Feedback on XMLTV format

[Malc <malc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

   Andrew,

You asked for some practical feedback on the format / usage.

I've been using the bleb site to feed my MythTV scheduler. At present I 
have a basic script to retrieve, I'm thinking about spending time 
improving the grabber script to look like a true XMLTV tv_grab...

At this stage I  use a command line driven insertion into the mythTV db 
via shell script
.... snip

rm -f bleb-xmltv.ntl.xml
./bleb_grabber_ntl
/usr/local/bin/mythfilldatabase --no-delete --update --file 5 0 
bleb-xmltv.ntl.xml

rm -f /tmp/ukrt_ntl_add.xml
tv_grab_uk_rt --config-file ~/.mythtv/ukrt_ntl_adds.xmltv --output 
/tmp/ukrt_ntl_add.xml --days 3 --offset 0
/usr/local/bin/mythfilldatabase --no-delete --update --file 5 0 
/tmp/ukrt_ntl_add.xml

......

Note the bleb grabber is seperate

Differences between bleb and uk_rt

1. Bleb is faster / uses significantly less bandwidth (obviously). We 
are talking seconds, if that, to grab 5 days x 10 channels vs  an hour 
or two and many meg of downloads.

2. uk_rt  has better category definition (useful in myth to create a 
very visual style of web page to view prog info.

3. uk_rt has an almost complete channel selection for all uk channels. 
Bleb has terrestrial plus popular cable/sat channels. (This is why a run 
a secondary grab on uk_rt to grab these channels... I'd rather not but I 
want the channels!). Most of the channels I'm after are relatives... eg. 
Disc H&L  / Wings etc relative of Disc. Could you extend your channel 
grabbers to do this?

I've not had any significant issues with the time of day rotation etc.

Hope that helps

-malc-