Zap2it Closing Down

[Ted the Penguin]

I planned to have the output XMLTV compliant since GB-PVR already supports it. The problem was that my Perl is a little rusty So I was going to write it in C#

Edit: I will take a look at the code for the *na_dd and see if I can modify it though.

I suggest you brush up on your perl I cant think of a language that is better designed to do text parsing. I know you can use regex in C# but they are very tightly integrated into perl.

An old newgroup thread, but might or might not be useful now.

http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=3410

Apparently, TitanTV does have an XML feed. This blog entry might be of use:

http://eep.pommepause.com/how.html

TitanTV's listings are pretty good, but not perfect, their lineup is messed up for my new cable provider.

[whurlston]

I suggest you brush up on your perl I cant think of a language that is better designed to do text parsing. I know you can use regex in C# but they are very tightly integrated into perl.

I know but there is the time factor (I don't seem to have enough of it lately.) I've already written a program that parses all the data from the schedule grid.

TitanTV is not that great, their listings are pretty good, but not perfect, their lineup is messed up for my new cable provider.

I looked at the TitanTV xml download. It would be much simpler and allows a longer time period but does not seem to have as much data as the yahoo guide.

[madcat]

let me get this straight - the effort here is to write some kind of parser that will parse web page(s) into XML info of EPG?
But:
1) What about the source provider "not liking" this (see 2)
2) What happens when the source provider decides to change the format/look/etc of the pages?

[Smoker]

Has anyone looked at or thought of maybe pretending to be TiVo

[dvasco]

I truly hope that someone comes up with a good and easy to use solution.
Wirns and DVarchive users may want to help too.
http://www.dvarchive.org/forums/
http://www.planetreplay.com/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=32
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles...p_id=89992

[Jeff]

Does yahoo have a web services interface for their listings data?
http://tv.yahoo.com/listings

Jeff

[whurlston]

let me get this straight - the effort here is to write some kind of parser that will parse web page(s) into XML info of EPG?
But:
1) What about the source provider "not liking" this (see 2)

This does concern me a little and I'm doing this as a "quick fix" until I or someone else can come up with a better solution.

2) What happens when the source provider decides to change the format/look/etc of the pages?

I plan on keeping an eye on it and should be able to update the app before it breaks.

[whurlston]

Does yahoo have a web services interface for their listings data?
http://tv.yahoo.com/listings

Jeff

I have not been able to find one but it looks like I'll be able to parse the web pages for the data. They have the most complete data that I have been able to find so far. Downside is the short number of days you can download.

[whurlston]

Has anyone looked at or thought of maybe pretending to be TiVo

Don't need to. I can get all the data that they send to the TIVO.

[flyswatta]

Glad to see that people are looking into this. If you need someone to test, I can help. I'm currently running 3 different listing sources using i-xmltv (pulling from zap2it) but I should be able to point that to a different source rather easily. Anyway, if I can help out, let me know!