[mythtv] Is there a need for a XMLTV metadata (not EPG) grabber?

[Mario Schmidt]

The situation:

- My EPG-provider supplies a very good xmltv including episode-num's in 
„onscreen“ and „xmltv_ns“ naming scheme for any series episode with 100% 
completeness.
- Subtitles are completly - separated from the series titles.
- I import the xmltv daily using mythfilldatabase –file
- In the EPG i can see „onscreen“ numbering. Scheduling works fine. 
Duplicate episode matching works fine either, mainly because the 
title/subtitles are 100% correct.

- I use analog cable no EIT.
- After a recording is done, the metadata grabber's for TVDB/Movies 
start their work. In 50% of the cases, they don't find anything. I think 
there are certain bugs in those grabbers, when they have to deal with a 
„foreign language“. For example „Scrubs – Die Anfänger“ (german title 
for „Scrubs“) is not found, even if it is listed under those title in 
german.

My proposal:

- Rather than changing mythtv-code, I thought of making another metadata 
grabber.
- This metadata grabber would scan my stored XMLTV for the EPG entry of 
the recording in question and returns information in MythTV Universal 
Metadata Format.
- This could be done even if the backend is not connected to the internet.

Let's call that thingy „mythxmltv“-metadata grabber.

Spoken in technical terms it would be a „XMLTV“ to „MXML“ converter 
(with search functionality).

Here is a working copy: http://pastebin.com/HV9Dkecx

(Be aware that this version is a development version. It should be added 
to /usr/share/mythtv/metadata/Television/. An xmltv must be at 
/home/mythtv/.yatv/epg.xml It spams the syslog)

Further Thoughts:

- The solution would work in more complex scenarios. Like when you have 
EIT data and XMLTV data.
- Maybe those script could call an underlying metadata grabber, like 
tvdb.py. It could than combine both metadata-results. You would have 
artwork + EPG data.
- The real fancy thing would be, that the "mythxmltv"-script could call 
tvdb.py with a hint on the original-title, if it's in the EPG data!

What do you think?