Pay-Per-View Plugin

[rsagetv99]

Originally Posted by kevthor

Maybe we have to look at a different provider other than TitanTV that does have the PPV listings and provides XML download.

Where do we submit a request on zap2it for PPV information? Is there a forum or are we just emailing them or what?

Sounds good, let me know when you find one.

[rsagetv99]

Originally Posted by kny3twalker

well if everyone filled their inbox
we might get a response
please post the email address

Hopefully this will work, but from what I have read on this forum and the TIVO community forum (TIVO also uses ZAP2it) this is not something that ZAP2it has control over. Apparently it's Dish and DirectTV that do not want to provide the PPV data to ZAP2it - at least this was always the excuse.

[kny3twalker]

but they will give the data to TitanTV
man who runs Dish and Direct that overlooked this

I mean they have DirecTiVo users as well (but I suppose that might be different)

[rsagetv99]

Originally Posted by kny3twalker

but they will give the data to TitanTV
man who runs Dish and Direct that overlooked this

I mean they have DirecTiVo users as well (but I suppose that might be different)

Honestly I don't know how Titan gets the data. Maybe ToonGal works for Titan and she scrapes it from the Dish and Direct sites.

Yeah DirectTivo is different, their guide data is provided driectly to the box by DirectTV not through the Internet by Zap2it.

[kevthor]

So I am guessing this has just died? I have not been able to find a website that provides EPG information in any soft of download file that has PPV listings. TitanTV is the only one I know of with listings. So short of a webscraper is there any other avenues we could explore? I'm guessing this question is directed more towards you Cayars.

Thanks!
-Kevin

[foolio]

people with dvb gets a 10day guide via the satellite for dish network. with the "mytheatre" program, the guide is in the form of an access database. someone with dvb can host such a file. of course, this would only help people with Dish Network

[pasha]

I can host EPG DATA from mytheatre ... in epg.mdb... if anybody will process it...

[rsagetv99]

Here we go again

I'm glad someone brought this back up!

I'll second the nomination.

[insomniac]

the epg.mdb will even export into xml format. Someone would just need to massage it into xmltv format!

see this post for an unchanged export of the epg.mdb data:

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...9&postcount=30

[dbfresh23]

I haven't looked at this much since it's for E* and I have D* but the folks at mythtv created a perl script to get the ppv guide data for mythtv. I would bet that it wouldn't be too hard to modify it and get it into something that SageTV can read...

http://www.mythppv.com/

[insomniac]

xred has started a fire, and a plugin author from over at MT has volunteered to give it a shot. If your interrested in the plugin, please express your interrest and gratitude for his efforts!

http://board.mytheatre.ru/viewtopic.php?p=23923#23923

[xred]

Originally Posted by insomniac

xred has started a fire, and a plugin author from over at MT has volunteered to give it a shot. If your interrested in the plugin, please express your interrest and gratitude for his efforts!

http://board.mytheatre.ru/viewtopic.php?p=23923#23923

Bump on this thread... anyone find a way to get Sage to use both its internal EPG and read an external file for selected (e.g. PPV) channels. We know that Sage supports adding the same tuner twice to support separate data sources, all thats missing is the ability to have Sage use its own EPG data source (Zap2it) for one set of channels and xmltv for another. Motofreak has done it, but it requires a HUGE amount of manual by hand editing... the problem seems so simple, there must be an easier solution.

So close and yet still so far!!

[insomniac]

This is exactly where im at with this one. I love that we are so close to a working solution, but cannot sacrafice all built in epg data for just a few PPV chan data. I hope someone figures this out or writes support for this in future versions.

I.

[Motofreak75]

I found another way, Sorry I just copied this from a PM I just sent

if your just using one provider, then I can tell you how to match the data. if you have a zapit account, you can select your lineup, choose all the channels you want but deselect the PPV listings so that they're not downloaded. next thing is make a copy of your channel DB but only have the PPV channels in your extra copy selected for xml export. when you have created to xml files (one from zapit and the other from XML export) you can merge the to together using tv_cat command,as long as your setup is still using SID and not a custom channel mapping. if you have sorted the channels out any other way other than SID, this will not work. Data will get lost and epg data will not match.

once merged, import it into sage via Corys importer and it wiill be perfect, you have all the catagories and rating control and first run and rerun controls you need on all the channels but the PPV. this way you get the best of both world. Just no control off the ppv and any other channel Zapit might not have in their lineup.

YOu'll have to go through the lineup to make sure what zapit doesnt have and then add it to the extra channel DB from MT.

this will only work if your are using only on provider, if you have two or more providers with the same SIDs then problems will start (overwriting one SID to another)

edit: Also , as I said in another post, I working a solution to use the entire xml file from Doms and just using a simple search for certain words in DESC and creating catagorys and rating control (for only movies )

[CarlG]

You would think that it shouldn't be that hard considering you can just put a dll in your plugins folder and have a fully operational guide with dvbepg. I just use MT for the ppv's for now with that plugin.

[xred]

Originally Posted by CarlG

You would think that it shouldn't be that hard considering you can just put a dll in your plugins folder and have a fully operational guide with dvbepg. I just use MT for the ppv's for now with that plugin.

DVBEpg and/or MyEPG get their data from the same place we are getting it... the Satellite data itself. The "Dom" Motofreak is referring to is a guy in the Mytheatre forums who did us the huge favour of writing an app that exports the same data DVBEpg uses out to an XMLTV format that Sage uses. Problem is that data isn't formatted in a way that Sage can extract working metadata (categories, first run etc) out of it cleanly.... whereas with Zap2it data you can.

What we _still_ really need is the ability to use two data sources simultaneously... basically use Sage's built in EPG service for all normal channels, and use XMLTV data we supply for all PPV's and special event channels.

[CarlG]

Thanks for the explanation Xred. I bet ya Narflex could help us out but he's too busy makin betas lol.I wish I was smart enough to help out here but I'm dumb as a post on this I'll offer $15 to whoever comes up with the plugin or whatever it takes...seems like the only way I can help out.

Carl

[insomniac]

AMEN!

Originally Posted by xred

DVBEpg and/or MyEPG get their data from the same place we are getting it... the Satellite data itself. The "Dom" Motofreak is referring to is a guy in the Mytheatre forums who did us the huge favour of writing an app that exports the same data DVBEpg uses out to an XMLTV format that Sage uses. Problem is that data isn't formatted in a way that Sage can extract working metadata (categories, first run etc) out of it cleanly.... whereas with Zap2it data you can.

What we _still_ really need is the ability to use two data sources simultaneously... basically use Sage's built in EPG service for all normal channels, and use XMLTV data we supply for all PPV's and special event channels.

[AtariJeff]

Bahhh! I can't take it anymore. I'm this close to dusting off the JAVA books and programming this myself. My take on this solution would be to:

1) Have a plugin for MT that the xmltv plugin could talk to directly instead of all this MT->Access->xml->SageTV conversion. The access tables that MT produce seem to be lacking some info. I say this because the data in the tables and the XML generated from it do not properly break out ratings (very important to me for the kids), episode names, actors, etc.
2) Make a variant (or rewrite) of one of the multi-epg Sage plugins that reads the MT EPG data directly as one of it's sources. From there it's a matter of overlaying 2 schemes together and configuring which channels come from which source. Maybe something like using the Zap2It data as a master list. Then I configure channels 350-400 to come from another source, like MT, to replace that particular range in the Zap2It data.

No idea how I'm going to find time for this...but I'll try
</end rant>

[Motofreak75]

Originally Posted by AtariJeff

Bahhh! I can't take it anymore. I'm this close to dusting off the JAVA books and programming this myself. My take on this solution would be to:

1) Have a plugin for MT that the xmltv plugin could talk to directly instead of all this MT->Access->xml->SageTV conversion. The access tables that MT produce seem to be lacking some info. I say this because the data in the tables and the XML generated from it do not properly break out ratings (very important to me for the kids), episode names, actors, etc.
2) Make a variant (or rewrite) of one of the multi-epg Sage plugins that reads the MT EPG data directly as one of it's sources. From there it's a matter of overlaying 2 schemes together and configuring which channels come from which source. Maybe something like using the Zap2It data as a master list. Then I configure channels 350-400 to come from another source, like MT, to replace that particular range in the Zap2It data.

No idea how I'm going to find time for this...but I'll try
</end rant>

Thats great, prehaps take a look at Corys EPG plugin (because it retains the channel order of MT) and this weekend (maybe) I'll have a beta or maybe a working version of a new xml exporter from MT, that will do ratings and News,Movies and sports catagorys for sage.

thanks for taking a look into the java stuff