Hi, and welcome to the beta test for IceTV's EPG for Windows 7.
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What is this?This is a beta test, meaning that we need help from our users in getting the final touches working. Things may be broken or may not work at all. Things might work and then suddenly break. Your TV shows might not get recorded, your channel listing might get completely hosed, and you might even have to reinstall Windows 7 to get things working again. We'll of course avoid these problems as much as we can, but don't blame us if your significant other's favourite show doesn't get recorded and you cop the blame for it.

Needless to say, this should probably not be used for your primary TV recorder.
Who can use this?All IceTV subscribers are welcome to join. You'll need the User ID and password for your account. If you forgot your password, you can get it emailed to you
here.
What is the goal?To get the EPG working in Windows 7's Media Center at least as well as it does in the XP and Vista versions. Windows 7's Media Center has some nice new features, and we'll try to support them as best we can. The Interactive client will be updated for Windows 7 some time in the future. Right now we're concentrating on the guide data.
What's working now?- TV guide data for all regions.
- Automatic channel mapping for guide listings (although there may be a couple where we don't have the channel names quite right yet).
- Program attributes such as titles, descriptions, genres (categories), ratings, year, original air dates (on some programs), and indicators for movie, repeat, CC, and HD.
- Series and single recordings.
- Series and episode descriptions both displayed on the program details pages.
- Searching. Categories should show up right away, but searching by Title and Keyword takes some time for the data to be indexed by Media Center. See note further below about searching.
What's not working yet?- Cast list. On the program details pages, you can use the left and right arrow keys to move between the pages "synopsis", "actions", and "other showings". There's supposed to be a 4th page for "cast + crew", which probably only shows up on Movies. We've been told that this is currently broken in beta 1 of Win7, but has been fixed in a later release (which hasn't been released to the public as of yet).
Update: The cast list is now working also.
Setup Media Center FirstIf you just installed Windows 7, run through the Media Center setup before loading the IceTV guide data. We've had reports of problems when the IceTV guide data is loaded before scanning for channels in Media Center. Once it finds all your channels and you have your tuners and other hardware setup, then continue with these instructions.
DownloadDownload the file "icetv_win7_epg_2.zip" attached at the bottom of this post. This file contains the "webget.exe" program for downloading the guide data, and a batch file to run webget and load the data into MCE.
InstallUnzip the files to any directory on your hard drive. For example, "C:\IceTV" would be fine. Open the file "load_icetv_epg.bat" in Notepad and edit the following line, changing "USERID" to your User ID and "PASSWORD" to your password:
webget.exe "http://iceguide.icetv.com.au/cgi-bin/epg3/iceguide.cgi?op=mxfguide" -u USERID -p PASSWORD -o icetv_epg.mxfIf your Windows directory for Windows 7 isn't on the C drive, change the path "C:\windows\ehome" also.
Load the guide dataDouble-click the file "load_icetv_epg.bat". This will run webget to download the guide data and load it into MCE. This can be done with Media Center running or not, so there's no need to shut it down first.
Check the channel mappings for guide listingsIn Media Center, go to Tasks / Settings / TV / Guide / Edit Channels. Take a look at all the channel names. They should end with "-IceTV" when they're correctly mapped to IceTV listings. For example, if you have a channel with the scanned name "ABC1", it should show up here as "ABC1-IceTV". If it doesn't, see below for how to map it manually. Be aware that in some cases such as with regional channels, it might create a new channel that you don't actually have. For example, in Adelaide, 7 Digital can be on both 6 and 7, and you'll probably see "7 Digital-IceTV" for both of these channel numbers. If you only get a TV signal on channel 7, you'll want to uncheck 6 to hide it. If you're not sure, go to the TV guide (use the green button as as shortcut) and see if you actually have a TV signal on all the listed channels.
Manually map channel listings (if needed)If any of your channels aren't already mapped to the IceTV listings, you'll need to map them manually:
- First, make a note of the original channel name as it was scanned by Media Center.
- Then click the channel name to go to the settings page. For example, when mapping channel 2 for ABC1, the title of the settings page would be "Settings for 2 ABC1".
- Then click "Edit Listings" to go to the page titled "Channel 2 Listings".
- There should be a list of channel names in the lower right part of the screen. Scroll down until you find the channel name you're working on, but with "-IceTV" at the end of it. In this current example, we'd look for "ABC1-IceTV" (sometimes you have to scroll down further than you think, but they should be in alphabetic order unless you've clicked "Sort by Number" on the left side). If you don't find the one you need, then something's wrong. Skip down to the section below named "Help! It's not working!".
- If you find it, click to select it, and it should take you back to the page titled "Settings for 2 ABC1". On this page, look for the "Channel listing" and make sure the name still has "-IceTV" in it. In this example the "Channel listing" value would be "ABC1-IceTV". If it doesn't end in "-IceTV", try editing the listings again, and if it still doesn't work, skip down to the section below named "Help! It's not working!".
Important: If you have to manually map a channel to the IceTV guide listings, please post a message on this board to let us know what the
original scanned channel name was
before you mapped it. We'll use that to update our database, so the next person gets it mapped automatically.
Check the guideWhen all the channels look ok, go to the guide (use the green button as a shortcut) and check your listings. Hopefully you have good guide data for all your channels. If you need help, skip down to the section below named "Help! It's not working!". If it all looks good, celebrate by dancing on the nearest table, and then post a message in this board to let us know.
Tip: Disable EIT guide dataOnce you get the IceTV guide data working, you won't need (or want) the limited guide data that's sent over the air with digital channels. Here's how to disable it:
- Go to Tasks / Settings / TV / Guide / Edit Channels.
- Click one of the channel names that you've enabled with a check mark (for example: ABC1-IceTV).
- Click "Edit Listings", and then click "Disable Inband". Then click Save, and then Save again, to take you back to the Edit Channels page.
- Repeat for each enabled IceTV channel, then click Save on the Edit Channels page when done.
Tip: Setup automatic guide downloadsYou can use Win7's Task Scheduler to have the batch file run automatically to update the guide:
- In Windows 7, go to Start / Control Panel / All Control Panel Items / Administrative Tools / Task Scheduler.
- Click "Task Scheduler Library" on the left side of the window to list existing tasks.
- Click "Create Basic Task" on the right side of the window.
- Enter a name for the task, such as "Update IceTV Guide", then click Next.
- Leave the Trigger option set to "Daily" and click Next.
- Set a start time for the task. We usually recommend that the guide data be updated sometime after 1pm, but please do our servers a favour and pick some time other than exactly 1pm so everyone doesn't hit us at once.
Then click Next. - Leave the option "Start a program" selected and click Next.
- Click the Browse button and navigate to the directory where you saved the files you downloaded earlier. Select "load_icetv_epg.bat" and click Open. In the "Start in" box, type the directory again, so it's the same as where the file is located, then click Next. For example:
Program/script: C:\IceTV\load_icetv_epg.bat
Start in: C:\IceTV
- Check all the settings, then click Finish.
- You should then see your task in the list at the top. If not, make sure you have "Task Scheduler Library" selected on the left side of the window, and not "Task Scheduler (Local)".
- To edit the task's settings, double-click it in the list.
- To run the task manually, select it and then click "Run" on the right side.
Tip: Searching in Media CenterAfter loading new guide data, it may take some time before Windows indexes everything. Until that happens, searching in Media Center by Title or Keyword may not find what you want. You can either wait for Windows to re-index everything on its own schedule, or you can force it to re-index everything immediately:
- In Windows 7, go to Start / Control Panel / All Control Panel Items / Indexing Options.
- You should see "Windows Media Center" in the list of "Included Locations".
- Click Advanced, then click Rebuild, then click OK. This will rebuild the index and include all the latest guide data.
- When it says "Indexing complete" at the top, click Close, and then searching in Media Center should include all the latest data.
Tip: enable colours in the guideTo turn on different colours in the guide based on the show's category (Movie, News, etc.), go to Tasks / Settings / TV / Guide / Guide Page Options. Then enable the checkbox for "Apply colored backgrounds to shows, based on their category".
Help! It's not working!If something just isn't working, then, well, maybe you found a bug. It might be our bug, or it might be Microsoft's (remember that Win7 is still in beta too). Instead of using the normal support options on our web site, please post a bug report in this board and tell us everything you can think of that might help us (and other users) understand the problem. At a minimum, please include the guide region you're in (Sydney, Melbourne, etc.). If you're having trouble with channel mapping (which is the trickiest part of this whole process -- we feel your pain), let us know the original channel name as it was scanned by Media Center ("ABC1"), the channel number it's on (2), and what you're seeing (or not) when you try to map the listings to it. Details are good -- we love details -- we can't get enough of them.

Good luck!
Russell