EPG Grabbers for Radio Times in UK

doc · #1 09-29-2006, 04:17 AM

I'm using Alan Birtles radio times grabber to get my EPG listings but have had a few problems with it lately. I have sent a message to his forum and am sure it will be sorted, but I wondered what everyone else in the UK is using.

Hades · #2 09-29-2006, 07:22 AM

Alan Birtles EPG Grabber for me, it works very well/easy to cofigure +1/+2 channels.

Im sure Alan will get back to you today, normally the only issues that arise are when RT start playing around with their listings.

doc · #3 09-29-2006, 07:30 AM

You must be right, I found a command line xmltv.exe that you can use but the configuring is a pain in the neck, and that seemed to be working until

http://xmltv.radiotimes.com/xmltv/1961.dat: Code point \u0000 is not a valid character in XML at /PerlApp/XMLTV.pm line 1758

so yes, it must be the radio times website.

The next thing I have to do is work out when it fails so that it doesn't copy and empty epg file into sage. I saw in some earlier documentation on his website about it returning a 0 if its successful or 2 if it fails. I have to put this into a script now to check for this.

rickgillyon · #4 09-29-2006, 07:50 AM

Yes, Birty's grabber is leaving an error in the log:

Code:

Error downloading listings: Cannot start string search from 0

I'll PM him, see if he's noticed!

doc · #5 09-29-2006, 07:54 AM

He said on his forum that he'll look tonight.

I feel guilty when people start looking into things, I'm sat at work, bored silly, nothing to do, so I play with my pc at home. I really should find some proper work to do.

If my boss walked in I'd be in for it.....

rickgillyon · #6 09-29-2006, 07:59 AM

If you can get away with it...

Do other people use XMLTV as well as the grabber? I thought you needed two steps, grab then run xmltv against it, will the Grabber alone be enough? If so, do you sort the output?

doc · #7 09-29-2006, 08:03 AM

I used to sort it after, but then when I tried to sort it with the option in the grabber program it used to hang, so I unticked it but forgot to put the sort back in from xmltv.exe. It's worked fine since so I've never bothered putting it back!

I read somewhere that the sort makes it easier for sage to import the file, if its true or not I don't know, but it would be interesting to see what others do.

birty · #8 09-29-2006, 11:39 AM

it is a problem with the rt data. there are a couple of null characters at the end of the description for clerks. 3.06 is uploading now (over dial up so will take about 10 mins) and should be able to cope with null characters

rickgillyon · #9 09-29-2006, 12:37 PM

Thanks, that's worked a treat!

Do you know if there's any reason to use xmltv on the output from the grabber? Does it do anything that ticking "Sort" doesn't do?

birty · #10 09-29-2006, 12:59 PM

dont think so

doc · #11 09-29-2006, 02:24 PM

Thanks Birty your a star. I can't download it yet but will try tomorrow.

I've got to think of something else to do tomorrow now.....

rickgillyon · #12 09-29-2006, 02:38 PM

Hmmm, sorting seems to hang for me too...any ideas on that? I left it around an hour and was still not responding.

birty · #13 09-29-2006, 03:05 PM

its pretty slow, if you leave the order set to channel,start,stop (the order the data is in anyway) then the sort will take ages. i could make it faster but cant really be bothered

rickgillyon · #14 09-29-2006, 03:17 PM

If it's in that order I guess there's no point anyway! I'll give it a try...

Thanks for the great app!!

pschweig · #15 09-30-2006, 10:17 AM

can somebody post a download link for the new version I can't seem to access

http://www.birtles.org.uk/xmltv/

I've sent birty a pm about it. Can anybody else access the site?

rickgillyon · #16 09-30-2006, 10:21 AM

http://www.birtles.org.uk/xmltv/xmltvgui_3.06.00W.exe

You should join the mailing list!

pschweig · #17 09-30-2006, 10:46 AM

Got it now.

Thanks Rick

Mark SS · #18 09-30-2006, 01:06 PM

Top man Birty, cheers again.

Noticed that Radio Times doesn't appear to have EPG for Bravo 2. Is it a new channel or have RT never had data for it?

Hades · #19 10-01-2006, 02:34 AM

@Mark SS

Its a new channel, checking the RT listings guide(http://www.radiotimes.com),RT currently seems to have no data for it.

PS..You have to register to get the full listings guide.

motobarsteward · #20 10-27-2006, 05:58 AM

Always always remember to tell the fire wall to allow the new version of the program to access the internet! The console version of the grabber does not tell you that it failed to access the internet and any firewall popups have long gone by the following morning. Worst of all is that you don't realise that there is a problem until 2 weeks later!

Some how, I forget this every time! I'd be dangerous if I had a brain!

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