Are you willing to pay $80+ for good Canadian Listings

[shuban0]

Before I embark on this journey, I'd just like to know if people are actually willing to pay $80+ for good canadian listings. And by good I mean of equal quality to SageTV's USA listings.

Why $80? Well thats how much in canadian dollars a Snapstream license costs.

Why +? I'm a student, I don't own either SageTV or Snapstream, I wouldn't mind owning both but that'll take $$$. I still haven't even decided if I'd bother charging but if I did it be very low $3-$10 just so I could buy both packages myself.

How? Basically, setup snapstream to your Canadian location and use a special java-plugin to import the listings into SageTV.

The Bad. It is possible Snapstream could change the way they store the guide info into a specially encrypted format, which would make the plug in useless.

Since this benefits both companies I don't really see how this plug-in could be a problem, but hey you never know.

Anyways I'd like to hear other Canadian thoughts on this.

[pawn]

I think you're looking to charge money for something most people in here could do easily on their own.

The SS data indeed appears to be in Access format, which can, of course, be exported to delimited text. I think I could write, in about 15 minutes, a quick prog to convert the equivalent lines to XML format to be used with the existing XMLTV plugin.

It also wouldn't be difficult to create a macro to actually run Access, export the data, convert it and save it in Sage's directory.

Furthermore, I have no doubt the makers of BeyondTV would screw with the database format to prevent this. I could see them encrypting it in a future release (if they don't already). Why would they want to inadvertently help a competitor? They know many users will buy their application, and theirs only, due to the guide data.

Finally, none of this would solve the problem seemingly most people have with a lack of dedicated Canadian guide data: the complications of dealing with plugins, etc..

Personally, I'm quite happy with the XMLTV data.

[davey_fl]

Having tried SS myself I didn't think the guide info was all that great. It seemed to me that there was just as much, if not more, information provided by xmltv...

[pawn]

IMO, the only info missing in the XML data is the rerun flag, which can easily be fixed using the proggy I wrote.

At this point, I could not care less about a dedicated guide. I will care a lot if Zap2It prevents us from downloading their data.

[olyar15]

Strange, the rerun flag appears to be set correctly for most of the shows I watch, depending on the station. I guess the quality of the EPG data varies with different regions.

[pawn]

Originally posted by olyar15
Strange, the rerun flag appears to be set correctly for most of the shows I watch, depending on the station. I guess the quality of the EPG data varies with different regions.

That's what they say. The rerun flag is not set for 99% of the data I download.

[davey_fl]

what about cast info? I see that it's all up on zap2it, and other xmltv users seem to get it, but I doesn't bring in cast info for me....

[eggman51]

I own Snapstream. Main reason for me is because it's:
1. got a nicer UI
2. has CDN listings

When comparing to Sage 2.0, I am really only missing CDN listings (at least from the screenshots).

Multi Tuner, Clients and filter plug ins are very important to me, but secondary to "usability" issues (not to mention that this being my first HTPC, I am only using an single tuner right now).

I have heard people say XMLTV works great, but I can't help but notice - on every site that discusses use of XMLTV - that it is also prone to breaking now and then. This won't work for meat all. My HTPC needs to be more of a set top box than a computer, so my wife and family will really not stand for the guide listings breaking.

I would be interested in a Snapstream --> Sage EPG data importer, it just feels like Snapstream would be a more reliable source of the data than XMLTV. I dunno how much I would pay for it. Likely I would want to see hat it doesn't "break" with any regularity before being happy with it.

Best of luck with this if you do decide to pursue it.

eggman

[Brett]

I personally would not bother with the plugin. The second Snapstream realized its data was being pulled to be used within Sage, it will break the parser like that. That is why XMLTV breaks all the time, its technically "stealing" data without giving any kind of recongization, even a simple thanks

And for those who gave up on SS because of its "lack" of features may want to pay extra special attention to this upcoming 3.5 release, its gonna be a big one.

SlimD

[eggman51]

Originally posted by SlimD
I personally would not bother with the plugin. The second Snapstream realized its data was being pulled to be used within Sage, it will break the parser like that. That is why XMLTV breaks all the time, its technically "stealing" data without giving any kind of recongization, even a simple thanks

And for those who gave up on SS because of its "lack" of features may want to pay extra special attention to this upcoming 3.5 release, its gonna be a big one.

SlimD

Well... I don't agree with the first statement .. Snapstream is migrating to an API to access the EPG. So, if built on the API, then it will be fairly stable (once the API stabilizes).

I do agree on the second point, Snapstream's BTV 3.5 is going to be a huge release cycle for them in terms of catching up with Sage on feature capabilities:
- network client
- multi tuner
- content / folder organisation

However I think it will take thema bit to sort that all out. My guess is that 3.5 will stabilise a lil earlier than Sage 2.0 stabilizes tho.

eggman