[EXT] UK TV, and Radio, Guide and Search

[colin1951uk]

I still have to be able to identify a single Main Genre.

Ben I think Films is a good place to start (and not because I like them ) as a Film can be many genres: Film/action, Film/drama and so on but FILM is always in the category somewhere.

By the way Columbo has cropped up in the Mystery category now

No database changes planned (yet)

I hope not I've just on settled fifty odd channels all in the order I want them, no changes please

Oh, and I can confirm that my 80meg xmltv.xml (yup, I did one download of all the channels) file shows all its Talking Pictures TV <programme> entries as: Coming Soon.

Thanks, that's three against one now, although we all use the same grabber which I better not tell the man from Schedules Direct If you downloaded the Sky UK package Ben you won't quite have all the channels, Al Jazeera Arabic and Movie Mix aren't in there (and maybe others from Freeview,) although I believe Movie Mix is a simulcast of the Movies>Men satellite channel.

Based on your handle, I'm guessing you were born in 1951,

Is it that obvious

[Benjamin Markson]

v0.9.4 is now available to download.

This is mainly my attempt to bring some order to the humongous pile of genres in the Schedule Direct data. The Main Genres are my choice following my analysis of said genres. It does leave quite a lot under 'Other', so, if anyone can spot any Sub Genres in there that look as if they should be promoted to a Main Genre, just shout.

To be considered as a Main Genre the genre should really appear alongside many other genres otherwise, once promoted, it ends up with hardly any 'children' which is a bit pointless.

One that has defeated me for Schedules Direct is sports. While there are lots of genres for different sports they simply don't share any common 'Sports' genre and therefore cannot be grouped together under a common Main Genre - unlike the Microsoft feed that does carry a proper 'Sports' genre... go figure.

Oh, and some Main Genres are more powerful than others - this is my current list:

Code: Select all

Children
Soap
Sitcom
Drama
Documentary
Interests
Arts & Crafts
Music & Arts
News
Sports
Game Show
Entertainment
Comedy
Crime Drama
History
Cooking
House & Garden
Reality

The nearer the top of the list the more powerful. So, for example, a programme that has both genres 'Children' and 'Comedy' is given a Main Genre of 'Children'. 'Film' is also a Main Genre and gets identified differently to the other programmes. The 'Film' Main Genre always overrides anything else.

Ben.

[Yoss1960]

Ben & Colin:
Regarding Schedules Direct, are you guys seeing anything other than lots of "To Be Announced" for dates beyond 3rd June?

And Ben, thanks for rationalising the genre options.

[colin1951uk]

Ben & Colin:
Regarding Schedules Direct, are you guys seeing anything other than lots of "To Be Announced" for dates beyond 3rd June?

I am Yoss, 4Music seems reasonably well populated but other than that not much about.

There really isn't much to play with is there?

[Yoss1960]

There really isn't much to play with is there?

Indeed. I was hoping for better. AFAICT, there hasn't been a real update for at least three days. I'll see how things go until Sunday, when my free trial expires. If it remains the same, I'll be back to microsoft's feed; even if it is out of date (some channel numbers are wrong), at least I can plan viewing//recording more than 5 days ahead.

[Benjamin Markson]

Regarding Schedules Direct, are you guys seeing anything other than lots of "To Be Announced" for dates beyond 3rd June?

Yup, it mostly falls apart around 6am on June the 4th - which, to be fair, gives a good weeks worth - oddly, Radio 4 survives until about 8am on June the 12th. MS is good up to around June the 9th.

Remember, you can use more than one source. You could use MS for more 'forward' planning, and SD for the week ahead. It is a bit daft that SD has about 5 more days over MS but in fact populate about 5 less.

As I don't 'do' Paypal I'm not sure if my CC will go through, or not. Sometimes Paypal allows it, and sometimes not.

Ben.

[Yoss1960]

Yup, it mostly falls apart around 6am on June the 4th - which, to be fair, gives a good weeks worth - oddly, Radio 4 survives until about 8am on June the 12th. MS is good up to around June the 9th.

True, but it's been stuck at that date for several days; It may be a little over a week's schedulig now, but it was a fortnight's worth the first time I fetched the data.

Remember, you can use more than one source. You could use MS for more 'forward' planning, and SD for the week ahead. It is a bit daft that SD has about 5 more days over

Good point. It' s one I'll investigate.

As I don't 'do' Paypal I'm not sure if my CC will go through, or not. Sometimes Paypal allows it, and sometimes not.

SD say that PayPal can cause them (well, us really) issues, but not quite that one. Of course, it goes without saying that PP aren't there for our benefit, but for their profit. Although, TBF, I've only ever had one issue with them, and that was sorted easily enough.

[Yoss1960]

Ben;
Ben:

I have a suggestion/request;
Would it be possible to add the relevant icons for the ratings of films? Just having '18', 'U', etc is fine but the image would be nice to have. Ideally, located in the schedule display as well as the description window. Having the logos displayed may well make it easier for the visually impaired without having to reach for screen reader software.

Sadly, I also have a (shock) bug report for you in XMLTVGuide. Thankfully, it's only minor.
Horizontal scrolling doesn't work correctly (here, at least). When I drag the horizontal scroll block across the scroll bar, the schedule view updates accordingly. However, if I click on the scroll bar in an area other than the block (so that the block moves toward the point clicked on) the schedule view doesn't update as I would expect it to. It's only the horizontal scroll that's affected, vertical scrolling works as I would expect it to.

[Benjamin Markson]

...it's been stuck at that date [4/6] for several days; It may be a little over a week's schedulig now, but it was a fortnight's worth the first time I fetched the data.

I like to keep an eye on the film premieres. Looking at the 'main' channels...

The MS feed is pretty bad, only Film4 seems to carry the premiere flag and even that includes a lot of false positives.

The SD feed is better, again it has false positives, lacks C5, but does include at least Film4, C4, and More4.

Now, this morning I was again comparing SD with Metabroadcast and was disappointed that the film: About Time, premiering on the 5/6, wasn't appearing. So, I did a new download and import - made easy using those handy Execute and Import buttons - and the film appeared correctly and, flagged as a premiere.

The SD channels now look good up until about the 10/6 with the exception of most of the ITV channels which are stuck around 3/6.

So, clearly the SD feed is getting updated, albeit with this weird dead-zone for, at least, the trailing 5 days of the included schedules - that is 3 weeks out and one wonders why they bother including it at all.

Ben.

[Benjamin Markson]

I have a suggestion/request;
Would it be possible to add the relevant icons for the ratings of films? Just having '18', 'U', etc is fine but the image would be nice to have. Ideally, located in the schedule display as well as the description window. Having the logos displayed may well make it easier for the visually impaired without having to reach for screen reader software.

I could certainly have a look at doing that - do you know where I can get the ico's or png's for me to use? Ideally, something like 16x16px for those positions.

Horizontal scrolling doesn't work correctly (here, at least). When I drag the horizontal scroll block across the scroll bar, the schedule view updates accordingly. However, if I click on the scroll bar in an area other than the block (so that the block moves toward the point clicked on) the schedule view doesn't update as I would expect it to. It's only the horizontal scroll that's affected, vertical scrolling works as I would expect it to.

Well spotted. I've fixed that one - it was caused by some over enthusiastic find/replace - you don't think I've written this new version from scratch.

Ben.

[Yoss1960]

Ben;

BBFC logos can be obtained from the BBFC themselves; http://www.bbfc.co.uk/downloads/logos, which says to email them at this helpline@bbfc.co.uk address. However, if you go to their home page, all the icons are there (except Uc), but at approx 40x31 pixels.

I've updated my feed to include both SD & Microsoft, and will probably cherry pick the best setup; MS has many channels missing, but the SD feed seems to have those with longer lead times anyway. Most bizzarre.

Well spotted. I've fixed that one - it was caused by some over enthusiastic find/replace - you don't think I've written this new version from scratch

I assumed not; That way madness lies.
I spent quite some time writing that explanation, because I wanted it to be understandable. Thankfully, it seems I got it right. It's one of those times when a picture (well, video perhaps) would make the message so much easier to understand.

[Benjamin Markson]

v0.9.5 is now available to download.

I think I'm down to moving the deckchairs around now - lots of little tweaks, no database changes, no need to even re-import the data.

Possibly, most interesting is that under the Search Genres you can now select the Main Genre headings.

I've restored the Certificates to the way they were before (including putting them back in the Search). I've put Certificate images on the details pane, but I think using them beyond that isn't really a runner. They'd either have to be so small as to be useless, or distort the grid boxes.

I haven't used the BBFC images - they have very fussy backgrounds, plus a poor text to outline ratio (i.e. big outline carry small text which doesn't shrink well) the ones I'm using have flatter backgrounds and larger text.

Ben.

[colin1951uk]

I've updated my feed to include both SD & Microsoft,

Yoss, that does work then. I've been waiting for someone to include additional data into the database as I was worried it might corrupt things.

I got an answer about Talking TV and Tru Crime and they aren't providing schedules yet because no business relationship has been established with the broadcasters. Once SD get the ok to distribute the schedules they'll be added to the lists accordingly.

It wasn't mc2xml then!!

[Yoss1960]

I haven't used the BBFC images - they have very fussy backgrounds, plus a poor text to outline ratio (i.e. big outline carry small text which doesn't shrink well) the ones I'm using have flatter backgrounds and larger text.

TBH, I didn't try scaling their images until after I posted my reply. You're right, shrunk down to 16x16 they look crap.

I've updated my feed to include both SD & Microsoft,

Yoss, that does work then. I've been waiting for someone to include additional data into the database as I was worried it might corrupt things.

Yes, without problem. The way I do it is to have two directories, called 'SchedulesDirect' and Microsoft' (no guesses as to what goes where )to download the feeds into and call mc2xml once from each directory to import the data. Then, in Ben's guide, create two feeds, and point each at the right place and bingo, you're set.

I could have it all in one directory by playing with the mc2xml command's options to read from different settings files, and write to different xml output files, but this way you don't have to pass options from Ben's TVGuide, if that's even possible (I didn't try).

I got an answer about Talking TV and Tru Crime and they aren't providing schedules yet because no business relationship has been established with the broadcasters. Once SD get the ok to distribute the schedules they'll be added to the lists accordingly.

That makes sense. Good to know things are, hopefully, heading in the right direction.

It wasn't mc2xml then!!

Well, we knew that, didn't we?

[Yoss1960]

Just installed v0.9.5.

Works, and looks, great. Horizontal scrolling works as it should, and the age restriction icons are looking good in the film details pane.

Thank you Ben for all your hard work.