RE: [TV] XML File idea

["Paul Webster" <paul@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> I doubt this information is available, however...
>
> I have a little homemade system that downloads radio schedules and parses
> them for programs I might be interested in. It then creates a schedule to
> automatically record such programs. However, it can't tell whether the
> program is a repeat of one I've already recorded. It occurs to me
> that the
> best way to tell would be if the XML had a unique Program Id field (eg
> 'first broadcast on'). the I could avoid recording Saturday's
> News Quiz if I
> had already recorded Fridays.
>
> I thought searching on the description might do but it often says
> 'repeated
> at ...' or 'repeat of ...' so two broadcasts of the same show
> have different
> descriptions. Also, the News Quiz often has descriptions like
> "topical quiz
> show" to describe different episodes.
>
> Are unique IDs available for broadcasts?
Not yet - but once TV-Anytime gets going then I expect that this will
happen.
The CRID (Content Reference IDentifier) is the relevant field.

BBC are experimenting with making TV-Anytime formatted data available for
non-commercial use until end of September.

See http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/feeds/tvradio/doc.html for more

Paul