Season and episode details

[icedaddative]

Does IceTV provide season and episode details: e.g. s01e01?

If so, I cannot find this information on:

1. the web based guide;
2. the iOS app; and
3. my Topfield 2400

Am I missing something, for example, do I need to install a TAP on the 2400 to see season and episode numbers?

My greatest wish is to have this info available.

Currently I go to the free Foxtel Guide app to obtain this information. It has always struck me as odd that I can get this information from a free source but not from the guide I pay a subscription for (unless, as hoped, I am missing something).

I am also interested to know whether the IceTV guide on either a HD HomeRun Connect or Plex DVR will display season and episode numbers? (I am considering this model for life after the Toppy 2400.)

Thanks

[prl]

The data for entries in the EPG entity "shows" has "season and "episode" fields.

For example:

Code: [Select]

{
  "id":"134259788",
  "series_id":"35397",
  "episode_id":"247021",
  "channel_id":"2690",
  "date":"0",
  "season":"10",      <<<< Here and
  "episode-num":"8",  <<<< here
  "start":"2017-09-16T13:30:00+00:00",
  "stop":"2017-09-16T14:15:00+00:00",
  "title":"Adam Hills: The Last Leg [R]",
  "subtitle":"Series 10: Episode 8 - Kevin Bridges",
  "desc":"Adam Hills, Alex Brooker & Josh Widdicombe are joined by comedian Kevin Bridges to pick over the week's biggest stories & answer your #IsItOk questions.",
  "icon":{"src":"http://images.icetv.com.au/ef29-b503-d661-b933.jpg","width":"859","height":"483"},
  "credits":{"actors":[{"name":"Adam Hills"}]},
  "category":[{"name":"Current Affairs",  "eit":"0x20"},  {"name":"Entertainment","eit":"0x30"}],
  "language":"English","country":"United Kingdom",
  "video":{"aspect":"16:9","colour":"YES","quality":"HDTV"},
  "previously-shown":{"start":"2017-03-22","channel_id":""},
  "subtitles":{"onscreen":"English"},
  "part_of_series":"Yes",
  "rating":"M"
}
Whether various pieces of software display it is up to them.

The subtitle field of the EPG sometimes contains that information if there isn't an episode name. E.g. Hard Quiz ‘Series 2: Episode 9’ or Get Krack!n ‘Series 1: Episode 5’.

[icedaddative]

Ok thanks prl.

The season and episode info is there (where available).

It would seem that IceTV is choosing to not display this on the web version of their guide and in the iOS app. I am interested as to why this is the case when other guides do (including free ones)?

You have accessed some code which displays all the feed info. Is there some way I could access that? Do I separately need to subscribe to the XML feed?

As to the Topfield 2400, I'll re-post in that section of the forum as to whether there is a way of displaying the season and episode numbers.

[prl]

...
You have accessed some code which displays all the feed info. Is there some way I could access that? Do I separately need to subscribe to the XML feed?
...

The bit of the EPG I posted is from the JSON data sent to a Beyonwiz T series. It's possible to get the Beyonwiz IceTV plugin to dump various bits of the IceTV data into its debug logs (it can all be done from the Beyonwiz's GUI, but how to do it is not well publicised).

The Beyonwiz T series doesn't display the season/episode data, either, and it would be non-trivial to get it to do so, because of the way its EPG is stored.

There is a description of the IceTV data format in http://developer.icetv.com.au/. There's a more detailed description of the format in http://developer.icetv.com.au/legacy/Home.html, but it's no longer kept up to date. In particular, its description of the season/episode format is now incorrect.

IceTV started up the newer version of the description (the one in http://developer.icetv.com.au/) a while ago, but it seems to have got stuck with the newer version not having as good descriptions of how things work and what the data fields are than the older data, and the older data is suffering from bit rot. Presumably it's a matter of finding the resources to complete the update.

[icedaddative]

Thanks prl

Going to the JSON data will be a bit beyond me. I appreciate you directing me to this. I tried to analyse the Topfield disk using a Transmit mount but couldn't find the EPG data.

Unless there is a TAP unveiling the s00e00 data, and because you have indicated Beyonwiz doesn't display it my days of using a like PVR are coming to an end. (I had hoped the BW T series might hold the key).

It could be that the HD Homerun might display the data, and possibly in Plex DVR, but again it's not easy to find information about this.

[prl]

If your goal is simply to order the episodes in time, then the Beyonwiz T series puts a recording time timestamp in the filename (at the beginning so it's easy to sort on).

Of course, that will only work if the time of recording follows the season and episode number.

[IanL-S]

I tried to analyse the Topfield disk using a Transmit mount but couldn't find the EPG data.

The EPG data is stored on Partition 0 of Toppys; normal ftp access on Toppys is limited to the data partition, Partition 1. It is possible to see what is on partion 0 (without taking the HDD out) but how to do so is beyond my knowledge. You could try askin on the oztoppy Forum: https://oztoppy.forumchitchat.com/

Ian

[Daniel Hall at IceTV]

The Topfield PVR's use V2 of our legacy IceLink API and the Season and Episode number information was not added until V3 of that API.

Similarly the API in use by our smartphone apps doesn't include the season and episode numbers.

We will look at adding it to our website.

I can confirm that it is available in our current RESTful API and that is the example that prl posted above, this is used by the Beyonwiz T Series PVR's, the Humax 2Tune (which does use this information in recordings) and this API is what the Plex feed is based on.

The Plex DVR definitely uses and displays this information.

[icedaddative]

Thanks Daniel and everyone for your help.

It would be great if season and episode numbers could be added to the website.

The availability of this info in Plex sways me to move to it, though I'm aware it is beta and there have been many issues. I wonder though whether a lot of those issues arise due to inadequate EPGs (i.e. not using quality services such as IceTV). So I'd like to use IceTV with Plex.

I wonder if there could be a category for Plex in this forum?