UK XMLTV recommendations?

[bgowland]

I've been out of the loop for a long time but I'm coming back to npvr.

What's a good xmltv grabber to use for UK Freeview? I used Alan Birtles' Radio Times grabber in the past but that was on Windows and my new server is running linux.

Any recommendations?

Cheers,
Brian

[mvallevand]

Schedules Direct will provide the best quality metadata and art and it it easy to set up and not expensive

The question becomes what is wrong with using OTA DVB-T in the UK? That is the source for many of the free XMLTV guides.

Martin

[bgowland]

Schedules Direct will provide the best quality metadata and art and it it easy to set up and not expensive

The question becomes what is wrong with using OTA DVB-T in the UK?  That is the source for many of the free XMLTV guides.

Martin

Thanks, I always assumed SD was for North America - I'll take a look.

The OTA is a bit of a bugbear for me - it's usable but due to bandwidth / character limitations it can be really dumbed down. I suppose I'm a bit of a snob but I often watch films I've never heard of based on the synopsis included. The Radio Times xmltv would have quite good (unbiased) film reviews which I liked - DVB-T OTA often has one sentence.

I know RT out-sourced their xmltv to a company called Atlas and I even applied for an API key for them to write my own grabber - that project came to a halt with my old server.

Cheers,
Brian

[mvallevand]

I looked at RadioTimes.com and it looked a lot like Schedules Direct. The Season/Episode info is the same which is most important to me.  I like the SD show art better than the episode art.

Martin

[bgowland]

Um okay, so how did you grab that?

Cheers,
Brian

[mvallevand]

Those are just two screen grabs from the browser

Top one is NextPVR EPG details with Schedules Direct using my Filmon extra as a source.

Bottom was from RadioTimes.com Maybe there is a scrapper for it. A free alternative to https://www.freeview.co.uk/tv-guide is linked here https://github.com/dp247/Freeview-EPG Scrapers come and go you have to decide if few pounds a month is worth it. Note the meta art in XMLTV is not preferred as it is with SD.

Martin

[bgowland]

Okay, I understand. Your yirst image is the SD download and second from RT.

In comparison for a film - Cowboys & Aliens - not a great film but I've seen it before and give it maybe 7/10. Images for the Freeview OTA and the radiotimes.com. The synopsis / summary from Freeview OTA is lacking any sort detail. The RT text has  more detail and is written in a more encouraging way.

The title is a bit ridiculous but let's face it The War of the Worlds by H.G.Wells could be made into a film called Victorian Brits & Aliens and the title would be just as ridiculous.

Cheers,
Brian

[mvallevand]

I don't have that channel from Filmon but this should give an idea of the extra meta data with UI clients on the child screens.

Martin

[bgowland]

Artwork isn't usually important to me unless it's something I want to keep for a long time. Most of our recordings are daily transient recordings and when we've watched them we delete. It really is just quantity/quality of summary particularly for films I've never seen. Images from DVB OTA and RT sites - ignore the artwork for the OTA as I've been playing with different source sites and it got it wrong.

The long and short of it is I liked the old RT data and xmltv but I doubt that's possible. It's not about paying for a monthly service, I'm just aiming for simplicity like the good ol' days.

[mvallevand]

With SD the art matches will be perfect. With XMLTV you will actually get the same as OTA as I said alternate sources are preferred to XMLTV..

However I was highlighting the cast and crew screens on the left/rigt arrows that often aren't included in XMLTV that don't necessarily add value to a description.

Martin