TVHeadend, OTA, PVR & EPG questions

Help and Support Vero 4K / Vero 4K +
1

Hi,

Since updating to Kodi 19, I’ve been unable to consistently get my EPG working. In the past, I was using TVH and a script called zap2epg that would grab info from https://tvlistings.zap2it.com/ and pass it off to TVH.

I haven’t completely given up on zap2epg, but I’m having such problems, I’m thinking I might have to explore other options. Assuming there are any.

I have a HDHomerun duo that gets the over the air signal from the exterior antenna. I obviously also have a Vero4K.

What I want to be able to do is have the EPG work, preferably with info from zap2it.com as well as to be able to pause/rewind live tv and record shows.

Are there any options, especially with extensive How-to’s, that might meet my needs?

2

IIRC someone else had an issue with zap3epg recently. Have a good search through this forum.

3

@grahamh Yes, that was me.

4

:man_facepalming: …

7

I use zap2it, with tvheadend and have had no epg problems.
I actually have 2 scripts, one which calls zap2it using just the zip code, and another where I call it with a username/password (where I configured the account for a different location to pick up some stations that aren’t listed in my zip code for some reason)

How are you calling it?

/usr/bin/perl /home/hts/zapit-OTA/zap2xml.pl -Z 12345 -Y lineupId -o zapit-OTA.xml -c zapit-OTA/zapcache -T -e -d 7 -A -M -S 2 -D >> "${LOG}"

I’m calling it like this (12345 is the zip code) to generate the xml, and then call the following shell script as root (need to be root to dump data into the tvheadend socket)
eg, sudo /home/hts/import.sh zapit-OTA.xml

#!/bin/bash
EPG="$1"
cat "${EPG}" |  socat - UNIX-CONNECT:/home/hts/.hts/tvheadend/epggrab/xmltv.sock

I actually have it all running via cron-jobs a couple times a day.

8

I’m not sure I understand what you are saying @randallspicher - I can’t even get zap2xml to run. It just generates an error. I don’t know what is wrong and am sorely tempted to wipe out my Vero4k and reinstall everything.

9

Well, in the end I wiped my Vero4k and reinstalled OSMC. Unfortunately, it did not help as zap2epg still generates an error.

Log is at https://paste.osmc.tv/kizebezapu

@randallspicher your info looks promising, but I don’t understand how to implement what you are describing to my own situation.

10

I think I got confused. it seems you are using the zap2epg kodi plugin. I was referring to the zap2xml perl script, which is a script to fetch the epg data, which can then be uploaded in to tvheadend directly.
(in my case, it runs on my file server, which is where I have my hauppage tuner card, and where tvheadend is running)

That being said, the mechanism I use should work just fine if you run tvheadend on the vero or a pi, but you’d need to set it up outside kodi.

BTW, you can get the perl script here: from tvheadend,org

11

@randallspicher Sorry, I must have missed this post. From what I’ve read on github, zap2xml and zap2epg are both by the same author, though zap2epg is the most current version.

I don’t mind working outside of Kodi to perhaps use zap2xml, but, if possible, I’ll need pretty step by step instructions on how to do so.

In my case, I have TVH on the Vero4K, file storage (for recordings and stuff) are on a NAS and the tuner is a Silicone Dust HDHomerun that is connected to an outdoor antenna.

12

I’m using a different, unrelated xap2xml.
The one I am using is a perl script, which has been around forever. The one you are looking at is a python script. I’m not sure if the python one is a rewrite of the perl script, or an independent endeavor.