TV Guide thumbnails - Printable Version

TV Guide thumbnails - Printable Version

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+---- Thread: TV Guide thumbnails (/showthread.php?tid=359645)

TV Guide thumbnails - NorthFrenchGuy - 2021-01-06

Hi, and thanks for this marvelous skin !

Two things I noticed in the TV guide when I switched to Amber from Estuary are :
1- Amber shows TV logos beside the channel name; I like that and Estuary doesn't show those;
2- Amber also shows TV logos besides the show description while Estuary display a show thumbnail.

Question is :
Is it possible to display that show thumbnail instead of the logo (which we already see besides the channel name) ?
Is there a specific parameter for that, or can I change something in the window xml file to acheive that ?

You can see what I mean in the image below - would very like to see the thumbnail instead of the big logo when I browse the guide.

RE: TV Guide thumbnails - bsoriano - 2021-01-06

(2021-01-06, 15:41)NorthFrenchGuy Wrote: Hi, and thanks for this marvelous skin !

Two things I noticed in the TV guide when I switched to Amber from Estuary are :
1- Amber shows TV logos beside the channel name; I like that and Estuary doesn't show those;
2- Amber also shows TV logos besides the show description while Estuary display a show thumbnail.

Question is :
Is it possible to display that show thumbnail instead of the logo (which we already see besides the channel name) ?
Is there a specific parameter for that, or can I change something in the window xml file to acheive that ?

You can see what I mean in the image below - would very like to see the thumbnail instead of the big logo when I browse the guide.

@NorthFrenchGuy , happy new year! Thank you for your kind words. This should be possible, I will add to my to-do. Most likely I will be able to include this in the next skin update.

Regards,

Bart

RE: TV Guide thumbnails - NorthFrenchGuy - 2021-01-06

WOW ! That was fast.

Will be looking forward to the next upgrade. Just so you know, that thumbnail is visible in Amber when you hit «Information» for the show :

Thanks and have a nice day.

RE: TV Guide thumbnails - bsoriano - 2021-01-06

(2021-01-06, 17:25)NorthFrenchGuy Wrote: WOW ! That was fast.

Will be looking forward to the next upgrade. Just so you know, that thumbnail is visible in Amber when you hit «Information» for the show :

Thanks and have a nice day.

@NorthFrenchGuy , unfortunately, it seems I spoke too soon. It looks like Kodi only makes the thumb for the programme available in the info dialog and the EPG, and puts the channel icon in its place for all other instances. I have found no way to directly access the thumb from the skin side of things. All I can do is show the same image that Estuary is showing (which I thought I was doing before). Just to confirm, are you on Leia or Matrix? Please let me know. Thanks.

Another thing I can do is to show, if you have tmdb helper enabled, whatever it finds for either (in that order) fanart or thumb for the programme. This will show fanart or posters for a lot of items, as long as they are on themoviedb. I don't know what else I can do about this. My research shows that before you could show the thumb using skin helper service, but since that is not being actively maintained any more, Amber does not use it as a dependency or for any functionality.

Regards,

Bart

RE: TV Guide thumbnails - Dumyat - 2021-01-06

@bsoriano Hi Bart,
You are correct, PVR Artwork can be a bit of a pain to code.
A lot of skins seem to use $INFO[Listitem.Icon] to fetch artwork on the guide screen. However, artwork will only ever be shown if the PVR backend or guide data actually supports it. If artwork is not supported or is available, then Kodi will display the channel icon as a fallback using this info label. Certainly, this is how Estuary is coded for the guide screen, but haven't looked at the Amber code.
The default artwork type is fanart, but NextPVR allows users to configure the Kodi addon settings if they want the standard fanart or prefer poster artwork instead. I'm pretty sure TVHeadend also allows users to configure the type of PVR Artwork they want, but I've I've never used that PVR addon so can't confirm.
If you only want to see artwork (if it's supported) and not see the channel icon as a fallback, then you should use the below info label:-

xml:
$INFO[ListItem.EPGEventIcon]

The above should also work fine on the PVRInfoDialog.xml.
Should you want to display PVR artwork on the OSD when playing a channel, then you can use:-

xml:
$INFO[Pvr.EPGEventIcon]

My own backend guide data does not support PVR Artwork, so I'm still making use of the Skin Helper Script on Matrix. It works well and does allow you to specify particular artwork types for different screens. Unfortunately, the webservice that was available in Leia does not seem to be working currently, so some PVR artwork items cannot be fetched (Recordings, Timers and Cast). You do have to be quite precise what modules to actually download to get it working on Matrix, but if you wanted to test you will see some posts from me on how to do this a few pages back from the latest on main skin helper thread.
Hope this helps.... Smile

RE: TV Guide thumbnails - bsoriano - 2021-01-06

(2021-01-06, 20:06)Dumyat Wrote: @bsoriano Hi Bart,
You are correct, PVR Artwork can be a bit of a pain to code.
A lot of skins seem to use $INFO[Listitem.Icon] to fetch artwork on the guide screen. However, artwork will only ever be shown if the PVR backend or guide data actually supports it. If artwork is not supported or is available, then Kodi will display the channel icon as a fallback using this info label. Certainly, this is how Estuary is coded for the guide screen, but haven't looked at the Amber code.
The default artwork type is fanart, but NextPVR allows users to configure the Kodi addon settings if they want the standard fanart or prefer poster artwork instead. I'm pretty sure TVHeadend also allows users to configure the type of PVR Artwork they want, but I've I've never used that PVR addon so can't confirm.
If you only want to see artwork (if it's supported) and not see the channel icon as a fallback, then you should use the below info label:-
xml:
$INFO[ListItem.EPGEventIcon]
The above should also work fine on the PVRInfoDialog.xml.
Should you want to display PVR artwork on the OSD when playing a channel, then you can use:-
xml:
$INFO[Pvr.EPGEventIcon]
My own backend guide data does not support PVR Artwork, so I'm still making use of the Skin Helper Script on Matrix. It works well and does allow you to specify particular artwork types for different screens. Unfortunately, the webservice that was available in Leia does not seem to be working currently, so some PVR artwork items cannot be fetched (Recordings, Timers and Cast). You do have to be quite precise what modules to actually download to get it working on Matrix, but if you wanted to test you will see some posts from me on how to do this a few pages back from the latest on main skin helper thread.
Hope this helps....

@Dumyat, thank you so much! I will change the Amber code to use EPGEventIcon, it seems like the most sensible path without using add-ons.

Regards,

Bart

RE: TV Guide thumbnails - bsoriano - 2021-01-07

@NorthFrenchGuy , if you feel comfortable testing from GitHub, I have modified the Amber code to use EPGEventIcon, as @Dumyat suggested. Please let me know if this now shows the programme thumb as you requested. Thanks.

If you do not feel comfortable updating from Git, please let me know as well. In that case, please wait for a couple of days while I release a new version to the Amber repo that contains the changes.

Regards,

Bart