Get the most out of your EPG grabber

Version 3.9.1  -  23/Dec/2006

• What does it do
• How to Use
• Release Notes
• Future Plans
• Installation
• Upgrading
• Uninstalling
• Compatibility
• Requirements
• Licensing
• Download

WHAT DOES IT DO?

It uses javaxmltv, or "I Want My XMLTV!", in a unique way to grab the data in individual days and automatically re-grab today's data when needed. It also can create and upload Topfield suitable TGD data files. As well as many other features including some suitable for HTPC PVR applications.

TV stations often, without notice, change their program scheduling from what was previously published. Up2Date keeps your TV-guide and EPG data up to date without resorting to deleting the whole data set and downloading all the data again from scratch.

Normally JavaXMLTV will only download details for programs and days it does not already have. But the way Up2Date works it will use JavaXMLTV to also re-download today's data again IF it has been more than 6 hours since the last download, or 3 hours during prime-time - prime-time is between 7pm and 11pm. Now when the TV stations change tonight's scheduling you'll know you always have current, up2date, data for that night.

If the data files are older than 1 day (i.e. it's after midnight) AND older than 6 hours, Up2Date will re-download the current day's data and the next day's data - plus any missing days as normal. When scheduling timers for the toppy you need up2date data for the next day so the timers you've set for tomorrow won't need changing if the TV stations change their scheduling before you next run Up2Date.

Up2Date can use any existing or future version of the JavaXMLTV grabber. Upgrading or downgrading javaxmltv versions is as easy as replacing a couple of *.jar files in the javaxmltv directory.

Setup is as simple as unzipping the zip file, setting your location in javaxmltv.ini, setting a few options in up2date.ini, and running Up2Date.exe (see Installation below).


Thanks to Gully (and others who tried v3.0 beta ;) for assisting in beta testing. Thanks to stephenh for helping track down a 24hr time bug.

USING UP2DATE:

I recommend running it daily to keep your data up to date. If you have reason to believe that a TV station's program scheduling for the current day has changed since you last ran Up2Date you can rerun Up2Date 6 hours after it was last run (3 hours if current time is between 7pm and 11pm) to re-download that night's data. Or you can delete the data for just that day from within the output# folders and then re-run Up2Date.

If you notice a particular day's data isn't displaying correctly due to the something in the website's data for that day you can also delete the data files for that day from the output# directory and re-run Up2Date.

If you notice the data for a particular day, other than today or tomorrow, is corrupt (but it wasn't corrupt yesterday) you can delete that day's data files from the all-data directory, rename the backup data for that day, and then run Up2Date with the -0day switch. This will recreate the combined xml files using the good backup - and if upload is set to yes it will upload the good tgd files to the toppy. You can even manually edit the tgd and xml files and have them included in the big xml files by using the 0day setting.

As there is only ever one backup kept you should rename the backups for that day if you want to try re-downloading the data first to prevent them getting overwritten.

How you use Up2Date with other programs is only limited by your imagination. e.g. you can configure Up2Date to create the tvguides data and provide listing.xml for TED/S (run TED/S with the -nograbber -noguides switches) and then shutdown the PC 1/2 hour later. Or you can configure TED/S to launch Up2Date via run.bat (with Up2Date's ini file's upload set to no, and tvguides left blank).

If you're not using TED/S, Up2Date can do it all (except creating timers for the toppy). If you are using TED/S with Up2Date I recommend setting TED/S to only search 1 or 2 days. This way any TV schedule changes won't require you manually deleting incorrect timers on the PVR so that TED/S can upload any changed timers. Hopefully future versions of TED/S and EPG_Uploader will include the ability to delete incorrect, conflicting, and/or changed timers.

All window messages are logged to Up2Date.log for easier checking later. The contents of this log file are backed up each time Up2Date is run. Previous backups are deleted - there is only ever one backup. There is an ini file option to automatically display the log file after Up2Date has finished. All errors are logged to error.log. There is also an ini file option to keep Up2Date's window open longer for easier reading of any onscreen messages.

If, after a failed download, you wish to re-create (and upload etc) listings.xml, the tvguide.xml files, and the TGD files (without grabbing any new data) you can run Rebuild.exe (or run Up2Date with either the -0 or -0days switches) which will restore and use the backed up obj files.

If you wish to manually delete a particular day's data files to force Up2Date to re-grab that day's data (for when the download or online data is/was incorrect) you'll need to delete both the "xmltvStore.obj" and "xmltvStore.bak" files in that day's output directory. Otherwise the xmltvStore.obj will be restored from the backup. Ofcourse you can just delete all the files in that output# directory for the same effect.

RELEASE NOTES:

Version 3.9.1
- Included the latest version of javaxmltv, and source.
- Replaced Rebuild.exe with Rebuild.bat as it was being incorrectly identified as a trojan by AVG.

Version 3.9
- Added ICE/Netgear router support.
- Grabbing data from 2 Locations now work correctly.
- Now includes TVGuide1 and TVGuide2.
- Added support for using "I Want My XMLTV!" grabbers instead of javaxmltv.

Version 3.8
- Not released to the public.

Version 3.7
- Displayed & logged start/end times format now matches "last update" date/time format.
- Added previously missing source for javaxmltv.
- Now backs up the obj files - in each output# directory.
- If there are any missing obj files, from the program being closed before it's finished, it will now restore the obj backups so it's not unnecessarily grabbing full days of data again.

Note: This will be especially useful for people with dodgy internet connections. Next time you run Up2Date it will work as normal and use the backups to replace any missing obj files.

Version 3.6
- Added a messages onscreen and in log showing detected Windows version.
- Added a messages onscreen and in log showing last update date and time.
- Added 2_Locations.zip for users who need to grab data for 2 locations.
- Fixed bug when run in some versions of Windows 2000.
- Fixed bug where ftp upload would fail to connect for some users.
- Fixed intermittent bug where data files were incorrectly determined to be over 6hr old.

Version 3.5
- Added a choice of uploading via tfcopy or FTP (which beeps when done).

Version 3.4
- Changed FTP Upload to work more reliably on slower PCs.
- Now delete javaxmltv.prop so users don't edit it instead of javaxmltv.ini.
- Added a warning in javaxmltv.prop incase Up2Date crashes and javaxmltv.prop is not deleted.
- Changed Up2Date so any error messages are now visible.
- Added Zip file options for copying data to and from other PCs (not yet finished).

Version 3.3
- Changed Rebuild.exe to include noshutpc and nonetcheck switches.
- Changed Rebuild.exe to run Up2Date with blue icon and window onscreen, not minimised.
- Changed -noshutdown switch to -noshutpc, same as in ini file (either will work, as will -0s).

Version 3.2.2
- Added new Rebuild.exe for easier running of Up2Date in 0days mode.
- False "Files were 0kb" bug fixed.
- Shutdown option fixed & missing utility now included.
- Changed a few things that could have potentially caused problems.

Version 3.2.1
- Improved 0day logging.
- Fixed a couple of small bugs.
- 0day mode now does not overwrite backups.

Version 3.2
- TVGuide xml files now working correctly.
- Listings.xml in all-data directory is also TVGuide compatible.
- New url setting in ini file to enable uploading TGD files via networked ftp servers.
- Now recreates listings.xml, tvguides, and all TGD files in 0day mode.
- Can now quickly exit from sloclose mode's 30 second delay.
- Added messages for when data is 6hr old, or 3hr old in primetime.
- Changed messages to indicate grabbing data or just checking data.
- Window now changes colour to indicate finished ok, minor error, or fatal error.
- No longer requires xxcopy - an uninstall.bat file is included.
- All paths, and filenames, with spaces in the ini file can be with, or without, double-quotes.
- For easier restoring data backups are no longer renamed - they're moved to all-data\backups.
- TopfFTP directory and exe renamed to it's correct name.

Version 3.1.4
- More reliable online checking.
- Fixed double-quoted paths in the ini file.

Version 3.1.3
- Fixed minor bug introduced in v3.1.2 (3.1.3 was never released due to work on 3.2 ;)

Version 3.1.2
- Removed due to minor bug.

Version 3.1.1
- Fixed fatal bug introduced in v3.1.

Version 3.1
- Now works Windows 2000 Pro.
- Uses one less 3rd party utility. (you can delete aciniupd.exe from the utils dir in v3.0.2)

Version 3.0.2
- Fixed toppy upload failing if path had spaces in directory name.

Version 3.0.1
- Fixed xxcopy installation screen not appearing, if needed.
- Changed a confusing comment in up2date.ini.
- Fixed run.bat causing TED/S to think Up2Date had finished.

Version 3.0
- Smaller download and neater installation.
- Reduced number of files that needed editing from 9 to 2.
- Made it much easier to change javaxmltv version.
- Much smarter checking of when to re-download data.
- Added an option to create *.tgd files.
- Added an option to upload *.tgd files to the toppy.
- Creates the EPG data directory on the toppy if it doesn't exist.
- Added Internet connection status checking.
- Added 0kb data file checking and logging.
- Added start and end times onscreen and in log.
- Added lots more information in onscreen display.
- Added Windows version checking.
- Added an option to shutdown the PC when finished.
- Added an option to choose how many days to download - from 0 to 8.
- Added an option to choose if yesterday's data is used.
- Added an option to automatically open log file when finished.
- Replaced copy.bat with ini options for copying to up to 3 apps.
- Added creation of tvguide's xml files. (tvguide2 not working yet)
- Added end.bat to enable doing anything after Up2Date finishes.
- Added runtime switches to override ini file settings.
- Replaced Rebuild.exe with a runtime switch (-0days).
- Made it easier to copy data between multiple PCs.
- Made it possible to adapt Up2Date to use other grabbers.
- Made it almost foolproof - missing data directories are recreated.
- Added a few debugging options.
- Added more error checking.
- Added a separate pop-up error log.

Version 2.1
- Changed to download 8 days instead of 7.

Version 2.0
- Added more error checking.
- Fixed old xml files in "all-data" not being deleted.
- Fixed a few other small bugs.
- Now creates backups of .xml files in the "all-data" folder.
- Now creates a backup of log.txt.
- Now also creates a "listings.xml" in the "all-data" folder.
- Removed "run#.bat" files to make it more foolproof.
- Code cleaned-up for easier changes in future.
- Readme rewritten.
- Includes "rebuild.exe" for recreating xml files without running the grabber.
(This also runs "copy.bat" and will copy a new "listings.xml" to TED/S)

Versions 1.3 to 1.6
- Not released.

Versions 1.1 to 1.2
- Bug fixes.

Version 1.0
- First release.

FUTURE PLANS:

*** I've lost interest in Up2Date... ***
- Maybe, one day, I'll finish version 4 (which is a complete rewrite in a different language).
- Possible change to use any grabber.
- Possible change to support multiple grabbers.
- Possible change to multi-language.

INSTALLATION:

1) Unzip the archive contents to anywhere on your hard-drive while maintaining the existing archive's directory structure (the zip file contains everything in a directory named Up2Date).
2) Edit the javaxmltv.ini to suit your location (location choices are listed at the bottom of javaxmltv.ini). Also, add proxy settings here if needed for your ISP. If you need to grab data from two locations follow the instructions in 2_Locations.zip.
3) Configure up2date.ini options - the ini file contains info on each option.
4) Run Up2Date - it will create all needed extra directories.

NOTE:
If you're using TED/S and you want TED/S to use Up2Date as it's grabber you need to configure the "Grabber_Folder=" setting in ted.ini to point to where run.bat is - i.e. Up2Date's folder.
For example: Grabber_Folder="C:\Up2Date".

REQUIREMENTS:

- Java. The JavaXMLTV component of this software requires that Sun Java SDK or Sun Java JRE be installed for it to work. JavaXMLTV has been compiled and tested with the Sun Java SDK and JRE 1.4.2. You can Download the 1.4.2 SDK or JRE from the Sun web site:
http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/download.html

And if you want to use the TGD files Up2Date can create and upload to a Topfield TF5x00PVR you need at least one of the following:

- EPG_Uploader TAP for inserting the TV guide data into the Toppy's EPG. You can download Tony's EPG_Uploader TAP from Tony's Toppy info web site: http://tonyspage.abock.de/

- JustEPG TAP which reads the TGD files directly into itself, which is a better EPG than the Toppy's built-in EPG. Check out Peter's JustEPG TAP at Topfield Australia's forum:
JustEPG 10.2 Topfield-Australia forum topic - check the forum for later versions.


LICENSING:

Freeware. See the included License.txt in the Docs directory for licensing details. By using this software you are agreeing to the licensing terms outlined in the included License.txt. Also see the license documents included with any bundled 3rd-party utilities or applications.

 

NOTE - Up2Date is no longer working, supported or being updated. A better replacement is available here.