[mythtv-users] Getting local-access stations into Schedules Direct

Robert Eden rmeden at yahoo.com
Tue Nov 3 16:22:59 UTC 2009


On 11/3/2009 10:01 AM, David Segall wrote:
>
> Robert Eden wrote:
>> On 11/1/2009 1:56 AM, f-myth-users at media.mit.edu wrote:
>> You would think the stations would want to standardize on something 
>> (even CSV!) at least for internal use, but that's not the case.  I 
>> can think of a few logical reasons for this, 
>
> What are they?
>
(in addition to Brian's excellent explanation about the traffic systems)...

Maggie does local scheduling and has a pretty schedule template in excel 
using merged fields etc.  She's always done it that way and doesn't want 
to change.

Jane the manager,  doesn't like the way the CSV file looks when it's 
printed out.  Plus, she likes the way Maggy formats it.

Tim took this over from Betty.  He doesn't know how to format things 
pretty well, but he can edit the template word doc.

Frank in engineering needs a file in a special format for their ATSC 
guide.  He's not a programmer and can't convert a CSV or Maggie's excel 
file.  His application can get the data from a consolidator automatically.

(BTW, Maggie and Tim only have info on local programming... Frank needs 
network stuff too... and the whole cycle repeats itself)

George the VP agrees this is a mess, but by paying $ to a consolidator, 
all the problems goes away.  It integrates with Frank's (already 
purchased) application (no import step), doesn't require any retraining, 
and $ (single lineup) is relatively cheap.

How's that for some plausible reasons?  

Robert



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