Which EPG program do you use? (Swedish users only) (1 Viewer)

[James]

I have no problem if everyone wants to develop a "better" grabber for a country. It is less work for me

However, if WebEPG is not being used and kept up-to-date for a certain country, then I should remove these files, because it will be bad for new users to install MP and find that the delivered system doesn't work.

So I would like to see WebEPG improved to the point where it is the "best" grabber for each country. However, without people from each country helping this is not possible.

 

[Krazz]

So in short, what you would like from me is:
- Learn C#
- Scrap my project and implement all my ideas into your grabber

I bet that sounds like angel music to you. What if we do it like this instead. I go away again, until I have my program up and running for multiple countries. Because as far as I can tell, that is the only thing you are critizising?!?

The main advantage of my grabber is that it uses a server that downloads the information off of web pages (such as dagenstv.com) and then clients connect to this server and downloads the information a lot faster and easier. The reason why dagenstv.com manipulated their web contents was because too many users "downloaded" information without dagenstv.com making a cent from it. The way I have made my program it reliefs these web pages since the server downloads the information once instead of 10+ users downloading it.

Granted that the server has to be installed somewhere and you would need som knowledge to do this, but if you want to install Media Portal you kind of need the same type of knowledge. My program (the server) uses Ms SQL (2000 or Express), MsAccess, or even MySql (still working on the latter). It doesn't burn up resources unless you have a LOT of clients connecting to it so you could probably runs the server on your HTPC if needed and let your friends connect to you with your clients.

Either way, I understand that WebEPG is your "baby" and you want it to survive as long as possible. But for me to start learning C# only to work on WebEPG when I am almost done with my grabber doesn't ring well in my ears.

P.S. Sorry for stepping on your toes James.

 

[James]

Hi Krazz,

You didn't step on my toes. I think for the reasons I have stated we should try to develop just one epg grabber system. However, I am happy when people want to have their own projects. If some one comes up with a whole new system that replaces WebEPG, I would be very happy. I can leave the epg business and move on to other things

However, I cannot personally support your system because I think that downloading the data, filtering it and then re-distributing it, steps over the line.

All most all sites have policies, stating the grabbing it not allowed. However, I view grabbing as no different to offline web browsing. The data is downloaded and stored to be viewed later. We just use a special viewer that does not render the html the same way as other browsers might. This is fine when each person downloads a personal copy.

However, when you start to store this information on a server and pass it on to others, I think this crosses a line. Which may depend on your views on copyright and the rules in your country.

I believe in most (all?) countries facts cannot be copyrighted. So EPG data could be seen as facts. However, I believe a collection of facts can be copyrighted? Also maybe only the title, time and date of the show are fact. The decription, rating, etc could be considered orignal work?

As most of this as far as I know, has never been tested in a court of law, it is hard to say. I just don't want to be the one doing the testing

I don't want to scare you away. So there is no need for you to "go away", please continue your work

/James

 

[Krazz]

I don't know the law on this but I think you are correct. I would, however, like to believe that I am doing the sites a favour when I try to run the server myself instead of everyone downloading it from the source. I don't think they will manage to stop everyone from downloading from their web site by saying it is illegal so I would hope they welcome this concept.

You haven't scared me, don't worry. It's obvious that I threatened your "grabber existence" by addind this thread a bit though, for what reason I don't really know. I will continue my work, whoever wants to use it in the future is welcome to do so.

 

[Laban]

Bit of a shameless plug here but have you looked at the updates i did to the xmltv grabber ?

https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/xmltv_2_source_binary_now_available-t25247.html

It's for the TV-Server only though, don't know if you're using that or not.