hoe werk ik met xmltv

[cromag]

lo guys,

saw that the new xmltv has a belgian grabber to, but its very unclear how xmltv works and how i get it to work with sage etc.... any assistance for a noob :)?

i just unzipped it, but the exe doesnt do much it seems, cant find any good tutorials either

[nielm]

There should be a doc directory from xmltv, one of which should be the docs for tv_grab_be

In general, XMLTV goes like this:
first run:
xmltv tv_grab_be --configure
This prompts to do a whole load of configuration for you to get your channels
Then whenever you want data run
xmltv tv_grab_be --days n --output epgdata.xml to get the number of days' data...

Put epgdata.xml in the SageTV directory and configure the XMLTV plugin (I use this one (http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12740), but demideus' (http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12740) is a well documented one :) ) to import the data.

Two issues with tv_grab_be...

By default it only grabs summary (program name/start/stop/category) info...
This is because to get more detailed info (description, episode name, director, actors) it needs to download a webpage for each program which takes forever. You can configure it to get details only for programs on certain channels/time-ranges/categories to limit the time range... To enable this run with --slow in both configure time and grab time... Configuration in --slow mode is VERY complex (sorry!) but you only have to do it once!

The other issue is that data for dutch language channels is limited in french mode, and data for french channels is limited in dutch mode... Detail for other language channels is limited in both modes.

To workaround this, I run several grabbers, each with different config files (--config-file option) generating dfferent output files
tv_grab_be with one config file in french mode for belgian-french channels
tv_grab_be with a different config file in dutch mode for dutch-speaking channels
tv_grab_fr for the french-french channels
tv_grab_uk_rt for bbc1/bbc2

I also have a dummy xml file to include placeholder channels that I want named, but do not have XMLTV data for (eg CNN/CNBC/TVBrussel, etc)

I then combine all the output files + the dummy file using the tv_sort utilty, post process it a little to remove clumped programmes from uk_rt data (see wiki xmltv link), and pass it to Sage for importing...

All of this is run from a single batch file, set up as a tri-weekly scheduled task in Windows, so that I get epgdata.xml files generated regularly.

Also see xmltv links in wiki (http://www.sage-community.org/index.cgi/wiki/XMLTV#preview) which contains links to howtos...

[cromag]

were do you run that command? when i double click the exe, a dos prompt window opens but closes a second later

[nielm]

on the command line... xmltv is a command line app:

run a dos prompt: start->run cmd.exe
cd to the xmltv directory
xmltv.exe tv_grab_be (etc)

you might find the README in the top level directory of the unpacked zipfile useful, and the Quickstart guide in the docs directory... as well as the manual pages for each grabber/tool in the docs/man directory

another tip: xmltv does not like being in a directory path with spaces, so better to put it in c:\xmltv rather than c:\Program Files\xmltv

[1972]

were do you run that command? when i double click the exe, a dos prompt window opens but closes a second later

Just make with a texteditor a textfile with the extension .bat (instead of .txt) with the commands in it Nielm mentioned. You can run the .bat file by double clicking on it.

Succes!

[jhh]

Hi,

not sure if we need to mention tvtv here - thought that in release 3.0 there was a first step to accomodate us European users.

While getting EPG data through xlmtv related stuff is a bit intimidating at first it is quite possible to do if you follow the guide.

I haven't tested it yet but there are some reports on [tvtv] it from the 3.0 beta test.

Jan

[cromag]

just installed the new beta version but it doesnt seem like any EPG for Belgium yet

[KrisAcker]

I found this grabber for Belgian xmltv data easier to set up:

http://forums.freytechnologies.com/forums/showthread.php?t=11473

It also includes lots of details like episode names and descriptions at an amazing speed.