Zap2it Closing Down

[Bwangster12]

I do understand that there aren't many listing options once Zap2it is finished... but it seems strange that you'd have to pay to get listings easily with a great freeware application. You'd think an automatic option like Zap2it's plugin would be implemented for free.

[sub]

I do understand that there aren't many listing options once Zap2it is finished... but it seems strange that you'd have to pay to get listings easily with a great freeware application. You'd think an automatic option like Zap2it's plugin would be implemented for free.

There are free xmltv options for you if you dont want to pay anything, but it does mean you'll have do a little more work yourself. If you want to do that extra work, then this pay option is available.

If you find someone else supplying free data that I can legally retrieve listings from, then I'm happy to build support for it.

The rest of us outside the US/Canada are still using free listings

[bdgbill]

I do understand that there aren't many listing options once Zap2it is finished... but it seems strange that you'd have to pay to get listings easily with a great freeware application. You'd think an automatic option like Zap2it's plugin would be implemented for free.

I have seen a lot of similar comments on the Zap2it Labs and Myth forums.

I think many people do not realize the huge amount of work and bandwith required to provide accurate tv listings for 200+ channels for the thousands of different cable, sat and ota lineups across the USA and Canada. This is a very valuable service I will be happy to pay a few dollars a month for.

I always worried that zap2it was a little too good to be true.

I hope a paid option becomes available before sep 1st (and that it survives long term) or I'm going to have to buy the crappy PVR from my cable provider for $600.00+.

[flyswatta]

or I'm going to have to buy the crappy PVR from my cable provider for $600.00+.

The conspiracy theorist side of me almost wonders if TIVO or the Sat/Cable companies weren't somehow involved in this for that very reason.

[Ted the Penguin]

I think many people do not realize the huge amount of work and bandwith required to provide accurate tv listings for 200+ channels for the thousands of different cable, sat and ota lineups across the USA and Canada. This is a very valuable service I will be happy to pay a few dollars a month for.

well... I think all they really have to do is get the listings for each individual channel, and modify slightly for timezones, because I doubt that discovery channel in boston will have a different lineup than the discovery channel in LA. so the only problem would be local stations, which there are only a few of in each area.

then all they would have to do is get each providers channel lineup and compile all the channels that they have into a nice little list, that you can download.

the huge amount of bandwidth is required when thousands of us little PVR users try to download this data

[bdgbill]

well... I think all they really have to do is get the listings for each individual channel, and modify slightly for timezones, because I doubt that discovery channel in boston will have a different lineup than the discovery channel in LA. so the only problem would be local stations, which there are only a few of in each area.

then all they would have to do is get each providers channel lineup and compile all the channels that they have into a nice little list, that you can download.

the huge amount of bandwidth is required when thousands of us little PVR users try to download this data

Still seems like a decent amount of work. Especially when you add in answering all the support emails etc. The forums at zap2it labs were fairly busy with error reports and support questions.

Probably take at least a couple of full time employees to run the whole thing. 80k per year in salaries plus bandwith and hardware costs for no return.

I bet someone could make a decent business out of trading the epg data for user data identifying whats being recorded and when it's being watched.

[JWJr]

I bet someone could make a decent business out of trading the epg data for user data identifying whats being recorded and when it's being watched.

...and maybe they'd call it "TiVo".

Amongst all the compliments for Tribune giving us "free data" via Z2L, some of us remember why Z2L was started in the first place: as an attempt to save bandwidth. So many of us were screenscraping Tribune's free (with ads) listings that that was causing a bandwidth problem; having the listings in one file for us to download saved them thousands of hits per user (at least, that is, the users diving in for descriptions and such) on their websites.

When Z2L was down last weekend, I dug out my old screenscraper code, and (amazingly) it still worked. So, instead of the 10 or so minutes I normally spend downloading 13 days of listings from Z2L, I spent the better part of 2 hours banging one of Tribune's websites to get (most of) the same info.

If we don't get a reasonable alternative to the current Z2L before September 1, Tribune's going to find themselves right back in the same hole that required them to start Z2L in the first place. -JW

[Jim_]

...and maybe they'd call it "TiVo".

Amongst all the compliments for Tribune giving us "free data" via Z2L, some of us remember why Z2L was started in the first place: as an attempt to save bandwidth. So many of us were screenscraping Tribune's free (with ads) listings that that was causing a bandwidth problem; having the listings in one file for us to download saved them thousands of hits per user (at least, that is, the users diving in for descriptions and such) on their websites.

When Z2L was down last weekend, I dug out my old screenscraper code, and (amazingly) it still worked. So, instead of the 10 or so minutes I normally spend downloading 13 days of listings from Z2L, I spent the better part of 2 hours banging one of Tribune's websites to get (most of) the same info.

If we don't get a reasonable alternative to the current Z2L before September 1, Tribune's going to find themselves right back in the same hole that required them to start Z2L in the first place. -JW

Glad to see someone has working scraper option just incase there’s an effort to shut down the more bandwidth friendly (free) options people are working on.
Please share if/when the time comes.

[JWJr]

Glad to see someone has working scraper option just incase there’s an effort to shut down the more bandwidth friendly (free) options people are working on.
Please share if/when the time comes.

Weeelll...not exactly.

My "old" code pulled the "TEXT" listings from "http://tvlistings1.zap2it.com", and then massaged the hell out of 'em to get a mere fraction of the data Z2L gives us: start and end time, title, subtitle, and darn little else. It was ugly, and far too manual, and certainly no substitute for what we've been getting. -JW

[reboot]

I don't care much what we end up with, as long as it's accurate, inexpensive, and eternal.
I don't need a complete cornucopia of stuff, just station, title, episode, and times. Maybe a (very) short description for movies. I don't care about ratings. If I need to find out more about something, there's always tv.com and imdb.com