Tvheadend

TVHeadend includes the Huffman decoder for UK DVB-T2 and DVB-S (Freeview and Freesat), and for me it 'just works'.

Yup, my EPG listings include all the Freeview HD channels. Sounds like Martin is using a strange version or configuration.

If it works for other people, I wonder what I could be setting up wrongly.

I've set it up twice: once using the default OSMC installation in NOOBS_v2_8_2.zip and once in the default Rasbian Stretch installation in same file, in the latter case using instructions in https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=201982

The build of TVheadend is Build: 4.2.6-34~g81717d98d (2018-09-15T02:11:25+0000) (from the About tab).

From memory, I think the operations I performed were:

Configuration | DVB Inputs | Networks
Add network: Type DVB-T
Give it a name (292e - the type of decoder)
Choose pre-defined muxes - UK-Bilsdale

Configuration | DVB Inputs | TV adaptors
Choose the DVB-T rather than DVB-C device
Enabled - tick
Choose the network 292e that I created above
Over the air EPG (this may already have been ticked)

Configuration | DVB Inputs | Muxes
Wait for the scan status to change to IDLE | OK
(I also had to add an extra mux for COM8 on 602 MHz which was missing from the predefined list - maybe someone needs to check the list)

Configuration | DVB Inputs | Services
Confirm that list includes all channels that I would expect
Map Services - Map All
Services dropdown seems to include all channels, including HD ones

Now when I go to
Electronic Program Guide (top level tab)
I see events for most DVB-T channels but only very occasional ones for channels in any of the DVB-T2 muxes.

The events are listed but have no title etc filled in. Compare image3 and 4: for BBC One HD and BBC One NE&C (SD) - they should have identical events.

It really is a nuisance that TVHeadend is badly let down by a naff list of events (programme, time, channel) in the EPG, rather than a proper grid of time-versus-channel. It should not be necessary to use Kodi (etc) as a front end to see a usable EPG list. It makes it very difficult to do a scan to see if the EPG is fully populated.

I've checked in Configuration | DVB Inputs | Services for a channel such as BBC ONE HD which should have full EPG entries and the Edit button shows the following (images 1 and 2, attached - scrolls of the same config page).

The

Is there anything else I should check or have done differently?

In Configuration -> Channel / EPG -> EPG Grabber Modules have you enabled the EIT: DVB Grabber and UK Freeview Grabber? On my system the Freeview grabber has priority 5 and the DVB one priority 1, though I don't know if that is the best choice.

Re the missing Mux, the scan tables are downloaded from https://github.com/tvheadend/dtv-scan-tables and updates are welcome.

That did the trick: I had DVB Grabber enabled but not UK Freeview Grabber. I didn't realise I needed to change that. I also turned off the ATSC grabber since it's not relevant in DVB countries like the UK - just in case it causes conflicts.

Many thanks for the help. I knew it would be something silly like that. It seems that there is a full set of listings for DVB-T2 channels now.

Scan table update: to the file https://github.com/tvheadend/dtv-scan-tables/blob/tvheadend/dvb-t/uk-Bilsdale append

[C37 COM8 HD]
DELIVERY_SYSTEM = DVBT2
FREQUENCY = 602000000
BANDWIDTH_HZ = 8000000
CODE_RATE_HP = 2/3
CODE_RATE_LP = NONE
MODULATION = QAM/256
TRANSMISSION_MODE = 32K
GUARD_INTERVAL = 1/128
HIERARCHY = NONE
STREAM_ID = 0
INVERSION = AUTO

It really is a nuisance that TVHeadend is badly let down by a naff list of events (programme, time, channel) in the EPG, rather than a proper grid of time-versus-channel. It should not be necessary to use Kodi (etc) as a front end to see a usable EPG list. It makes it very difficult to do a scan to see if the EPG is fully populated.

I'm glad you got your missing EPG entries sorted. But I disagree with you about the EPG format. I like the list format, with its filter mechanisms to let me filter by content and by channel etc. I find it's much easier to use that to find something in the TVH EPG than in a 'proper' grid-style EPG, by which I mean my Humax/Youview box. IMHO, Kodi's effort is even worse - I never use that to look for anything. So I think it's horses for courses and everybody is entitled to their own opinion.

I don't understand why you find it difficult to see if the EPG is fully populated. The blank lines you had seemed pretty obvious to me and you know how many channels there are.

I'm not saying TVH is perfect. I'd like to see the Broadcast Details box show more information, such as the channel, and buttons to change the display to the details of the next and previous items in the list would be useful.

Spotting overlaps is much harder with a list, and the list defaults to an entry in the past, rather than one (from an arbitrary channel) that is currently being shown. The list would be better if at least it was sorted primarily in time order and then within that in LCN order, rather than having channels in alphabetic order where the events have the same time.

Both formats have strengths and weaknesses. But ideally I think the user needs to be given a choice as to the format of the EPG.

One thing that would be very useful would be a means of parsing the "Subtitle" field, for situations like in the UK where it is often used both for the episode title and the plot summary. That's more for when you are automatically generating filenames and want to include an episode title, but not several sentences of plot summary in the filename :-)

At the moment I'm battling an unrelated fault which causes my USB hard drive to disconnect and then reconnect as a new /dev/sd<n> device, and then to fail to remount into /mnt/recordings. Some sort of weird permissions or link problem prevents two other solutions working: symbolic link or specifying the auto-mounted /media/pi/<ID> path to the device as the destination for recordings.

I'm lucky that I've got two DVB devices so I can set up parallel recordings in NextPVR on Windows and TVheadend on Pi while I'm testing and ironing out bugs. I just need to be careful of overlaps.

There's a tick box and drop-down box in EPG Grabber for parsing the subtitle field, etc.

Hard drives you should probably mount via its uuid (found by blkid on the disk partition).

The earliest programme in the epg list is one that's still showing, rather than one in the past. Unfortunately, the UK has time-limited channels so you often have numerous programmes at the top of the grid that are eight hours+ long saying the channel is not on air.

There's a tick box and drop-down box in EPG Grabber for parsing the subtitle field, etc.

Where exactly, please? I can't find it.

Try Config->Channel/EPG->EPG Grabber Modules.
You'll find the options on Over the Air EIT, UK Freesat, and UK Freeview. You may need to click "expert" in the "view level" menu bar.

It's only on recent (dev 4.3) releases though.

BTW: Which "Broadcast details" box did you mean?

For UK (and other markets), you can pay for "SchedulesDirect.org" xmltv listings, which provides extended information such as film ratings, actors, images, season/episode info, etc. It's around $20pa with a couple of weeks free trial to see if it's worth it (since xmltv config in any PVR can be very tedious).

It's only on recent (dev 4.3) releases though.

Ah, no use to me yet then. Thanks for the info; good to know it's coming.

BTW: Which "Broadcast details" box did you mean?

The one in the EPG. But the same would apply if there are any other similar.

For UK (and other markets), you can pay for "SchedulesDirect.org" xmltv listings, which provides extended information such as film ratings, actors, images, season/episode info, etc. It's around $20pa with a couple of weeks free trial to see if it's worth it (since xmltv config in any PVR can be very tedious).

Yeah, I'm not into subscriptions. Especially when there's an IMDB button already there, which I have to confess I've never used.

Ah, I realize what you mean now. You probably don't have channel icons set up which is why the info box is missing the channel name, since it's normally got the channel icon.

I can't remember exactly how to configure it with free channel icons (mine are set by xmltv), but a search on the forum might help.

That's right, I'm not into channel icons either - I don't want them, thanks. What I would like is the channel name. I don't see why the one would be conditional on the other?

There's a patch for the channel name and a "next" button so they should be in the next major release (sorry, features don't get generally get backported to stable, otherwise stable would be no different to unstable branch).

What I meant by my earlier comment is that since many people have channel icons, I imagine many didn't notice that the dialog didn't have channel name (since there's a large channel logo), and no-one has pointed it out before.

There's a patch for the channel name and a "next" button so they should be in the next major release (sorry, features don't get generally get backported to stable, otherwise stable would be no different to unstable branch).

That's great, many thanks. I appreciate the no new features in stable, and stability is what I want here. One of the purposes of my TVH setup is to act as backup for my Humax, which goes on the fritz sometimes.

What I meant by my earlier comment is that since many people have channel icons, I imagine many didn't notice that the dialog didn't have channel name (since there's a large channel logo), and no-one has pointed it out before.

Ah, that makes sense.

No entries for me either for the HD channels (Mendip transmitter), or at least very few.

Using OSMC on a Raspberry Pi 3 with TV Headend Add-on, which gives me version 4.2.4.

Maybe an update will fix it but in the meantime, this is my workaround:

From the web interface, go to Configuration -> Channel / EPG -> Channels. For each HD channel click Edit, then View Level: Expert. Set 'Reuse EPG from:' to the equivalent SD channel - for BBC ONE HD, choose BBC ONE West, etc.

Then on the EPG Grabber tag, click 'Trigger OTA EPG Grabber', then 'Re-run internal EPG Grabbers'.

Restart the Raspberry Pi.

Then you should have the EPG entries for the SD Channels populating the HD Channels guide. Close enough.

No entries for me either for the HD channels (Mendip transmitter), or at least very few.

Using OSMC on a Raspberry Pi 3 with TV Headend Add-on, which gives me version 4.2.4.

You don't say whether you enabled both grabbers suggested by Dave Pickles?

Then you should have the EPG entries for the SD Channels populating the HD Channels guide.

I just merge the two channels anyway, except for BBC1, and set the HD channel to higher priority.

Not got the option of EPG Grabber Modules (just the Trigger and Re-Tun tags). I understand that doesn't appear until V 4.3 and I have the latest I can get on OSMC until someone updates the repository.

In the meantime (unless I'm missing something), manually forcing each HD channel to use its corresponding SD channel EPG seems to work well enough.

I have 4.2.6 and that has the grabber modules.

Yes, under normal circumstances the EPGs will be the same. I don't know if there are differences in programme IDs for example.