[mythtv-users] Scraping

[jack snodgrass]

On 7/9/07, Billy Macdonald <billymacdonald at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 7/9/07, Kevin Slater <kevin.slater at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > On 7/9/07, Rich West <Rich.West at wesmo.com> wrote:
> > > I fear asking this after having read through the piles of email related
> > > to the zap2it panic, but since the need has arisen (I can't get guide
> > > data, and I expect that things will get even less stable as we approach
> > > September), I was wondering if anyone has made any efforts toward
> > > scraping data off of the DirecTV site for DirecTV subscribers?
> > >
> > >
> >
> > When I log on to my DirecTV account page and go to the listings, I see a
> > block indicating flash is needed. (I have a flash blocker turned on by
> > default.) I think screen scraping that would be a lot more difficult than if
> > it were just html.
> >
> > I just tried it anonymously with my zip code using Lynx (ncurses command
> > line browser - no flash) and while I can see some listing data I can't get
> > any sort of usable details.
> >
> > The other problem, as have been previously noted, is that it's likely a
> > violation of your contract with DirecTV to screen scrape the listings for
> > use on some (any) other system.
> >
> > ...Kevin
> >
>
> If I were paying for DirectTV I wouldn't feel bad at all about
> scraping their site.  You give them plenty of money each month for
> their service.  I can see how scraping a third party site that relies
> on ads could be an issue.  But a paying subscriber to directtv.....
>
> I won't have any problems (morally, technically maybe :) ) scraping
> Cox's site if it comes down to that.  (Even though it's really hosted
> by zap2it.)  My $xx for cable includes the listings in my view.
>
> Billy

I'm taking a different approach.. I've got several tivos that I pay the tivo
service on. I'm going to get my guide data from my tivos' mfs file system.
but I'm not sure how I'm going to get it into my mythtv database... I see
mention of xmltv as the expected format... I seem to recall reading about
that one day... assuming I can go from tivo -> xmltv.format... how do I get
that into the mythtv database?

Thanks - jack