Uk xmltv

United Kingdom

tv_grab_uk_rt is the only UK listings grabber directly supported by MythTV.

Configuring tv_grab_uk_rt:

There are two ways to configure the grabber script.

The first, probably the most popular is to allow mythtv-setup to tun the grabber configuration script from the 'Video Source Setup' page. Please note that running the grabber config script from here requires the user to switch focus back to the terminal session mythtv-setup was started from.

The second way to configure the grabber script is to run

tv_grab_uk_rt --configure

directly.

Assuming no .xmltv file already exists, the script will present the text

Enter the name of a channel, or '.' to finish selecting channels:

At the prompt, enter the name of a channel (or part of a channel name), e.g. BBC1

If more than one possibility for the channel is found, a 'menu' will appear allowing the selection to be refined:

Which channel to add?

0: BBC1

1: BBC1 East

2: BBC1 London & South East

3: BBC1 Midlands

4: BBC1 North

5: BBC1 North East

6: BBC1 North West

7: BBC1 Northern Ireland

8: BBC1 Scotland

9: BBC1 South

10: BBC1 South East

11: BBC1 South West

12: BBC1 Wales

13: BBC1 West

14: None of the above are what I wanted

Select one: [0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14 (default=10)]

Sometimes choosing the right option can be a matter of pure guesswork, but it helps to know which BBC & ITV region you belong to.

When adding the channels is done, enter . and press RETURN.

The script will then write a <videosourcename>.xmltv file in ~/.mythtv or ~/.xmltv/tv_grab_uk_rt.conf

A note about newer versions of xmltv

The old method of channel entry has gone from xmltv in more recent versions (0.5.42 or so) and now entry takes the form of simple yes/no questions, e.g.

Add channel ABC1? [yes,no,all,none (default=yes)]

Do not be tempted too answer 'all' unless ALL the channels offered by this grabber are required - otherwise empty and unusable channels will be created every time mythfilldatabase is run!

Answer every prompt with yes or no until the script stops. When the script is done, a .xmltv file will be written in either ~/.mythtv (videosourcename.xmltv) or ~/.xmltv/tv_grab_uk_rt.conf

How to find out which channels are available and what their xmltv IDs are:

Use the command tv_grab_uk_rt --list-channels

What to do when tv_grab_uk_rt has written its config file

If tv_grab_uk_rt --configure has been run outside of mythtv-setup, make sure to copy the resultant file to ~/.mythtv/videosourcename.xmltv (where videosourcename is the name of the video source you wish to bind to the channels you chose).

The next step is to manually enter each and every single xmltv ID for every channel in MythTV's channel table. This can be done in the channel editor directly (laborious), in MythWeb's channel editor page (slightly less laborious) or in a MYSQL editor such as phpmyadmin (about as laborious as MythWeb's channel editor).

Refer to either the --list-channels option the grabber provides or /usr/share/xmltv/tv_grab_uk_rt/channel_ids to ensure the xmltv IDs entered into the channel table are correct.

This generally only needs to be done once, so when it's done, it's done!

Note: it'd be a great idea for somebody to collect channel lineups & configs along with regional data so that this process could be wizard-ised

Adding new channels so that the grabber picks them up

It isn't enough just to add a new channel's xmltvid in the channel table.

If the new xmltvid is known, either:

• Add the new xmltvid to ~/.mythtv/<videosourcename>.xmltv in the form 'channel xmltvid'
• Or re-run tv_grab_uk_rt --configure <videosourcename>.xmltv

(where <videosourcename> is the name of the 'video source' you want the grabber to grab data for)

Troubleshooting

If mythfilldatabase running automatically isn't picking up guide data for the channels which have been configured, it's possible that there are two instances of the <videosourcename>.xmltv file - one in /home/mythtv and one somewhere else. Check for that and make sure that mythfilldatabase is always run as the correct user.