[mythtv-users] Printable TV Guide

[Ma Begaj]

2009/6/4 Ian Bonham <ian.bonham at gmail.com>:
> Hi all,
>
> I'm doing some research at the moment and am looking for some help if
> possible.
>
> I've got over 300 channels coming in here via satellite, some of which
> populate their guide data with EPG, some don't. This makes the TV guide
> complicated as often I'm seeing 'No Data' in the guide. I'm on Astra 28.2E
> in Europe by the way.
>
> I mainly follow the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, and Sky News, maybe a couple of
> others.
>
> What I am looking to do is create a way of pressing a button on my remote,
> which then takes a list of user chosen channels, and prints a landscape A4
> of the TV guide for those channels.
>
> Maybe it's 9pm. I hit the blue-button on my MCE remote, and the printer
> throws out a sheet displaying a grid format (i.e. MythWeb style) for just
> channels I have chosen to be printed for the next 3/6 hours?
>
> It may sound a 'bit' odd wanting a hard copy of a TV guide, but I am not the
> only one in the house and the TV guide on dead-tree was always fun for
> circling programs. In an "I am watching this so try to stop me!" way!
>
> I have had a look through the Mythweb code, but it's functioned all over the
> place and I got lost! What I'm thinking is design a script that pumps out
> PostScript based on selections made by the users for the channels they want
> on their dead-tree TV guide. If we did it to landscape A4, we could make it
> easilly readable.
>
> I'm aiming to work on this, but I'd like some help if possible? I did look
> at FreeGuide as an option, but the print format is awful. Also, FreeGuide
> doesn't time-shift when you are in a different time-zone. So we need to use
> Myth's database. Can anyone suggest a routine for grabbing data from MySQL
> that would produce the same 15 min block format used in MythWeb for selected
> channels?
>
> I think this would be very exciting code to design, and hope I can get some
> help with this aim.
>
> Thanks in advance for reading my posting,


I like the idea very much. But it could be maybe even simpler:

1. save mythtweb guide page with "wget http://localhost/mythtv/....."
2. converts html to pdf: there are a lot of html2pdf converter:
http://www.google.com/search?q=html2pdf
3. print it


problem 1: you cannot choose the day or something similar
-> you could use one button on your remote for "print today" and
another button for "print tommorow"


problem 2: not enough place on one A4 paper.
-> you could make a custom CSS which could put more information on the
paper by using smaller fonts, smaller channel icons...

M.