[mythtv-users] tv guide line-up free

Dean Harding dean.harding at dload.com.au
Thu Sep 6 03:14:45 UTC 2007


> > Write a TitanTV XMLTV grabber and *it works* with MythTV.
> 
> Right up until they notice how much data you're grabbing every day?

I just thought I'd point out some stuff about what we do in Australia with
regards to scheduling information.

There are basically two common sources of XMLTV data in Australia. One is
icetv.com.au who charge $13 a month (or less if you subscribe for 6 months
or 12 months at a time).

The other is http://minnie.tuhs.org/twiki/bin/view/TVGuide/ which is a
community-run source of data. Basically, people collect the data manually
and upload it. You need to sign up for an account, but it's free. The data
is free of copyright because people are entering it manually (presumably...)

Before that second source existed, there used to be a bunch of scripts that
you could get which scraped various websites to get the data (as I
understand it, that's what you're proposing?). The problem with scrapers,
though, was that they were always extremely fragile -- the websites would
change the HTML they output every now and then (presumably once they
realised lots of scrapers were running) and the scripts would break and
someone would have to fix them. Now, it generally wasn't HARD to fix, but
they'd break *all the time*.

Now, I haven't followed this thread all the way through, but I understand
you're suggesting some sort of web scraper for schedules data? My suggestion
would be rather than do that, set up something like the Aussie
community-supported site. If lots of people want free guide data (and, in
Australia, people like free EVERYTHING :p) you'll get plenty of people
signing up.

Dean.




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