New options for Foxtel

[monster]

certainly anything can be done but at what effort...

i can make a module for BRP to allow it to download an XMLTV file then BRP does the usual to the file to prepare it for MCE or make a server solution the same as ice but its going to require a bit of work.

using the server side method wipes out any use of doing stuff to ur XML file ie merging fta and paytv, 2 fta regions. sure it *could* be done server side as well but the amount of work and logic behind it would be huge.

the server side method also wipes our overseas friends out who also dont have a native EPG however they could still use the old version of BRP but any new features added they will miss out on.

using local method by means of just downloading the XML gives u the greatest flexibility in that can do anything u want to the XML b4 it is processed.

both methods have pros and cons and at the end of the day we need something the works nicely with minimal effort.

the other problem is hosting of the file... would need to be at a reliable source and the BW used i think would be quite large.

u would probably have around 6 meg worth of XML files for all the regions and with say 3000+ ppl downloading OUCH.

anyway as Jerry would say "its food for thought"

[philzgr8]

Thanks Monster,
As you know I have also PM'd Mike to bring his attention to this thread. I tend to agree we don't necessarily want to kill off your overseas 'customers' so probably hosting "listing2.xml" files and a quick mod to BRP is probably the best solution. As said, I would have thought that there could be a small fee for using the service and I would personally have no problem with that including a percentage for your input. Anyway, I'm looking forward to hearing Mike's thoughts. That might make a lot of difference since I'm not personally ready to become the owner of this thing except as a part of a community like this one.
Cheers,

Phil

[impact]

Server side is best....

a couple of points...

Users should not need to register to use tvguide.org.au - you do not need to register to use it with your tivo ! You only need to register if you want to access the data and or update the data !

Server side processing is fairly simple - there is no need to do merging of FTA and PAYTV etc.. it is already done - as per Tivo headends already used by the Tivo community - using a similar concept where seperate xml files are created for each region means no need to do preprocessing of merging data

Preprocessing is no longer required - as any changes go back to the tvguide.org.au site, so that everyone benefits in improving the quality of data.

Concerned about BW - yep me too... so here is some preliminary calculations... Instead of 3000 users, there has been around 750 downloads of BRP thru the site here when I checked the other day, some people would have d/l it several times - so lets use 1000 users per day.

We dont want to transfer large xmltv files, from memory on the Tivo there are something like 42 different files for all regions / combinations of Australia - so we would convert 42 XML files into the Microsoft format on the server - and I need to check the file size - but from memory (and I know I will be wrong, because I dont have my machine in front of me) - but lets say 100kb each ?

1000 Users downloading one 100kb file daily (30 days in a month) = 3gb of bandwidth per month - not too bad I reckon... even if it moved to 3000 users it still less than 10gb / month. A donations button to help pay future comms costs or some sponsorship and its done almost for free !

All we need from Monster would be a simplified BRP that just does the magic on one file, that could be run several times for each region....

Tempted to build a proof of concept to try it out - volunteers to help out.....

[philzgr8]

Tempted to build a proof of concept to try it out - volunteers to help out.....

Cool impact... a worthwhile project in anyones language I'd have thought.

...as said if it's not too much more technical than monkey see monkey do... count me in! Just point me at what needs to be done!

[monster]

i think its best to host the various XML data files for all the combos including paytv then have BRP fetch the file based on some user config BRP then prepares for MCE.

this method is bar far the easiest and quickest to implement.

impact - doing it server side will not provide a file 100k in size try 500k sorry i wont discuss the reason why here but happy to talk to u about it elsewhere.

we all need to come to some agreement so we can start the ball rolling.

[CADScott]

I think this sytem would be great, but what about using torrents to distribute the xml files or MCE guide data? That way the bandwidth is distributed through every user, and the files can be hosted on many servers.

Each user would then need to set a task to get the torrent at a set time, just after it is was updated every day. This would be pretty easy, and could be fairly easily hosted on a regular machine that was being left on 24/7. For example, my MCE machine is online all the time, and I there is no charge for uploads through my ISP, so I could easily host a series of torrent files permanently, and I am sure there are many others in the same situation.

The xmltv formatted files could then be automatically downloaded to the correct directory via torrent, and bladerunner should pick it up whenever it needs to, without any modifications to the current program from what I can see.

[philzgr8]

OK Monster. No problem there I'm happy to just take a back seat on the model and you guys can farm stuff off to me if I can help. I think you're probably the man when it comes to what model gets used since I think most of the code is already there in BRP. Personally I'm not keen on torrents as I'm not keen to introduce another variable into the mix and I don't feel I want my MCE box open to the wider world anyway.

[amilwain]

Anyone understand the inner workings of javaxmltv??

I have been trying to change the settings.prop file to grab fox guide info instead of FTA

The next part is to work out how to manually run javaxmltv twice and concat as before and use bladerunner pro in manual mode to get fta and fox guide in mce

I have managed to get the grab to start for fox but it seems i have configured the settings.prop file incorrectly, anyone have any idea on how to configure this for fox??

You can PM me if you have don't want to post info for fox on here.

AM

[Mike]

Monitoring Mike???

monitoring Phil - always

[impact]

Not going to get a chance to play with it this weekend - so giving ya notice now, that work has over ruled my time.... so I'll keep an eye on where ya going with this one...

[amilwain]

Guess I will just keep trying then if no one else has any ideas.

by the way if everyone email ICE they may get a foxtel guide going some time soon.

While everyone is at it maybe they could email Microsoft, asking why they can't buy the guide data from www.hww.com.au, they provide all the required data for fox, FTA etc to minemsn.com.au so why not to MS for them to setup a local guide for us???

send the email to contactus@microsoft.com.au

Maybe someone can draft a letter and we can all email them, surely there is something that can be done, no one seems to have put ice out of business so I doubt anyone would be suing MS over it either.

[guyc]

I'm nearly there with getting this working, looks promising!

6. Edit the file that was created in the above set (it's also called tv_grab_au_tuhs.py and is probably in c:\documents and settings\<your user>\xmltv\.

One think I've found was that I couldn't get the script to create a config file until I manually created that "xmltv" directory mentioned above. Struggled with mysterious errors for an hour before figuring that out.

[trobinson61]

I replaced username and password but are getting authinof is not defined.

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "C:\Documents and Settings\Tim\xmltv\tv_grab_au_tuhs.py", line 22, in ?
authinfo.add_password(realm, 'minnie.tuhs.org', '?????????', '???????')
NameError: global name 'authinfo' is not defined

[guyc]

Did you first create an account and put those details in the script?

http://minnie.tuhs.org/twiki/bin/vie...kiRegistration

[trobinson61]

Yes i am registered and have set up a channel list on their site.

Willi Uther has posted new python script.

http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~willu/xmltv/tv_grab_au_tuhs

However i keep getting an error from the configscript
C:\Documents and Settings\Tim\xmltv>tv_grab_au_tuhs.py -o xmltv.xml
File "C:\Documents and Settings\Tim\xmltv\tv_grab_au_tuhs.py", line 1
<!--
^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax