EPG (AUS) Grabber - Different Design

[scott_k2]

I'm another one of the frustrated Australian users who's EPG sources keep drying up.
I know there is 2 sources left, but for how long I'm not too sure.

I'm considering writing a java based grabber and was wondering if anyone else has looked into using the Cobra toolkit (http://html.xamjwg.org/cobra.jsp) so that if the web pages are encrypted with javascript etc, they can still be used and made readable to any java application.

This would seem to be a neat design, so that if any encryption algorithms etc are changed, the grabber would not need to be altered if the HTML Document object structure is still basically the same. I believe that so long as a few sites are providing browser based tv guides in Australia, I should be able to parse them with some tools such as cobra rather than the simpler screen scapping type techniques I assume other grabbers use(I mean no disrespect to the authors, and I've hardly looked at anyone else's source code - I love the KISS principal if it works).

Another alternative I've considered but haven't done too much research on, is if a plugin could be developed for Firefox to generate an XMLGuide from a websites normal html guide. I think this may be more complicated than using something like Cobra, and I like the fact that a java application using Cobra can be run on the command line, so that it can easily be scheduled for automatic updates.

I haven't written a grabber before, so I may be in over my head, but just playing around with the cobra sample code I can already get the encyption in the program guides web sites jsp's to be automatically read for one australian web site.

Any thoughts guys, has anyone else been down this path? I think it should be possible.

[thechad]

As a fellow Ozzy I understand how painful EPG data is to obtain. However instead of writing an entirely new grabber why do you not just add the features you require to the current WebEPG grabber that comes with Mediaportal.

This will mean you have less work to do as WebEPG already handles the scrapping in a modular fashion but can not handle the encryption. What more is by using WebEPG all mediaportal users get access without having to download another piece of software and it can be used and updated by other users of the community.