XMLTV Idiot's guide please....hoping there is one!! (1 Viewer)

[tonewheelkev]

Radiotimes gone....really stuck for a free EPG. I'm aware of the Atlas possibility....but can't get as far as finding a key!!....
Can anyone in the UK please help!?

 

[LJG]

Hi, I've given Schedules Direct $25 for their JSON Service, they do a 7 day free trial.

 

[wjw]

I've also gone the Schedules Direct route (used to use the Radio Times feed via XMLTV). For $25 seems good. If you've been using the Radio Times feed you will be used to 14 days in advance together with lots of info. about Series and Episode numbers. Schedules Direct is almost as good. You will need to put some effort into getting it set up - start by reading the manual! The right page is:

http://wiki.team-mediaportal.com/1_..._TV_Setup/4_TV_Guide_Setup_(EPG)/XMLTV_mc2xml

mc2xml is free. If you want Series and Episode numbers you will need to post process the data downloaded from Schedules Direct before loading it into your database. This is more fully explained in this thread:

https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/...ng-free-access-to-metabroadcast.134380/page-2

This is what I've done - works fine.

 

[Robert Kulagowski]

The season and episode data is now available in the official XMLTV grabber for the JSON service; no need to post-process or use some 3rd party application.

https://sourceforge.net/projects/xmltv/files/

 

[LJG]

Excellent! Does that include total number of episodes, as in the z in season x episode y of z?

 

[Robert Kulagowski]

Yes, the JSON data contains both the total number of episodes in a season, and then the total number of episodes in a series.

 

[LJG]

That is fabulous news

However, I am not seeing that, I'm using Argus TV as my TV server, plugged into MediaPortal 1, and I am using a community modified version of the Argus TV Guide importer which works with the JSON service. Maybe I should try the xmltv grabber that you linked to, but it is so difficult to use

Maybe, possibly, Schedules Direct, as an organisation, would consider supplying their own grabber with a GUI for their customers to use?

 

[Robert Kulagowski]

There are too many different applications over various operating systems to try to develop something for everyone. If you need season and episode data and it's not showing up in your application then you need to contact whoever wrote the grabber and let them know, and then the developer can contact us to figure out what's happening.

 

[LJG]

Okay, thanks, I was thinking that maybe you could add a GUI to the xmltv grabber that you linked to, but I'm not a programmer, so it could well be very difficult to do.

I did do a test grab with that xmltv grabber and plugged it into Argus and I didn't see the total number of episodes data. Is that a limitation of Argus do you think?

I am also testing NextPVR which has a built in Schedules Direct grabber, and that doesn't show the total number of episode either.

Do you know of any TV server / grabber combination that does show the full data?

 

[Robert Kulagowski]

Sorry, all I can say is that the data is available and it's up to the developers of the applications to take the data and present it in their UI somehow.

If there's a particular program that you'd like to see the raw data for I can extract it and send it to you in case other people on the forum don't care about that level of detail. If you'd like to see the information please send me the programID (the 14-character key that starts with "EP" or "SH" or whatever) that you'd like.