Zap2it Closing Down

[soccerdad]

Sounds like the Titantv may be a great solution. As an update, I was able export the EPG from MyTheatre in xmltv format using a plugin (actually it is just a little program and not a plugin but they call it a plugin for some reason) off their site. I then pointed GBPVR at the file and it worked. I don't know how to have the program update automatically from the mt to xmltv side yet but I am sure there is a way. It looks like the Sage guys do it. This is a solution that should work for anyone with a DVB-S card and a dish. I am pretty sure this would work in Canada off the BEV birds. BTW sub, there is a plugin for called DVBEPG that works on MT and Dream. Do you think it would work as a GBPVR plugin? Where would I put it? It seems to already do the Dish EPG sorting.

[sub]

BTW sub, there is a plugin for called DVBEPG that works on MT and Dream. Do you think it would work as a GBPVR plugin? Where would I put it? It seems to already do the Dish EPG sorting.

Sorry, no it wouldnt.

[Fatman_do]

Interesting thing is, across the web, I have seen a few posts commenting our group of super spiffy developers are hard at work. I even found a link to this thread off site.

Maybe it is time to pray to the Google gods and have them do TV Listings. What are a few extra million web hits to them?

[whurlston]

Yes.It's not available on XP, only on MCE and Vista, but I have a Vista machine that I can pull the data from and I figured that there may be other people who also have Vista on at least one machine. Anyone who does will be able to pull the data from the guide store and then create an xmltv compliant file. This will help to cut down on the amount of traffic from grabbers.

Figuring I just started playing around with Vista could you tell me how to do this?

Are you asking from a programming perspective or user perspective?

If from a user perspective, you can't yet but I'm working on it.

If from a programming perspective, I can send you the code I have so far. Right now, I am able to unencrypt the XML data from the EPG and write it out to an unencrypted file. I still need to convert it into xmltv compliancy. First I have to strip/replace certain characters such as ©, é, á etc (*see note).
The program will basically, set the epg download time then restart the ehSched service for the new time to take effect. Then it will do a conversion on the new epg 1 hour after the download time and then tell GB-PVR to update it's guide. which by the way: sub, there is a mechanism in place for that isn't there, like a batch file or something?


*Note: If anyone knows how to do this programmatically c# (or vb) in a way other than string.replace, please let me know or at least point me in the right direction. I'm hoping there is a way to convert character sets.

[whurlston]

Interesting thing is, across the web, I have seen a few posts commenting our group of super spiffy developers are hard at work. I even found a link to this thread off site.

Maybe it is time to pray to the Google gods and have them do TV Listings. What are a few extra million web hits to them?

LOL, don't know if that is good or bad. You have a link?

[JavaWiz]

Maybe it is time to pray to the Google gods and have them do TV Listings. What are a few extra million web hits to them?

I've actually sent Google an email requesting that they sponsor a open source google project to provide this kind of utility/service. Not that they will respond, but with their band-width and internet clout, I figured it couldn't hurt...

[groover km]

I've actually sent Google an email requesting that they sponsor a open source google project to provide this kind of utility/service. Not that they will respond, but with their band-width and internet clout, I figured it couldn't hurt...

I'll email them too; mine would be something like:

Dear Google:

You already know how often my gran sends me email, what I will be doing next thursday, what the weather is like where I live, when I post to my blog, what stock prices I track, and what I search for after the wife's gone to bed.
Do you have a service that allows you to predict what sh*te I will be watching tonight? Sign me up!!



Seriously, google is a great idea and they must have thought of it (imagine: reminders automatically posted on my google calendar, google desktop indexing my recordings by description, genre, etc., even -gasp - recommendations to youtube vids).. they must have thought of it; haven't they?

[Spartan]

*Note: If anyone knows how to do this programmatically c# (or vb) in a way other than string.replace, please let me know or at least point me in the right direction. I'm hoping there is a way to convert character sets.

Would ordinary regular expressions work? :confused:

[zed]

A GoogleTV scheduler sounds like a good idea but they'll need some way to display ads. Perhaps just collecting the info would be sufficient for them, tho. They seem to be into everything else. The university where I work has out-sourced all the student email, calendering, etc. to Google. Not a bad deal, actually. Google gets 50,000+ new users and the university doesn't have to run an email system for the students. Most of them are already into Google anyway, so they're happy.

Back on topic, I was looking at TitanTV and it's actually not bad as a guide. If you register with them you can customize it pretty much like the zap2it listings.

Another interesting feature is that it can schedule recordings in your PVR software, at least for their 'PVR partners'. It puts a little icon in each program to click on. When clicked on, it sends a little xml file to your browser that (I assume) a plug-in would grab and process. Perhaps, a plug-in could be built that would take the little xml file and schedule the recording in GB-PVR. That way, there wouldn't be any need to download megabytes of data every night, just schedule directly from the TitanTV web page. Perhaps a web browser GB-PVR plug-in could be written (if it doensn't already exist...I'm not really up on all the plug-ins) that could display the TitanTV listing page in GB-PVR to handle it.

As an example of the xml file, here's one it sent to me:

<tv-program-info version="1.0">
<program>
<station>KAETDT</station>
<tv-mode>digital</tv-mode>
<program-title>Nova</program-title>
<episode-title>Bone Diggers</episode-title>
<program-description>An expedition into a cavern located in the Australian outback finds complete skeletons of the Thylacoleo, a marsupial lion that died out some 30,000 to 50,000 years ago; and the remains of a giant kangaroo.</program-description>
<start-date>20070623</start-date>
<start-time>22:00</start-time>
<end-date>20070623</end-date>
<end-time>23:00</end-time>
<duration>01:00</duration>
<rf-channel>29</rf-channel>
<psip-major>8</psip-major>
<psip-minor>1</psip-minor>
<stream-number>1</stream-number>
</program>
</tv-program-info>

Looks like it has the necessary info to schedule a recording. It comes down as a 'tvpi' file.

Anyway, yet another suggestion...

If it's already been thought of...well...never mind...

[sub]

Another interesting feature is that it can schedule recordings in your PVR software, at least for their 'PVR partners'. It puts a little icon in each program to click on. When clicked on, it sends a little xml file to your browser that (I assume) a plug-in would grab and process. Perhaps, a plug-in could be built that would take the little xml file and schedule the recording in GB-PVR. That way, there wouldn't be any need to download megabytes of data every night, just schedule directly from the TitanTV web page. Perhaps a web browser GB-PVR plug-in could be written (if it doensn't already exist...I'm not really up on all the plug-ins) that could display the TitanTV listing page in GB-PVR to handle it.

Yuck, but then I prefer to do everything from the comfort of my couch with the remote.