Hi, An old version of epg2timers has been distributed with vdr (in the contrib or Tools subdirectory) for over a year now. I will submit this new version to Klaus as a replacement soon. The major new feature is, that everything now is fully automatic. You only have to click a film on the web EPG to record it with vdr - that's it! So, you can program your vdr from anywhere in the world now. If you want to beta test the new version now, drop me a line and I'll send you a tar.bz2 of it. >From the README file: Overview. ========= The 3 modules in this directory are designed to allow vdr timer programming via the http://tvtv.de web EPG (Electronic Program Guide). Once you have these modules properly configured and installed, you should be able to simply click on the things you want vdr to record in the http://tvtv.de web EPG and be done with it. Everything else can be handled automatically. Module description. =================== The http://tvtv.de web EPG creates a so-called "merkliste" ("a list of items to remember") containing all the broadcasts you selected. 1. The perl script "get_merkliste.pl" transfers this "merkliste" from the http://tvtv.de web site to a local file "merkliste.html". 2. The C++ program "epg2timers" converts this HTML file into vdr's timers.conf format. 3. The shell script "update_timers" implements the overall control of the entire process. It retrieves the latest merkliste from http://tvtv.de, checks to see whether its entries are different from those in the current timers.conf and if they are, aborts vdr and updates the current timers.conf. update_timers will not abort vdr if there is no change, so the impact on your current use of vdr is kept to a minimum. update_timers assumes that you are using the runvdr script which will automatically restart vdr after a few seconds. update_timers itself makes no attempt to restart vdr after it has aborted vdr. vdr needs to be restarted so it reads the new timers.conf file. Configuration. ============== get_merkliste.pl requires configuration of the "files_to_fetch" variable preset. Log in to your http://tvtv.de account and click on the "Bookmark" item in the "Setup" submenu of the "Mein Programm" side bar menu. This will open a window with a URL in the location field that ends with an id value. Replace the xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx in the "files_to_fetch" variable preset with your ID value. If you are using an HTTP proxy, uncomment the line containing the $ua->proxy call and put your proxy details in. epg2timers.cxx allows various items to be configured. Unless you use the channels.conf file supplied in this directory, you must configure the channel_names table in epg2timers.cxx to match your channels.conf. i.e. the first entry in the channel_names table must be the http://tvtv.de name of the channels in the first line of your channels.conf. Note that the channel_names table maps http://tvtv.de channel names into channels.conf line numbers. So the names you put into this table must be the names http://tvtv.de uses, which are not necessarily identical with the names you use in your vdr channels.conf. Take a look at the suppplied channels.conf and at the channel_names table in epg2timers.cxx. update_timers must know where to find the get_merkliste.pl perl script and the compiled epg2timers binary. Both must be in a directory pointed to by the TOOLDIR variable. update_timers also must know where to find the vdr binary and the current timers.conf file. Both must be in a directory pointed to by the VDRDIR variable. Depending on the price of your internet access, you may want to run update_timers more or less frequently. It may also be a good idea to run it at times where it is unlikely to interfere with your current use of vdr. Configure a crontab entry according to these personal preferences. Here is the entry I use: 1 2 * * * /home/cko/bin/update_timers It runs update_timers only once a night at 02:01 a.m. Installation. ============= Create your TOOLDIR directory if it does not already exist. Copy get_merkliste.pl into it, compile epg2timers.cxx with the command: g++ epg2timers.cxx -o epg2timers and move the epg2timers into the TOOLDIR directory. The get_merkliste.pl script requires certain packages to run. Besides of course perl, on a SuSE 7.2 system install perl-libwww-perl. To Do. ====== These are just ideas. They MAY get implemented. If you want them to happen, contribute a patch. ;-) * Support vdr hierarchical directories (after vdr does) by mapping the http://tvtv.de genre texts into directory names. * Transmit the updated timers via SVDRP, so vdr does not have to be restarted. * Implement a unique channel number scheme in cooperation with vdr, so the http://tvtv.de channel name -> vdr channel number mapping no longer needs to be configured. * start_time_safety_margin for epg2timers. Authors. ======== Carsten Koch ([EMAIL PROTECTED]): epg2timers.cxx, update_timers, this README file. Axel Gruber and Rolf Hakenes: get_merkliste.pl Credits. ======== I am grateful (in chronological order) to * Klaus Schmidinger for his excellent vdr program and for keeping an open mind in all directions. * my wife for encouraging me to write epg2timers in June 2000 and for her constant patience and support. * Andreas Steinhauser for periodically criticizing the epg2timers "manual mode" until I came up with the idea to fully automatize it and for contributing ideas. * Axel Gruber for reminding me half a year later, for pushing the idea until it got implemented, for asking for new features all the time and for contributing ideas. * Axel Gruber and Rolf Hakenes for contributing the get_merkliste.pl perl script. Carsten, September 2001. -- Info: To unsubscribe send a mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe linux-dvb" as subject.
