[mythtv] Listings concept idea

[Keith Barrett]

I am a long time Linux developer that is just getting into doing more
with MythTV than reading about it. With the recent priority of looking 
into channel guide replacement solutions, I've always wondered why it 
was never really community owned and placed on a centralized server.

If MythTV resorts to screen scraping (again), rather than having
thousands of MythTV systems do individual scrapes every nn hours, we
should have a central server that does the scrapes. All the MythTV
backends could download the resulting databases from there. A central 
DB also means you could scrape from multiple sources to get more
accurate data, and I'm sure the sites you are scraping would appreciate
 the controlled traffic.

If people also had the power to manually make changes to that central
DB, or if we automated a bunch more things with it, it could be more
accurate and descriptive that anything else on the net. Built-in user
reviews and ratings, links to actor credits, DVD cover art, merchandise
stores, etc. could all enhance the channel surfing experience.

"Tape all episodes of House where viewer's rated it 5 or better".

"Tape YouTube clips of more than 10000 views".

"List all shows that include URL's to related slashdot or digg stories"

The web site would allow you to see or browse all channels from all
internet sources as well. You could browse the site and find a free
internet show dedicated to Linux GUI programming on the net and just
hit "subscribe" to automatically include it in your MythTV backend. A
centralized site could even be a URL distribution point for creating 
your own channels or shows.

Really no limit to what can be done. Make the channel guide a giant 
wiki or an RSS feed.

Well, maybe not a wiki.



       
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