nxtvepg
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Developers and alpha testers download page
This page lists the latest updates for the nxtvepg software package. The software which is available here is only intended for developers and alpha/beta testers. If you're searching for the regular release visit the download page.
The releases on this page include alot of internal consistany checks and produce plenty of debug output. Hence they should be used for evaluation only. Please do not redistribute.
On this page you find:
nxtvepg 2.9.0 development line
The following packages contain a snapshot of the ongoing development on nxtvepg. Please refer to the changelog at the bottom of this page, or the discussion forum for background information.
nxtvepg pre-release 2.9.0pre3 (May 3rd 2009)
Details on changes in this and older releases is available in the changelog.
- Sources: nxtvepg-2.9.0pre3.tar.gz (apx 1.7 MB)
- Win32 executable: nxtvepg-2.9.0pre3-win.zip (apx. 2.5 MB)
- To enable use of vendor supplied WDM drivers you need an additional DLL which was developed separately by Gérard Chevalier. Download from below.
Older releases and associated files may still be available in the pre-release data directory
WDM Support for nxtvepg
The WDM interface library was developed by Gerard Chevalier in 2004-2005. Gerard has stopped development on this project since then. The library is currently supported by Tom Zoerner (as far as possible)
The following package contains the last release of the WDM interface library for Windows. It allows Windows users to optionally use drivers supplied by their card's manufacturer instead of the one which comes with nxtvepg.
Main goal of development is to help Windows users who cannot use nxtvepg at all because their TV card is not supported by nxtvepg's driver. This is because currently VBI acquisition in the Windows port of nxtvepg is based exclusively on the DScaler "dsdrv4" driver, which supports only cards based on Conexant BT878, CX23881 or Philips SAA7134 (and even among these only the ones with supported tuners.) Cards with chip sets from vendors which do not disclose specifications to support open source driver implementations cannot be supported this way.
WDM support is useful for Windows users only. UNIX users need not look further.
Download latest release: July 23rd 2006
- Interface library: nxtvepg-wdm-dll-20060723.zip
- WDM Driver sources VBIAcqWDMDrvSrc081905.zip (Visual Studio 2002-V7)
Unpack the ZIP archive into the same directory as nxtvepg, i.e. the DLL should be in the same directory as nxtvepg.exe. Additional instructions see README-WDM.txt in the zip file.
Important note: To use the library you need version 70d of the Microsoft Visual C run-time library (i.e. msvcr70d.dll) For legal reasons it is not included here. There are however plenty of sources for it on the web, you can search for msvcr70d.dll with Google.
Known problems
The following bugs/open issues are already known:
- When initially selecting a WDM source in the TV card input configuration dialog, video source selection may not work (device is allegedly busy.) If that happens, just close the dialog with OK and open it again. After that the video input selection should work.
- TV channel/frequency conversion doesn't work for all channel tables yet.
If you live in Germany and have cable, you need to have a file named
VBIAcqWDMDrv.ini in the same directory as VBIAcqWDMDrv.dll with the
following two lines:
[Debug Behaviour] ForceRFInput=c
This file is already included in the package. - The EPG provider scan must be run in slow mode (you can enable this option at the bottom of the provider scan dialog window.) Even then some networks may appear duplicate in the scan. If your provider isn't found due to this, try running the scan again, or use a K!TV or DScaler channel table and move your provider's channel to the first position.
- Hauppauge PVR 250/350 cards are not supported yet.
Tests feedback
This section lists card and system combinations currently reported as "working".
- Leadtek WinFast TV2000XP Expert on Windows XP and Windows 2000
- Hauppauge WinTv PCI (Bt878 + Philips Tuner) on Windows XP
- Hauppauge WinTv Go on Windows XP
- Hauppauge WinTV PVR on Windows 2000
- Hauppauge WinTV PCI (new series with CX23881 chip) on W2K: works partly
Appearently due to a bug in the WDM driver apx. half of the teletext pages are lost; but if you're patient EPG reception is still possible. - Typhoon card "Art.No. 90031" with Philips capture chip (SAA7134) on W2K
- Almost any card with Brooktree Bt878 or Bt848 capture chip when using the free btwincap WDM driver.
If you have questions or want to provide feedback, please use the discussion forum.
Teletext EPG grabber
Currently a new grabber is under development which allows to extract programme listings from teletext pages. The intention is firstly to compensate for the loss of two German Nextview EPG providers (3sat and RTL2) and secondly to add more description texts to the EPG. In teletext, many networks have good descriptions not only for movies, but especially also for weekly magazines, daily soaps or current events. The output of the teletext grabber can be merged with Nextview EPG data with the help of XMLTV import.
Download latest release: October 9th 2008
Please refer to the Teletext EPG grabber page.
Change history
Changes between 2.9.0pre2 and 2.9.0pre3 (2009-May-03)
- Windows: A bug which caused nxtvepg to lock up during auto-detection of SAA7134/SAA7133 based TV cards was fixed.
- Windows: Bugs in the driver for TV cards based on the Philips SAA7134 capture chip and tuner TDA8275/TDA8290 was fixed which prevented TV channel changes with error message "No tuner found on I2C bus"
- Windows: handle power events (APM) to allow the system to enter standby even while EPG capture is enabled; re-enable capturing automatically upon resume
- A bug in TV channel identification via VPS/PDC was fixed which sometimes caused endless toggling of EPG on-screen-display in the TV application.
Changes between 2.9.0pre1 and 2.9.0pre2 (2009-Mar-29)
- The XMLTV export was changed to output channel identifiers which match those of other XMLTV grabbers as far as possible. Instead of part-numerical IDs such as "CNI1DC1" the export will now contain DNS-like names such as "ard.de" (the mapping is defined in file "xmltv-etsi.map")
- The daemon was extended to allow simple remote queries for its EPG acquisition status. A new command line option "-daemonquery" was added to perform such a query; a demo script was added to the manual to document the protocol and allow direct queries by other applications.
- An acquisition timeout was added upon stalled reception, even when working on a single provider. This will stop acquisition when working with command line option "-acqonce".
- A configuration option was added to the "Show/Hide" sub-menu which allows to hide the "Tune TV" button in the main window. (The automatic addition/hiding of this button upon attach of a TV application has been removed to allow for manual control.)
- MS Windows only: The warning "Tuner not found on I2C bus" will now be suppressed if the tuner is configured as "unknown" as this used to annoy users with partly unsupported TV cards.
Changes between 2.9.0pre0 and 2.9.0pre1 (2009-Mar-14)
- The "time scales" dialog was redesigned to allow scrolling vertically and horizontally (i.e. network list and the scales respectively.)
- Windows: The TV card configuration database was updated (imported from DScaler) and a fix for cards with TDA9875/TDA8290 tuner was merged.
- Two bugs affecting expire threshold handling were fixed, which prevented old programmes to be deleted from XMLTV files and kept expire time at zero for all merged databases.
- The handling of all-expired EPG databases was slightly improved by alloweing to make the expired programmes visible via the expire time filter setting.
- The "Tune TV" button in reminder message popup was enhanced to use the command specified by the user in "Configure -> Context Menu / Tune-TV"
- A bug in the protocol between nxtvepg daemon and GUI was fixed which sometimes led to dropped data on client side.
- The obsolete "-demo" command line option was removed. (XMLTV import can be used instead where no Nextview EPG is available.)
- Windows: The integrated Tcl/Tk library was upgraded to version 8.5.6 to benefit from bug-fixes and performance improvements since 8.5.0
Changes between 2.8.1 and 2.9.0pre0 (2008-Oct-12)
- Implemented a new command line option "-epgquery FILTER" which allows to restrict programmes during export via "-dump" (see manual.html)
- Consistency checks were added for incoming "inventory" data blocks to increase probability to catch transmission errors and prevent "ghost providers" or corrupted network lists
- Extended the EPG scan to include defective database files and providers with unknown TV channel frequency, so that a "remove provider" button is included for these too, although not actually scanned.
- Fixed the "refresh mode" scan to include a match between found and expected providers so that a "remove provider" button is added for "ghost" providers which don't match the ID of the actually transmitted EPG.
Copyright & Disclaimer
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but without any warranty; without even the implied warranty of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.