Complete EPG data updated in less than 10 seconds (1 Viewer)

[zombiepig]

yeah - dugg needed some type of system where some clients were told to scrape the data, even if it existed on the ftp. it could be a random thing, or managed by the dugg ftp server - then the new scrape should be compared to the ftp data to see if it was more up to date.
i've still got high hopes for the epgstream guys providing a long-term solution

 

[zombiepig]

dugg's still being worked on. you can read about the current issues it's facing over here:
http://www.xpmediacentre.com.au/community/australian-tv-guide/11054-dugg-working-again-16.html
no eta for a working version yet, though

 

[Callifo]

What about the legal issues??
I'm pretty sure this is the reason this is not getting sone on a larger scale.. :?

That was one of them. Need to do something about the f**ktard tv stations over here. Perhaps because of them, it makes me feel good about wasting their bandwidth (if you crunch the numbers, its a LOT of bandwidth too).

 

[Callifo]

From what is mentioned on XPMediaCentre, they are stopping encryption (yay) and using IP blocking. Now this is probably somewhat easier, with the only exception you will be limited to no long descriptions/genre.

If you update the epg every day, thats only 1 page per day, so they cant block you for that.

 

[Alconja]

Someone (ahh the proverbial "someone") needs to write a p2p grabber such that everyone who wants EPG info grabs a little bit each & adds it to the pool. I.e. once a day a node on the network is randomly selected to grab the main part of the guide (no extra description/genre info) = 1 hit to the ninemsn pages. Then everyone else in the p2p network randomly grabs single long description/genre pages (usually they're one page per show) & incorporates it back into the master xml file, which we then all use for our EPG data. It would also help avoid legal issues of having a single person hosting all the data on a single ftp server.

 

[SquonkSC]

thanks for all the responses to my post.

Maybe it would be a smart thing for sites like ninemsn and tvgids.nl to make the data already available in xmltv format on an ftp section!?

They must have the data in a simple format somewhere on their servers before they present it in their html pages right?

The data is already publically available, why not offer people the opportunity to read it in a different format like xmltv?

It would greatly reduce the loss of bandwith since the files are very small.

And what ever they try to stop people from scrapping, with a huge community like the HTPC community, someone will always find new ways to get the data.

The fact http://xmltv.assies.info/ is 3 days only doesn't bother me, when I go on holidays I could always plan recordings using the planner instead of the guide.
Not that I would because when I'm on holiday, I couldn't care less about what's on tv.

And a holiday usually takes more than 7 days anyways.

Greetz,

Squonk

 

[zombiepig]

thanks for all the responses to my post.

Maybe it would be a smart thing for sites like ninemsn and tvgids.nl to make the data already available in xmltv format on an ftp section!?

ha - we wish!!! the fact is ninemsn are doing everything possible to PREVENT people from getting an xmltv version of the guide. they run on the misinformed assumption that if they hinder the availability of an epg, it will halt the uptake of pvr's in australia. they're absolutely paranoid about people recording their shows and sharing them on the net.

it's such rubbish - all the tv worth viewing is available on the net 6 months before it's shown on australian tv, and the rest is so disposable that no-one would bother sharing it anyway.

(actually, that said - once i found a torrent site offering downloads of deal or no deal :roll: )

 

[mzemina]

...the fact is ninemsn are doing everything possible to PREVENT people from getting an xmltv version of the guide.

That is the major problem throughout the world. Most (no all) sites that have web viewable TV programming are making it hard, if not impossible, for programmers to capture. I've read (but can't find the URL now) that some companies want end users to pay for the EPG data! It is getting tougher and tougher to have a free EPG.

Just my two cents.

Mike

 

[James]

The guide data (or part of it) it copyright, so redistributing it without the permission of the copyright owner is illegal in most countries.

This information is made publicly available for personal use, and not for redistribution. So if everyone downloads their own copy, it should not be a problem from a legal point of view (depending on whether or not the T&Cs of most website stand up). Then it becomes a question of if scapping the data and displaying it in a different form (inside MP) is greatly different from a modified web browser.

 

[klestor]

Has anyone thought of a way to get the guide data from the guide itself (book/magazine) by scanning each page and using some sort of OCR to organize the text into an XMLTV file ready for sharing.
I know scanning each page would be somewhat time consuming but it would only have to be done once per month and youd have a whole month of data!

I wonder what other methods there could be :roll: ..decoding the guide signal from the foxtel box?