I think the XMLTV plugin is now broken for N. American Data.

[pawn]

Hopefully Mattias Larsson and/or Lester Jacobs will see this.

Zap2it has changed their XMLTV data, specifically the channel ID identifiers.

Where a channel name used to look like this:

<channel id="10 CHCH">

It now looks like this:

<channel id="C10chch.zap2it.com">


I've never even seen Java code before, but I'm pretty sure the XMLTV plugin shows signs of truncating the channel name string and converting it to an integer. Obviously the big fat "C" in the new naming method would wreck that.

I spent all day today installing perl modules so I could download guide data with my linux box (since the windows version is still broken due to other changes Zap2It has made), only to still have no guide data.

(sigh)

[-LD]

party

[pawn]

Originally posted by -LD
party

But the data is still different and the XMLTV plugin still chokes on it (on my system).

I just finished parsing through my epgdata file to find and replace every channel ID, for every program for 2 weeks worth of data, to correct the channel name issue.

Here's hoping somone fixes the plugin before July 13th. ;^)

[-LD]

yeah, i just finished getting my data...i also use myHTPC...maybe the XMLTV format has changed which would mean an update to the plugins used with Sage and mHTPC...or, the grabber is still a bit wonky

you get what you pay for i guess *shrug*

to be honest, i'm surprised zap2it doesn't change their format more often

[Lester Jacobs]

The xmltv plugin for SageTV has been updated to handle the new format of the grabber output. It can be found in this post.

To be honest, I think zap2it either doesn't care too much about the xmltv grabbers or the volume of grabbing being done hasn't been enough to appear on their radar as yet. If they REALLY cared they could do some very nasty stuff to their webpages pretty easily that would incapacitate the grabbers and require a major code rewrite of them. And they could do all this while retaining their current "look and feel".

Anyways, hopefully before they decide to get nasty with the grabbers they will either provide some way for consumers to download the data for a fee or Frey will offer full North American coverage.

For now though, we're back on track.

Cheers
Lester

[pawn]

Originally posted by Lester Jacobs
The xmltv plugin for SageTV has been updated to handle the new format of the grabber output. It can be found in this post.

To be honest, I think zap2it either doesn't care too much about the xmltv grabbers or the volume of grabbing being done hasn't been enough to appear on their radar as yet. If they REALLY cared they could do some very nasty stuff to their webpages pretty easily that would incapacitate the grabbers and require a major code rewrite of them. And they could do all this while retaining their current "look and feel".

Anyways, hopefully before they decide to get nasty with the grabbers they will either provide some way for consumers to download the data for a fee or Frey will offer full North American coverage.

For now though, we're back on track.

Cheers
Lester

I'd pay for it if necessary. I always just assumed that the makers of XMLTV (and the others) got Zap2it's permission before distributing their grabbers.

It would be nice if there was another source though, to be prepared for the future,

Thanks for the effort, BTW.

[justme]

It would be nice if there was another source though, to be prepared for the future,

Not that this would ever happen, but...

I've always felt that it was in each stations individual interest to make their schedule freely availiable on their website. After all they do want us to watch their show rather than another channel's show. They could partner with XMLTV to make the individual guides in a format that could easily be handled by new grabbers. It would mean more work when you first configured your grabber. ie Tracking down all the stations websites for your lineup. But the data should be more accurate considering it comes from the actual station. ie They would know of timeslot overruns and local show substitions. It could work out for everone.

Heck I would even accept that ads for other shows and products could be embedded into episode descriptions. This would provide an additional incentive, beyond maybe getting me to watch your show.

Just my 2 cents worth.