never figured out the EIT thing at all, wish i did that sounds like a guide i could live with. but while investigating that ive come to a brand new topic. After reading all over the internet that AU and other places have grabber that if i understand correct grab guides for free from places like yahoo, i have to ask is their a USA grabber like this i could use instead of data direct or EIT? just curious, i know data direct is the easy fix but im determined to find a free way to get a guide like the good ol days it could be as short as 7 days even i wouldnt mind that. But it seems like its something doable . are their any projects working on this at all or is data direct still just so great no one is interested in a free alternative grabber?

IMO at $20.00 for a full year subscription schedulesdirect is the way to go.
15 days of epg at any given time is great.
lets break it down
$20 divided by 12 months = $1.66 a month
or
$20 divided by 52 weeks in a year = $0.384 a week
either way thats way less than even your standard off the shelf printed weekly TV Guide.

yeah but i feel like we should always try for a free alternative even if it isn't as good. im using data direct and will pay for it. but im very interested in compiling free guide data in as an option

You're wasting your time, because there are no reliable sources over time. $20/yr. is a no-brainer, support those who are supporting Myth.

From what I've gathered, "Isn't as good" is a bit of an
understatement if you're talking about about EIT.

People put a lot of work into setting up schedules direct (and
nobody's making any money from it). I trust their judgement
that there simply isn't a usable free alternative.

_________________
Grant

Bravo! This really should be the rule of thumb. Although as I try to explain to company bean-counters all the time; focusing on the bottom-line as the ONLY determinant is pretty foolish too. Walking is a free alternative to driving, but with a 20 mile commute it just isn't practical.

The screen scrapers that used to be maintained before Zap2It came along basically automatically "browse" to some website that has TV listings, then parse-out the data. AFAIK no one is maintaining the NA scrapers, because:
1. They are slow. -- requiring not-insignificant CPU time to parse
2. They are fragile. -- Any change in the website's HTML format breaks them.
3. They take excessive bandwidth.
4. They peeve-off the website owner.

#3 & #4 combine to incite the owner to hit you with #2 (sorry for the pun)

Schedules Direct addresses all the problems above with the only downside being the almost 5.5 cents per day fee.

I have no idea how much time commitment it would take for a reasonably competent scraper-user to maintain a scraper, but I would bet that it would take about 3-4 hours to diagnose and repair each website change which will happen 3-4 times/year. That's 9-16 hours, I'm guessing, over the course of a year. Even if you know nothing about scrappers, you could get a minimum-wage, fast-food job; work it one weekend, then quit. The same amount of hours, lumped into one weekend, will pay for Schedules Direct for a year. You could probably panhandle the $20 in a weekend. You could even earn money doing something most of us do anyway. You could pay for up to 5 years in as little as 2 minutes.

Simply put, it makes no financial sense to maintain 'free' scrapers, because of the labor costs; unless the value you place on the concept would make the satisfaction worth more to you than the labor.

jmckeown2

Well put.

Well put indeed...

## don't think so, look at the wear of your shoes..
nothing at all is for free.
maybe TS is *working* for free; that would explain his need for a free guide (to use with his telly which uses no electricity or his mythbox ditto)

The economy is really bad right now and every dollar counts. I am glad that Schedules Direct supports the Linux community, but I need those $20... Plus it seems wrong to build your own "free" PVR and then have to pay something, even if it is 5c a day, isn't this why we built the dam thing anyways? For not having to pay tivo to record stuff that you are already paying for???

We need to find a free solution like the folks in Australia... Either that or go back to the old VCR days.

I didn't build my PVR to be free (heck I had Snapstream's guide for a one time fee of $50 or whatever).

I built my PVR to be more advanced and customizable then the rest of the solutions out there.

As described above, you can figure out any number of ways of saving that $20 very very easily. Heck, just get your MythTV box to turn off when not in use and you'll save way more than that over the course of a year.

The Australian solutions keep breaking every couple of months, this Aussie would gladly pay $20 a year for good quality and reliable guide data.

_________________
Paul Turpie
-------------
<--Is your location in your profile? Why not?

Or if you are that hard up for $20/year, cancel your TV subscription and get another job.

Or you could move to Australia!