FreeviewToXMLTV stopped working?

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#409417 25-Nov-2010 12:25

RustyGonad: Oblivion - the tool grabs the xml data from the Freeview website. If they didn't want people to use it they wouldn't put it there. Your view is kinda shallow and totally uninformed.

Its not really shallow and totally uninformed. Its quite likely freeview source their information from the tvnz listings themselves. It has changed URLs in the last 2 days, seems far too co-incidental.

The listings of programmes are protected by copyright owned by TVNZ, CanWest TVWorks , Maori Television Service, Radio New Zealand, and other broadcasters. None of the listings of programmes to be broadcast may be reproduced by any means without the express permission of these companies.

If they didn't want people to use it they wouldn't put it there.

Use it for reference yes, re-use it elsewhere without explicitly asking... no.

There's many a mention of Cease and desist orders on the forums to people parsing XML in electronic form.

RustyGonad

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#409446 25-Nov-2010 13:23

Oblivian:
RustyGonad: Oblivion - the tool grabs the xml data from the Freeview website. If they didn't want people to use it they wouldn't put it there. Your view is kinda shallow and totally uninformed.

Its not really shallow and totally uninformed. Its quite likely freeview source their information from the tvnz listings themselves. It has changed URLs in the last 2 days, seems far too co-incidental.

The listings of programmes are protected by copyright owned by TVNZ, CanWest TVWorks , Maori Television Service, Radio New Zealand, and other broadcasters. None of the listings of programmes to be broadcast may be reproduced by any means without the express permission of these companies.

If they didn't want people to use it they wouldn't put it there.

Use it for reference yes, re-use it elsewhere without explicitly asking... no.

There's many a mention of Cease and desist orders on the forums to people parsing XML in electronic form.

The cease and desist notifications were issued by Sky, to people who were hosting reproductions of Sky's Guide, on public websites, without commerical permission from Sky. This was never challenged legally, and therefore no-one has a informed legal opinion as to whether or not Sky's challenge to these sites would or wouldn't have stood up in a court of law. Note - a cease and desist notification doesn't necessarily mean a law has been broken, however it appears certain they had grounds to raise the question. Cases in Australia indicated their was ground to mount a legal challenge, but dollar law killed the challenge before it started.

Sky also took steps to protect the content on thier website from being accessed by anything other than a webbrowser, and questioned the legality of the tools that accessed this information, via a cease and desist notification. Once again, this wasn't questioned by the author of the tools, and therefore it remains a one sided legal view/opinion. Most informed opinion indicated they would struggle with this, but no-one had the money, or energy (or both) to challenge the issue.

Freeview are hosting xml guide files on thier website, in an unprotected directory, in an unprotected format.

Given Freeview and a consortium of its own partners I asssume they have permission from its own partners to host this information. If not they could surely issue a Cease and Desist notification to themselves - be a great bit of reading...

No one is hosting, or re-distributing any information by using Robs tool.

From a legal standpoint, it is no different from you using say EPGCollector to access publically available information via MHEG or EIT that you don't have written permission to access (or should each user using a non certified Freeview appliance have to write a letter requesting legal access to the MHEG source?), and archive/store it on your PC/setop box or whatever. Or for say a webbrowser caching said information every time its accessed.

[Mod (N8): Edited]

nate

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#409494 25-Nov-2010 15:01

valtam: Lets try and keep the comments directly related to a solution for amigo, rvangelder thank you for responding to amigo's issue.

Agreed. No personal attacks here thanks.

freitasm

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#409518 25-Nov-2010 16:00

Moved this to correct forum.

StumpyB

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#409541 25-Nov-2010 16:37

Thanks for updating the app rvangelder. Much appreciated.

StumpyB

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#409545 25-Nov-2010 16:43

Stumpy B - you can pay if you want. Goto icetv.co.nz. Why you'd want to is another issue.

Had a look at icetv.co.nz for a few minutes - I can't see how to pay money and get an XMLTV xml file. Am I being thick - or is this only for Media Centre users ? I want to keep using N-PVR (formerly GB-PVR) - I like its mux record feature.

The only reason I like the idea of paying for an EPG is perhaps things would "just work". Free is best - sure

RustyGonad

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#409558 25-Nov-2010 17:15

nate:
valtam: Lets try and keep the comments directly related to a solution for amigo, rvangelder thank you for responding to amigo's issue.

Agreed. No personal attacks here thanks.

Nate - I find it somewhat hyprocritical that you would edit my post, which simply called someone out for having a somewhat shallow viewpoint, which I appropriately detailed the reasons why, and yet when an accusation of theft is made without foundation it stays as is.

You may as well have deleted the whole post...

This was not way a direct attack on the poster, simply diagreeing with the assumption made by the poster that the tool mentioned in this thread was being used to steal information. I made an assertion that the user has a shallow view on the situation and I stand by that.

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valtam

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#409561 25-Nov-2010 17:18

Let it go mate, we're here to help amigo. He has now been offered a number of solutions. It may be appropriate to address your concerns in a pm to the Mod.

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rvangelder

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#409619 25-Nov-2010 20:27

Hi all.

The new version is available:
http://vangelder.orcon.net.nz/files/FreeviewToXMLTV.zip

It appears that Freeview has introduced a few new fields:
video Y/N
audio Y/N
genre
subgenre

The genre / subgenre info is probably the more interesting change as it is extremely detailed. There's about 70 unique genres and 110 unique subgenres across the channels for the next 7 days.

Genre is written to the tvguide.xml output file under the category element.
You can choose to use Subgenre by editing the UseSubGenre value in the FreeviewToXMLTV.exe.config file.

Let me know how it goes?

Now, a question for you...

I originally wrote this tool so that I could get a guide under Vista. Since I now use Windows 7, I've had no need to run FreeviewToXMLTV, but now that there's the possibility of high quality genre information, I'd like to switch back.

I was once using epgstream.net, but it doesn't look like it yet supports Windows 7.
What's everyone using for XMLTV to WMC7?

askelon

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#409633 25-Nov-2010 20:53

Thanks heaps for the update. Working perfect on my system :)

RustyGonad

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#409663 25-Nov-2010 22:12

rvangelder: Hi all.

The new version is available:
http://vangelder.orcon.net.nz/files/FreeviewToXMLTV.zip

It appears that Freeview has introduced a few new fields:
video Y/N
audio Y/N
genre
subgenre

The genre / subgenre info is probably the more interesting change as it is extremely detailed. There's about 70 unique genres and 110 unique subgenres across the channels for the next 7 days.

Genre is written to the tvguide.xml output file under the category element.
You can choose to use Subgenre by editing the UseSubGenre value in the FreeviewToXMLTV.exe.config file.

Let me know how it goes?

Now, a question for you...

I originally wrote this tool so that I could get a guide under Vista. Since I now use Windows 7, I've had no need to run FreeviewToXMLTV, but now that there's the possibility of high quality genre information, I'd like to switch back.

I was once using epgstream.net, but it doesn't look like it yet supports Windows 7.
What's everyone using for XMLTV to WMC7?

Works great Rob - nice to have categories available in with Freeview.

The two available options for importing to 7MC are Big Screen EPG (cheap, 2 year sub), and Guidehound (cheapest, lifetime sub).

The guy who wrote Guidehound hangs around in here, and BSE is written by an Australian who also pops in here occasionally. Both have their pro's and con's.

BSE does alot of series lookup, and adds nice pictures to the series/category info - which is kinda nice.

nate

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#409670 25-Nov-2010 22:31

RustyGonad: Nate - I find it somewhat hyprocritical that you would edit my post, which simply called someone out for having a somewhat shallow viewpoint, which I appropriately detailed the reasons why, and yet when an accusation of theft is made without foundation it stays as is.

You may as well have deleted the whole post...

This was not way a direct attack on the poster, simply diagreeing with the assumption made by the poster that the tool mentioned in this thread was being used to steal information. I made an assertion that the user has a shallow view on the situation and I stand by that.

Rusty Gonad. My reply about no personal attacks was not specifically for you, but for a couple of other posters here in this topic.

The body of your reply contains some very helpful information, hence why I only edited a small part of it.

As mods we try to keep a helpful and friendly tone here on the forums, and the minor editing to your post was to prevent someone taking it the wrong way, and the topic descending into the mud.

I apologise if you feel targeted as this is not my intention - we try out best to keep everyone within the FUGs and are by no way perfect. I am also in no way trying to censor your opinion or view.

Cheers
Nate

amigo

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#409844 26-Nov-2010 11:35

rvangelder: Hi all.
The new version is available:
http://vangelder.orcon.net.nz/files/FreeviewToXMLTV.zip

Excellent, I'll put it on tonight. Thanks Rob!

muzzholt

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#410003 26-Nov-2010 18:16

rvangelder, I love your freeview to xmltv as it is so much simpler in my view than other options available. I use Big Screen EPG to import into Windows 7 media centre and it has worked flawlessly and has some great features. Thanks so much for doing what you do, it has been a life saver for people like me who struggle with some of the more complex solutions.

icogill

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#411768 1-Dec-2010 21:17

freeview site FAQ has been updated:
http://www.freeviewnz.tv/setup_support/questions_answers/category/troubleshooting

See question at bottom of page
Why is the XML EPG data not available anymore?

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