As part of our plan to start publish our own internal www.epgstream.net EPG tools, we have released a new tool, called wmcGuideServiceProxy, which could possibly replace the current versions of BladeRunnerPro.
wmcGuideServiceProxy quite simply takes your XMLTV data, compiles it and loads it directly into your Windows Media Center installation. It integrates directly with Windows Media Center and works with Vista.
wmcGuideServiceProxy is very simple to use and does it's best to self-configure with the only manual setting required being the location of your source XMLTV file (possibly downloaded by xmltvDownload). It consists of a only a single executable and a single configuration file.
wmcGuideServiceProxy is run from the command-line and should be running as a background task 24/7. At present it is a desktop application, but will be converted to a Windows Service at a later stage.
If anyone is interested in Beta testing wmcGuideServiceProxy for us then we are happy to continue development of this product.
You can download the latest version of wmcGuideServiceProxy from this external link.
Simple Installation
First xmltvDownload ...
- Configure your current XMLTV grabber to place your XMLTV file into "C:\Use\Any\Folder\xmltv.xml".
- Create a Scheduled Task to run your XMLTV grabber twice a day (morning and evening).
- Run your XMLTV grabber at least once to get some 'test' data.
... then wmcGuideServiceProxy ...
- Install wmcGuideServiceProxy to "C:\Program Files\epgStream.net\wmcGuideServiceProxy".
- Configure wmcGuideServiceProxy (by editing "wmcGuideServiceProxy.exe.config") to read it's xmltv.xml file from "C:\Use\Any\Folder\xmltv.xml".
- Run wmcGuideServiceProxy.exe by double-click or command-line and select 'Yes' to the auto-configure option.
... now Windows Media Center ...
- Open Windows Media Center.
- Navigate to Tasks->Settings->TV->Guide
- Select 'Set Up Guide Listings' option and proceed to setup your guide as-per-usual. Make sure you enter a postcode and not '0000'.
- Select 'Get Latest Guide Listings' option.
... and finally Enjoy!
To get your latest guide update, simply perform a 'Get Latest Guide Listings' from Media Center, or just wait for Media Center itself to download the guide during it's daily download.
Advanced Installations
wmcGuideServiceProxy and will let you download your XMLTV data on-the-fly from Media Center's 'Get Latest Guide Listings' option ... We'll post about it later if we get some interest!
Multiple Media Center Machines At Home?
This is really cool! 
Configure one machine, called 'A', to download your data and all your other machines, called 'B' and 'C', will be able to download their guide directly from 'A'. Saves on bandwidth... We'll post about it later if we get some interest!