[mythtv-users] Zap2it Labs Shutting Down?

Preston Crow pc-mythtv07a at crowcastle.net
Wed Jun 20 14:22:41 UTC 2007


On Wed, 2007-06-20 at 09:30 -0400, Daniel Kristjansson wrote:
> Another option is to get the data directly from the stations
> themselves, this was done by some MythTV users in Sweden with
> much success. There are fewer stations there, but there are
> also many more MythTV users in North America who are willing
> to do some legwork.

Yup.  I've already done that for Comedy Central, because the zap2it
listings often lack the episode information.

It shouldn't really be that hard to get listings for all the major
channels.  Getting the local information for networks, independent
channels, and such is more of a challenge.  (This might be a good place
for a bounty system--someone who is good at writing scrapers might be
willing to code one for your favorite local channel for price.)

It would be possible to scrape the channel lineup from the various cable
and satellite web sites, and to get the broadcast lineup from
antennaweb.

In fact, setting up a competitor to zap2it seems fairly doable, whether
it's letting everyone gather their own listings, or putting together a
service, it's certainly doable.

You know, this is simply a matter of making use of data that's freely
available on the web already.  Isn't that what Google prides themselves
in doing?  Perhaps we should encourage them to create a TV listing
database?



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