[mythtv-users] Preferred SD xmltv grabber?

[Paul Harrison]

On 17/02/2023 16:49, Mike Perkins wrote:

> On 17/02/2023 15:26, Peter Bennett wrote:
>>
>> On 2/16/23 22:38, Gary Buhrmaster wrote:
>>> On Thu, Feb 16, 2023 at 8:01 PM Ian Evans <dheianevans at gmail.com> 
>>> wrote:
>>>> I know this might be a loaded question, but is there a preferred 
>>>> grabber of the two Schedules Direct xmltv grabbers? Or a "why 
>>>> choose one over the other?"
>>>>
>>> I am explicitly going to recuse myself from
>>> answering this question because I cannot
>>> legitimately claim a lack of conflict of interest
>>> in the conclusion.
>>>
>>> However, perhaps, a more interesting question
>>> might be what do the primary MythTV devs
>>> use between those two grabbers if they use
>>> one of them?  One would expect they choose
>>> what works best for them, and they are likely
>>> to be the most demanding and discerning
>>> users of the Schedules Direct feeds.
>>
>> I use tv_grab_zz_sdjson_sqlite and I recommend it.
>>
> Ok, then. I'll bite.
>
> I started using the non-sqlite version before the sqlite version 
> existed. No problems so far!
>

I also use tv_grab_zz_sdjson_sqlite most if not all of the devs do but 
you are free to use whichever one you choose. If you have used XMLTV 
before then tv_grab_zz_sdjson is setup similar to other grabbers using 
text config files so is probably easier for many. 
tv_grab_zz_sdjson_sqlite uses a SQLite3 database to store everything 
including the config so you have to use tv_grab_zz_sdjson_sqlite 
--manage I think it is to set it up you can't just edit a config file. 
As you can see from the smolt stats tv_grab_zz_sdjson is more popular 
with users that have submitted there details to use.

  tv_grab_zz_sdjson     243     19.5 %

tv_grab_zz_sdjson_sqlite     97     7.8 %


Gary the author of tv_grab_zz_sdjson_sqlite is a friend of the MythTV 
project so I know if we have any queries we can easily get help. At the 
time UK users where forced to switch to Schedule Direct because the RT 
grabber stopped working I did some un-scientific tests and 
tv_grab_zz_sdjson_sqlite was a far bit quicker than the other grabber so 
that is why I went with it. The theory at the time was one grabber 
cached everything in accordance with the SD API recommendations  and the 
other may not have been. Whether that was the case or still is the case 
I have no idea though.


The devs did briefly talked about integrating some of Gary's helper 
utils ( https://github.com/garybuhrmaster/MythUtil ) in to MythTV that 
fill large, channel, management gaps between his xmltv grabber, MythTV 
and HDHomeRuns which may be something we look at in the future.


Paul H.