So keeping in mind that it would probably not be legal, that it is not a solution for the MythTV community at large, and that it's relying on big, bad MS...

Wouldn't it be possible to write a quick and dirty VB/C app that dumped MCE guide data to a file, did some massaging of the data, dump it in a folder on a MythTV box, and have a Myth script to pull everything into MySQL and delete the file once a day?

Just pondering...
Gonz

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Athlon 64 3400+ / 2G / 250G
3 x PVR250
1 x PVR150

Why? I mean: WHY even touch anything on a MS system?

The data is out there, online, on web pages that EVERYONE has access to. You can't assume that anyone can access an MCE system. It would probably be illegal/improper to re distribute MCE data. That's why folks resort to scraping web pages. That's publicly available data.

It's just a waste of anyone's time to consider doing.

I believe that the Schedules Direct access to the guide data is great, and I will support it with my $$$'s.

If folks out there expect their MythTV guide data to be free (as in free beer) I don't think it will ever exist again unless, let's say, Google get's involved. I doubt it.

Ditto.

I've already Opened PayPal and added a credit card in prep for schedules direct, but let's assume there is a possibility of an MCE scraper.

1. You would need a copy of MCE.
2. You would need hardware to run it on.
2a. I suppose you could set up a cron job to make a myth box multiboot into MCE then a job on the myth side would wait for the DL strip it to a common partition then reboot back into Linux. (I don't know if/how lilo or grub could be configured to allow the OS's to do this, unless both os's could rewrite grub.conf.
2b. you would need a separate PC to run this.
3. You would have to play cat-and-mouse with MS if this procedure pissed them off enough to try making it difficult for you.
4. as you pointed out it's of dubious legal status. And I would argue (on another forum) that this is NOT the same as consuming Pineapples.

Now the Schedules Direct option.
1. $15/3mo. Unclear what it will be later; presumed lower
2. 100% legal, approved by TMS.
3. integrated into myth.

My conclusion; Schedules Direct wins by being integrated, legal, cheap and generally KISS-compliant. The only complaints I've heard about the rate seem to be based on sour grapes because the data has been free this long. My philosophy is just to be grateful that the data has been free for this long.