...

> I can't find a channel 81; nothing between 74 (VIVA) and 120 (CBBC). Or
> Talking Pictures TV on any other number. [SD FreeView box; good signal.]
>

You wouldn't, it is transmitted as part of the Com 7 HD Mux, you need a
Freeview HD DVB-T2 receiver to view it.
http://www.a516digital.com/p/com7-and-com8.html


--
Ken O'Meara

[Paul Ratcliffe]

On Thu, 8 Oct 2015 21:31:21 +0100, UnsteadyKen
<unsteadyk...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> I can't find a channel 81; nothing between 74 (VIVA) and 120 (CBBC). Or
>> Talking Pictures TV on any other number. [SD FreeView box; good signal.]
>>
> You wouldn't, it is transmitted as part of the Com 7 HD Mux

It's not an "HD" mux. Obvious really. It's a DVB-T2 mux.

[NY]

"Andy Burns" <usenet....@adslpipe.co.uk> wrote in message
news:FJ-dnXfSjvWtIovL...@brightview.co.uk...

Ah maybe some of the recently-added channels haven't been added (and perhaps
won't be added) to the set which BDS provides and which WMC downloads
periodically.

Odd that there doesn't seem to be an option to use the broadcaster's
listings (which *do* include Talking Pictures - I checked with TSReader) in
place of BDS's for a channel that doesn't have listings. I'm sure it used to
be there even as recently as a few months ago. Odd, also, that a Google for
"Windows Media Center/Centre use broadcaster's listings" doesn't bring up
any matches except a few mentions from several years ago - nothing about
"where has this feature gone?".

[NY]

"Paul Ratcliffe" <ab...@orac12.clara34.co56.uk78> wrote in message
news:slrnn1dvmk...@news.pr.network...

Sorry, I should have said that you need a DVB-T2 decoder to receive it.

Yes, it's transmitted as MP4 rather than MPEG, even though it's only
reduced-SD (544x576 rather than 720x576).

Interestingly, my DVB-T2 decoder (PCTV 292e) is seen as a DVB-T device in
all software that can talk to it (Windows Media Centre, VLC, TSReader); if
in VLC/TSReader I try to define it as DVB-T2, it is not detected but if I
lie and say it's a DVB-T device, it *is* detected.

I discovered the other day that VLC can record a complete multiplex if you
specify its UHF frequency, and then can play back any of the channels in
that mux after the event. It generates a big file (eg 375 MB for a recording
of about 90 seconds from the HD multiplex) but then it is recording data at
a rate of about 30 Mbit/sec!

[Brian-Gaff]

Well talking pictures and film4+1 are not on the sd listing at all, so they
either do not exist or they are this new breed of channel an SD which is
sent out on an hd multiplex.
Brian

--
From the Sofa of Brian Gaff Reply address is active
Remember, if you don't like where I post
or what I say, you don't have to
read my posts! :-)
"NY" <m...@privacy.net> wrote in message
news:xtmdnXuvIqOTBovL...@brightview.co.uk...

[Ant]

On Thu, 8 Oct 2015 17:34:37 +0100, "NY" <m...@privacy.net> wrote:

>I'm sure at one time there was an option to set a given channel to use the
>broadcaster's listings in the Freeview datastream instead of the downloaded
>listings from BDS, for just this eventuality, but I can't find it now and
>nothing relevant is coming up when I Google for "Use listings from
>broadcaster".

This was baffling me too, and like you I was Googling around trying to
find where that option had gone, to no avail.

But I've just cracked it. It's because Talking Pictures TV is on a
DVB-T2 multiplex. In WMC, channels on T2 multiplexes don't seem to
show the 'Use listings from broadcaster' option. I'm guessing this is
as a result of the encryption of guide data for channels on T2
multiplexes (as lobbied for by the BBC, and enforced via the Freeview
HD standard.)

I can't check at the moment, but the last time I looked, it appeared
that this encryption of EPG data (intended to 'protect' HD broadcasts
by making it impossible to sell a receiver which did not have the
necessary decryption keys, which would only be given by the BBC to
compliant manufacturers who promised to encrypt the FTA transmissions
when stored on disc, and other such pointless tomfoolery) is
apparently also being used against SD channels on a DVB-T2 mux. Which
is clearly not beneficial to consumers at all, and not within the
terms of the original request to Ofcom for this encryption to be used
purely for the purpose of 'securing' HD content. (A token move at
best, given that the actual video and audio is transmitted entirely
unencrypted in the first place.)

From a WMC perspective, there are some ways around this - it is
possible to use tools like EPG Collector to (manually) collect a full
Freeview EPG, and then 'insert' it into Media Center. (I've done this
before with satellite listings, haven't tried it yet for Freeview but
there's no reason why it shouldn't work.) That might be one way around
the problem, at least for the moment. I'll need to experiment some
more...

--