UK RT expecting some chaos

[martint123]

Just got an email on one of the xmltv list that bodes ill for the existing Radio Times data source

The Radio Times data service (as used by the tv_grab_uk_rt grabber for
several years) is considered deprecated by the new team maintaining it
at metabroadcast [1]. It is quite likely that this service will be
taken down before the BST->GMT transition takes place at the end of
October 2012.

However, there could be a bright side to it.

The new Atlas service and API [3] is substantially richer than the
current service. It does not suffer from the bi-annual BST changeover
gremlins that have plagued the upstream data (it uses ISO 8601 dates).
It can provide richer listings data and programme metadata, more
channels, and - more importantly - is actively developed and open
source.

http://metabroadcast.com/
http://atlas.metabroadcast.com
http://github.com/atlasapi/atlas/

oops, title should read "UK RT EPG expecting some chaos"

[gEd]

very interesting. Thanks for sharing Martin.
The new Atlas service sounds exciting, especially if it will be open source. I will refrain from getting too excited until we hear more.

[steeb]

Thanks for heads up Martin.

I am not going to panic yet as there are alternative XML EPG sources to be had. However I have always preferred the RT data in combination with AB's XMLTV GUI so guess it is a case of watching for developments.......?

cheers

steeb

[bgowland]

I joined the Atlas Google group sometime back when the RT feed had the 'Film' category replaced with the genre of film and the MetaBroadcast team (quite rightly) started to use a dedicated field for film (true/false) - the field had been there (always perhaps, not sure) but was unused by RT.

Admittedly I haven't followed the group closely for about a month or so but I hadn't picked up on a fixed date for ending RT data.

The discussions on the group were pretty open last time I got involved. The MetaBroadcast guys seem pretty genuine and were asking for ideas for ways forward for the RT source. The general opinion (including that of various grabber developers) was that the RT data format was outdated and difficult to extend. The MetaBroadcast guys, however, agreed to keep feeding it in parallel to developing their own (Atlas) service until a point where their service might take over.

Personally I agree that it's outdated and for anyone who has never looked at one of the source files, this is the data for one programme...

Code:

BBC News; Weather~~~~~~false~false~false~true~true~false~false~false~~~News~~false~14/03/2012~12:13~12:15~2

It's not particularly human-readable and it's not (and never has been) in an xmltv format. The fact that line comes from a file accessed through xmltv.radiotimes.com/xmltv/94.dat doesn't make a lot of sense (why the use of 'xmltv' in the URL?). As for why 'BBC London & South East' translates to channel 94 (hence 94.dat) is anyone's guess. I'm sure at some point in the past there were good intentions on the part of the RT developers with respect to developing it further but I can't help feeling they painted themselves into a corner.

My suggestion to the discussion of the future of the RT feed was to provide true xmltv files (conforming to the XMLTV DTD and adapting with it). The MetaBroadcast guys were open to that idea as were some of the grabber developers - it was just one angle that came under discussion along with changes to the various data to be available.

The main point Metabroadcast seem to be trying to 'sell' (using the term loosely) is the Atlas project's JSON feed. JSON stands for Javascript Object Notation but despite the Javascript connotations, it's basically just another way of turning a bunch of data into a string of text. After all, XML wasn't created specifically with XMLTV in mind but it lends itself nicely. Similarly, JSON wasn't designed for a specific purpose other than being able to represent data in a well-formed way and in particular to allow it to be transferred between systems.

In reality XMLTV grabbers generally don't 'grab' XMLTV data but instead 'grab' some form of proprietary data and then 'generate' XMLTV output. The only thing the grabber developers need to to do is to adjust the input mechanism, e.g., pull/parse JSON or whatever data format, but continue to generate XMLTV output.

The deed was pretty much done at the end of last year when RT handed over the responsibility of generating their source files to MetaBroadcast. The main point is not so much whether things will 'break' (it's relatively trivial for a grabber developer to adjust the data format the grabber is reading), it's rather more a point of the quality of the data provided and whether or not it will remain free (for personal use at least) and if so, for how long.

Cheers,
Brian

[JP23]

This may be slightly off topic, but what other sources are people using for UK data?

I was quite disappointed that RT stopped giving star ratings for films a little while back. Does anyone know of a current source that has this?

[steeb]

Hi Brian,

great input and saves trawling loads of stuff over the internet instead of just reading your very thorough explanation. Of course all down to the actual quality of the data provided but also of course dependant on some devs to make it workeable into an xml format? That is always the hole that may open between one day having the source and the next day it being lost until someone has a solution? Or have I read that wrong. I am aware that JSON has become popular and I have seen at least 1 grabber (from memory...) that took stuff from a JSON based site and parsed it into xml data.

Hi JP23,

2 other very valid options for xml data are digiguide (very cheap subscription) and MC2XML (free, though the author has always IMHO always sailed very close to the wind with M-Soft on this). I have no idea from memory if the star rating are supported by these into xml though I would suspect the digiguide is. Digiguide certainly has a star rating system. But then of course star ratings are only based on who wrote the review!

Another option though hard to find these days is a grab at the B-SK*-B epg.

Personally I did not enjoy the first recent Clash of the Titans film that came out (I went to the Cast and Crew screening as my wife worked on it) but a very good friend of mine who lectures on media and film really enjoyed it.... So I would love to hear why the star ratings makes a difference when it is all down to taste. But then again I guess the synopsis write up is all down to who wrote it too!!!

I ramble as ever.

cheers all

steeb

[JP23]

So I would love to hear why the star ratings makes a difference when it is all down to taste. But then again I guess the synopsis write up is all down to who wrote it too!!!

Radio Times do have a long history of publishing film review books etc, so I'd say their ratings and write-ups are a bit more considered and authoritative than just being some random guy's opinion, and the difference between a 1 or 2 star rating and a 4 or 5 can certainly help guide viewing decisions. I also like the fact that they give an opinion, even if I do disagree with it sometimes, rather than just the brief description you get from most sources.

I would still prefer to have an IMDB or Rotten Tomatoes rating in my EPG though, not sure if this is possible?

The other reason I like the star ratings is that their presence shows me straight away that what I'm looking at is a film, without having to have any other genre indicators in the guide.

[mvallevand]

I would still prefer to have an IMDB or Rotten Tomatoes rating in my EPG though, not sure if this is possible?

My genreLite utility adds the IMDB star rating to the EPG http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php...=genrelite

Martin

[imilne]

My genreLite utility adds the IMDB star rating to the EPG http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php...=genrelite

I wasn't aware of that. Must look into it (and I only use the broadcast info as it is).

Iain

[JP23]

I will certainly give that a go when I get the time.