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tv_grab_uk_rt.1p

NAME

tv_grab_uk_rt - Grab TV listings for United Kingdom/Republic of Ireland

SYNOPSIS

tv_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 14 days of listings for the 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

The source data for the grabber is obtained from, and copyrighted by, the Radio Times. As such, 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 for the channel and listings data output. Current supported encodings are UTF-8 (Unicode) and ISO-8859-1 (Latin-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 HANDLING

tv_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 ALSO

xmltv(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>.