[mythtv-users] UK Radio Times XMLTV [was: Reliability of USB capture cards]

Jason Chambers lists at purplish-monkey.com
Mon Jul 26 00:27:23 UTC 2010


On 25/07/2010 21:07, Keith Edmunds wrote:
> On Sun, 25 Jul 2010 20:55:31 +0100, lists at purplish-monkey.com said:
>> I'm in the UK using the Radio Times* xmltv feed so I don't have to
>> use EIT.
>
> I'm in the UK also, and I'd be interested in your experiences with
> the Radio Times data (but perhaps that's a subject for another
> thread).

Generally its very good.  There are a few minor problems which I'll get 
to later but none of them are annoying enough for me to start sending 
threatening letters to the BBC.

I originally started using XMLTV for two reasons.  Firstly there's the 
problem that started your original thread where the cards are not 
reliable when continuously gathering EIT data.

Secondly when I tried, the EIT data was missing the category, making it 
harder to search for the programmes I was likely to be interested in as 
everything was lumped together in one long list.  Because of the problem 
with the cards I never bothered to find out whether this was a due to my 
setup, a bug in MythTV or the EIT data itself.

With the Radio Times data you get 14 days of programme data which 
includes episode titles (in most cases), cast & director details along 
with good descriptions.  The descriptions - for films in particular - 
are a not just a synopsis but actually a 1 or 2 paragraph review by the 
Radio Times (very helpful if you have never heard of it before).

I only have Freeview and then generally only watch films, documentaries 
and drama/comedy series.  Its very rare that I see shows with generic 
descriptions, and I don't recall it ever providing me with the wrong 
program details or getting the start & end times wrong except where late 
running sporting events have affected the schedule on that day.

I'm not sure how accurate it is for soaps & talk-shows etc that air new 
content every day though as I never watch any of that 
rubbish^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hhigh quality entertainment.

The XMLTV takes a few extra steps to setup as you have to specify the 
xmltvid for each channel manually but obviously that's a one-off task so 
its not worth counting against it.

The few problems I have found are:

1.  There are no programids in the data so you have to rely on 
descriptions and episode titles to detect duplicates.  Which leads me 
onto 2 ...

2. The descriptions and episode titles and not always consistent when 
shows are repeated.

Descriptions vary between in-depth reviews and short synopsis.  And this 
can mean that repeat showings (whether in other time-slots the same 
week, or months later when the entire series is re-run) can have 
rewritten descriptions for the same episode. A human can easily spot 
that they are they a referring to the same episode but Myth has no 
chance.  "Being Human" early in the year sticks in my mind as a example 
of this, but I've seen it on others too.

Because of this I would recommend that you use "Subtitle /then/ 
description" as your default duplicate detection method.

Also when programmes do have episode titles there can be inconsistent 
punctuation/abbreviation which leads to Myth re-recording episodes 
you've already seen.  For instance "House" had episodes "Euphoria, Pt1" 
and "Euphoria, Pt2" back in January but then aired "Euphoria - Part 1" & 
"Euphoria - Part 2" in April.  Similar things happen with and/&, or 
Mr/Mr./Mister etc.

This doesn't happen that often so its not a big problem - just don't be 
surprised when you get the occasional re-recording of an old show due to 
a slight difference in the episode title.

3. Inconsistent assignment of program categories.

Films are films, and drama is drama.  But a sitcom could be a sitcom or 
a comedy or entertainment.  An animation is an animation, unless its a 
comedy or a sitcom.

This is what annoys me the most as its not even consistent for the 
/same/ show - for instance "Simspsons" & "King of the Hill" both 
alternate between animation and comedy.  And "Men Behaving Badly" has 
been sitcom, comedy, entertainment and (very bizarrely) a game-show.

So if you group or filter your recordings screen by category you may 
have to look in more than one place for certain shows.

4. Documentaries do not have cast lists

So you can't do a recording rule to look for shows from people like 
David Attenborough, Rich Hall, or Billy Connolly.  Usually the 
narrator/presenter will be mentioned in the description if they are 
famous enough but this is not always the case.

5. It does not provide listings for radio stations

Even though their website gives radio station listings they are not 
included in the raw data at xmltv.radiotimes.com that the grabber is 
allowed to use.


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