4 replies to this topic

[Superor]

Hello Niall and everyone else!

I live in Greece and I am a very loyal user of Windows Media Center since before Vista... I have installed Windows 7 some months ago, and I used the inband data for EPG until now... However, I thought about giving BSEPG a try, since I found XML data better than those the channels have. So, I installed and subscribed to the program and I am generally satisfied!

However, I am really confused about the genre mapping functions... In my xml source the genres are simple words, and as I have seen, MC's MXF file format uses only categories and subcategories for genres... So, what's all about Movie, Series and Sports, or General, Primary and Secondary? Moreover, I found out about the translation xml file and I now have Greek genre names, however some of the genres are really irrelevant here in Greece (like AFL or Rugby Union, or Collectibles) and there are other ones, pretty common here that I would very like to use! (Such as Volleyball, or Magazino, or Greek/Foreign Movie)

I tried to find if there are any customization options (even tried to add new genres in translation xml file), but it seems the genres are fixed in to the program, although WMC is more flexible and allows any name as genre! (at least as I have read in the MXF format specification)

Is there anything I can do?

Any help will be appreciated...

And Niall, thanks for a great software!

Andreas.

[Niall]

Hello Niall and everyone else!

I live in Greece and I am a very loyal user of Windows Media Center since before Vista... I have installed Windows 7 some months ago, and I used the inband data for EPG until now... However, I thought about giving BSEPG a try, since I found XML data better than those the channels have. So, I installed and subscribed to the program and I am generally satisfied!

However, I am really confused about the genre mapping functions... In my xml source the genres are simple words, and as I have seen, MC's MXF file format uses only categories and subcategories for genres... So, what's all about Movie, Series and Sports, or General, Primary and Secondary? Moreover, I found out about the translation xml file and I now have Greek genre names, however some of the genres are really irrelevant here in Greece (like AFL or Rugby Union, or Collectibles) and there are other ones, pretty common here that I would very like to use! (Such as Volleyball, or Magazino, or Greek/Foreign Movie)

I tried to find if there are any customization options (even tried to add new genres in translation xml file), but it seems the genres are fixed in to the program, although WMC is more flexible and allows any name as genre! (at least as I have read in the MXF format specification)

Is there anything I can do?

Any help will be appreciated...

And Niall, thanks for a great software!

Andreas.

Hi Andreas,


To better explain how this works - there are basically two sets of categorization which happen in the EPG.

One is in the free form list of Parent/Child Category Names - which are what is used for places in the Media Center UI like Search/Browse by Category as well as information that gets displayed when you look at the Program Information. This is the list you've been editing when you change the names to Greek (in the .xml file).

The other type of categorization is a set of On/Off 'Flags' which are 'known' settings common across all setups + languages - such as IsMovie, IsSeries, IsDocumentary, IsNews etc - and you don't need to provide any translation for these (as Media Center already knows these for each language). These flags are also important as they are what drives things like the colour coding in the EPG (if enabled) and also tell Media Center how to handle or offer things like series recording (ie. if a show is marked as IsMovie - it knows there aren't multiple episodes, makes it come up in the Movies Guide section and also tells the EPG to search the Movies Info database for artwork/information when you show the program information dialog).

In terms of what you are trying to achieve there - editing the list of the translated freeform genres is the way to go (and providing Greek Translations). At the moment (off the top of my head) - I don't think I built in the ability to add brand new genres here sorry - so you are limited to what is there. What you can do however - is to re-use some of the child genres you think will never be used (ie. AFL Football) and in the translation provide the one you wanted (ie. a greek translation for Volleyball) - and then remember this when you are setting up the genre mapping in BSEPG (it will probably still show you the word 'AFL Football' in this UI - but if you remember that maps to Volleyball then you can map it accordingly).

As per above - you can't modify the other list (of fixed on/off flags) as these are a hardcoded list in Media Center structure - however as mentioned Media Center will translate/handle these for you.

Hope that helps!

cheers

Niall

[Superor]

OK, I think I got it... if you can, then, tell me if the below is true:

So, General, Primary and Secondary are just three different slots for us to add categories for a program, or not? Is there a specific meaning for primary and secondary? And Movie, Series and Sports are just three more slots to be added when the flags "isMovie", "isSeries" and "isSports" are set... Isn't that right?

However, please consider allowing customization to the genres you have, even without a UI, by customizing the xml file! I am willing to pay more for this feature!

Also, something else (since I've got you here)... Series matching is great, but it ignores Greek characters! So, we had a talk show here called "ΣΚΑΪ Life" (SKAI Life) which the program thought it was the series "Life" (by the way, it is also broadcasted here!)


Thanks again,
Andreas.

[Niall]

OK, I think I got it... if you can, then, tell me if the below is true:

So, General, Primary and Secondary are just three different slots for us to add categories for a program, or not? Is there a specific meaning for primary and secondary? And Movie, Series and Sports are just three more slots to be added when the flags "isMovie", "isSeries" and "isSports" are set... Isn't that right?

However, please consider allowing customization to the genres you have, even without a UI, by customizing the xml file! I am willing to pay more for this feature!

Also, something else (since I've got you here)... Series matching is great, but it ignores Greek characters! So, we had a talk show here called "ΣΚΑΪ Life" (SKAI Life) which the program thought it was the series "Life" (by the way, it is also broadcasted here!)


Thanks again,
Andreas.

Hey - have you had a look at the Help file for BSEPG. In there the section 'Configuration of Big Screen EPG -> Genre Mapping Options' gives some good examples of what you are asking (I don't think I could explain it better here).

With regards to the genre setup - I've gone with an approach that allows for consistency for different languages (where a known set can be translated) - but haven't allowed for a 'dynamic' list of new genres to be added. I will definitely consider this in future version.

The proper Greek Series Names won't match anything in my supplied Series Database (I only have English language shows/artwork) - however will need to add some more code to stop it stripping those greek characters and matching with wrong show (which sounds like what is happening there). I will have to give this some more thought on how it would work - right now it's designed to detect/match show names which are written in different ways from different sources - so it works by stripping out all common words/prefixes etc + unrecognized letters and then doing a match (so it's doing a match on 'Life' in your example).

[Superor]

I had seen the help file, but I had somehow lost track of what it really said... I checked it now, and it makes more sense... However, it still doesn't say much about the difference of primary and secondary genre from general genre... Do they behave differently? It seems to me they don't... Something like "Genre1", "Genre2", "Genre3"... (Sorry for repeating the questions, I just want to be sure!)

As for the greek characters, that's only what I want! Just stop stripping greek characters!


Thank you for your patience!