[29.11.05] WebEPG 0.2.0 update on website (3 Viewers)

[mowog]

Surely there is a URL somewhere in Australia that can provide the title, description, category, rating and not put a break in a program that spans from one day's schedule to the next?

I think the only Free (as in speech) TV guide for Australia is tvguide.org.au, but the catch is that you have to register in order to get access to the guide. What's special about this guide is that it's community-generated; it doesn't rely on a feed from one of the commercial guide aggregators, instead it uses a wiki-based approach whereby fellow users fill in the guide ahead of time.

I registered there when I was researching how to put a HTPC together, and didn't pay a great deal of attention to it until now.. realising just how hard it is to get a good quality EPG in Australia.

The guide data itself is available in web page format (simple table layout which WebEPG would have no problems parsing) but also in an XML form on a per-channel/per-date basis. I *think* this XML is specifically formatted for TiVo, but I don't know the XMLTV or TiVo formats so I couldn't really say. What follows is a snippet of the XML they have available:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<tv generator-info-name="Wktivoguide v4" generator-info-url="http://minnie.tuhs.org/tivo-bin/tvguide.pl">
  <programme start="20050804140000" stop="20050804143000" channel="ABC-Vic">
    <title>The Academy</title>
    <sub-title>No Pain, No Mess</sub-title>
    <desc>First year cadet, Laura, is having a hard time sleeping. Six weeks in, the training has become much tougher - more studious and more disciplined. There is light at the end of the tunnel - her year is preparing for its first parade.</desc>
    <category>RealLife</category>
    <category>DocumentaryGroup</category>
    <rating><value>PG</value></rating>
  </programme>
.
. etc
.

The data itself looks to be really high quality, including descriptions, genre, rating, etc as separate fields. I'd *love* to know if we could get this data into MP...

 

[madmat17]

Hi James,

The channels.xml works fine.
I'll give you three guesses, why didn't work before...

:arrow: I'm just stupid!
I should have used the WebEPG-channels.exe instead of fudging manually in that XML...

I'll upload the corrected channels.xml and the working tvinfo.de-grabber as soon as I'm at home (could be late - I'm going to burn the midnight oil...)

Cheers,
mat

 

[James]

Hi Taipan,

The yahoo site provides descriptions for Oz. I think the data is ok. Not sure if it is still giving problems by banning users. I need some more testing here. Seems to work fine here with a 5 second delay.

Hi mowog,

XML is no problem for WebEPG. It already supports this (not XMLTV). I only output the file int XMLTV. However, the login is not supported, but I want to support this. So I will look into this site.

However, for the moment. I would recommend the SBS site and yahoo site (not all the channels there yet, but thats not so hard to do, see my post for the US for an example).

I have looked at ninemsn, and I don't like it. I think it would be special code just for this site. I mean it has times on the left side, which can be overwritten by the times in the []s. If this is really the best site in Oz and I get lots of beging then I can code it, but I think it is better to look into other options first.

I want to be able to get the descriptions from ABC or sites that change there format in general. I fact one could change the config file to get descriptions now. Just not all of them, but my the best ones.

Cheers,

/James

 

[Artman]

james, I updated the channels.xml file and the dutch_grabber.xml file because today a channel was changed by name (yorin-->rtl7). The id's are the same so not much had te be changed.
But to be correctly at all points I just want to pass you this update. You can find it here.

ciao

btw I also updated the logo's but they can be found anywhere ele on the mediaportal site

 

[mowog]

The yahoo site ... seems to work fine here with a 5 second delay.

I've given up ever getting Yahoo to work. I set a 10 second delay between requests and *still* got banned after a few minutes of running. Their data might be OK, but I just can't grab it here.

XML is no problem for WebEPG. It already supports this (not XMLTV). I only output the file int XMLTV. However, the login is not supported, but I want to support this. So I will look into this site.

If I get chance this weekend I'll code up a config for the XML output from tvguide.org.au and PM you. All we'll need you to do is allow WebEPG to do HTTP Basic Auth

Cheers,

 

[Taipan]

The yahoo site provides descriptions for Oz. I think the data is ok.

I have tried the yahoo site, but i don't get any descriptions for any channels - for example, this is all I typically get:-

<programme start="20050813193000" channel="abc-vic@abc.net.au">
<title>Doctor Who - PG</title>
</programme>

but I know that all of this information this is available at yahoo for this particular program:-

7:30pm - 8:15pm | ABC
Doctor Who
The Parting Of The Ways

Genre: Sci-Fi

The Doctor is forced to take drastic action when the Earth is plunged into a bloody war. Will the Time Lord meet his fate at the hands of his greatest enemies and will Rose lose her friend forever?

Final,Closed Captions
45 mins

I would really like to be able to be able to get the rating (in this example, "PG"), the genre (category?), and the description where it is available, as separate items.

Am I doing something wrong here..... :?

 

[madmat17]

Hi all,

The grabber and the updated channel-list can be downloaded here:
http://members.kabsi.at/mbux/tvinfoGrabber_1.5.zip

I hope you like it...

Rgds,
Mat

 

[James]

Hi guys,

New beta 0.1.3 released:


Continued channel clean up and naming

Grabbers:
- DE/AT www_tvinfo_de all channels
- AT programm_kurier_at channels still required
- FI www_nyt_fi channels added
- PT programas_rtp_pt channels added
- AU www.d1.com.au all metro channels added

Hi mat,

I used the old file posted yesterday. So I hope there are not too many changes. If so users can download your updated files.

Ok. I'm off on holiday for 2 weeks . So everyone will need to help each other until I return.

See you all in 2 weeks,

/James

 

[madmat17]

Hi James,

Great work! (channels.xml)

The tvinfo grabber itself didn't change, but some comments.
You may replace it with your next release...

The channels.xml works great with "my" grabber. The only channel with missing description is tele5.de -> "Tele 5".

I've added all available channels to the kurier.at-grabber. You can download it here:
http://members.kabsi.at/mbux/programm_kurier_at.zip

Have nice holidays!

Greez,
Mat

 

[mytai2]

Hi James,
I agree with madmat17, it's really great work.

Is it correct that’s I don't get descriptions for the german channels.
(I grab from tvtoday and there is a description on this side)

One more question:

Is plant to integrate the pictures from the description like the mykino plug-in?

Rgds,
Holger