No More TV Listings For MythTV Users

Ryan Brown writes "As of September 1, the free XML TV guide service at zap2it labs has shut its doors due to misuse issues, as well as internal business issues. Now that Linux users, and most PVR users for that matter, are nearing the end of their last fetched TV guide, what free alternatives exist that can replace this much-needed service?"

Comments

Re:Wow, good going Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

Here goes some karma...

No, but it is nice that you've fished for "insightful" mods by prefacing your statement with this.

Why is it an utter crime to want to get free tv listings?

It isn't a crime. Nobody said it was. They just said that payment for a service provided by F/OSS devs is reasonable.

Seriously, tell me. I can download Linux for free, but I guess that's bad? I can read Slashdot for free, but I guess that's bad?

Nice strawman. You can also read tv schedules online for free too (or at least in the same fake "ad supported" free that you read Slashdot).

I have a little nagging doubt in my head that they will degrade other methods of program acquisition (EIT, direct inserts into the database from a scraper, etc), to "facilitate" SD (otherwise known as rope people into using their paid-for service, and nothing else). Those fears may or may not be unfounded, but why shouldn't I be worried and looking for alternatives?

Given the reputations of those involved with SD, this is somewhat insulting. That being said, the reason you have nothing to fear is that the code to process XMLTV listings already exists & is open source.

There are more pragmatic reasons too--multiple F/OSS projects are collaborating on providing SD & even more will be encouraging their users to get their listings from SD.

Why shouldn't people want to find out about any free listings that are out there, just like has been offered for years from the Zap2It people?

They can want whatever they wish! But they aren't going to get it soon. Only two companies compile guide data & they sell it to other businesses. Some of these businesses (like SD) charge at least enough to pay for what it costs them to provide the listings. Others put it on the web & use ads to pay for it. Payment must come from somewhere. Z2It was free because they were a subsidary of Tribune.

If the data comes from one of the two "mother" listings, it will cost money. Period. No one will give you a free lunch. (Or you can violate TOS by scraping it.)

If it doesn't come from these "mother" sources, someone would have to form a third listing generation service (but this would cost significant setup & operating $$$ that they'd want to pass on).

Re:www.schedulesdirect.org

[swillden]

Right now it's $15 for 3mos, but they are hoping to change that to $20/yr if they get enough sign-ups.

Wow, they're not exactly marketing geniuses are they? Announce plans to make a very large discount on you service as soon as enough people sign up at the original inflated price? Yeah, that'll pull a huge number of customers in at your launch.

That's because they're not trying to make a profit, and they're just passing on the reality that they'll have to have a sizable subscriber base in order to defray their fixed costs enough to reduce the fee. They expect that their target audience will understand these issues. Not only that, but both prices are low enough that the costs aren't going to be an issue for their target market.