On Mon, July 9, 2007 8:24 am, Ralph Shumaker wrote: > Lan Barnes wrote: >> OK, Tcl'ers, who wants to have some FUN! There is a MythTV project >> crying >> out for Tcl. >> >> BACKGROUND >> >> MythTV is the OSS Linux-based home brew Tivo. It rocks. Historically >> Myth >> got its TV listings for the data base by screen scraping the zap2it site >> (http://www.zap2it.com/). zap2it got pissed because of all the hits by >> bots and played cat-n-mouse, changing their interface almost weekly. >> Finally zap2it caved and created zap2it labs that allowed Myth people to >> register, fill out a survey, and download XML listings for their >> region/service. It has been free. >> >> Now zap2it has announced that they're pulling that service in September. >> No offer (yet) to make it a paid service, just bye bye. The Myth users >> mailing list, which is exceptionally vapid at best, has been an >> avalanche >> of pointless hand-wringing over this. "Can't we DO something?!" >> >> THE PROJECT >> >> Yes, we can! We can write a more flexible screen scraper for zap2it, a >> better cat to play with their mouse. >> >> I'm picturing something done with Expect and the Tcl HTML add-in. Config >> files for the user's home data (zip code, channel selection, cable or >> dish, etc). And the output should be the same XML that zap2it labs has >> been providing. >> >> And flexible flexible flexible. >> >> Anyone wanna play (and, yes, Mr. Penix, I'm talkin' to _you_)? >> > > It may be a can of worms, but many TV stations list their line up on > their websites, do they not? If it (your Tcl proggie) is flexible > enough to get the line-ups from various sources (especially the original > sources), and then clean it up and offer it up like a mirror, then the > impact on the sources would much more nominal since your mirror would be > catching all the hits. You might even add a few sponsors' ads to offset > the cost of hosting and such. > > As I recall, TV Guide got its start in a garage by someone calling up > the Networks and asking them for their line-ups. They sent the line-ups > free of charge. TV Guide got advertisers to pay for spots and was able > to then sell the Guide for a much smaller fee to the public. When TV > Guide became known, it was a little too late for the Networks to start > charging for it (although I think a few of them tried but later gave up, > IIRC). > >
Interesting story. I'm putting my call for hotshots on hold. The myth team claims they're close to working out a deal with zap2it. Perhaps the threat of a Kplug stormtrooper team brought them to the table ... -- Lan Barnes SCM Analyst Linux Guy Tcl/Tk Enthusiast Biodiesel Brewer -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-lpsg
