TV_GRAB_UK_RT(1) User Contributed Perl Documentation TV_GRAB_UK_RT(1)NAMEtv_grab_uk_rt - Grab TV listings for United Kingdom/Republic of Ireland
SYNOPSIStv_grab_uk_rt--help
tv_grab_uk_rt--version
tv_grab_uk_rt--capabilities
tv_grab_uk_rt--description
tv_grab_uk_rt [--config-file FILE]
[--days N] [--offset N]
[--output FILE] [--quiet] [--debug]
tv_grab_uk_rt--configure [--config-file FILE]
tv_grab_uk_rt--configure-api [--stage NAME]
[--config-file FILE] [--output FILE]
tv_grab_uk_rt--list-channels [--config-file FILE]
[--output FILE] [--quiet] [--debug]
DESCRIPTION
Output TV listings in XMLTV format for many channels available in the
United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland. Source data comes from
machine-readable files made available from the Radio Times website.
USAGE
First run tv_grab_uk_rt--configure to choose which channels you want
to receive listings for. Then run tv_grab_uk_rt with no arguments to
get around 14 days of listings for your configured channels.
OPTIONS--help Print a help message and exit.
--version Show the versions of the XMLTV core libraries and the
grabber.
--capabilities Show which capabilities the grabber supports. For more
information, see <http://xmltv.org/wiki/xmltvcapabilities.html>
--description Show a brief description of the grabber.
--config-file FILE Specify the name of the configuration file to use.
If not specified, a default of ~/.xmltv/tv_grab_uk_rt.conf if used.
This is the file written by --configure and read when grabbing.
--output FILE When grabbing, write output to FILE rather than to
standard output.
--days N When grabbing, grab N days of data instead of all available.
Supported values are 1-15.
--offset N Start grabbing at today + N days. Supported values are 0-14.
Note that due to the format of the source data, tv_grab_uk_rt always
downloads data for all days and then filters for days specified with
--days and --offset. Specifying --days and/or --offset in order to
speed up downloads or reduce data transfer will therefore not work.
--quiet Suppress all progress messages normally written to standard
error.
--debug Provide detailed progress messages to standard error. Due to
the volume of debug information produced, it is not advised to use this
option during normal grabber use.
--gui OPTION Use this option to enable a graphical interface to be
used. OPTION may be 'Tk', or left blank for the best available choice.
Additional allowed values of OPTION are 'Term' for normal terminal
output (default) and 'TermNoProgressBar' to disable the use of
Term::ProgressBar.
--configure Prompt for which channels to download listings for, where
to store the cache directory for retrieved listings, what character
encoding to use for output, and also regional and TV platform
information.
--list-channels Outputs a list of every channel available to the
grabber in XMLTV format.
SOURCE DATA
All data is the copyright of the Radio Times and the use of this data
is restricted to personal use only. <http://www.radiotimes.com/>
CHARACTER ENCODING
During configuration, the software asks the user to choose the
character encoding to be used for output. Current supported encodings
are UTF-8 and ISO-8859-1.
TITLE PROCESSING
Over time, the listings may contain inconsistent programme details,
such as the programme title combined with the episode title for some
showings of a programme, but separate for others; or the episode title
being given as the programme title, and the programme title given as
the episode title. Some programme titles may also change slightly over
time, or between channels. Enabling title processing during
configuration enables this software to process programme titles against
an updated list of flagged titles. The software will correct such
programme titles, which in turn should result in better performance of
PVR software which rely on consistent programme naming in the XMLTV
data. Please be aware that enabling title processing will result in the
grabber taking longer to complete its operation due to the extra
processing overhead.
REGIONAL CHANNELS
During configuration, the software asks for UK postcode information.
The first half of a user's postcode is used to determine which regional
channels are available in their locality, and only these matching
regional channels are included in the list of available channels. A
user can enter 'none' during configuration to disable regional channel
filtering. Users in the Republic of Ireland should use the pseudo-
postcode 'EIRE' to enable filtering of regional channels.
TV PLATFORMS
After specifying a postcode, the software will ask the user to select
their TV service platform (Freeview, analogue, Sky, etc) from a list.
Selecting one of these entries will filter the channel selection list
(shown at the end of the configuration phase) to show only those
channels available on the chosen platform. If the user has entered a
valid postcode, the channel list will also only include those regional
channels available in the user's locality.
ERROR HANDLINGtv_grab_uk_rt will only terminate early if it is impossible to continue
with grabbing data. This can be due to a lack of channel configuration
data, a bad/missing configuration file, or filesystem permission
problems. Running the grabber in non-quiet mode should report why the
grabber failed.
There have been several occasions when the Radio Times channel index
has been missing from the Radio Times website. This file is essential
to being able to run the grabber, as it contains the list of channels
having available listings data. If this file is missing or empty, and
there is no locally-cached copy of the file, it will not be possible to
run the grabber. The file usually regenerates automatically over the
course of the next day, at which point it will be possible to run the
grabber.
Non-fatal errors are reported during a grabber run, and can result in
listings for a channel being skipped either in part, or entirely.
Progress messages will state why data is missing when it is possible to
do so. A non-zero exit status will normally be given when the grabber
has encountered problems during listings retrieval.
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
The environment variable HOME can be set to change where the
configuration file is stored. All configuration is stored in
$HOME/.xmltv/ by default. On Windows it might be necessary to set HOME
to a pathname containing no spaces.
The environment variable XMLTV_SUPPLEMENT can be set to change where
the supplemental XMLTV files are retrieved from. By default, the file
is retrieved from the XMLTV supplement server. See XMLTV::Supplement
for more information.
If you want the grabber to use customised local copies of the
supplemental files, you should set XMLTV_SUPPLEMENT to the path of the
directory containing a tv_grab_uk_rt/ directory containing the
supplement files. For example, if your local supplement files are
stored in /usr/local/share/xmltv/tv_grab_uk_rt/ you should 'export
XMLTV_SUPPLEMENT=/usr/local/share/xmltv/' before running the grabber.
MAILING LIST
You can subscribe to and read the XMLTV users mailing list by visiting
<http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/xmltv-users>. This is a
source of help and advice for new users.
SEE ALSOxmltv(5), <http://wiki.xmltv.org>, <http://www.radiotimes.com/>
BUGS
If you encounter a reproducible bug, please report it on the XMLTV bug
tracker at <http://sourceforge.net/projects/xmltv/>, making sure you
assign the bug to the tv_grab_uk_rt category.
There is an ongoing issue with the Radio Times source data containing
mis-encoded UTF-8 characters, which we currently try to handle on a
case-by-case basis when observed. The issue has been reported to the
Radio Times who are investigating the problem.
The source data on the Radio Times website is regenerated nightly.
Occasionally the source data may not get recreated leaving the source
files empty. Users are encouraged to wait at least a day before
reporting an issue with missing listings, as they normally reappear
during the next night. If listings continue to be missing from the
Radio Times website, please report it.
AUTHOR
The current maintainer is Nick Morrott (knowledgejunkie at gmail dot
com).
The original author was Ed Avis (ed at membled dot com). Parts of this
code were copied from tv_grab_se_swedb by Mattias Holmlund, and from
the XMLTV wiki <http://www.xmltv.org/wiki/>. Regional postcode
information was kindly made available from <http://www.ukfree.tv>.
perl v5.10.1 2010-03-01 TV_GRAB_UK_RT(1)