[mythtv-users] Our Only Option is Schedule Direct?

[David Brodbeck]

On Sep 17, 2007, at 2:19 PM, Eric wrote:

> Eric wrote:
>
>> Is our only option to "Pay/Subscribe" to schedule direct.  If so, it
>> looks like switching to comcast's DVR is a "now" worthwhile

Sure, if you're happy with its limitations.  Personally, I prefer  
having a system that lets me watch from multiple TVs/computers in my  
apartment from one central DVR.

>>
>> Am I the only one who is upset about having to pay a monthly fee now
>> to use Myth?

I'm not really upset about it, though I recognize some people are.   
I'm paying for access to data that's valuable to me, not really to  
"use MythTV."  (I could use MythTV without scheduling data if I  
really wanted, but I don't want to do it that way.)  Besides, I have  
to prioritize the things in my life I want to get upset about,  
because I have many, many to choose from, and $2.50 per month is not  
worth the effort of getting angry. ;)

>> Maybe we could look into how Jbidwatcher gathers it's
>> auction data., by scraping it from the source servers.  It's not
>> particularly efficient or elegant, but programming data doesn't need
>> to be updated very frequently.  We could still use zap2it, just write
>> a scrapper.  Any thoughts?

This was discussed *at length* in several threads over the last few  
months.  If you'd taken the time to read the list archives, you'd  
have realized you're not the first one to have this idea.

Essentially the conversation boiled down to this:

- You can put data from any source you want into MythTV via XMLTV, a  
standard listings interchange format.
- Screen-scraper discussions are probably better held on the XMLTV  
mailing lists, because that's where the development of such things  
happens and because users of multiple applications come together  
there to work on common sources of data.
- Screen-scraping is against the terms of service (TOS) agreements of  
most TV listing websites, including Zap2It's site.
- MythTV developers have said they won't officially support anything  
that violates a site's TOS, so if you want to write something like  
this, you're on your own.