Free XMLTV EPG scraper

[kwong26]

I figured that they should run the same since I noticed that the command line simply called the program to run sort of in the background.

I believe that it starts to try to create the temporary files because the previously downloaded data gets wiped so that the new data can be written in, but that's when it seems to fail. I also believe that the command line and gbpvr on my system has the permissions to write to files in the directory where the program is placed. Program is in the C:\XMLTV\ directory on my PC and I never changed any of the system privileges to restrict. How can I check that the program has the rights it needs?

I know that when I run into the COM error, what I end up doing is going into the GUI, reinputting my postal code, picking my provider and redownloading the data. That fixes the GUI no longer working, then when I retry the command line, it gives the COM error again....very weird.

[kwong26]

One really weird thing that I did notice as I was doing some more testing is that for some reason, after I've run the program once and subsequently try to download the data again, I get this COM error. My guess is that for some reason after it has run once, it doesn't want to run again. Unless I go through and redo the loading again, it fails.

Put together a word document, hopefully you can see the progression and the log files from the XMLOut.

[drlava]

Very good. When I entered your zipcode and used your settings I was able to re-create your problem, so it looks like it has to do with some instances of Canadian processing. The fix will be rolled into the next update.

[kwong26]

Cool. Thanks! Look forward to trying that one out.

[drlava]

Update posted in original thread.
thanks for bringing the glitch to my attention.

[kwong26]

Great job! It now seems to be working beautifully.

Not sure how everyone else is running this in GBPVR, but this is what I've done:
1) Run the MSN_XMLTV_scraper (thanks drlava) to set up all information (i.e. provider, channels, etc) and download initial data.
2) Use XMLTV Plugin for the Capture Source EPG retrieval and set it to the XML data file that was created from the first run.
3) Set up a Scheduled Task in Windows to run the "MSN_XMLTV_scraper /d" command line a couple hours before GBPVR is set to get the EPG data.

Hope this helps anyone who hasn't used this program. Mind you it takes a bit of time, but I don't have a lot of data to grab, so for me it takes a couple minutes. People with lots of channels may take longer.

[kwong26]

I've noticed something interesting: in the data download that you grab from MSN, which I'm assuming to be probably TV Guide, all the shows that have "Episode title not available", the program doesn't proceed to getting the detail information of the show (assuming that you actually pick to get the details)

Also, do you know if there's a way to get the actual channel name instead of channel numbers when you are getting the data or that something overly complex to do?

Thanks again for a great tool!

[drlava]

I've noticed something interesting: in the data download that you grab, all the shows that have "Episode title not available", the program doesn't proceed to getting the detail information of the show

Yes, unfortunately, if you use the canadian download mode, the episode title is only available in the detailed download for the first 36 hours. If you uncheck the canadian mode, and you find your OTA channels are still there and correct, you could use that instead.

Also, do you know if there's a way to get the actual channel name instead of channel numbers when you are getting the data or that something overly complex to do?

The channel name is provided in the xml file, just gbpvr can only read one <display-name> tag. Myth and others read in more info from more tags. I don't use gbpvr, but if you can give a link or description of how gbpvr reads in channel numbers and names and affiliates, and order of precedence I could make a /gbpvr switch that would format the output in a way it likes.

[whurlston]

The channel name is provided in the xml file, just gbpvr can only read one <display-name> tag. Myth and others read in more info from more tags. I don't use gbpvr, but if you can give a link or description of how gbpvr reads in channel numbers and names and affiliates, and order of precedence I could make a /gbpvr switch that would format the output in a way it likes.

GB-PVR reads the first <display-name> and ignores the rest so if you have the following:

<display-name>3</display-name>
<display-name>WNBC</display-name>
<display-name>3 WNBC</display-name>

GB-PVR would only read the <display-name>3</display-name>. What I did was add a switch "name=X" where X was an integer related to the different display name options:

name=0 would be <display-name>WNBC</display-name>
name=1 would be <display-name>3 WNBC</display-name>

This gave people the option to use whichever display name they wanted. It's up to you if you want to get that involved but I figured I would mention it.

[kwong26]

Yes, unfortunately, if you use the canadian download mode, the episode title is only available in the detailed download for the first 36 hours. If you uncheck the canadian mode, and you find your OTA channels are still there and correct, you could use that instead.

Not sure that's the same issue that I had. Although the data is only for the first 36 hours when doing a detailed download, within that 36 hour period that has been grabbed, if the episode title is not available, which some shows (e.g. Big Brother 8) don't have, then the program doesn't download even the detail that follows (e.g. Fourteen people share an isolated home and try to avoid being evicted by their house mates.) which I was expecting to show up.