There is absolutely no doubt that the fun is in the learning...

[ACTCMS]

I've been at gbpvr for about two weeks now and I'm not doing too badly - I've now got a nova-t-500 installed and working, client/server, web interface, recording/playback, music video collection/mp3 collection/family pics and videos, blah blah blah...

I'm interested in music related programs, especially 70's and 80's stuff (whistle test and such) since I figure watching music with video gives you a bit more then just listening to the music. So I want some sort of way to find out what upcoming programs might be of interest to me without having to manually scroll through the gppvr tv guides. I haven't had much luck looking for an ODBC driver for SQlite (which would allow me to dig about using vb/access) so tonight I started playing with XMLTV stuff... and guess what?

During the whole of next week there's absolutely naff all on...

[weisguy]

Welcome aboard! There is definitely a lot of fun in the learning... that is to say, a weird mix of frustration and fun that is hard to describe. Once you've got everything working in general, you'll probably go through a long tweaking phase followed by an obsessive phase where you stomp out all the teeny, tiny nits and bugs you don't like in your setup. If you're lucky, there will be nothing left to do except watch TV exactly the way you want to.

This of course will be followed by a sense of complete and utter despair when you realize that you have completely solved the entire thing...

[JavaWiz]

So I want some sort of way to find out what upcoming programs might be of interest to me without having to manually scroll through the gppvr tv guides

You might try looking at the SearchWiz plugin which allows you to search based on genre (ie Music). It also will search within the program title, episode and description for keywords.

If you want to hit the db directly, there are a couple free sql clients that are referenced in the forums. In particular, I use SQLiteBrowser (http://sqlitebrowser.sourceforge.net/) and SQLiteSpy(http://www.zeitungsjunge.de/delphi/sqlitespy/index.htm).

[ACTCMS]

Thanks for that weisguy - nice to know I'm not the only one... :eek:

This of course will be followed by a sense of complete and utter despair when you realize that you have completely solved the entire thing...

or I might just find some other piece of technology to tamper with... NO in fact I will definitely find some other piece of technology to tamper with and then after I have mastered that... I'll probably loose interest and find something else... ad infinitum

JavaWiz: I use your excelent SearchWiz plugin (could we have a grovel-grovel smilie in the post editor please) but one of the problems I have is (I'm UK DVB-T) that the genre info on the DVB EPG is worse than useless eg BBC4 sessions (Ray LaMontaine) being classed as Shows/Game Shows ? and I've not got around to looking at other EPG stuff yet (weisguy: but I will - absolutely).

I use sqlitebrowser and it has been very helpfull in figuring out how gbpvr (what was that about a grovel-grovel smilie?) works, but my native SQL is not my best feature - I'm more of a QBE sort of chap (I've been using access too long) but applying complex queries to my EPG data is fairly high on my list. Java sounds quite interesting too...

[Obsidian]

ACTCMS, as a fellow UK freeview user I can whole heartedly recommend the radio times xmltv data to you. There is a nice and easy xmltv grabber available for it at http://www.birtles.org.uk/xmltv/, and although the genre information isn't perfect you should find it to be an improvement. There are also quite detailed write-ups of many programs.

[ACTCMS]

Obsidian: I just installed XMLTV GUI and TVGuide (I had already downloaded but not looked at them) and grabbed the listings and guess what... not only does the genre stuff look a lot more accurate but these is even an XML schema. I pointed an access database at the XML file and now I can set up my own complex queries to search for stuff that interests me (mostly live music performances - especially the old 70's stuff). so thanks for that.

Strange to think that I'm doing all this just because I couldn't find a halfway decent hardware PVR that had a network connection at a reasonable price.

[Obsidian]

Great, glad you got it working.

It is fantastic what you can achieve once you move to a PC based PVR. And as you rightly say, it just wouldn't be as fun if it was easy! I mean, where's the fun in buying a ready made box off the shelf?

I'm just in the process of writing my first plugin, and I'm beginning to realise that the possibilities with this software are basically endless. If you want to do it, you probably can- if you're prepared to put in the time!

[Clanky]

Once you've got everything working in general, you'll probably go through a long tweaking phase followed by an obsessive phase where you stomp out all the teeny, tiny nits and bugs you don't like in your setup.

Don't forget the WAF. Once you've got it nicely working, leave it alone or there will be all hell to pay if it doesn't record her favourite program

[ACTCMS]

Obsidian: as you are aware (since I hadn't got round to looking at XMLTV), I'm still investigating the options and possibilities available (AKA playing with it :p ). Once I've seen what others have done I might think about some development myself. The point that Clanky made might play a large part in that decision.

Clanky: good advice but I've got it covered - I've been playing with machines for a long time now and I am pretty good at handling new version roll-outs to cause the minimum amount of disruption to the end users (W) and, as is patently obvious, this normally involves the setting up of a separate development facility (AKA I get to aquire another machine )