No More TV Listings For MythTV Users 346
Ryan Brown writes "As of September 1, the free XML TV guide service at zap2it labs has shut its doors due to misuse issues, as well as internal business issues. Now that Linux users, and most PVR users for that matter, are nearing the end of their last fetched TV guide, what free alternatives exist that can replace this much-needed service?"
Meh (Score:2, Interesting)
www.schedulesdirect.org (Score:5, Informative)
Re:www.schedulesdirect.org (Score:5, Informative)
They are already at the "Break Even" point, now the cost will go down, because they are setup as a not for profit. If they MAKE a profit, there are charges and fees they will have to pay.
The leads on the SchedulesDirect site haven't even made a dime. They don't want to. They are trying to provide a needed service, and are doing a great job at it.
Re: (Score:2)
Unless both I'm misunderstanding the idea and the SchedulesDirect people are really stupid, once critical mass is reached all the initial people will be switched to the cheaper plan too. Besides, there's no such thing as "signing up" to some kind of subscription; at the moment everything is non-recurring: you pay for 90 days now, then in 90 days you (and they) will re-evaluate what they can afford to charge.
Re:www.schedulesdirect.org (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow, they're not exactly marketing geniuses are they? Announce plans to make a very large discount on you service as soon as enough people sign up at the original inflated price? Yeah, that'll pull a huge number of customers in at your launch.
That's because they're not trying to make a profit, and they're just passing on the reality that they'll have to have a sizable subscriber base in order to defray their fixed costs enough to reduce the fee. They expect that their target audience will understand these issues. Not only that, but both prices are low enough that the costs aren't going to be an issue for their target market.
Re:Meh (Score:5, Informative)
See http://zap2xml.110mb.com/ [110mb.com] for a perl-based tvlistings.zap2it.com to xmltv scraper which is a drop-in replacement for the labs scraper.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Incorrect (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Incorrect (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
it's not hard, many of the solutions have been out for 2-3 weeks already. I tried one of the screenscrapers but I prefer to pay for SD as I can bitch about bad listing data and they will try to get the problem fixed so that it doesnt happen again.
Re: (Score:2)
Yup, transferring service is on the "to do" list for a lot of people this week, I imagine.
Schedules Direct? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Schedules Direct? (Score:5, Informative)
Updating MythTV to use SchedulesDirect [mythtv.org]
I could be stating the obvious, but....... (Score:3, Funny)
Readily Available Alternative (Score:2, Funny)
Why free? (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh damnit - I forgot. This is slashdot. Paying for stuff = bad.
Re:Why free? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Why free? (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Hell, I might even pay an extra few bucks a month for that.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
And where in this discussion do you see anyone making the claim that anyone is entitled to this service for free? Where do you see anyone assuming that paying for stuff = bad?
I look up the page and I see dozens of posts advocating a service which is not free. Take your stereotypes somewhere else, you contemptible anonymous coward.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Why free? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a completely untenable clause, because they don't tell you what things might piss them off, nor do they explain their relationship
For example, complaining on
I have no problem paying for it (in fact, I had my credit card out to sign up), but it's some seriously fscked-up shit - too much for me.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Just which sides of the fences are you on mister?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
That is no different than paying health insurance in any other country. If you don't need it, it seems like a waste. If you need it (or should I say WHEN you need it), you WILL be glad it is there. Truly, the system is heavil
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
The software, itself, remains both gratis and libre. It also retains features (commercial skip, show sharing and archiving) not in many proprietary PVRs.
The usability of MythTV is at least as good as many proprietary PVRs. There have been articles on both the discoverability of how to use the system and the low number of buttons needed to perform common functions.
Re: (Score:2)
Using MythTV is not at all a problem to use.
MythTV is still free. The listings, if you want to deal with screen scrapers, etc, are still free. Once the traffic from the scrapers increases, I am sure TVGuide, and others will change their sites periodically to mess them up.
I prefer to pay $5 a month, to get the schedules. Easy to setup, and not too bad on the price. BTW, the more that sign up to SchedulesDirect, the lower the pri
They're still available for a small charge. (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.schedulesdirect.org/ [schedulesdirect.org]
Titan TV (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Titan TV (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
You'd think the TV stations would do this free (Score:2, Insightful)
Instead they treat the listings like corporate bloody secrets - would you PAY to get junk mail posted to your letterbox?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
1. Somehow people got duped into paying for it--why ruin a good thing, eh?
2. Content companies don't like PVRs for their commercial skipping capabilities, and out of time slot views aren't properly counted in ratings for their shows. Both prob
Pay for SchedulesDirect--they're good people (Score:4, Interesting)
Free/open source PVRs are more functional than most proprietary competitors & the software itself will always be not only gratis, but free as in speech. If you want the cheapest possible service, you'll do better to get something with a lifetime subscription to guide content. But I prefer my freedom to a full pocketbook.
It'd be nice if the guide data would eventually become free/open. But who's going to provide it?
If you don't like SD, I guess you can try their competitor [ctpvr.com] (if they ever release something for Linux). Or screen scrape for no cost.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Pay for SchedulesDirect--they're good people (Score:5, Informative)
Personally, I find the listings useful enough that I'd (just barely) pay the $5 a month, but I would hold them to a much higher QoS if I had to keep paying that much.
BTW, one of the SD guys mentioned that they found out that Tribune Media Services, and other TV schedule aggregators, do a lot more than just put together already-available data. They have to cross-reference syndication feeds with local schedules, they have to come up with episode descriptions, and in general, there's work and some original content arising from that. Even local stations have no idea what episode they're showing on a particular day - they just get the episodes from the distributor, possibly with promos, and then run them. TMS already knows how to do this stuff, and they had the infrastructure to distribute it already, but they weren't interested in managing the business of selling the listings. SD acts as a broker in that sense, paying TMS for the listings and collecting the individual fees from the users.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
XMLTV (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:XMLTV (Score:5, Informative)
Name even two whose terms of service allow schedule scraping...
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:XMLTV (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
In the absence of contract and consideration? Um, yeeeah. Good luck with that civil action. Maybe Jack Thompson will take the case.
No more listings for US users you mean... (Score:5, Informative)
The BBC makes it nice and easy (Score:5, Informative)
We collect our own (Score:4, Informative)
For local broadcasters, we can collect our own. Many broadcasters may be willing to provide their schedules for free. Someone in each city would have to be the "point person" to encourage the stations to provide them in a usable form with no distribution restriction. Then they would be submit them to central databases (can be more than one) where they would be merged and others can then download in bulk. The national networks might be harder to get them from.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The national stuff is easy as they already have to send their schedules to many local broadcasters and cable co. Format access can be as easy as an ftp, http or email. Up until recently buena vista had a lovely dial-a-fax option to send a show format to your desired fax line.
There are essential
Re: (Score:2)
I don't think we need the detailed show format (segment timings, commercial breaks, etc) ... do we? What we need is the basic start and end time for the show, the name and code of the show, and where applicable the episode number. Other data is a nice plus but could usually be indexed by the show's code and episode number (e.g. lists of actors/actresses, plot description, date of production, and other trivia). I assume (because I've never looked at the MythTV stuff, yet) the XML DTD has already been work
Ha (Score:2, Insightful)
Does this really surprise anyone?
I dabbled with MythTV a few years ago. I was quite surprised then that the Zap2It service was free, and I'm quite amazed it lasted as long as it did. At a certain point, if MythTV got bigger, they would have HAD to do this.
Now other posters have pointed out that ReplayTV in some countries used this, and some companies were taking these listings and reselling them for profit.
If you want to be open source, this data has to come from somewhere. Maybe someone will write scrip
Genetic algorithms (Score:3, Funny)
In about 15 to 20 years you should have developed a sufficiently agile show selection expert system that you won't need any steeekin' TV guides.
Or something.
Re: (Score:2)
The programming execs are way ahead of you on this one: most networks already implement the first part of that algorithm.
Wow, good going Slashdot (Score:3, Interesting)
Reading through the comments, I'm struck by one thing, really.. The utter deviation of the posters, versus the "normal" mode of Slashdot.
Why is it an utter crime to want to get free tv listings? Why is it considered mandated that you must pay money to get them, where before they were free? Is it because it is the ScheduleDirect people? Or is it because it's "only" 5 dollars? Or is it because the word "Free" is bad? Seriously, tell me. I can download Linux for free, but I guess that's bad? I can read Slashdot for free, but I guess that's bad?
The ScheduleDirect people are offering a paid service. More power to them. I have a little nagging doubt in my head that they will degrade other methods of program acquisition (EIT, direct inserts into the database from a scraper, etc), to "facilitate" SD (otherwise known as rope people into using their paid-for service, and nothing else). Those fears may or may not be unfounded, but why shouldn't I be worried and looking for alternatives?
Why shouldn't people want to find out about any free listings that are out there, just like has been offered for years from the Zap2It people?
Re:Wow, good going Slashdot (Score:5, Interesting)
I admit, I think $5/mo for TV listings is a lot. TV Guide provided that service, plus interviews and articles, for less. (At least, last I checked.) There's free TV listings in the paper each week. (Again, last I checked.) And you can always look stuff up on tvguide.com and other sites for free, they just don't provide an easy-to-use feed for automated abuse. Err, use. I don't even pay that much for services that do a -lot- more work.
Some day, TV will get on the ball and start providing the service people want, instead of trying to force things down our throats. Europe has tv-via-satellite that seems to work very well, except it's not HD. The HD over-the-air works well, if you aren't stuck in a valley like I am and can't receive any signals without a ton of equipment.
No, some day, someone will see the light and provide TV over the 'net, with an electronic guide that mythtv or other programs can use. (AT&T, ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME?) Maybe they'll even have TV-on-demand and eliminate the need for a DVR altogether... If I could stream TV shows any time I wanted, instead of having to know ahead of time, I'd be willing to pay for that. (More than I already pay for HD & DVR cable, I mean.)
We seem to have hit a phase where companies are trying to force us to want what they want to sell us, instead of trying to sell us what we want. It's backfiring left and right and they're soon going to have to open their eyes.
Re: (Score:2)
$5/mo. for TV listing is just a few cents/month more than a typical TV Guide subscription (which was about $4.17/month at the time we ended our subscription). If you buy the TV Guide at the checkout counter, you pay a LOT more per month than that. TV Guide at the store is sold by the week, not the month. It's been a few years since I bought one at the store, but it was more than $1.2
Re:Wow, good going Slashdot (Score:5, Insightful)
There are more pragmatic reasons too--multiple F/OSS projects are collaborating on providing SD & even more will be encouraging their users to get their listings from SD.They can want whatever they wish! But they aren't going to get it soon. Only two companies compile guide data & they sell it to other businesses. Some of these businesses (like SD) charge at least enough to pay for what it costs them to provide the listings. Others put it on the web & use ads to pay for it. Payment must come from somewhere. Z2It was free because they were a subsidary of Tribune.
If the data comes from one of the two "mother" listings, it will cost money. Period. No one will give you a free lunch. (Or you can violate TOS by scraping it.)
If it doesn't come from these "mother" sources, someone would have to form a third listing generation service (but this would cost significant setup & operating $$$ that they'd want to pass on).
Re:Wow, good going Slashdot (Score:5, Insightful)
Because it costs money to get them, assemble them, and distribute them.
Linux is free because a bunch of volunteers put it together for free. So why aren't you volunteering to call up numerous TV networks, every few days, to get a list of their schedule, and input that into a public database for others to use, for free?
How about calling up every cable network in the country every month, to see if they've made any changes to their channel line-ups? And checking on every FCC action to see if broadcast TV channels have made any changes.
Somebody needs to do it. In absence of a huge and sustained mass of unimaginably dedicated volunteers, somebody needs to get paid for doing the hard and thankless work. Otherwise, you're just being a leech.
Zap2It was being charitable, nothing more. It was costing them money, but they put up with it for quite a while anyhow. No one else has, nor will do so again. There's just no profit in it, and it's not sustainable.
I'm sure you can think of many other examples of some software or service that started out free, but was merely a loss-leader or other marketing ploy, before it went commercial.
Microsoft MCE's listings are still free... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Free doesn't mean "costs money" -- these are FREE (Score:5, Informative)
Found at http://forums.schedulesdirect.org/viewtopic.php?f
zap2xml
http://zap2xml.110mb.com/ [110mb.com]
YahooXMLTv
http://forums.gbpvr.com/showthread.php?t=27546 [gbpvr.com]
MSN_XMLTV_scraper
http://planetreplay.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=14
I am using MSN_XMLTV_scraper, running under Wine personally. To run under Wine, you need msxml6.msi, install that with "msiexec
The first run is very slow, but it caches the detailed program info so after the first run it's pretty fast.
TV Guide Should Take Advantage of This (Score:3, Insightful)
"Misuse"? (Score:2)
not just tv (Score:2)
DVB-T (Score:3, Informative)
New distribution model needed (Score:3, Insightful)
Several posters have mentioned that they have programs that scrape data off of web pages. IIRC, this is the original method used by MythTV. When the load becomes great on the pages that are being scraped, those pages will change or go away.
We need to agree on a standard (ala Bittorent) for distributing this type of static content among the users. Each MythTV user can spare some bandwidth late at night to seed others. Assuming that the cable and television companies allow it to succeed....
Free US EPG data here... (Score:3, Interesting)
Can I (Score:3, Informative)
Re:That's easy (Score:4, Informative)
Exactly the attitude that forced Zap2It to stop offering the free service.
In the case of Zap2It there were people reselling the free listings. In your case you want to provide multiple subscriptions and only pay for one. I hope your friends (both of them) appreciate your theft.
Re:That's easy (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
So you're saying Zap2It stopped offering their free service because not enough people were using it?
Zap2It stopped offering their free service because too many people were reselling it. Of course, you have to wonder who is willing to pay for something that is offered for free, but Zap2It obviously would rather charge a subscription fee for something people are willing to pay for.
As a user of SageTV PVR, I enjoyed not having to pay for my subscription services. I've known about Zap2It going to subscription for sometime, but have failed to do the research on how Sage is handling this... does anyone else
Re:That's easy (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:That's easy (Score:5, Informative)
That's basically what schedules direct has done; they're an interface to tmsdatadirect for free software users.
I signed up on Sept 1. Their goal is $20/year. Right now they're higher so they can get started, and I didn't have any problem paying that little extra to help them get going.
Let's not get melodramatic (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
appreciate your theft? (Score:4, Informative)
If the site is saying that the TV listings are facts then there not covered by copyright.
All you have to do is transform the layout into your layout and then give them to your friends.
Re:That's easy (Score:5, Interesting)
I actually "Appreciated" what Zap2It did, and stated several times on their survey they should be charging a little to offset the cost.
I now have my Schedules Direct service setup, with NO loss of schedule. Very seemless. I don't use MythTV because it is Free as in beer, I use it because it is a pretty damn good system for what I want it for. Paying a small amount for something that would take me awhile to program myself, or scrap from a site, makes sense to me.
Re:That's easy (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm the news director of a small tv station in upstate New York, and I can back what some other posters have noted.
There is significant (well, as significant as tv gets...) work at the tv station end in compiling and - most of all - updating schedules. I'm guessing it's half of our program director's work week.
There are only a couple of big companies in the schedule game at this point, and my impression is that their money is in keeping everything compiled, updated and orderly - the 'writ large' version of what we do.
So the schedules direct service (which I immediately signed up for, btw) strikes me as a good community solution for keeping a superior dvr, MythTV, from suffering a big setback.
So it's not free as in beer - it does strengthen something that is, and free in other important ways as well.
Scott Atkinson
WWNY TV
Watertown NY
edit - In some part of the threads on this topic, someone opines that broadcasters don't want this because MythTV lets you easily skip commercials and - evil people that we are - we want to head that off at the pass.
Fergit' it. The issue of commercial skipping is too far removed from what we deal with day to day to influence our decisions, (in other words, we don't see the consequences in the bottom line in any way we can measure)and besides, it's not clear that dvrs lead to large scale commercial skipping.
Re: (Score:2)
Zap2It = megacorporation subsidiary (Score:3, Informative)
TMS is a syndicator of news and information feeds, such as TV listings, which they supply to many, many clients who don't want to spend the time and energy to try and compil
Re: (Score:2)
Easy. Get up and walk off some of those calories.
You mean there's a free listing service he can sign up with that's within walking distance!?!? Cool!
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:This bends my brain banana (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
If you are paying for TV content to be delivered to you, then maybe that provider should offer it as an extra fee service. But for free terrestrial and free satellite TV programming, at least those listings should be free if the source providers are willing to make their piece of it free, as long as there are people willing to do the distributing for free.
Essential to life? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I'm amazed how you can discount the entire business model of TV Guide. Yes, if you want to know what time and what channel a show comes on, you need TV listings.
Unless you're advocating people sit in front of their TVs mindlessly clicking around looking for something to watch.
Unlike when I was growing up, there's actually a lot of high quality passive entertainment these days. You might want to check it out.
Re: (Score:2)
In the case of my ReplayTV... (Score:2)
Makes it easy to find all hockey games or all horror movies cross all channels.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I found this [110mb.com] while searching for an alternative to Schedules Direct. It's not perfect (there's some minor glitches in the episode numbers) but it does work.