[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.
More information about the mythtv-users
mailing list