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djp952 · 2019-12-13, 21:42

I would like to share some information about some changes being made by SiliconDust that will very likely affect the function of the pvr.hdhomerun addon. Is there currently a maintainer of this addon I can contact?

It's in regard to accessing the HDHomeRun-based EPG data -- the current API appears set to go away (soon?) and is being replaced with an XMLTV-based API, but that looks like that will be limited only to HDHomeRun DVR Service subscribers. I'm happy to assist if so desired.

**Fuzzard** · 2019-12-13, 22:46

Feel free to PR anything.

Also would love be to hear about some of the specifics here if you have any info.

What's their plan for non DVR subscribers? Surely they couldn't be leaving them out in the cold?

**Fuzzard** · 2019-12-13, 23:06

Had a brief look through SD forums, and saw the Dev announcement thread for it. I couldn't see anywhere that said they are deprecating the old method?

Is there a thread you could point me to that says the current method is definitely being removed?

djp952 · (This post was last modified: 2019-12-14, 00:55 by djp952.)

(2019-12-13, 23:06)Fuzzard Wrote: Had a brief look through SD forums, and saw the Dev announcement thread for it. I couldn't see anywhere that said they are deprecating the old method?

Is there a thread you could point me to that says the current method is definitely being removed?

There is not; SiliconDust contacted me directly and got that distinct impression from our conversation. I was specifically asked/instructed not to use the JSON guide API for anything moving forward. Perhaps it was just a "me thing", my addon was/is a big EPG data offender.

It's probably worth at least contacting them about it, Kodi is a really big player in their ecosystem, perhaps even if the plan is to block access to the old API an arrangement could be made for Kodi?

I'll feel terrible if this amounts to nothing, just trying to make sure Kodi is aware what seems like a breaking change coming up at some point in the near future. Apologies if it turns out I've cried wolf.

**Fuzzard** · (This post was last modified: 2019-12-14, 01:29 by Fuzzard.)

Greatly appreciate the heads up.

I use my hdhomeruns extensively, but am not a dvr subscriber. I'd hate to lose the EPG side of it because im not a paying customer after buying the hardware. Having said that, i know business models change, so will definitely just keep an eye on it for now.

Maybe SD can reach out to team kodi if they ever see this. Give us a formal nod one way or the other, and any further info they think would be relevant.

On a side note, i fully understand why the move to xmltv. Purely from a kodi perspective, i like the granularity of genre/types xmltv provides, and the old method was very restrictive in using things like genre colour coding. I did a PR a while back to pvr.hdhomerun that implemented pulling in xmltv data (in conjunction with the existing method), so worst case if they do disable the old method, i'll go have a look at resurrecting that i guess.

One last comment whilst you're reading this, thumbs up on your dvr addon. You do great work and support for it. I commend you for that.

djp952 · 2019-12-15, 06:34

(2019-12-14, 01:27)Fuzzard Wrote: Greatly appreciate the heads up.

I use my hdhomeruns extensively, but am not a dvr subscriber. I'd hate to lose the EPG side of it because im not a paying customer after buying the hardware. Having said that, i know business models change, so will definitely just keep an eye on it for now.

Maybe SD can reach out to team kodi if they ever see this. Give us a formal nod one way or the other, and any further info they think would be relevant.

On a side note, i fully understand why the move to xmltv. Purely from a kodi perspective, i like the granularity of genre/types xmltv provides, and the old method was very restrictive in using things like genre colour coding. I did a PR a while back to pvr.hdhomerun that implemented pulling in xmltv data (in conjunction with the existing method), so worst case if they do disable the old method, i'll go have a look at resurrecting that i guess.

One last comment whilst you're reading this, thumbs up on your dvr addon. You do great work and support for it. I commend you for that.

Thank you! Once the dust settles I'm going to ask the folks that use my addon without having a DVR subscription why they chose it over the official pvr.hdhomerun addon and intend to see if those reason(s) can be ported over. It's not like it does a better job moving 1s and 0s from the tuner to Kodi, so it must be some of the odd settings and configuration points I've provided along the way. If they would make sense in pvr.hdhomerun I'll send over some PRs Smile

BTW - As of my last check a few hours ago, SiliconDust seems to have limited the "quick" guide data that pvr.hdhomerun uses to 4 hours. Not sure if this is a glitch or intentional, but it's definitely a change in the service level.

**Fuzzard** · 2019-12-15, 09:06

I thought it was always 4 hrs for non subscribers?
You could request with the time of the last one upto 12 hours but it required multiple requests to get it that far.

Having said that, this was what it was a year or 2 ago, so it may have been changed due to DVR stuff over that period.

djp952 · 2019-12-15, 16:07

(2019-12-15, 09:06)Fuzzard Wrote: I thought it was always 4 hrs for non subscribers?
You could request with the time of the last one upto 12 hours but it required multiple requests to get it that far.

Having said that, this was what it was a year or 2 ago, so it may have been changed due to DVR stuff over that period.

It was 8 for the longest time, then I thought it was bumped up to 24 for a little while. I only used that API unqualified to get the channel guide names, it's been well over a year since I hit it for EPG data.

Regardless, the user fallout has started for me (ouch), and I am asking for "exit interviews" of a sort to figure out why people without the DVR subscription were using mine in the first place so I can help get them back onto pvr.hdhomerun. I think whatever the reasons were they may not be there any longer, I found pvr.hdhomerun to work just dandy these days.

**Fuzzard** · 2019-12-15, 21:04

Let me know any features people are after, more than willing to chip in and get them added.

Probably easiest to just throw an issue up on the git repo for anything you find out as requested features.

I use Pvr.hdhomerun exclusively and don't really have any gripes about it. I think the one thing that annoys me is if I leave on a single channel longer than the epg data (cricket season here in Aus), it doesn't call guide refresh, and have to stop channel to get the epg refresh. Never bothered to look if there was a setting for epg calls during playback in core

emveepee · 2019-12-15, 21:17

24 hours would be a bonus http://my.hdhomerun.com/api/guide.php?DeviceAuth= only returns about 4 hours for me.

Martin

djp952 · 2019-12-15, 21:25

(2019-12-15, 21:04)Fuzzard Wrote: Let me know any features people are after, more than willing to chip in and get them added.

Probably easiest to just throw an issue up on the git repo for anything you find out as requested features.

I use Pvr.hdhomerun exclusively and don't really have any gripes about it. I think the one thing that annoys me is if I leave on a single channel longer than the epg data (cricket season here in Aus), it doesn't call guide refresh, and have to stop channel to get the epg refresh. Never bothered to look if there was a setting for epg calls during playback in core

I don't think there is anything in-built in Kodi, I use a background thread to schedule updates to the data at reasonable intervals. Perhaps there *is* a value-add I could offer after all!

**Fuzzard** · 2019-12-15, 22:27

I'd think that would be better as a core thing. As far as my understanding goes, its a design choice to not update epg whilst playback. Maybe a core setting could be added, or at least an option available to the add-on to do.

Probably something for @ksooo to comment on, as if it's just something the add-ons need to schedule, then so be it I guess

**Fuzzard** · (This post was last modified: 2019-12-15, 22:31 by Fuzzard.)

Now that I think about it, it's probably only ever seen on Pvr.hdhomerun, as it's the only one with such short schedule limits. Everything else is populated by things like xmltv scrapers and what not in the backends. So maybe it would be best to implement it in this add-on only.

**phunkyfish** · 2019-12-20, 14:40

I believe this is already a setting in PVR core.

djp952 · 2020-01-16, 01:02

I find myself with a complete lack of things to do on my addon right now, would you like me to try and PR some support for the DVR engine into pvr.hdhomerun? I'm sure it would need some work before being mainlined (I suck at PRs), but I think some things would be relatively painless to add. Maybe start with just STORAGE engine discovery and perhaps add something that it doesn't already do today like recordings?

I figure worst case is that it sucks too much and you can delete/ignore any PR(s), right?

If there is zero desire to use the DVR features if they are available, I shall not touch anything. There isn't a 1:1 match between how the DVR works and how Kodi behaves when it comes to things like timers, but something like Recordings and/or streaming with timeshifting should be (relatively) slam-dunks.