[mythtv-users] Zap2It needs our help

[kr]

Jason Keirstead wrote:
> Chris Petersen wrote:
> 
>> Request a listing?  It's not just a list of channels for a particular
>> region/provider.  My listing has a bunch of channels removed (HSN, ESPN,
>> etc) that I will never watch.  The only thing the request says is "hi,
>> I'm xris, give me lineup number 1"..   Even if you were proxying the
>> entire request, you'd end up storing EVERYONE'S personal lineups, since
>> the specific data isn't passed back and forth.
>>  
>>
> So you have several channels removed. Those would not be cached when you 
> make your request then. When other guy uses the proxy, and he
> is in your  region and using your provider, if he needs those channels 
> then his lineup is downloaded. If he does not then it is not.
> 
> The point is you can still cache, because as soon as you get one guy who 
> wants *all* the channels, no one in that region / provider needs to 
> fetch all that data anymore, since it is all cached locally. I know from 
> previous requests what channels you want, so I only send you those.
> 
> I don't think people are thinking through how easy it would be to store 
> and correlate this data. It's not like you have to save it on a 'by 
> lineup' basis.  You can save it on a 'by channel by provider' basis., 
> thus if I am showing only channels 15-40 of a provider's 60 channel 
> lineup, and you are showing channels 30-60, then when the third guy 
> comes along requesting channels 10 - 50, it can*all* be retrieved from 
> the cache.
> 
>> Oh, and the whole point of connecting datadirect and downloading stuff
>> daily is because stuff changes on a daily basis.
>>
> I don't see what this has to do with anything. If 300 people are using 
> the proxy, it doesn't matter if  they all request the data every day.  
> You could have the proxy expire the data every 12 hours even and it 
> would still save zap2it tons of bandwidth and requests.
> 
>> And if you're
>> only saving it for a day, then all you've done is become a middleman for
>> the download, and wasted bandwidth by proxying something I could just as
>> easily have downloaded directly.
>>  
>>
> Wasting whose bandwidth? *You* are using the exact same bandwidth. And 
> in the absolute *worst* case ( every person on the proxy has
> different non-overlapping channel lineups ), zap2it is using the same 
> bandwidth it would anyways. But in the *average* case, the proxy would 
> be saving zap2it a ton of hits and bandwidth.
> 
> I really don't get why everyone is making such a big deal about this - 
> caching proxies are simple to implement. It's not rocket science.
> 
> 

Well if you want to talk about wasting bandwidth, let's talk about this 
thread. My guess is that hell will freeze over before Zap2It allows 
anyone to cache and/or redistribute their data without paying a 
significant amount of money. :)

kr

-- 
K.R. Foley
kr at cybsft.com
www.cybsft.com