[mythtv-users] Zap2It needs our help

[Chris Petersen]

> All you'd have to do is write a small SOAP handler that proxies between 
> your server an zap2it.   When someone makes a request for a listing, if 
> you don't already have that time period / region downloaded and cached, 
> then you get it from zap2it. Otherwise, you serve your cached copy. Then 
> you just flush old data every few days. It is not that difficult.

Request a listing?  It's not just a list of channels for a particular
region/provider.  My listing has a bunch of channels removed (HSN, ESPN,
etc) that I will never watch.  The only thing the request says is "hi,
I'm xris, give me lineup number 1"..   Even if you were proxying the
entire request, you'd end up storing EVERYONE'S personal lineups, since
the specific data isn't passed back and forth.

Oh, and the whole point of connecting datadirect and downloading stuff
daily is because stuff changes on a daily basis.  So if you're caching
my specific file for more than a day, it's useless to me.  And if you're
only saving it for a day, then all you've done is become a middleman for
the download, and wasted bandwidth by proxying something I could just as
easily have downloaded directly.

If they get so many people downloading that distributing the download
times is still too much of a problem, they'll upgrade the server, or add
another.  That's how businesses work.

-Chris