Additional EPG Matadata

[opilion]

Does it do any comparison on the original aired date, or just a check whether I have recorded it or not? For example - "Record Season (All episodes on this channel)" - would this record syndicated episodes from two years ago that air daily, as well as new episodes? Is it just looking to see if I have already recorded the episode?

op

[sub]

Quote[/b] ]Is it just looking to see if I have already recorded the episode?

Yes, its just looking to see if you have already recorded that episode.

I dont specifically do anything with the zap2it originalAirDate, this comes under the category of extra meta data that would probably require new visible options in the recordings screen that wouldn't be usuable for 90% of my users (eg, a new "Record Season (New episodes only)" option). It'd be nice to have, but is lower priority than features that can be used by all my users.

[opilion]

Quote[/b] ]would probably require new visible options in the recordings screen that wouldn't be usuable for 90% of my users

Only 10% of your users are in USA/Canada? You could make the "New episodes only" recording option only visible if the user has selected Zap2it as their guide data provider. It's just one piece of metadeta, an extra recording option, and a little bit of logic to check if the original aired date is within say, seven days of today's date.

op

[sub]

Quote[/b] ]Only 10% of your users are in USA/Canada?

About 20% of my downloads come from the US, so its probably closer to %20.

Quote[/b] ]You could make the "New episodes only" recording option only visible if the user has selected Zap2it as their guide data provider. It's just one piece of metadeta, an extra recording option, and a little bit of logic to check if the original aired date is within say, seven days of today's date.

Yes, I know what would be required. As I said, it would be nice to have, but at the moment their is other stuff higher on the priority list. I will add this feature eventually though.

[KingArgyle]

I had a thought on this topic, and what could be done is use the Zap2It webservice like Sub does to get the episode guide information down, or Sub could leave a copy of the data on the hard drive. An external program could be built to parse through the Zap2It information and check the currently scheduled programs. If it is listed as a repeat in the Zap2It information, then that particular episode could be deleted from the scheduler.

I would probably suggest this as an add on utility outside of GBPVR that the development community could develop until sub gets it implemented in the full version. Frees him up to concentrate on the higher priority items. Maybe if this idea was posted in the Developers area someone would pick it up and run with it.

[jorm]

That is a good idea.

Perhaps a setting in the config.xml that would leave the file on the system. I have no problem writing a parser and populating another database with the information.

I would prefer to do the solution mostly ourselves so sub can focus on other things that would benefit everyone.

Jorm

[KingArgyle]

Jorm, Zap2It labs has a WSDL file available for thier service, so it be a simple matter of adding a Web Reference to VS or C#Builder to generate the appropriate Stub for the service. Once that is done parsing and find the information would be fairly simple using some XPATHs and the program information stored in the GBPVR database.

[jorm]

I will take a look at it thank you.

update:

Got a class that downloads the zap2it listing to xml. Next step would be to parse it and populate a zap2it database.


sub can you move this thread to the development group.

[KingArgyle]

Sounds like you beat me to it. Let me know if you need any help with manipulating the XML, I do that stuff for a living so it's pretty ingrained.

[jorm]

I do a lot of that myself.  My plan is to design an access database that has the gbpvr oid's.

The only thing I do not like is I am going to have to cache all of the program oid, channel and start time.

And then walk though all of the schedules found in the xml and get their oid.

Offhand it seems like there are 5 major categories
Schedules
Generes
Cast
Channel info.
Program data.

I am hoping to play with it over the next few days and post it so the plugin developers can expand the information if it is a zap2it account.

I envision being to search by genere or cast member (like search guide) I already have something similar writen.

I do want a plugin that allows me to record all show with a certain actor, new episode only, maybe even any show of this genere that has gotten more than x number of stars.  

I do that kind of stuff often as well.  I would probably design a light xml rule engine for the backend that would run nightly on all programs and determine if it is for a recording or not.

I would have to design the plugins frontend.

I guess I should finish the parsing first.    I will keep you informed.