It will *probably* be taken care of by someone developing a new screen-scraper, but in the meantime, us US MythTV users should be a little nervous. Zap2It Labs, the free listings provider, is shutting that service down.

http://labs.zap2it.com/

For several years we have offered a free TV listings service to hobbyists for their own personal, noncommercial use. In October of 2004 we posted here an open letter saying the future of Zap2it Labs was at risk because of certain growing misuses of the Zap2it Labs data. Unfortunately this misuse has continued and grown. These misuses, combined with other business factors have led to the decision to discontinue Zap2it effective September 1, 2007.

We thank those users who have honored the terms of the agreement, and we suggest you consider the many TV listings options offered by the commercial licensees of TMS TV listings data.

If you would like to discuss how to license TV listings for commercial use, please let us know by e-mail (labs@zap2it.com) and include your company name, telephone number and the best time to reach you. We will respond to your inquiry as soon as possible.

We anticipate this decision will generate discussion and invite you to respond via the Zap2it Labs forum. We will do our best to respond to relevant questions posted on this forum in a timely manner.

great all the other programs that abused those listings really hurt. Myth was about the only one that complied with their wishes

@$#&!

That really stinks. I wonder what is going to happen in the next few months, I hope we can find a new grabber service.

Bummer. :(

I haven't even built my first Myth box yet but was saving and shopping. And I need zap2it for my CW EPG anyway.

I wonder when they will start busting people with 'pirated' guide info? Imagin a GIAA organization running around suing people and busting down doors.

Are there more or less current torrent or newsgroup guides yet?

- Tom

my guess is they will offer a pay guide service for individuals come september.

I guess this affects DV Archive users as well. :(

I just built a pretty significant MythTV system for OTA use (three HD tuners, a TB of disk etc). Ironically, I just sold a Sony DHG-HDD500 and built the MythTV system in part because nobody knows what will happen with the TVGOS for OTA only users of the Sony when the analog stations go away. Figures.

In my case, I always schedule recordings as "record only this showing" and I always do it through mythweb in a browser. Given that, scheduling recordings manually until some other option is available would be tolerable, but obviously not ideal. I love mythweb by the way...nothing like being able to schedule recordings without turning on the TV or bothering people who might be watching it.

With the Sony, if it stops getting data from the TVGOS host station, it literally wouldn't even know what time it is.

Tom

I've only used MythTV with Zap2it's DD service. It seems the only other option presently being thrown around is some sort of screen scraper. From posts by those who have to use that type of guide gathering in areas outside the US, that isn't going to be a very reliable option. It is just too prone to being broken by changes in HTML code of the listing sites.

I remember reading that the reason they started offering DD in the first place was to stop all the screen scraping at Zap2it. Anyone else see the irony here???

The beauty of the Zap2it DD listings from was that 99.9999% of the time it worked flawlessly. A PVR that doesn't have accurate guide data is useless.

I know some hold out hope that they'll provide the DD service for a fee. It seems from the announcement and another post made by the sysadmin that there were other considerations besides just unlawful use of the data in causing them to stop the service.

Personally, I think they were tired of devoting time and resources to a free service. It really stinks for the US MythTV community, but you really can't fault the Zap2it. They are in business to make money.

MythTV is 10 times better than MCE (which is what I used before), but MCE starts looking better than Myth if it still has guide data after 9/1.

is this TV a myth?

Hmmmm... I see a GoogleGuide be launched any moment now!

Yahoo! does offer listings - perhaps they'll see an opportuinty there. Of course, tv.msn.com has listings as well -- but they probably don't want to feed non-Green Button apps.

D.

Ha, over at the myth main wiki page, they are advising everyone:

In the immortal words of the Guide, DON'T PANIC.

Go to the zap2it forum and voice your appreciation. It seems like there is a rather large contingent of folks who would be willing to pay a bit of money, and that would at least make sure abusers didn't use the service.

Ha, over at the myth main wiki page, they are advising everyone:



Go to the zap2it forum and voice your appreciation. It seems like there is a rather large contingent of folks who would be willing to pay a bit of money, and that would at least make sure abusers didn't use the service.


People always say that until its time to pay then they make excuses. Personally, I feel that if they did up and say, "we still have people making money off of this, so to keep giving this to consumers we need to charge $5 a month for it" people would say they are greedy and they won't pay a dime.

hmm this could get interesting. The mythtv developers are in negotions with zap2it now... just keep an eye out for what they say. If it falls through I can see a new site being created that does opensource tv lineups by getting the data directly from the broadcasters

People always say that until its time to pay then they make excuses. Personally, I feel that if they did up and say, "we still have people making money off of this, so to keep giving this to consumers we need to charge $5 a month for it" people would say they are greedy and they won't pay a dime.

Sorry, but for anyone that has a working PVR the hassle and possible loss of functionality of going with an alternative is WAY more expensive than $60/year. I know my MediaPortal based PVR has saved me a lot more than 2 hours of my time and setting up something else would likewise take way more than 2 hours. Btw, I make $30/hour so adjust times for your wages =)

bummer :(

I don't think abuse had anything to do with it. Nobody has been able to come up with an example of an abuser. That's a scapegoat. If they wanted to stop abuse, it wouldn't be all that hard for them to do -- seed the data with subscriber-specific information, and release the lawyers when it shows up in a commercial context.

They have the data, they have a means of delivering it, and they have a bunch of people dependent on it. All they'd need to do is set up a subsidiary or partner with someone to sell the data retail and they'd have a really nice revenue stream.

Why not do so? Most likely, one or more of their commercial customers leaned on them to stop providing the data precisely because it allowed competition with other for-fee PVR solutions.

For digital over-the-air, there's still ATSC PSIP data. Before the new TV season, I'm sure we'll see the return of scrapers from tv listings sites. But this does make setting up MythTV a bigger pain, that's for sure.

I don't think abuse had anything to do with it. Nobody has been able to come up with an example of an abuser. That's a scapegoat. If they wanted to stop abuse, it wouldn't be all that hard for them to do -- seed the data with subscriber-specific information, and release the lawyers when it shows up in a commercial context.

They have the data, they have a means of delivering it, and they have a bunch of people dependent on it. All they'd need to do is set up a subsidiary or partner with someone to sell the data retail and they'd have a really nice revenue stream.

Why not do so? Most likely, one or more of their commercial customers leaned on them to stop providing the data precisely because it allowed competition with other for-fee PVR solutions.

For digital over-the-air, there's still ATSC PSIP data. Before the new TV season, I'm sure we'll see the return of scrapers from tv listings sites. But this does make setting up MythTV a bigger pain, that's for sure.

I had not thought of that, but I do enjoy a good conspiracy theory. Unfortunately, that one is all too likely, you may be right.

This seems to be a good time to bring up a couple of questions I've had about Myth.

I don't do a lot of recording so manually scheduling recordings is not a hardship for me. So not having a guide service really doesn't bother me.

But I've read some things which imply that Myth requires an internet connection so that it can populate the backend database before it will run. Is this true? Or is it possible to use configure and use Myth without an internet connection?

But I've read some things which imply that Myth requires an internet connection so that it can populate the backend database before it will run. Is this true? Or is it possible to use configure and use Myth without an internet connection?

It's not true. If you are satified with manual recordings, you don't need guide data at all. And the manual recording options are quite versitile. Single, daily, weekly, etc. to the minute.

I don't think abuse had anything to do with it. Nobody has been able to come up with an example of an abuser. That's a scapegoat. If they wanted to stop abuse, it wouldn't be all that hard for them to do -- seed the data with subscriber-specific information, and release the lawyers when it shows up in a commercial context.

They have the data, they have a means of delivering it, and they have a bunch of people dependent on it. All they'd need to do is set up a subsidiary or partner with someone to sell the data retail and they'd have a really nice revenue stream.

Why not do so? Most likely, one or more of their commercial customers leaned on them to stop providing the data precisely because it allowed competition with other for-fee PVR solutions.

For digital over-the-air, there's still ATSC PSIP data. Before the new TV season, I'm sure we'll see the return of scrapers from tv listings sites. But this does make setting up MythTV a bigger pain, that's for sure.

exactly. it's very simple to stop abuse. if a user logs in and pulls data from two separate ISPs, ban that username from receiving future data. it would take all of about 10 minutes to implement such a thing.

if they don't have the means to do this they're incompetent. if they do, they're lying about the reason for shutting it down.

exactly. it's very simple to stop abuse. if a user logs in and pulls data from two separate ISPs, ban that username from receiving future data. it would take all of about 10 minutes to implement such a thing.Or even easier, just limit the number of logins per day from any single userid.

I remember I wrote a screen scraping VS Basic app a few years ago for one of my web stock quote services. I don't remember it being incredibly difficult. Probably a few of thse applications will emerge for various services that output data in some standard format, say like the existing Zap2it format.

Just out of curiousity since I have never looked at a raw zap2it file, about how many bytes are we talking about each day?

- Tom

If we could find a bunch of websites that have TV listings, we could try to access their database using a script of some sort. I've been trying to grab the listings from yahoo, but I'm not having much success.

I did a little snooping and found this: http://www.tvguide.com/listings/data/ajaxdata.ashx

It's not really useful, however. Hopefully I can find how to access all the listings.

EDIT: I need to find out all the files that are in the /listings/data directory of tvguide.com, but I cannot.

What about getting the guide from OTA? I thouht this worked also.

Perhaps the real culprit were the commercial MythTV offerings using the zap2it service without paying? Don't sweat it people. The open source community will come up with a good solution before the cut off date. This isn't M$ where fixes are released 3 years later! ;)

i emailed Zap2it about wanting to pay for the service. I also added that I would be willing to continue where they left off via a paid service. I hope to here back from them.

i emailed Zap2it about wanting to pay for the service. I also added that I would be willing to continue where they left off via a paid service. I hope to here back from them.

Reading a slashdot thread and the myth wiki says that this is pretty unlikely.

http://mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/DataDirect

Some reasons and other comments given for the scheduled discontinuance, copied from the forum, copied from the mailing list:

* Continued use of the service to support commercial products, in violation of the agreement.
* Commercial products continued to grow despite previous appeals that this activity stop.
* There are significant changes to the supporting data structure forthcoming and we could not devote resources to the continued upkeep and enhancements of the service.
* Maintenance of the service is impacting our resource pool for other projects.
* We sought alternative options but were unable to find a solution.
* We recognize the hardship this creates for the user community. We are open to alternative solutions and would consider proposals that met the needs of the user community and our company.
* We looked into options to turn this into a paid service however we do not have the infrastructure at this time.

Well, I haven't even been able to even get to the zap2it forums in a couple of days. no problem logging into the site to change settins, etc., but when i try and go into the forum, it doesn't see me as logged in. and iff I go back and log out and then try to log in a the forum site, it doesn't recognize me. Oh well... I think it's pointless anyway.

What would a reasonable price be for an accurate guide? Perhaps someone will come up with a business model to support it.
$2/yr
$4/yr
$8/yr
$12/yr

What would a reasonable price be for an accurate guide? Perhaps someone will come up with a business model to support it.
$2/yr
$4/yr
$8/yr
$12/yr
For $130 per year I get a whole newspaper, which includes the listings. That seems like an upper bound, at least.

What would a reasonable price be for an accurate guide? Perhaps someone will come up with a business model to support it.
$2/yr
$4/yr
$8/yr
$12/yr

I think $60 a year would be reasonable. That's also the max i'd pay for it.

I think it unlikely I'd continue to subscribe at more than $10-15 / yr.

- Tom

$0. That would be all I'd pay. One of the big attractions of myth for me is it is free. I don't have to pay anything for guide data in mce, so I won't for myth.

I would be willing to pay for good guide data service. I would want the option to pay an annual fee, so it doesn't break when I forget to pay -- I want a "set it and forget it" service.

If there is ANY fee associated with it, you can pretty much be guaranteed that people will create alternate sources with screen scrapers, to retain a free option. I would still be willing to pay for a service that provided better data than the free option.


But, I think that creating an alternate listing service would be a good project. There have been problems with Zap2it data in the past.. Using an open guide service would allow more transparency into that process, to hopefully solve issues sooner. Some random thoughts on this:

- Hosting/Serving data is a big expense. Using something like Google Base could be an option. P2P protocols would be a good de-centralized option.

- Skip the middle man. Define a guide data standard feed format, and get the data directly from the broadcasters into an open guide (not directly to each end user.. too much bandwidth needed for that).

- Build a good web front-end for guide data and APIs for other apps/sites to use it. The more broadly it's used, the more valuable the data -- and the more likely broadcasters will keep their guide data accurate.
> Make end-user accounts for the web interface, to view your listings, schedule programs, view recorded programs (i.e. Mythweb functionality, without requiring remote access to your Myth box -- and myth backend polls for updates periodically).


- Extend the data. The program data could also include other information, such as dynamically updated time info for sports programs. So, when the game runs over the scheduled time Myth knows to keep recording. Commercial cut points -- rather than every myth host duplicating effort, post cut-points to the server, and use them to kickstart any local commercial flagging (i.e. there might be some variability in local broadcasts, but the data could still provide offsets).

Why don't we just have a central database that anyone with an account can add to? Then each MythTV user with a TV Guide could spend a few minutes entering some of the data.

Why don't we just have a central database that anyone with an account can add to? Then each MythTV user with a TV Guide could spend a few minutes entering some of the data.

User editable data would probably be part of a solution. But, that would probably require a centralized structure / database / hosting. And, I would rather let my computer do the labor than do it myself (that's why the old screen-scrapers were used back before Zap2it was available).

I think a max of $20 per year might be OK, though $15 would be better.


However, in the long run, it is obvious that the broadcast model will go the way of the CRT, eliminating the need for archaic shedule data sets.

Even now, you can go to Comedy Central or ABC.com to watch the Daily Shows or Lil Bush that you've missed, or certain ABC shows. Other TV network sites have similar episode offerings, like Hero's on nbc.com, etc.

These examples, plus the Youtubes of the world, will make continuous feed, scheduled broadcast models obsolete within 10 years or sooner for even the most non-techie watchers.

I have WoW basic analog cable plus WoW 4Mbps cable internet.

Why doesn't WoW have every show that's been run the past 90 days (or more) available to watch in a browser at wideopenwest.com? The vast groups of the darknet do this already for very low monthly rates.

Every cable provider's website should be Youtube-esque, requiring a username and password you get from the provider to watch any show at any time on any channel you've subscribed to in your package. If they need an RSA keyfob, so be it.

Youtube proves it can work. Details like more resolution and higher bitrates and/or more efficient codecs like h264 are trivial to update as bandwidth increases and CPU's get faster.

Heck, if every network starts offering Youtube-like web sites of all their shows, you won't need a cable provider any longer.

I am certain this will be the case sooner than later.

The evidence is clear- look at the anti-net neutrality push by all the cable and telcos. The reason is they are scared that their old subscription models will go away in lieu of Youtube like feeds of typical cable programming. They don't want to be just a generic data transfer conduit like an ISP. They want to charge you (or the website) more to get to those "free" video feeds like Youtube, abc.com comedycentral.com , nbc.com, etc, to replace the subscription fees they're bleeding from you already.

They want to run the same data-type scam they perpetuate on cell phone networks- one rate for voice data, one for web access, one for text messages, and so on. Data is data, but Americans are too dumb to recognize this and continue to pay for these crazy data-type premiums. The cablecos and telcos are trying to apply the cellphone network data-type premiums to home internet access.

I wonder if Microsoft has any financial link to zap2it or the decision to cut it off?

However, in the long run, it is obvious that the broadcast model will go the way of the CRT, eliminating the need for archaic shedule data sets.


I think broadcast TV will be around for a while. But, if things did go the way you're predicting, that might make guide information even more important. Guides will evolve with the available content.

I don't think many people will want to go out searching through the thousands of sources of content (the vast majority of them will inevitably be garbage to any individual person) looking for the few jewels. I would much rather have MythTV searching through the guide data and recommending shows based on my previous viewing.

The guide data could be the mechanism for finding those new and interesting things as they pop up. Otherwise, how do I wade through the steaming piles of choices, without wasting hours of my time?

$0. That would be all I'd pay. One of the big attractions of myth for me is it is free. I don't have to pay anything for guide data in mce, so I won't for myth.
Nothing from MS is free. You paid for the OS. And more than once if you've been using it fro a few years. Linux and mythtv is free. If you want free guide data use EIT or a scraper. I don't mind paying a reasonable fee for a service that is totally sperate from linux or mythtv and and is easy to use for convenience. The key word there is reasonable. I consider $60 per year reasonable delivered to my system so I don't have to fool with it much. The only reason I can see that they wouldn't be willing to make a ton of money without any further expenditures is that someone is paying them or pressuring them to stop the service.

Nothing from MS is free. You paid for the OS. And more than once if you've been using it fro a few years. Linux and mythtv is free. If you want free guide data use EIT or a scraper. I don't mind paying a reasonable fee for a service that is totally sperate from linux or mythtv and and is easy to use for convenience. The key word there is reasonable. I consider $60 per year reasonable delivered to my system so I don't have to fool with it much. The only reason I can see that they wouldn't be willing to make a ton of money without any further expenditures is that someone is paying them or pressuring them to stop the service.

Maybe, but it was a one time fee. I've been using it for almost 3 years now and it hasn't cost me an extra penny, so I don't understand your comment.

in australia we've always had this issue, since the guide data is held copyright by one of the tv stations.

here's two links to throw your way, might give you some ideas/starting places to fix this mess:

- http://minnie.tuhs.org/twiki/bin/view/Guidedata/WebHome
this is a community maintained xmltv guide, where the data is entered by volunteers (together with various database magic), then compiled and made available in a variety of formats

- http://svn.whuffy.com/index.fcgi/wiki
this is a perl based script which pulls data from various scrapers, analyses the quality of the data, runs various post-processers (like imdb and tvdb data augmentation), then outputs in a guide ready for mythtv. automatically updates itself and it's arsenal of scrapers on runtime.

hope this helps in some small way!! :)

I've been watching the posts here and at myth.users as to what people would pay for guide data. I originally switched from MCE 2005 to MythTV for three reasons primarily. MythTV was free, had cable QAM support and was more user configurable.

I paid $125 for MCE05 which obviously includes a guide subscription. Lets just say for arguements sake that MCE05 has a lifepsan of only 4 years. Let's assume that the whole price of the OS is paying for the guide subscription, that works out to ~$30/yr. Now lets say you're willing to let MS make a little money for all the R&D work that goes into producing the OS, say $40 of the cost of the OS goes to MS, now the guide subscription value is about $20/yr.

People are throwing around guide subscription number of $40-$50/yr. So the guide cost would be between $160-$200 over the same 4 year product lifespan. I don't know about you, but I'm not going to pay more for a guide than a MS OS. Everyone complains that MS charges too much for their OS. If paying $125 for MCE05 gets people riled up, I can just imagine how having to pay $200 for a 4 year guide subscription would go over in the Linux world.

I know I'm going to get hammered for saying this, but it seems that the Linux world is filled with people who moved to linux because it's a good OS, but more importantly, it's free. I don't see many people shelling out $40+/yr for a guide service when a primary motivation for using Linux is that the OS is free.

And on the other side of the equation, I don't see it being profitable for anyone to provide a fee based guide subscription for much less that $40/yr. It's just not profitable considering the licensing costs involved and the small user base on which make money.

Don't get me wrong, I had enjoyed my MythTV setup. But as it is now, MCE now has QAM HD support and Myth will probably no longer have access to as accurate and reliable guide data as MCE in the US without some sort of monthly/yearly fee. If the comparison between the two has no cost savings on the MythTV side of the equation, I fear MythTV will have an even harder time gaining any significant PVR market share. It will stagnate as fringe player for diehard Linux users in the US PVR market.

I'm sure there are users with large Myth systems that would be willing to pay more for guide data than the cost of a Microsoft OS. I just think from a market perspective, those users only make up a very small segment(<5%) of the already small MythTV user base (when compared to the market share of MCE and other commercial PVR software)

I know I'm going to get hammered for saying this, but it seems that the Linux world is filled with people who moved to linux because it's a good OS, but more importantly, it's free. It's been said many times before, but Linux is "free" as in free speech, not free as in free beer. I like what MythTV can do, but even more I like that its development is driven by what users want, not what the entertainment cartel wants.

MythTV is a hobby for me. Like most hobbies, it doesn't really save you money unless you value the time you spend tinkering at $0.

It's been said many times before, but Linux is "free" as in free speech, not free as in free beer. I like what MythTV can do, but even more I like that its development is driven by what users want, not what the entertainment cartel wants.

MythTV is a hobby for me. Like most hobbies, it doesn't really save you money unless you value the time you spend tinkering at $0.

I agree, as that is the case for me also. I was only saying that in reference to the numerous posts I've read here and elsewhere that Myth users would consider paying a significant monthly/yearly fee for a Zap2It DD type subscription. A significant reason people try Myth is they are frustrated either by features or cost of alternatives (TIVO,MCE,etc) Take away a significant portion of the cost benefit of Linux/MythTV and I find it hard to believe that as many people will try to set up a MythTV system.

I'm not saying everyone would fall into that category, just that for a PVR platform to survive an grow, it's the casual everyday user that creates the numbers to support included features, like guide subscription for example. When MS pays the license fee for their guide access, it is spread out over every MCE OS sold, so the licensing cost is probably pennies per user. To provide a similar guide to the MythTV community the cost per subscription would have to be exponentially higher as the user base is so small in comparison.

Thats why everyone who has looked into providing a DD-like guide service for the Myth community sees that the numbers just do not add up to being able to break even.

You mention features in your last post, but for cost, also consider those of us with multiple machines running mythtv. The cost comparison changes a bit then (I have 5 machines that run myth), especially when you consider upgrades.

You mention features in your last post, but for cost, also consider those of us with multiple machines running mythtv. The cost comparison changes a bit then (I have 5 machines that run myth), especially when you consider upgrades.

Maybe I'm wrong on this assumption, but I believe that a 5 unit Myth system is not the "normal" MythTV setup. By that I mean that people with systems such as your are a small minority of the MythTV user base. While it would be cost effective for you to pay a significant amount for a guide service to keep your system up and running, for the average user (1 box with 2-3 tuners), if you have to pay for a guide service for a couple of years, the cost issue becomes a toss-up between Myth and MCE for example.

I just fear that there aren't enough US MythTV users in total to support guide licensing fees, much less enough people in your position who would be willing to cough up a substancial subscription fee for a new DD-type guide service.

As for upgrades, I'm not sure that really applies to most average PVR users since there really is no reason for me to upgrade MCE05 to Vista for example. Vista has not added any features of any consequence to warrant buying an upgrade, besides flashy UI effects and more bugs/driver problems. The PVR/music functions are for the most part, exactly the same.

I know I'm going to get hammered for saying this, but it seems that the Linux world is filled with people who moved to linux because it's a good OS, but more importantly, it's free. I don't see many people shelling out $40+/yr for a guide service when a primary motivation for using Linux is that the OS is free.


I moved to Linux from OS/2. Being free had nothing to do with it. I also got Windows free from where I worked. I just didn't use it at home. IOW's before linux I got MicroCrap free. I chose to spend $200 for OS/2 to avoid having to use Windows. So don't think everyone uses Linux because it's free. It's certainly not the main reason I use it, although it is nice being free.

Maybe I'm wrong on this assumption, but I believe that a 5 unit Myth system is not the "normal" MythTV setup. By that I mean that people with systems such as your are a small minority of the MythTV user base. While it would be cost effective for you to pay a significant amount for a guide service to keep your system up and running, for the average user (1 box with 2-3 tuners), if you have to pay for a guide service for a couple of years, the cost issue becomes a toss-up between Myth and MCE for example.


I don't know what the average user has, but I 've got 3 boxes with 6 tuners. $60 a year for easy guide data doesn't seem out of line to me. Maybe it is for others. But when compared to Tivos $13 a month for a single tuner box, $60 a year for a 6 tuner, 3 box system is peanuts. It really doesn't matter to me what they do. I'd pay $60 ayear just to keep it the way it is. It's worth that much to me, but if it sinks, I'll I'll still use myth and either use a webscraper, EIT, or do manual recordings.

Maybe I'm wrong on this assumption, but I believe that a 5 unit Myth system is not the "normal" MythTV setup. By that I mean that people with systems such as your are a small minority of the MythTV user base. While it would be cost effective for you to pay a significant amount for a guide service to keep your system up and running, for the average user (1 box with 2-3 tuners), if you have to pay for a guide service for a couple of years, the cost issue becomes a toss-up between Myth and MCE for example.

I just fear that there aren't enough US MythTV users in total to support guide licensing fees, much less enough people in your position who would be willing to cough up a substancial subscription fee for a new DD-type guide service.

As for upgrades, I'm not sure that really applies to most average PVR users since there really is no reason for me to upgrade MCE05 to Vista for example. Vista has not added any features of any consequence to warrant buying an upgrade, besides flashy UI effects and more bugs/driver problems. The PVR/music functions are for the most part, exactly the same.

Actually, I can't think of too many reasons to upgrade to vista, but for those who use the the systems for more than just a PVR there are reasons. I think you will have a hard time trying to define an "average" MythTV user. You are just guessing. My point is your analysis assumes some things that aren't true for many people, whether they be the majority or not.

Don't get me wrong, I had enjoyed my MythTV setup. But as it is now, MCE now has QAM HD support...Forgive me if I'm wrong, but doesn't MCE 05 only have QAM support for one tuner model, the $179 HD Homerun? And that's only because they provide BDA drivers that trick MCE into thinking it's ATSC? And Vista MCE STILL does not support clear QAM unless you buy the ATI Digital Cable Tuner (and rent CableCards)?

I thought those VCR+ codes were hacked/decoded.

Couldn't Myth use VCR+ codes?

I think the ability to use TitanTV one click record in MythTV would be a great feature.

That's the only guide I currently use with my PVR150 under XP

From some of the responses, I think people may have misinterpreted my previous posts. They were not to suggest that MCE is better or worse than MythTV, or one costs more or less to build or operate. The issue is an ability for the US MythTV community to develop a DD type listing service in the US which would be supported by a subscription fee.

I used MCE as an example of how a free, or reasonable cost, guide service has to be spread out over a significant number of users in order to cover guide licensing costs.

It was not my intention to suggest that every MythTV user would be too cheap to pay for a guide service because the OS and MythTV are free. There are users like myself and others who have posted that have devoted a lot of time and $$$ in their multi-box MythTV systems and would be willing to pay for an accurate guide service, unfortunately, there just doesn't seem to be enough of us.

I just checked the Zap2It Labs forum and a whopping 994 people have taken the poll and stated they would consider paying something for a guide service (Some as little as 1 or 2 dollars a month). I would guess that by now most of the serious users of MythTV in the US are aware of the Zap2ItLabs closure. The fact that the poll numbers are so low does not bode well for a potential guide subscription service. There just aren't enough MythTV users (those willing to pay a guide fee) to support guide licensing fees, administration, data distribution,etc. I hold out hope that the MythTV devs can come to some agreement to continue service with DD for MythTV, but I doubt it.

Thinking about the low user numbers got me thinking about why more people don't try MythTV over other commercial products. I think one of the big draws to MythTV is options, but that is also one of the biggest drawbacks to MythTV too.

Anyone who has used both MCE and MythTV has to admit that MCE is a fairly powerful if limited product, but one that is targeted toward the casual first-time PVR user (a big potential market) at the expense of options and configurability. Linux/MythTV is significantly more feature-laden, but at the expense of a much more difficult setup and configuration procedure and as a result has limited it's user base to a much smaller market of Linux powerusers and hobbyists.

I considered myself smarter than the average bear concerning the various versions of DOS and Windows I've tinkered with since the days of the 8088, but my first foray into the Linux world to setup MythTV required me to figure out more than I ever wanted to, or should really have to know about the underpinnings of Linux, especially considering I was just setting up a PVR. The fact that you need to know your way around Linux to setup, configure and maintain MythTV is an indication of its primary weakness.

For MythTV to be a challenge to other PVR options available (both devices and other computer solutions), the OS underpinnings could, and should be nearly transparent to the average end-user. MythDora-type distributions are a good step to addressing this issue, but I would think that if the MythTV development focused it's primary development and support on a single MythDora-type distribution, more time and energy could be devoted to developing the MythTV product (features,UI,etc) rather than supporting, patching and fixing MythTV to make sure it works correctly over the current multiple distributions.

If MythTV had a significant user base in the US, the Zap2It DD closure would be a non-issue. Either Zap2It or someone else would have already set up a profitable, low-cost subscription service to service the small but growing MythTV user market.

As long as MythTV development focuses on designing a product for themselves (Linux power-users and hobbyists), it will always be a fringe player with little if any component, user or market support. Maybe that's the way the majority of its current development team and users want it. I just think MythTV has the potential to be a fantastic product that could become a significant player in computer PVR market, much the way Linux has become a force to be reckoned with in the corporate server market.

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but doesn't MCE 05 only have QAM support for one tuner model, the $179 HD Homerun? And that's only because they provide BDA drivers that trick MCE into thinking it's ATSC? And Vista MCE STILL does not support clear QAM unless you buy the ATI Digital Cable Tuner (and rent CableCards)?

Yes, you are right regarding the HDhomerun and MCE. It does "trick" MCE, but apparently it does a pretty good job of it as the reviews regarding using it with MCE seem to be very good (Also the $169 price is a dual tuner, so price really isn't a factor when compared with most other QAM capable single tuner card choices) Another factor in bringing up the HDhomerun is cross compatibilty. The fact that it works for both MCE and MythTV is a plus for me since I'm not sure which I'll use in the future. The added bonus is getting 2 tuner cards out of a living room MCE box is nice too.

Vista is a joke regarding the whole QAM/cablecard issue. They really promoted that as a major feature for Vista. When I last looked into I thought that you won't be able to build your own cablecard system, you will have to buy a prebuilt system if you want cablecard. Cablecard systems will have protection that limits what you can do with the stuff you recorded via cablecard. It's just way to restrictive and messy for me. On top of that, cablecard support is terrible from the Cable Co's because cablecards are in direct competition to their own, more profitable products (STBs and PVRs)

Just my opinion, but the ability to try to go the whole digital cable route (whether with STBs or cablecards) under any of the current offering of PVR solutions just isn't worth the trouble or expense, at least for me. I like the simplicity of a 5 tuner box without having to get into trying to control or having to pay for multiple STB's, or being limited by Cablecard options. And I can just image what they are going charge for a dual cablecard capable Vista machine.

We watch a lot of primetime HD and HD sports via clear QAM tuners from the NBC,CBS,ABC,FOX,ESPN (probably more than 75% of total viewing) and record significantly less off 2 SD tuners from analog cable for the other misc cable shows. I've got access to about 90% of the HD programming, and about 98% of the SD programming I want to watch, and my bill from Comcast isn't so big that it could be mistaken for a car payment. :)

I just checked the Zap2It Labs forum and a whopping 994 people have taken the poll and stated they would consider paying something for a guide service (Some as little as 1 or 2 dollars a month). I would guess that by now most of the serious users of MythTV in the US are aware of the Zap2ItLabs closure. The fact that the poll numbers are so low does not bode well for a potential guide subscription service.

That 994 is probably less than 10% of the users. Even though i've been following this an have even agreed to pay one of the highest fees suggested, I didn't take the poll, And there are many Mythtv users that probably don't even know about the situation yet. Most only log in to update their account. Who reads the notices? Certainly not everyone. And how many actauuly use their forum? I'd never logged into it before. And I don't think a thousand people getting data would overwhelm their servers.:-)

That 994 is probably less than 10% of the users. Even though i've been following this an have even agreed to pay one of the highest fees suggested, I didn't take the poll, And there are many Mythtv users that probably don't even know about the situation yet. Most only log in to update their account. Who reads the notices? Certainly not everyone. And how many actauuly use their forum? I'd never logged into it before. And I don't think a thousand people getting data would overwhelm their servers.:-)

I was not inferring that 994 was representative of the total number of MythTV users in the US, but the key to this problem is not the number of users of the free Zap2It DD system, but the # of users that have invested enough time and money in a MythTV system to be willing to pay for it.

I don't spend much time looking up stuff regarding MythTV, but word about this seemed to spread pretty quickly (not just from the Zap2It labs notice). I originally found out about it from a post on a tech blog site. Since then it's been all over the place from forums, to mythtv-user group, to the MythTV wiki. As I have invested a lot of time and $$ in my Myth system, I headed over to Zap2It Labs to see what had been said by the Zap2It Labs administrator.

I think the # of posts on Zap2It Labs forum, or in the mythtv-users group is more indicative of the number of MythTV users that would consider paying for a subscription, than it is to say "There are 10,000, or 20,000, or even 30,000 user accounts for Zap2It labs so we'll use that number to see if a subscription service is feasble." A lot of start-up companies have gone broke really quickly using that kind of sketchy market-feasiblity planning.

Using total Zap2It labs users when discussing this is like giving a free concert at a stadium and inferring that since there was a person in every seat at the free concert, you could make money selling tickets to concerts because every concert would be a sell-out. Charge $5 to get in to the next concert and only 1/5 the people who showed up to the free concert show up when they have to pay. Charge $10 and only 1/10 of the people show up.

It's just the nature of the world today. You can always get a ton of people to try something out when it's free. Charge for it, even if it's a relatively insignificant amount, and the # of people willing to put their money up is exponentially smaller.

After this DD issue came to light last week, I did do some research and it seems that there have been several ideas floated about guide licensing/provider plans in the past, all of which turned not to be feasible from a financial perspective.

I say don't worry about it until the myth-devs do

Looking at this from Zap2ItLabs perspective, I can't help but wonder about the timing of things. Zap2It labs was rolled out '04 when the MythTV user base was primarily a tiny group of Linux geeks and there wasn't an big installed base for any computer PVR software. Zap2It figured it could get in on the ground floor of the new computer PVR market by subsidizing the guide service initially at relatively little cost to them.

Then in '05, into the room stepped the familiar 800 pound gorilla (Microsoft preloading MCE05 on a significant portion of all home computers sold) and over the next year or two, gobbled up a dominant position in the computer-based PVR market.

Isn't Zap2It continuing to subsidize Zap2It Labs like a company continuing to subsidize Netscape's browser development 3 years after Microsoft included IE in the OS and became the defacto standard browser? Much like the short lived browser war, the market share battle for the computer PVR market is pretty much over. The potential for Zap2It to make any significant $$$ from the Labs trial venture has just about evaporated at this point.

When you look at it from a financial and market share perspective, it kinda surprises me that Zap2It let this subsidized experiment go on as long as they did.

I'm not saying it's right, just that it is a fact of life when MS decides they want to come play in your sandbox.

Zap2It almost certainly pays to get that data somewhere. And whoever they get it from may be leaning on them for more $$$ if it is being too widely distributed.

- Tom

Zap2It almost certainly pays to get that data somewhere. And whoever they get it from may be leaning on them for more $$$ if it is being too widely distributed.

- Tom
Aren't they owned by TMS, who owns the sole rights to that guide data? That's my understanding anyway. What's more, I believe that the stations actually have to pay them to carry guide data for their stations.

I think it's more likely that their customers who do in fact pay for the data may have started griping too much about the data being available for free. I for one am not buying their claim that this was because of commercial use of labs.zap2it.com etc...I think that simply made a good excuse.

It's likely that no one will ever know the real motivations behind this, but with guide data being one of the only things that can possibly stand between people and free PVRs, it's not hard to speculate that the motivations and their sources could be pretty reprehensible. I love my MythTV and have a real problem handing money to someone who may be (or is panderring to someone who may be) motivated to undermine it.

To be honest, it really makes prefer the option of simply doing without the guide data and using EIT, not because of money, but out of principle...the whole thing just rubs me the wrong way. I tend to schedule everything in MythTV as "record only this showing" on the same day as the broadcast anyway. It wouldn't surprize me much if TMS refuses of having any part of providing guide data for free PVRs even for a fee, making the whole "would you pay for listings" argument moot. If that's how it goes, I think that'll be a pretty good sign that their stated reasons for shutting down the labs site were BS.

It just all pisses my off. At first I was thinking that I was willing to pay for the guide data (but not too much). The more I think about it, the more I tend to feel that TMS can stick it.

Tom

I'm almost all-digital (PBS is still broadcasting different content in analog) and all-OTA so I could switch to EIT. Problem with that is the EIT data stinks. In the long run (Feb 2009), all that really has to happen for the broadcast stations is they have to be convinced to improve the quality of their EIT data. They're giving good data to TMS, why not on their own broadcasts?

Zap2It almost certainly pays to get that data somewhere. And whoever they get it from may be leaning on them for more $$$ if it is being too widely distributed.

As I understand it, guide/lineup information is only provided by 2 companies in the US. Tribune Media (parent company of Zap2It) and TVGuide. They charge each station/network a nominal fee to take their raw scheduling data and compile it. They then add episode descriptions,etc. and create lineups for each cable, ota, HD lineup for each individual market. They then charge a licensing fee to anyone who wants to have access to that data (websites,etc) I did see a post in another forum by someone who had looked into setting up a subscription guide service for the MythTV community. IIRC, he said the license fee was around 12k/mo for every lineup in the US.

I'm not saying it's right, just that it is a fact of life when MS decides they want to come play in your sandbox.

This is one of the many reasons that I really, really dislike Microsoft, and tend not to trust any Linux company who does business with them. I don't have anything personal against any individuals who work for Microsoft (since I don't know any of them), but as as company, I think of working with Microsoft (especially in the context of one of the recent patent deals) as being on the same level as eating plague-infested rats, drinking rabid goat vomit, or volunteering for medical experiments by the mafia. I used to be a die-hard fan of Microsoft, but as time goes by, my pragmatism evaporated and now I can't stand their behavior in the marketplace.

Linux has a lot of things that rub me the wrong way, too, but they're usually trivial, and at least I know I can fix them myself.

Wow...I just realized something pretty interesting...

Did anyone else notice that the TMS decision to cut off listing data from free PVRs coincides almost exactly with the release of the GPLv3 which, among other things, prevents the tivoisation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tivoisation) of GPLed software?

...just struck me as more than a little odd. Like I said in my first post...who knows what/who is really behind this decision.

Tom

I am doing research and have never built a PVR ... YET. But I talked to my friend with an ATI All-In-Wonder and he uses TitanTV.


Any issues with using this or any plans for it being cut?????


-PVR Virgin

Perhaps (likely is a better word) I am out of my league, but it is my understanding that TiVo uses GNU software to run their STBs, correct? If that is the case, and if falling under the guidelines of the GPL, shouldn't someone with some programming savvy be able to view the source code and then "modify" the software to better suit their situation, such as a five box behemoth running in the garage? Or is there a TiVo digital signature required to utilize the guide information that they provide? How hard would it be to fool the servers into thinking that you were using your issued STB while in fact you were using a device with much more storage and capabilities and much less DRM restriction and modified code? Since you would still be paying for the subscription and modifying open source code for use on your own hardware, would the MPAA still try to come in to string you up by the nethers?

Portions of the software is copyright. Not to mention it runs on not an x86 platform and would be a royal pita for even a very seasoned programmer to get this working. Add to that, you'd still have to pay there $20 a month subscription price and that alone makes it useless IMO.

BTW, I've got a 6 HSTV tuner MythTV system and i'm not in the least worried about guide data. Even if a solution isn't reached by Sept 1, I can always either use the OTA guide data or do manual recordings. I can still read the weekly TV guide in the Sunday paper.

Since the subject of using the tivo guide was brought up, I had a similar idea that I wanted to put forth.

I have a Windows media PC, running BeyondTV4. I have paid for the BTV4 service, and I get a program guide with it.

My suggestion is not to illegally download the guide from Snapstream (BTV's parent), but to copy it from my PC. Since I already have the data on a computer, this should be easy. I think that BTV uses XMLTV for the guide. A cron job could be set up to do this.

This should work with tivo too, if you know how the guide is formatted.

I realize that this thread was titled so as to focus on MythTV users, but a lot of the discussion here kind of troubles me because I've seen the same sort of issues in other interests where similar, yet somewhat different groups refuse to band together towards a common good. You're all worried that your MythTV systems will no longer have guide data and I've seen a number of posts that sort of suggest that the only Zap2it users are also MythTV users. There's also discussion of the MythTV development community coming up with a solution for MythTV users, including some discussion of pay for guide data services.

The reality is that EVERY (legitimate) Zap2it user is equally effected by this change. That should be the focus as it's in everyone's best interest to band together as 1 bigger group and figure out a solution that benefits all without resorting to scraping of websites (which I pretty much refuse to participate in because it ultimately contributes to the problems that got us here).

From what I understand, there are around 64,000 Zap2it DD users, though I have no idea how many of those are legitimate or how many are from the MythTV community. MyHD and accessDTV users will also be affected by this change. Regarding accessDTV, I was very up front about the accessDTV situation when I requested access to the Zap2it DD service for accessDTV users - it's a commercial hardware product but the software has been developed on a purely volunteer basis for 3+ years now.

I think some people also clearly misread the MCE sample that was given. MCE obviously isn't free and it should be obvious that some of the money you pay for it goes towards supporting the guide feed, even if it's ultimately only $10 or so out of the total purchase price. However, with MS selling MILLIONS of copies of Windows, they should be able to easily afford the infrastructure it takes to either pay for or host a guide feed.

A much smaller company charging $60 a year "just" for guide service is going to have a much harder time making a go of it as they aren't going to have millions of customers.

I personally think that those who are completely unwilling to pay a fee for guide data are being unreasonable and expecting far too much from the companies providing the data. I'm amazed the the Zap2it service lasted as long as it did, but I'm not really surprised that they decided not to convert it into a pay service given my experience with the accessDTV project. A few years ago, when we first added support back into the accessDTV software for guide data, we went with GetGuideRemote that offered the data for around $10 per YEAR. I was amazed at how much people complained about the cost. The same people who were paying hundreds of dollars just for a tuner card, many hundreds of dollars more to put a PC together, and often many thousands of dollars to put a home theater system together to watch the recorded shows on. To complain about $10 a year was pathetic.

To complain about paying $60 a year is crazy, but I guess most people just have no idea how much it costs to host data and provide access to it that performs at an acceptable level. If you start to calculate how many different TV channels there are (not just in your market, but across the country and around the world), how many different listing combinations there are is actually pretty staggering.

I for one wouldn't be quick to start up a guide data service without some serious up front financial backing because I don't have enough confidence that the user community would be willing to pay enough for it to even break even. But I hope someone does this so we can all continue to enjoy our hobby.

Since the subject of using the tivo guide was brought up, I had a similar idea that I wanted to put forth.

I have a Windows media PC, running BeyondTV4. I have paid for the BTV4 service, and I get a program guide with it.

My suggestion is not to illegally download the guide from Snapstream (BTV's parent), but to copy it from my PC. Since I already have the data on a computer, this should be easy. I think that BTV uses XMLTV for the guide. A cron job could be set up to do this.

This should work with tivo too, if you know how the guide is formatted.

If BeyondTV uses XMLTV for their guide (I'm not sure that's true), then they're going to run into problems because XMLTV currently gets their feed from Zap2it...

You misunderstand. XMLTV is a format, it is used by many people in many countries. They don't have Zap2it either.

A grabber is set up to get TV listings at a predetermined site. What I am suggesting is to set up a grabber to get it from your own PC that is running BTV.

I looked at my PC, and the BTV program guide is in a database called "guide.db". I don't know what type of database it is. There is a web admin for BTV, but the program guide in that takes you to the Snapstream web site. This is what I wanted to avoid doing.

Maybe XMLTV would not work for a database file. It was just an Idea.

First, for those who don't subscribe/view the mythth-users mail list, there was a recent post from one of the devs that said they're working on a solution and he now had an 85+% confidence that it would be in place before DD shuts down. He did not give any information regarding if there would be a fee, or how much the fee could be.

Regarding a fee service, the part I always stumble on is the fact that there are several commercial PVR software packages (other than MCE) that are under $100 and include lifetime guide access. I'm guessing (maybe incorrectly) the # of users of each of these individual packages would be similar in number to the total number of current DD users. How is it that the companies can sell PVR software with a lifetime guide license for $100, and the DD user community can't seem to come up with a solution that isn't significantly less than $60/yr?

I could be wrong, but I just can't imagine that the majority of the cost of these commercial packages is guide licensing. Even if you assume that 50% of the cost of the software is the guide license and the software only has a two year lifespan before users have to pay for a full upgrade, your now in the ballpark of $25/yr for the guide subscription?

I am not making any statement as to whether an accurate guide is or isn't worth $60/yr to end users. That is a personal choice for each user. It just seems that from a business/financial standpoint, a subscription guide solution should be economically feasable for a price significantly less than $60/yr considering the established price of alternative commercial PVR packages.

You misunderstand. XMLTV is a format, it is used by many people in many countries. They don't have Zap2it either.

A grabber is set up to get TV listings at a predetermined site. What I am suggesting is to set up a grabber to get it from your own PC that is running BTV.

I looked at my PC, and the BTV program guide is in a database called "guide.db". I don't know what type of database it is. There is a web admin for BTV, but the program guide in that takes you to the Snapstream web site. This is what I wanted to avoid doing.

Maybe XMLTV would not work for a database file. It was just an Idea.

I realize that XMLTV is a format, but my understanding has been that at least in most cases, North American feeds using the XMLTV format currently use a grabber that gets the data from Zap2it DD. If BeyondTV uses the XMLTV format, perhaps they're using their own grabber to get data from another source, but what you're proposing would obviously be a problem if BTV is using a grabber that gets the data from Zap2it DD :D (it would also be a clear case of commercial use of Zap2it).

Assuming the BTV guide data is stored in a common database format, which I should be able to check out when I got home from work later, it might not be too difficult to do what you're suggesting. Just keep in mind that the data stored in the database would be stored in various tables and would have to be reassembled into the XMLTV format - not all that difficult to do.

First, for those who don't subscribe/view the mythth-users mail list, there was a recent post from one of the devs that said they're working on a solution and he now had an 85+% confidence that it would be in place before DD shuts down. He did not give any information regarding if there would be a fee, or how much the fee could be.

Regarding a fee service, the part I always stumble on is the fact that there are several commercial PVR software packages (other than MCE) that are under $100 and include lifetime guide access. I'm guessing (maybe incorrectly) the # of users of each of these individual packages would be similar in number to the total number of current DD users. How is it that the companies can sell PVR software with a lifetime guide license for $100, and the DD user community can't seem to come up with a solution that isn't significantly less than $60/yr?

I could be wrong, but I just can't imagine that the majority of the cost of these commercial packages is guide licensing. Even if you assume that 50% of the cost of the software is the guide license and the software only has a two year lifespan before users have to pay for a full upgrade, your now in the ballpark of $25/yr for the guide subscription?

I am not making any statement as to whether an accurate guide is or isn't worth $60/yr to end users. That is a personal choice for each user. It just seems that from a business/financial standpoint, a subscription guide solution should be economically feasable for a price significantly less than $60/yr considering the established price of alternative commercial PVR packages.

I think a big part of the problem is that the vast majority of users using the free alternatives are just unwilling to pay for the guide service. If every user were willing to pay a modest fee, I suspect there would easily be enough revenue to support a service. But if only a small percentage is willing to pay, it isn't enough to support the infrastructure that's needed to get going along with the ongoing hosting fees. The commercial packages can obviously pull $5 or $10 off the top and dedicate it to the guide service - as long as they keep selling new copies and upgrades, there's probably enough revenue to keep the costs at bay.

I copied the BTV database to my Linux laptop, running Suse. It identified it as a SQLite database. I have no experience with databases, so I followed some directions from the SQLite web site.

There are several tables, one called GUIDE_TABLE. when I entered the command "select * from GUIDE_TABLE;", this is a snippet of what I got:
WCGV 00000024000000011343200707232300 00 00 N
00000006000000011560200707230030 EP0186930423 00000006000000011560 200707230030 200707230100 018693 the simpsons 0006 11560 The Simpsons The Simpsons Maggie causes destruction in the h Sitcom / A Crook and La 20070506 Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, Yeardley Smith, Tress MacNeille, Harry Shearer, Pamela Hayden, Hank Azaria James L. B WITI WITI 00000006000000011560200707230000 00 00 N
00000006000000011560200707230100 EP0186930416 00000006000000011560 200707230100 200707230130 018693 the simpsons 0006 11560 The Simpsons The Simpsons An eccentric documentary filmmaker Sitcom / A Springfield 20070218 Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, Yeardley Smith, Hank Azaria, Tress MacNeille, Harry Shearer, Eric Idle
Don't know what to do with it, though. :rolleyes:

This is crazy.

You buy TV subscription, digital, analog, satellite, whatever there is a FREE GUIDE on the TV.

The TV provider should simply share the database to people who buy their TV service. You know they already have it in a database, and even if it is the TVGUIDE channel your tv provider already licensed it so you could view it on the TV.

The easy next step is to just have a login portal to grab it from.

Am I missing something here besides the TV providers want to find a new way to get more money and probably pay people to post stuff like "Oh geez just cough up the extra money and stop complaining"

SAY NO TO PAYING EXTRA FOR DATA YOU ALREADY PAY TO GET!

:eek:

You buy TV subscription, digital, analog, satellite, whatever there is a FREE GUIDE on the TV.It's not free. It's included with your TV service, but you pay for it. And the cable company pays for it -- they pay Tribune or Gemstar (TVGuide) to license that guide information for the STB/DVR software. The license does not give them the right to redistribute the guide data on the Internet or anywhere else.

I am quite surprised ZapIt lasted this long.

As others have stated, Tribune and Gemstar (TVGuide) are the primary suppliers of guide data in the United States. [There's also a new market entrant, FYI Television.] Tribune sells guide data to the likes of Cox, DirecTV, and Tivo for $$$. Gemstar sells its guide data to Comcast, Time Warner, and a few other cable companies; they also sell the TVGoS software to CE manufacturers, which includes a license to a more limited version of their data. Revenue from the sale of guide data and associated software nets these companies tens of millions of dollars per year.

If I were DirecTV, I wouldn't be happy that my guide data supplier was providing the same data for free to HTPC DVRs for cable and OTA. If I were Tivo, I wouldn't be happy about having to pay so much to Tribune (ZapIt's parent) for guide data that was also offered free on the web. Tivo spent $12 million in a recent quarter deliver the guide service to its DVRs.

They pay for it and give it to you. yes you pay for it already, so you should not have to pay for it again. They distribute it digitally to your home in your cable box or satellite receiver. Giving it to you securely over the internet based on your current subscription should not be a "redistribution"



It's not free. It's included with your TV service, but you pay for it. And the cable company pays for it -- they pay Tribune or Gemstar (TVGuide) to license that guide information for the STB/DVR software. The license does not give them the right to redistribute the guide data on the Internet or anywhere else.

They pay for it and give it to you. yes you pay for it already, so you should not have to pay for it again. They distribute it digitally to your home in your cable box or satellite receiver. Giving it to you securely over the internet based on your current subscription should not be a "redistribution"It is when their license expressly limits how they can distribute it.

Tribune and Gemstar don't license their guide information to companies and say, "here, do whatever you want with it." What they can do is clearly defined, and anything not defined is prohibited.

Doesn't change the fact that they are asking you to pay for it twice as he said. Same thing the RIAA and MPAA have been trying to force on us with DRM - if you want the content you bought in a different way, pay up again sucka.

They pay for it and give it to you. yes you pay for it already, so you should not have to pay for it again. They distribute it digitally to your home in your cable box or satellite receiver. Giving it to you securely over the internet based on your current subscription should not be a "redistribution"

Assuming you're talking about the PSIP data, you get a subset of the data which contains only some of the fields. You may or may not care about the extra fields that you get from something like the Zap2it feed, but many of us do - some of those extra fields are required to properly implement Season Pass / Wish List type functionality. Also note that the PSIP data is only available for any given channel by actively tuning to that channel and then typically not for 2 weeks worth of shows - not exactly a convenient way to get data for every channel that's available to you. Oh, and the data has to be decoded from the PSIP data and converted to some other more workable format before you can do anything useful with it on your computer. If that works for you, then go for it. Personally, I'm willing to pay a reasonable fee to get all the data in an easy to use XML format without having to tune to each channel.

Doesn't change the fact that they are asking you to pay for it twice as he said. Same thing the RIAA and MPAA have been trying to force on us with DRM - if you want the content you bought in a different way, pay up again sucka.

I'm not sure this is a valid comparison. Buying a CD and wanting to turn it into an MP3 legally to listen to on an MP3 player is a different issue. Not to mention that piracy in the recording and movie industy IS an big issue. It's a matter of dollars and cents. People are buying fewer CD's and DVDs due to piracy. You can't stop piracy without putting certain restrictions on use due to the fact that today's technology allows for near perfect quality copies. RIAA and MPAA never got into this until perfect-copy technology was developed. As much as it'd be great for it to be legal to make a backup copy, for everyone using it for legal purposes, there'd be 1000 people making illegal copies to share.

Add to the equation that the guide data provided by TVGuide channel, or provided to you in your cable box guide that you "buy" with your cable subscription is a far cry from the data you receive from Zap2ItLabs. The guide on cable is a very limited subset of what's available through Zap2ItLabs. Other PVR vendors/software companies pay licensing fees, which are included with the price of the product. Why shouldn't they charge MythTV users, or any OSS PVR users for that matter?

Not to mention the legal/contractual issues for a company like Tribune or Gemstar. They are charging a licensing fee to those they provide the data subscriptions to currently (other PVR software vendors, Tivo, Cable companies, etc) and not charging for the same data being provided to end users who happen to be using a system not presently covered by one of these data licensing agreements like MythTV community, etc.

Personally, although I was annoyed at first, I can't really fault Tribune for making the change. We should be thankful that they "gave" us such high quality data for free for as long as they did.

I just hope it isn't going to be a situation where majority of current Zap2It Labs users give "free" screen scraping a go first, and by the time they get frustrated with low quality, incomplete data from screen scraping, the Schedule Direct option may not have survived economically to be an option when they are ready to pay up.

RIAA and MPAA never got into this until perfect-copy technology was developed.Umm, no. The MPAA tried to sue VCRs out of existence and narrowly lost in the Betamax decision. And the record industry wanted to impose a 'tax' on blank cassette tapes.

And they have never really conceded that ripping your own CDs to MP3 is legal. They certainly consider it illegal to do the exact same thing with your DVDs.

Umm, no. The MPAA tried to sue VCRs out of existence and narrowly lost in the Betamax decision. And the record industry wanted to impose a 'tax' on blank cassette tapes.

And they have never really conceded that ripping your own CDs to MP3 is legal. They certainly consider it illegal to do the exact same thing with your DVDs.


We've gotten a bit off topic. What I meant in reference to RIAA an MPAA was that they never really went after end-users in any number before. Of course they legally challenged or tried to block anything that would potentially infringe on their industries profit margins. Remember the short lived blank AudioCD-R that was exactly the same a data CD-R, just higher priced, with royalties going to the recording industry?

But making a friend a copy of a VHS movie or and LP is a much different issue than one person getting a pre-release copy of a CD or DVD and uploading it to BT for hundreds of thousands to download a perfect copy for free before the thing ever hits store shelves. If I was RIAA or MPAA, I'd probably be fighting tooth and nail too. I just don't think they'll ever be able to put the genie back in the bottle.

The point I was trying to make was that music is just that, the same no matter if it's CD, mp3 or any other format. I agree that if you buy a CD you should be able to convert it for your own personal use to an mp3 legally and without additional cost. You should be able to make a backup of a Barney DVD so little Timmy doesn't damage it when he decides it would be fun to fling it about the room like a frisbee.

I just don't agree that paying for a DD type guide subscription would be paying for the same thing twice. It is not a valid comparison to CD/mp3 issue. The guide data that is included in your cable service bill is not nearly as complete or informative as the DD data. The included cable guide is like reading a stripped-down cliffnotes version; the DD data is like getting the book. Maybe there are people who feel that because the bought the cliffnotes to a book, they have already "paid" for the right to read the original book. I just don't see this as an valid comparison.

Please explain to me what's missing in the cliffnotes that we're paying for - by all appearances, the guide in MythTV looks exactly the same as on the Comcast STB that I have on one of my TVs. Title, description, repeat/firstrun, ratings, etc. Same for when you browse the TV listings at zap2it.com. If there's stuff missing that shows up from zap2it, it doesn't *appear* to be much - if you're talking about stuff like actors/directors and other miscellany that's not of interest to me, then maybe. But I just don't see enough to make a difference.

I just don't think they'll ever be able to put the genie back in the bottle.
I agree, but they've done a lot of damage to innovation in their attempt to do so.

The included cable guide is like reading a stripped-down cliffnotes version; the DD data is like getting the book. I don't know about cable guides, but the DD data has exactly the quantity and granularity of information as the weekly listing booklet I get in my Sunday paper, which can be had for $30 a year. So if TMS wants even that much for the DD listings, I feel like it's a rip-off.

Please explain to me what's missing in the cliffnotes that we're paying for - by all appearances, the guide in MythTV looks exactly the same as on the Comcast STB that I have on one of my TVs. Title, description, repeat/firstrun, ratings, etc. Same for when you browse the TV listings at zap2it.com. If there's stuff missing that shows up from zap2it, it doesn't *appear* to be much - if you're talking about stuff like actors/directors and other miscellany that's not of interest to me, then maybe. But I just don't see enough to make a difference.

How about things like the program and episode ID's which are a better way to keep track of which episodes have been recorded (to avoid recording the same thing a second time) than going by the show and episode names. Once in a while (CSI was a good example this past year) a 2 part episode will have the same episode name (without Part 1 of 2 and Part 2 of 2) but different episode ID's. There are a lot of fields in the Zap2it DD data that would not be displayed to the user but have very useful purposes for properly implementing Season Pass / Wishlist type functionality. You say you don't care about the lists of actors and directors, but a common feature in DVR software is to allow a user to tell the software to record every show that has their favorite actor in it - without those lists, you can't implement such a feature.

I honestly don't get the big deal about paying money for complete data that's in a usable format. With all the money we sink into the hardware to make these systems work, a few dollars a month can't possibly be all that painful. If the budget is really that tight then skip Starbucks / Dunkin Donuts for a few days, smoke a few less cigarettes each week, or bring your lunch to work instead of eating out. It's not like anyone is talking about having to pay $1000 a year for the data - $5-10 a month strikes me as VERY reasonable for the amount of entertainment we get in return.

I'm very disappointed that Zap2it DD is going away. Not because it's free, but because there isn't (at this time that I'm aware of) any alternative even if I am willing to pay for it outside of the expensive commercial licenses for the data which are obviously not practical for an individual.

I don't know about cable guides, but the DD data has exactly the quantity and granularity of information as the weekly listing booklet I get in my Sunday paper, which can be had for $30 a year. So if TMS wants even that much for the DD listings, I feel like it's a rip-off.

ROFLMAO - feel free to take your weekly listing booklet and type the data into a database by hand :rolleyes:. Meanwhile, the DD data has FAR more information than your weekly listing booklet from the Sunday paper. You really ought to go to the labs.Zap2it.com forum and read the specs for the data that's in the feed - there's a lot more there than what you see in the Guide in the DVR software you're using.

IPeople are buying fewer CD's and DVDs due to piracy. .

False.

Try to convince us with non RIAA/MPAA funded data.

False.

Try to convince us with non RIAA/MPAA funded data.


We're going way, way OT now...

So the millions of BT users are all using it for the sharing of personal videos, music and software that is not covered by any copyrights or limited-use licenses? That all the people downloading one of the hundreds of DVD movies available daily through BT has already purchased the DVD, they just downloaded it because they wanted it in a different format to put on their media server? That every CD that is downloaded is a person who just didn't want to be bothered to rip a copy of their own legally purchased CD for use on their Ipod or mp3 player?

C'mon, you can't say those things with a straight face can you? Let's be honest here. Millions of dollars of CDs, DVDs, Premium HD TV programming, Retail software, etc are shared(stolen) every day on BT. All you have to do is take a look at a list of the most active public torrents to see what BT is primarily used for... theft.

I in no way tried to give the impression that every download equates to a lost sale. I'm sure some BT downloads are of CDs that people normally would not have purchased. Even so, it's still theft. And when you notice that the most active music torrents are always comprised of the CDs on Billboards top 25, you can't honestly believe that BT has had no effect on CD sales. It has increasingly becoming a matter of people getting the latest released CD for free, instead of going down to the local CD store and paying $12.99. How this could not have a negative effect on CD sales numbers in beyond me.

Nor am I saying there aren't legal uses for BT, I just would hazard a guess that <1% of torrent bandwidth is used is for legal file sharing purposes. This isn't based on some RIAA numbers, but from doing BT searches. You have to really search to find for any legal torrents that even make it on the "top" active lists. And none of them are anywhere near the bandwith use of their non-legal counterparts. I do not disagree that it's a great file sharing technology with beneficial, if pretty limited, applications for the the average user. I also do not disagree with others that said that RIAA and MPAA is trying to do everything possible to stifle innovation in this area.

But at the same time, everyone has to admit that for 99% of average BT users, BT is primarily used for theft. We've reached a point where people who would never walk into Blockbuster and try to shoplift a CD don't think twice about moral ramifications of using BT and downloading(stealing) the same CD. Today, theft has become completely morally acceptable, as long as the theft occurs in the form of 1's and 0's.

Is the fact that I can't easily and legally rip a legally purchased DVD for use on my media server a hassle? Sure. Do I feel that I should have the ability to do so legally? Of course I do. And I'd expect that I would be able to do so if we lived in a perfect world. But we don't. Unfortunately, we live in a world where the vast majority of people will go to great lengths to get something for free that they would otherwise have to pay for.

I know that if everyone could rip DVDs quickly and easily, illegal sharing/theft would only go up exponentially like it has with CDs. The only thing hindering even more DVD theft from taking place is that for most people, it is still a hassle to rip, store and share them. As the technology continues to advance (ripping time decreases, hard drive storage get cheaper, compression technology gets better, broadband access gets faster, DVD burning speed increases) theft will only get even more widespread.

I honestly don't get the big deal about paying money for complete data that's in a usable format. With all the money we sink into the hardware to make these systems work, a few dollars a month can't possibly be all that painful. If the budget is really that tight then skip Starbucks / Dunkin Donuts for a few days, smoke a few less cigarettes each week, or bring your lunch to work instead of eating out. It's not like anyone is talking about having to pay $1000 a year for the data - $5-10 a month strikes me as VERY reasonable for the amount of entertainment we get in return.The argument isn't whether we should pay for it or not, but whether you already have if you subscribe to either cable or sat.

And I do not acknowledge that what Comcast or DirectTv pays for is the cliffnotes version of what zap2it provides for free. Comcast may not display program/ep ID's in the cable guide, but IMO the feed is the same no matter if it is delivered to Comcast or delivered to us.

I also think that one of the reasons why it has been free is because they know they've already been paid for it and so the end-users (consumers) have been graciously allowed to d/l it again, until the commercial resellers ruined it that is.

If the data was worth so much, why does it come down to MCE, BeyondTV, SageTV, TitanTV, etc. HTPC's for free every day? No one is paying monthly fees for that.

I would be willing to pay maybe $20-30 (max $40) a year on a data feed. Anything above that would be too much IMHO. We have 1 month left before zap2it cuts us off. I'm sure we'll have some news very soon. As far as CD sales continuing to drop. My take is that most of the new music on the major labels is just not that great. Plus the strong arm tactics of the RIAA doesn't help to endear them to it's customers. Personally I've gravitated to more independent music. I love Magnatune and other sites like it (no DRM, high quality files, etc..)

The argument isn't whether we should pay for it or not, but whether you already have if you subscribe to either cable or sat.

I understand that you and a few others feel that you've already paid for the data as cable or satellite subscribers. But the bottom line is that the data you have already paid for simply isn't available to you in a usable format for MythTV or other PVR software to do something useful with. My argument is that a reasonable monthly/yearly fee is a VERY small price to pay to get the data in a usable format similar to what we currently get from Zap2it DD. For $20-30 a year or so, it just isn't worth making a big deal about.

And I do not acknowledge that what Comcast or DirectTv pays for is the cliffnotes version of what zap2it provides for free. Comcast may not display program/ep ID's in the cable guide, but IMO the feed is the same no matter if it is delivered to Comcast or delivered to us.

Actually Comcast and DirecTV are most likely getting the other fields that aren't displayed in the guides that the user sees. How else are the various DVR's going to properly implement Season Pass and Wishlist type functionality?

I also think that one of the reasons why it has been free is because they know they've already been paid for it and so the end-users (consumers) have been graciously allowed to d/l it again, until the commercial resellers ruined it that is.

I don't think there's any truth to that at all. I quite honestly don't know why they offered it for free for as long as they did, but I did appreciate it while it lasted. My guess is that they were trying to figure out if there was a profitable model they could come up with to sell the data for a monthly fee and finally concluded there wasn't and decided to shut down the service. I just wish they had done so at the end of the TV season instead of doing it at the start of the season.

If the data was worth so much, why does it come down to MCE, BeyondTV, SageTV, TitanTV, etc. HTPC's for free every day? No one is paying monthly fees for that.

If you think nobody is paying fees for the data used in MCE, BeyondTV, SageTV, etc. you're sorely mistaken. None of those products are free and part of the price that is paid goes towards paying for the guide data.

If you think nobody is paying fees for the data used in MCE, BeyondTV, SageTV, etc. you're sorely mistaken. None of those products are free and part of the price that is paid goes towards paying for the guide data.This has been hashed over before in the thread - after you pay ONCE for the software (less than $100 in most cases), there are NO monthly fees for the guide data. And as Don said, this is part of what is giving some of the Myth users heartburn about paying (other than that we get it free now, of course).

I don't really care what Microsoft et al pays for the data, what matters is that I can get it for free with a single payment for MCE (or Sage, or Btv...). So it can't be much, or Sage and Snapstream in particular would not be able to afford to provide it given that low-price, one-time software payment from the users. Hell, a while back you could get BTV for free after rebate from Fry's.

Combine the fact that I'm already (albeit indirectly) paying for it through Comcast with the fact that we'll be paying for what every other HTPC package gets for free and you can see why I think this is simply not a fair deal.

Would you be happy if I said I was willing to pay a one-time $50 fee for unlimited data? Because that's what it boils down to if we're talking about a level playing field here. And $50 might be too high in reality - I don't think you're paying more than $10 or so out of the cost of any other HTPC software for unlimited guide data.

This has been hashed over before in the thread - after you pay ONCE for the software (less than $100 in most cases), there are NO monthly fees for the guide data. And as Don said, this is part of what is giving some of the Myth users heartburn about paying (other than that we get it free now, of course).

I don't really care what Microsoft et al pays for the data, what matters is that I can get it for free with a single payment for MCE (or Sage, or Btv...). So it can't be much, or Sage and Snapstream in particular would not be able to afford to provide it given that low-price, one-time software payment from the users. Hell, a while back you could get BTV for free after rebate from Fry's.

Combine the fact that I'm already (albeit indirectly) paying for it through Comcast with the fact that we'll be paying for what every other HTPC package gets for free and you can see why I think this is simply not a fair deal.

Would you be happy if I said I was willing to pay a one-time $50 fee for unlimited data? Because that's what it boils down to if we're talking about a level playing field here. And $50 might be too high in reality - I don't think you're paying more than $10 or so out of the cost of any other HTPC software for unlimited guide data.

Quite frankly, I'd be happy if people would stop whining about having to pay for the data :rolleyes:. Good thing you don't own a Tivo, because you'd be screaming bloody murder that you have to pay them a monthly fee too even if you're already subscribed to Comcast.

I wish I had numbers on how many copies of SageTV and BeyondTV are sold in a typical month. Assuming the numbers are high enough to easily cover the $500 fee that I've seen tossed around for a commercial license for the data, that would explain why there's no ongoing monthly fee.

I'd also be happy if I didn't have to keep writing code to parse data from yet another new source for the accessDTV software because people are too cheap to pay enough money to make a data source a reliable entity. We initially got our data from GuideRemote for a whopping $10 per year - people complained that it was too expensive :rolleyes:. I'm pretty sure that company is no longer in business and we lost our feed from them at some point because too few people were subscribing and they had somewhat customized the data for us. We then moved to Zap2it DD and free wasn't good enough either because people bitched about having to answer a survey every few months, but since it was free more people went for it. Now we're faced with Zap2it DD going away and no other viable source is available yet that I'm aware of (Schedules Direct doesn't appear to be even remotely viable yet). If nothing surfaces soon, it's going to be tough to get something in place for the start of the fall TV season as I work on this stuff in my "spare" time.

I'd be much happier if a SOLID company was in place offering the data that we get from Zap2it DD. I'd be more than happy to pay $10 or so a month if it meant that the company could remain viable for the long term. To me, it's a very small price to pay for the amount of entertainment I get in return. I don't care if I already pay for guide data from Comcast, DirecTV, Tivo, BeyondTV, SageTV, or any other source - I need guide data that I can use with accessDTV (and you need the same for MythTV) and the data from those other sources does me no good and no amount of complaining about it is going to change that. If you really think you're entitled to the data from Comcast in XML format, by all means take it up with them - good luck with that...

OK, so as I see it you're not disputing most of what I'm saying, so your argument boils down to this -

'The open source HTPC users have to pay up on a regular basis to get a stable feed, even if no other HTPC users do. Get over it'.

Close enough?

(BTW the Tivo monthly fee is also for software updates and support.)

Break.

Break.

Sorry, just wanted to acknowledge that paraphrase. The open source HTPC users have to pay up on a regular basis to get a stable feed, even if no other HTPC users do. Get over it. I like it. Given the context, I like the sneakily compact implication that open source projects depend upon community contributions for feature/bug updates and stable, time-based data/services rather than commercial software's business contracts; thus, lacking adequate contributors willing and able to constantly and consistently produce the data, the projects become dependent upon an outside source (be it a benevolent business, or enough demand to build a service based business on...)

I'm probably going to use this as an example or teaching point...

Please resume your discussion.

v/r,
C-F

this is a non-issue to me. The amount of money I've saved by not buying OS software and/or media center software (not to mention a virus protection solution for a shoddy OS) more than pays for 4+ years of a $4-10/month service for the data feed I'll need

this is a non-issue to me. The amount of money I've saved by not buying OS software and/or media center software (not to mention a virus protection solution for a shoddy OS) more than pays for 4+ years of a $40/month service for the data feed I'll need

Amen. I couldn't have said it better.

Hey, I'll pay because I want the guide data from a stable feed. But that doesn't mean I have to like it, and I will look at any alternatives.

Quite frankly, I'd be happy if people would stop whining about having to pay for the data :rolleyes:. Good thing you don't own a Tivo, because you'd be screaming bloody murder that you have to pay them a monthly fee too even if you're already subscribed to Comcast.

I wish I had numbers on how many copies of SageTV and BeyondTV are sold in a typical month. Assuming the numbers are high enough to easily cover the $500 fee that I've seen tossed around for a commercial license for the data, that would explain why there's no ongoing monthly fee.

I'd also be happy if I didn't have to keep writing code to parse data from yet another new source for the accessDTV software because people are too cheap to pay enough money to make a data source a reliable entity. We initially got our data from GuideRemote for a whopping $10 per year - people complained that it was too expensive :rolleyes:. I'm pretty sure that company is no longer in business and we lost our feed from them at some point because too few people were subscribing and they had somewhat customized the data for us. We then moved to Zap2it DD and free wasn't good enough either because people bitched about having to answer a survey every few months, but since it was free more people went for it. Now we're faced with Zap2it DD going away and no other viable source is available yet that I'm aware of (Schedules Direct doesn't appear to be even remotely viable yet). If nothing surfaces soon, it's going to be tough to get something in place for the start of the fall TV season as I work on this stuff in my "spare" time.

I'd be much happier if a SOLID company was in place offering the data that we get from Zap2it DD. I'd be more than happy to pay $10 or so a month if it meant that the company could remain viable for the long term. To me, it's a very small price to pay for the amount of entertainment I get in return. I don't care if I already pay for guide data from Comcast, DirecTV, Tivo, BeyondTV, SageTV, or any other source - I need guide data that I can use with accessDTV (and you need the same for MythTV) and the data from those other sources does me no good and no amount of complaining about it is going to change that. If you really think you're entitled to the data from Comcast in XML format, by all means take it up with them - good luck with that...

The chance you are going to get a large base of open source users to pay $10 / month for guide data is probably very close to zero. Just an opinion.

- Tom

Sorry, just wanted to acknowledge that paraphrase.I like it. Given the context, I like the sneakily compact implication that open source projects depend upon community contributions for feature/bug updates and stable, time-based data/services rather than commercial software's business contracts; thus, lacking adequate contributors willing and able to constantly and consistently produce the data, the projects become dependent upon an outside source (be it a benevolent business, or enough demand to build a service based business on...)
What's your point? We're also dependent on nVidia's closed-source drivers. If we ever get CableCard, Blu-Ray, or HD-DVD support on Linux (ha!), you can almost guarantee there will be closed-source drivers for those devices as well.

There's nothing new about open source depending on business if there are no good alternatives. As gsr said, the guide data required for a complete HTPC implementation is not publicly available, and screen-scraping websites doesn't count.

err, ... acknowledge that paraphrase ... use this as an example or teaching point ... Sorry, nothing specifically to do with your debate or the merits and demerits of any project, plan, or venture -- commercial or open source ...

v/r,
C-F

As far as guide data on cable systems is concerned, it may well be available. There's a Cable Labs standard for it, and no particular reason they'd encrypt it. Problem is you need a separate tuner for it, and the only card which has that tuner is the Cablecard-equipped All-in-Wonder (which is only sold with complete systems).

The chance you are going to get a large base of open source users to pay $10 / month for guide data is probably very close to zero. Just an opinion.



Where did that $10/month number come from? Did they announce that, or is it a guess? $10/month seems high. If it's that high, people will balk. If it's a low price, $1 - $5 per month, I think many people will subscribe.

I will gladly pay for guide data. Free software like MythTV doesn't necessarily mean no cost. It also means freedom to do what I want.. free to detect and skip commercials, free to transcode shows and load them on my iPhone, free to share content on my own LAN, etc...

Where did that $10/month number come from? Did they announce that, or is it a guess? $10/month seems high. If it's that high, people will balk. If it's a low price, $1 - $5 per month, I think many people will subscribe.

I will gladly pay for guide data. Free software like MythTV doesn't necessarily mean no cost. It also means freedom to do what I want.. free to detect and skip commercials, free to transcode shows and load them on my iPhone, free to share content on my own LAN, etc...

I got it from GSR's post I quoted and replied to above. I have no idea beyond that.

- Tom

The chance you are going to get a large base of open source users to pay $10 / month for guide data is probably very close to zero. Just an opinion.

Clearly, given that most of the users don't seem willing to pay even a penny a month for a reliable source of data. I was simply stating that I'd be willing to pay that much if it meant the source of the data wasn't going to go away in less than 2 years like every other option has so far. Given what people are willing to pay (basically nothing), it seems pretty clear to me that there isn't a good business model for anyone to bother coming up with a data feed that's available to end users. It's really quite strange as these same people won't blink an eye at getting the latest wizz bang video card, tuner card, more had disk space to store recordings on, etc. But ask them to pay for a data feed that the PVR software is largely useless without and they bitch and moan about it.

It's really quite strange as these same people won't blink an eye at getting the latest wizz bang video card, tuner card, more had disk space to store recordings on, etc. But ask them to pay for a data feed that the PVR software is largely useless without and they bitch and moan about it.

I would be willing to pay as long as it reasonably priced. IMHO anything over $40 a year is too much. Just my .02

OK, so as I see it you're not disputing most of what I'm saying, so your argument boils down to this -

'The open source HTPC users have to pay up on a regular basis to get a stable feed, even if no other HTPC users do. Get over it'.

Close enough?

(BTW the Tivo monthly fee is also for software updates and support.)

I still feel that the argument that you're paying for guide data with your Comcast subscription is entirely irrelevant because there's no way for your PVR software (MythTV or other) to do anything with that data. I also doubt that the agreement you have with Comcast says that you have the right to obtain the data in any form other than as it is presented in the guide in the Comcast box anyway.

Let's try this another way.

The commercial version of Zap2it DD is available for let's assume $500 a month. Let's assume that Microsoft, BeyondTV, SageTV, and others all subscribe to this commercial feed. The $500 per month is part of their cost of doing business and they each have to sell enough copies of their software each month to cover this expense as well as enough to pay their employees and other operating expenses (as well as make a profit along the way). Clearly this isn't an issue for Microsoft :D.

Now the open source / free software community comes along and wants to write PVR software because they can do some things better than the commercial packages do, etc. This same open source / free software community also needs a data feed to populate their program guides and to use for Season Pass / Wishlist functionality. Well now we've got a problem - Microsoft, BeyondTV, SageTV, and others pay a monthly fee for this data. It would seem reasonable, at least to me, that the open source / free software community should also be subject to the same fee for the same data.

Thing is, there isn't anyone offering the data for these open source / free software projects at this time - Zap2it DD has obviously been great while it lasted, but it's obviously been costing someone some $$$ to host the data and provide servers and services to get at it. What's needed for the open source / free software community is a service that purchases a commercial data feed from "the source" just as Microsoft, BeyondTV, SageTV, etc. do and then makes it available to this community. Unless you get someone who has deep pockets and is feeling extremely generous, this just isn't going to be free. This entity has to obtain the data from the source and then setup servers and services to make the data available to each user (basically what Zap2it DD has been doing). This isn't a trivial undertaking because there are so many different lineup combinations available and there's a lot of data involved.

I know that such a service absolutely cannot be provided for free on a long term basis because the costs of providing such a service are >>$0. What I don't know is just how much it would cost to setup and provide this service on an ongoing basis. It may be possible to do this for a one time fee of $xx per user, which clearly requires $xx to be a lot of money and/or for a regular supply of new users. The other option is to charge a monthly / annual fee of $yy. How big $yy needs to be partly depends on how many users there are and partly on just how much it costs to keep the service viable. I'd like to see a service start up AND remain viable, so I'm willing to pay my share of what it takes to make that happen as long as it's not a lot more than ~$10 per month.

What's needed for the open source / free software community is a service that purchases a commercial data feed from "the source" just as Microsoft, BeyondTV, SageTV, etc. do and then makes it available to this community.I think what's bugging me (and lots of others) is that the data can't be THAT expensive since if comes as as an trivial piece of so many things - software packages like BeyondTV and MCE, ordinary cable service, or an insert in my Sunday paper. It's not that I'm unwilling to pay anything for it, but a lot of the discussion takes the form of "what is Myth worth to you" and then takes that as a reasonable price for just the listings. Suppose nVidia decides they also should get paid "what Myth is worth to you" for their drivers, since that piece is just as essential to making the whole package work.

There is a legendary scene in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" where Jack Nicholson is trying to order some toast in a diner, only to be told that it's not on offer. He then asks for a "chicken salad sandwich on toast - hold the chicken salad". That's what we're after here. I want someone to sell me Beyond TV - hold the software.

I think what's bugging me (and lots of others) is that the data can't be THAT expensive since if comes as as an trivial piece of so many things - software packages like BeyondTV and MCE, ordinary cable service, or an insert in my Sunday paper. It's not that I'm unwilling to pay anything for it, but a lot of the discussion takes the form of "what is Myth worth to you" and then takes that as a reasonable price for just the listings. Suppose nVidia decides they also should get paid "what Myth is worth to you" for their drivers, since that piece is just as essential to making the whole package work.

Let's face it - the Sunday newspaper insert is worthless to PVR software unless you're willing to do a lot of typing and bringing it up time and time again is just silly. The problem is that the commercial software packages versus open source software packages are a completely different business model. Like it or not, that's just the way it is.

The data may not be THAT expensive, but it isn't free nor is the infrastructure to make it available. Given two choices:

1) Free or nearly free ($1 per month or less) data source that's a constantly moving target requiring you to reconfigure your software every few months (or so) and possibly have to write complex scripts over and over again.
2) Data source for $10 per month that actually stays in business for the long term.

Which would you pick? Obviously based on the discussion, I'd pick choice 2. Keep in mind that the dollar amounts chosen are completely arbitrary - choice 2 could actually turn out to be $5 a month or even less largely depending on how many subscribers there are, how much profit the company offering the service wants to make, and just what it takes to keep the service alive.

I certainly wouldn't like it, but it would actually be perfectly reasonable for nVidia and others to charge a yearly maintainance fee for drivers. Thing is nVidia has to keep advancing their drivers to attract new customers, so releasing new drivers to existing customers doesn't really cost them much in the grand scheme of things aside from web site hosting.

There is a legendary scene in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" where Jack Nicholson is trying to order some toast in a diner, only to be told that it's not on offer. He then asks for a "chicken salad sandwich on toast - hold the chicken salad". That's what we're after here. I want someone to sell me Beyond TV - hold the software.

But ultimately you want the data needed to fill your guide, correct? If so, it seems more constructive to focus on options that might actually be possible...

Let's face it - the Sunday newspaper insert is worthless to PVR software unless you're willing to do a lot of typing and bringing it up time and time again is just silly.My point is just to put an upper bound on what a fair price is for the DATA itself. Running a web site from which I can download it is an additional cost - but all the statements from TMS have indicated that isn't their issue.

The data may not be THAT expensive, but it isn't free nor is the infrastructure to make it available. Given two choices:

1) Free or nearly free ($1 per month or less) data source that's a constantly moving target requiring you to reconfigure your software every few months (or so) and possibly have to write complex scripts over and over again.
2) Data source for $10 per month that actually stays in business for the long term.

Which would you pick? Obviously based on the discussion, I'd pick choice 2. Keep in mind that the dollar amounts chosen are completely arbitrary - choice 2 could actually turn out to be $5 a month or even less largely depending on how many subscribers there are, how much profit the company offering the service wants to make, and just what it takes to keep the service alive.
Actually, there is a third choice - get the data that's downloaded to MCE (or ATI MMC, or Sage, or BTV, or some tuner card's PVR app) translated into a common format like XMLTV. Would require someone running a copy of said software in every market, and it could be distributed with P2P. Not that it will happen and it might not be legit, but it is an alternative.

I hate the fact that I can ALREADY get the data for free from TitanTV (using MMC which came with my ATI HDTV Wonder), but I'd have to run it on an XP PC and then somehow get it translated for use by Myth. I saw over at the gbpvr forums that folks were interested on working on this after the zap2it announcement, but I don't know how far it went. Many tuner cards already include guide data using whatever PVR app is bundled with the card.

Actually, there is a third choice - get the data that's downloaded to MCE (or ATI MMC, or Sage, or BTV, or some tuner card's PVR app) translated into a common format like XMLTV. Would require someone running a copy of said software in every market, and it could be distributed with P2P. Not that it will happen and it might not be legit, but it is an alternative.

Good grief - I was hoping we'd be discussing legal options... Using the data from MCE, Sage, BTV, etc. within your own system MIGHT be legal (not sure about that). Sharing the data with P2P would certainly not be legal and would be even worse than scraping the data from web sites, IMO.

FWIW, the BTV guide data is stored in a SQLite DB called Guide.db in C:\Documents And Settings\All Users\Application Data\Snapstream\BeyondTV\guide.db. In looking at the data as it's stored in the DB, it would not be very difficult to export it to other formats, legal issues notwithstanding. I sincerely hope that if someone explores this option it's not for P2P use as that would only contribute to the problem I hope we're trying to resolve.

Good grief - I was hoping we'd be discussing legal options... Using the data from MCE, Sage, BTV, etc. within your own system MIGHT be legal (not sure about that). Sharing the data with P2P would certainly not be legal and would be even worse than scraping the data from web sites, IMO.

We're just talking about broadcast listings here. This kind of information should be publicly available, since the radio spectrum is licensed from the public (there should be scare quotes in there somewhere, but I couldn't decide where to put them). Broadcasters should be mandated by the FCC to provide the data in a common format for interoperability's sake. It's not like it would be all that difficult or costly. Stations have to track all of the things that would be necessary to run a PVR anyway - show title, episode ID, etc. Are individual stations being paid for the data now? They have to provide it to someone for it to be aggregated by Tribune et. al. I don't see how it's such as great expense that it needs to cost $60/year or more per viewer. TV stations have the data no matter what, and they make their money from advertising, not TV listings. The TV listings are just a means for them to get people watching the advertisements. Individual stations don't need to provide much data - just a few unique identifiers that would be cross-referenced to other databases online, like IMDB.

How do these companies claim rights to the data itself? Why couldn't somebody else step in and just get the data from the same sources as Tribune, bypassing the conglomeration?

Actually, there is a third choice - get the data that's downloaded to MCE (or ATI MMC, or Sage, or BTV, or some tuner card's PVR app) translated into a common format like XMLTV. Would require someone running a copy of said software in every market, and it could be distributed with P2P. Not that it will happen and it might not be legit, but it is an alternative.

I hate the fact that I can ALREADY get the data for free from TitanTV (using MMC which came with my ATI HDTV Wonder), but I'd have to run it on an XP PC and then somehow get it translated for use by Myth. I saw over at the gbpvr forums that folks were interested on working on this after the zap2it announcement, but I don't know how far it went. Many tuner cards already include guide data using whatever PVR app is bundled with the card.

I was also thinking about data shared over P2P in some XMLTV-like standard format. I think actually acquiring some small pieces of data like that to share is maybe a separate problem, with multiple solutions.

- Tom

Are individual stations being paid for the data now?

I read somewhere that the stations pay Tribune Media Services to include their data in the
listings guide. I don't know if this is true, or not.

I like the idea of each station offering it's own listings on it's own web site. A common format would have to be mandated by the government, and a scraper that can assimilate the data from multiple sources would be needed. This would prevent one data supplier from breaking the entire system.

I haven't given up on extracting data from my BeyondTV application. I have opened the database and found all of the needed data in it. I don't know how to import it into the MythTV database, yet. I may need to ask members of my local LUG for help on this.

Good grief - I was hoping we'd be discussing legal options... Using the data from MCE, Sage, BTV, etc. within your own system MIGHT be legal (not sure about that). Sharing the data with P2P would certainly not be legal and would be even worse than scraping the data from web sites, IMO.
Absolutely. These P2P ideas don't even make much sense anyway. How on earth would any P2P solution work given that there are like thousands of different markets around the country? At least screen scraping gets data from sites that already have data for all those markets.

Tom

Even without P2P, I think you will see such translators being developed if we're going to be charged for guide data that's otherwise freely available with PC PVR apps. I will be looking at this closely - if I can get BTV, Sage, etc. for less than $100 and have a translator take care of the conversion to XMLTV for Myth, why would I pay $60 a year? I already have an XP server running 24x7 so it's no big deal to have a PVR scheduler d/l the stuff legitimately.

I read somewhere that the stations pay Tribune Media Services to include their data in the
listings guide. I don't know if this is true, or not.

I like the idea of each station offering it's own listings on it's own web site. A common format would have to be mandated by the government, and a scraper that can assimilate the data from multiple sources would be needed. This would prevent one data supplier from breaking the entire system.

I haven't given up on extracting data from my BeyondTV application. I have opened the database and found all of the needed data in it. I don't know how to import it into the MythTV database, yet. I may need to ask members of my local LUG for help on this.

If stations really pay to have their data included by Tribune then they might be overjoyed to have a free P2P distribution network to do it for them.

- Tom

I just noticed that one of my local stations offers RSS feeds of news stories. Would this make a good way to distribute EPG data?

Would this make a good way to distribute EPG data?Sure - if this were just a technical problem to begin with.

The problem is that the current system is not broken from the stations' perspective and thus there is no compelling reason to invest money in a new way of distributing their listings. The stations pay a (likely modest) fee to TMS, and their listings get to 99% of the audience.

Mythtv - what is that? And when you tell them it's a new way to skip commercials, how excited does that make them?

The schedulesdirect.org website has been updated with a few more details, but nothing substantial. Looks like there will be some kind of 'membership' fee paid via Paypal.

Right now I'm looking at translating my Replays' guide data to XMLTV using DVArchive. The Replays have always had good data from TMS (via DNNA, the Replay parent co.).

The schedulesdirect.org website has been updated with a few more details, but nothing substantial. Looks like there will be some kind of 'membership' fee paid via Paypal.

Right now I'm looking at translating my Replays' guide data to XMLTV using DVArchive. The Replays have always had good data from TMS (via DNNA, the Replay parent co.).

If someone knows how to contact the Schedule's Direct people please let me know. I'd like to start a dialog with them on adding an accessDTV grabber so I may be able to have something ready to release to accessDTV users for the start of the fall TV season.

If someone knows how to contact the Schedule's Direct people please let me know. I'd like to start a dialog with them on adding an accessDTV grabber so I may be able to have something ready to release to accessDTV users for the start of the fall TV season.

4 of the 5 board members listed on the schedulesdirect.org page have been active on the mythtv-users list fairly recently, so I'd start with the users' archive at http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/users/ to get their email addresses - I don't know of any other more-official way.

In the long run, requiring schedule data will be moot.

Commercial, "legal" providers like your cableco will finally "catch-up" to the functionality of typical darknet sources like bt and <rhymes with foosnet>, i.e. have available every program aired on any network for the past 200-360 days (or more), ready for the download and viewing in realtime or near realtime. Fundamentally on-demand for all networks all the time.

This is not pie-in-the-sky. The current typical darknet sources in total already provide this. Why the commercial providers haven't stepped up to the plate and offered even better functionality is a mystery.

My expectation is that the Comcasts, WOW's, and other cablecos should be offering every program on every channel you subscribe to for download, with best-in-class retention, like 200 days to one year. You use a password provided by them with your subscription to access a website download client. No need for schedules if you know that every show you subscribe to is there the next day and will be there for a reasonable amount of time. In contrast to the darknet sources, the cablecos could leave the commercials in the program, inexchange for DRM free, standard file formats.

My take on where the commercial entities need to go, anyways...

Also, there are already rogue Youtube-esque sites providing realtime cable network viewing- why don't you get access to a Youtube-like site maintained by your cableco, accessed via provided password, enabling realtime viewing of all channels/programs you subscribe to, on demand, with about a year retention of all programming?

IMO, the cable networks will come to realize this, and the FoodTV's, HGTV's, TDC's, AMC's, Bravo's, Animal Planet's, History Channel's, etc of the world will eventually allow nationwide pay-per-channel access. Each network, or groups of networks, will most likely allow you to subscribe to a Youtube-like site they maintain, with password access, to view their content with long retention.

I am certainly ready for this model in my home, and my non-tech wife would have no issue changing our viewing model to this method. We have PC's and PC-compatible screens in every room (LCD's).

Initial Schedules Direct Pricing has been announced:
$15/first 3 months of service
$20 a year (eventual goal)

Considering these guys had to get this up an running in such a short time I think it's reasonable. I will sign up as soon as it becomes available. Yes you can code your own XML grabber but you run the risk of things breaking every once in a while. We had zap2it for free for several years. The free ride is now over. I plan on supporting the Schedules Direct crew (many who are MythTV developers).

I think that $15 for 3 months is a good starting point and plan to subscribe. My time in writing and maintaining software is worth way more than that.

It is also worth mentioning that the more people who participate, the lower the price gets. Getting in early at the "premium" price of $5 a month will help everyone out in the future. Consider it a contribution to OSS.

I agree, $5/month is a pretty reasonable starting point. On the announcement, they say they want to decrease the cost, if possible. The initial $15 for 3 months is non-recurring -- meaning that they need to have an initial starting point to gauge the usage, then they can set the pricing based on actual revenue/expenses and do longer term or recurring service.

All things considered, I think it looks very good.

$15 to try it out is a no-brainer to me, I'm in. We'll see after that, but it does not bode well if they don't get a decent signup rate. $5 a month is too much over the long run but I'm hoping it will not stay there.

Article with some more details:
http://www.linux.com/feature/118505

I have recently been researching the DIY DVR concept quite a bit and when reading this thread, regarding the subscription based system, an obvious question strikes me. Why pay $5/$10/$8.96 per month/year or whatever when you can pay $65 for SageTV/BeyondTV etc. and have a guide subscription for lifetime. Is it because the MythTV software is so much superior to these commercial alternatives? If so, please enlighten me, I have no experience with any of the software as of yet.

I have recently been researching the DIY DVR concept quite a bit and when reading this thread, regarding the subscription based system, an obvious question strikes me. Why pay $5/$10/$8.96 per month/year or whatever when you can pay $65 for SageTV/BeyondTV etc. and have a guide subscription for lifetime. Is it because the MythTV software is so much superior to these commercial alternatives? If so, please enlighten me, I have no experience with any of the software as of yet.

Mythtv does have a lot more capabilities that the other system don't have (especially in the area of customizing it, transcoding. built in UpNP server, and running it distributed across multiple machines - both backend and front end clients, etc.). I'm not saying you can't get any of these features on other software, but good luck getting them all with any of them. Whether or not these differences are of any use to you is another question. For me, that fact that it runs on linux and is distributed and has no DRM is what makes it right for me. I usually build my own computers and don't want to pay for Windows, so the $65 for Sage/Beyond/ etc. would need to be paid in addition to a windows license for all of my computers. But really, I just prefer Linux, regardless of cost.

Also, since I have already invested in a great working MythTV setup I don't want to switch. Until now it has been "free" (not counting my time). Also, new ly developed features will be free, unlike the other solutions, where you will need to pay for upgrades in many cases. Often to some of the features MythTV has you have to purchase an add on package from one of the windows solutions.

If I were to go windows I'd probably go with one of the free solutions.

I have 3 Windows boxes with HDTV tuners, and one MythTV box with a pcHDTV HD-3000 tuner.

The Windows boxes (2 with WMCE, 1 with WInXP Pro) run Beyond TV and work flawlessly for watching and recording HDTV. They have ATI video cards. ATI support in Linux is not as good as it could be. The MythTV box has a nVidia 6600GT video card

The MythTV box doesn't seem to want keep running for more than 6 months. Then something will happen and it won't work properly anymore. I always end up having to do a fresh install, with the latest distro and myth rpms. This means that the old database won't work, and all previous recorded shows won't show up. It's a PITA!

Thankfully I have BTV to get me through these times.

I use Linux for everything else. I wish it wasn't so buggy for HDTV. I am going to try CentOS for my next rebuild of MythTV, I hear that it is much more stable.

Mythtv does have a lot more capabilities that the other system don't have (especially in the area of customizing it, transcoding. built in UpNP server, and running it distributed across multiple machines - both backend and front end clients, etc.). I'm not saying you can't get any of these features on other software, but good luck getting them all with any of them. Whether or not these differences are of any use to you is another question. For me, that fact that it runs on linux and is distributed and has no DRM is what makes it right for me. I usually build my own computers and don't want to pay for Windows, so the $65 for Sage/Beyond/ etc. would need to be paid in addition to a windows license for all of my computers. But really, I just prefer Linux, regardless of cost.

Also, since I have already invested in a great working MythTV setup I don't want to switch. Until now it has been "free" (not counting my time). Also, new ly developed features will be free, unlike the other solutions, where you will need to pay for upgrades in many cases. Often to some of the features MythTV has you have to purchase an add on package from one of the windows solutions.

If I were to go windows I'd probably go with one of the free solutions.

You make a good point regarding the future upgrades being free. I did not realize that upgrades for the commercial software are not free, which is a big negative.
Btw, your point about having to pay for windows licenses and such doesn't really apply though, because SageTV and such have Linux versions. I am also a big supporter and user of open source software and if I were to purchase one of them I would go with the Linux one.

You make a good point regarding the future upgrades being free. I did not realize that upgrades for the commercial software are not free, which is a big negative.
Btw, your point about having to pay for windows licenses and such doesn't really apply though, because SageTV and such have Linux versions. I am also a big supporter and user of open source software and if I were to purchase one of them I would go with the Linux one.

A few things:

1. Most of the cost software will not charge you for minor upgrades and bug fixes, but will charge you for major upgrades and increased feature. The same is true of SageTV. Don't have this problem with MythTV.

2. If you have multiple computers (linux or windows) and you use SageTV for instance... You are legally supposed to buy a license for SageTV for each computer. SageTV offering a Linux version has no bearing on this. You don't have to do this with free software. But I was talking about Windows users in my example (as not all of the windows media center software have Linux versions), where the problem is compounded by having to buy Windows OS licenses.

3. I don't know this for sure, but I highly doubt the Linux version of SageTV is open source.


You bring up a good point I didn't even mention. Some people just prefer FOSS (free open-source software).

A few things:

1. Most of the cost software will not charge you for minor upgrades and bug fixes, but will charge you for major upgrades and increased feature. The same is true of SageTV. Don't have this problem with MythTV.

2. If you have multiple computers (linux or windows) and you use SageTV for instance... You are legally supposed to buy a license for SageTV for each computer. SageTV offering a Linux version has no bearing on this. You don't have to do this with free software. But I was talking about Windows users in my example (as not all of the windows media center software have Linux versions), where the problem is compounded by having to buy Windows OS licenses.

3. I don't know this for sure, but I highly doubt the Linux version of SageTV is open source.


You bring up a good point I didn't even mention. Some people just prefer FOSS (free open-source software).

No, Sage is not open source for any OS, I wasn't suggesting that it is, just voicing my support for open source in general.
Anyway, I would love to use MythTV, it was my first choice; but when I discovered that getting a reliable guide would potentially require a monthly fee, I feel like it defeats the purpose; (it seems to go against the entire free open source movement). Mainly, I was just comparing the PVR software options from a financial stand point. If Myth full functionality does indeed require a montly fee, it would make financial sense to go with $60 for a lifetime...i guess.
Thanks for your feedback.

No, Sage is not open source for any OS, I wasn't suggesting that it is, just voicing my support for open source in general.
Anyway, I would love to use MythTV, it was my first choice; but when I discovered that getting a reliable guide would potentially require a monthly fee, I feel like it defeats the purpose; (it seems to go against the entire free open source movement). Mainly, I was just comparing the PVR software options from a financial stand point. If Myth full functionality does indeed require a montly fee, it would make financial sense to go with $60 for a lifetime...i guess.
Thanks for your feedback.

Yeah, it is a bummer that's it's not completely free anymore. Good luck in finding what works for you!

This is a mute point. They have already switched to a new provider and released an update for MythTV.

The cost now is 15 dollars for 3 months. Pretty damn cheap if you ask me. Their goal is to cut it to 20 a year.

I was waiting for the zap2it data to die so I could test out EIT before getting an SD account, but it didn't die. I'm still connecting to zap2it and getting guide data as of 12:30pm on the 2nd of Sept. Anyone else? Anyone know why they didn't shut their server down or know what's goinbg on?

I was waiting for the zap2it data to die so I could test out EIT before getting an SD account, but it didn't die. I'm still connecting to zap2it and getting guide data as of 12:30pm on the 2nd of Sept. Anyone else? Anyone know why they didn't shut their server down or know what's goinbg on?

I thought Sept. 9 was the shutoff date.

I was waiting for the zap2it data to die so I could test out EIT before getting an SD account, but it didn't die. I'm still connecting to zap2it and getting guide data as of 12:30pm on the 2nd of Sept. Anyone else? Anyone know why they didn't shut their server down or know what's goinbg on?
According to the current message on the Zap2it homepage, if your Zap2it subscription is from a commercial DVR, you will still get downloaded data from them. It is the free, noncommercial service that is discontinued, on Sept. 1st.

According to the current message on the Zap2it homepage, if your Zap2it subscription is from a commercial DVR, you will still get downloaded data from them. It is the free, noncommercial service that is discontinued, on Sept. 1st.

I see. I used a different key code when I set the account up.

Oh ya!

Wanna share? :D

Oh ya!

Wanna share? :D

Don't remember the code. Doesn't matter now. I didn't think it ethical to continue to use it so I signed up with Schedules Direct today and disabled the Data Direct account. I also tried EIT with mixed results. Some channels filled in data ok while most didn't. When I setup SD in myth, I checked EIT scans as a second source, but I'm getting the same errors with it.

2007-09-04 13:48:47.429 Could not find channel 68_1 in TVCT

This could be because I'm not using a separator and my 68_1 is 681. Not sure how to handle this.

Oddly enough I'm still getting listings from zap2it (have guide data good through 9/17), and I signed up with the labs 3 years or so ago using the posted Myth key. So I don't think they've taken it down yet.

But my free sub expires sometime in mid-Oct. and you can bet they won't be allowing renewals then. I've got my Myth box updated using svn 0.20-2 fixes so I'm ready to cutover to SD as soon as they finally pull the plug on zap2it.

Oddly enough I'm still getting listings from zap2it (have guide data good through 9/17), and I signed up with the labs 3 years or so ago using the posted Myth key. So I don't think they've taken it down yet.

But my free sub expires sometime in mid-Oct. and you can bet they won't be allowing renewals then. I've got my Myth box updated using svn 0.20-2 fixes so I'm ready to cutover to SD as soon as they finally pull the plug on zap2it.

Just to note that zap2it shut down their labs server url sometime after you posted this. They started it back up on a new url but my old account was not there. That should mean no one is now getting data from them.