MythTV Scheduling Service Reveals Pricing

An anonymous reader writes "A group of open source developers have been working behind the scenes to create a new service known as Schedules Direct to provide affordable scheduling data for North American users of MythTV. Today, they've announced an initial pricing plan of $15 for a 3 month block, non-recurring. Details are still fairly light at the moment, but there's a mailing list and a FAQ available on the site — one notable tidbit is that the developers 'expect pricing to drop by the end of the initial term. Our goal is $20/year.' This comes weeks before the planned shutdown of Zap2it Labs' Data Direct service mentioned previously."

too much

[tomz16]

That is WAY too much for an XML feed, and rivals the cost of DVR service from my cable co.

We've scraped screens before.

confused....

[Doppler00]

So you pay for satellite or cable TV, but the television networks are un-willing to provide a few bytes of information in the form of scheduling information for future programming? I mean, do they want people to pay for their content and watch advertisements or not? $5/month for the few kb worth of data you receive is ridiculous as far as I'm concerned. The TV networks should just get together and standardize on some television scheduling format and release the data themselves.

After all, it would be in the best interests of their customers, the viewers.

Re:confused....

[GenP]

Wait, what? I thought the advertisers were the television networks' customers.

Re:confused....

[Wesley Felter]

So you pay for satellite or cable TV, but the television networks are un-willing to provide a few bytes of information in the form of scheduling information for future programming?

Yeah, I never understood this. My cable box can download guide data from the cable company, but a TiVo/MythTV/whatever can't? I'm not paying again for data that's already available on my cable system.

Re:confused....

[qbwiz]

Well, if they're providing the data to someone who's using mythtv, it's quite possible that that person won't be watching the advertising.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:too much

[Nyeerrmm]

I think as a permanent price point, $15 for three months is marginal. However, if they keep to their goal of reducing the costs to $20/year, it's not so bad.

I'm pretty sure I'll buy this service, partially because I'd like to avoid the hassles and problems of screen scraping, and partially because I'd like to support this project as I really appreciate them coming up with a solution, even if its not quite as ideal as before.

Anyway, its still 3x cheaper than TiVo.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Interesting app but a "not so simple" one!

[Kadin2048]

Myth isn't an application, it's an appliance operating system that happens to borrow a lot of Linux code. Seriously. Unless you like pain, don't screw around with installing it, just get one of the "Myth-based appliance" distros (Knoppmyth or the Red Hat one if you swing that way), and dedicate a box to it. You'll be happier.

Re:confused....

[hcdejong]

Well, if they're providing the data to someone who's using mythtv, it's quite possible that that person won't be watching the advertising.

That's quite possible regardless of the hardware in use. I've still got a VHS VCR, and I skip all commercials. I've hardly watched any live TV for about 10 years now. MythTV makes this a bit more likely, but then again, so does any harddisc recorder available today.

Besides, the scheduling information isn't what makes it easy to skip commercials.

The networks normally present their schedule in an ad-laden format (at least TV guides over here are always full of ads). They probably don't want to lose that revenue.

Re:$5/mo?

[Apogee]

That's right, it's what you pay for your TiVo.

But:

* Not everybody has access to the services TiVo provides (they're not operating world-wide, and alternatives at least around here (in Switzerland) are nowhere near $5/mo, but are bundled with digital TV)

* Some people prefer an open-source alternative, not only to the PVR itself, but also for the data source

* Screen scraping works. Sort of. Sometimes. As soon as your scraper gets popular, the web site will change its layout to foil scraping attempts, and you can start new. It's an arms race, unfortunately, and there's no real way out of it. The networks and content providers jealously guard their data, and only license it to redistributors.

* Schedules Direct is such a licensing partner. Instead of distributing the data in proprietary format, they use standard XML. That is good.

and, most important of all:

* If you had read TFA (or even the freaking post), they're aiming to drop the price. For now, they have no idea how popular their service will be, but want to make sure they don't create a financial sinkhole. The folks behind this are from the MythTV and XMLTV community, and I'd be surprised if they see this as a get rich quick scheme. They're too realistic for that.

Re:confused....

[ktappe]

The viewers are not their customers. The advertisers are their customers. The viewers are their PRODUCT. (The shows are the bait.)

So under that analogy, fish have to pay for directions to the worm on the hook?

I'll give it a shot

[DeanFox]

I'll sign up for the $15. Their announcement was honest and direct. They expect a $20 a year cost but they need to "over-charge" the first quarter to help guarantee coverage of their start-up costs. I understand that. I've started a business before. It's a gamble. It's a gamble for me too to support them.

For me, it's only $15 to "see what will happen" and to support the community. If the cost drops to $20 a year like they anticipate I'll gladly pay a reliable data feed. 5 cents a day to "stick-it" to the cable companies and the advertisers and at the same time supporting the OSS community? It's a no brainer.

If the costs stay at $5 a month then I'll need to re-think my cable needs. But still, if I'm going to pay $5 for Tivo with commercials, why not $5 for MythTV without commercials? Either way, I'll pay the $15 to get started and to see what happens. I've spent that much buying a friend and I coffee at Starbucks. I'll continue to support them if the cost drops to $20 a year. That's cheep for the return I'm getting.

-[d]-

Re:too much

[itlurksbeneath]

That is WAY too much for an XML feed, and rivals the cost of DVR service from my cable co.

True, but they state they want to push the costs to 20/year. That's $1.66 a month. Considering that's about the same price as a tall coffee at Starbucks ONCE PER MONTH, I'd happily chip in. Beats scraping it myself.

Re:I'll give it a shot

[Pollardito]

Either way, I'll pay the $15 to get started and to see what happens. I've spent that much buying a friend and I coffee at Starbucks.

Starbucks-onomics makes a lot of things seem more tolerable :)

Re:That's FUCKING ridiculous !!

[OldeTimeGeek]

I ran into something like this when I worked for an public agency and was asked to produce a report but not to talk about it. "Why can't I?" I asked. "The information is public, isn't it?". "Yes," my supervisor said, "but the way we assemble it isn't."

I figure it's the same way in this case. The information is perfectly free. What you are paying for is having the information assembled and presented in a way that you can use easily. You can always do the same yourself, but what's cheaper? Your time on a regular basis or $5 a month...