How to use tv_grab_uk_tvguide grabber

Sean Warner

Hello,

Does anyone use this grabber? I ran it today and it downloaded over 3000 files that were actually html files each around 85KB so total download file size was around 280MB and it took nearly 3 hours to complete!

Initially I run it like this:

# tv_grab_uk_tvguide -- configure

It created this file:

/home/osmc/.xmltv/tv_grab_uk_tvguide.conf

However then when trying to run it like this:

# tv_grab_uk_tvguide

I get the error:

spawn: XMLTV::Supplement: Failed to read from /home/osmc/.xmltv/supplement/tv_grab_uk_tvguide/tv_grab_uk_tvguide.map.conf

So I moved (and renamed) tv_grab_uk_tvguide.conf to…

/home/osmc/.xmltv/supplement/tv_grab_uk_tvguide/tv_grab_uk_tvguide.map.conf

Then ran this command..

# tv_grab_uk_tvguide

Over a period of almost 3 hours! it produced 3291 files in: /root/home/osmc/.xmltv/cache
I think the only reason it stopped is because I went for a walk and the laptop went to sleep in my absence.
But then again it did keep going for more than an hour in my absence so maybe it did actually finally finish grabbing all the files it felt it needed to?

The average file size is about 85KB… total size 280MB.

Looking in each file they are not xml files but html files.

Is anyone having problems with this grabber or am I doing something wrong maybe?

I'm not really sure how to use that .conf file. I did some googling but got confusing man pages that are all the same.

Attached is one of the many files that the grabber downloaded... is it in the correct format?

Cheers,

Flex

Sean Warner

I posted a question about this on GitHub at

https://github.com/XMLTV/xmltv/issues/93

... and got some helpful response.

tv_grab_uk_tvguide grabber doesn't seem to be an ideal choice from my limited experience with it at least. It is slow and poorly documented. Doesn't always get epg data.

I am now using the Freesat OTA grabber that works fine for my needs.

Flex

Hiro Protagonist

> However then when trying to run it like this:
> # tv_grab_uk_tvguide
>
> I get the error:
> spawn: XMLTV::Supplement: Failed to read from /home/osmc/.xmltv/supplement/tv_grab_uk_tvguide/tv_grab_uk_tvguide.map.conf
>
> So I moved (and renamed) tv_grab_uk_tvguide.conf to…

> /home/osmc/.xmltv/supplement/tv_grab_uk_tvguide/tv_grab_uk_tvguide.map.conf

That was not the right thing to do.

Move the file back to .xmltv/tv_grab_uk_tvguide.conf, then:

touch .xmltv/supplement/tv_grab_uk_tvguide/tv_grab_uk_tvguide.map.conf

> I'm not really sure how to use that .conf file. I did some googling but got confusing man pages that are all the same.

man pages? you won't find the answer there.

There's a shortcut to changing the config file. The file contains line like:


channel!1119
channel=112

Which simply means ignore channel 1119, get epg for channel 112. Where do the numbers come from?
If you look at the tvguide.co.uk site and hover over a channel icon, you'll see a url like this:
https://www.tvguide.co.uk/channellistings.asp?ch=74&cTime=5/11/2020%208:00:00%20AM&thisTime=&thisDay= the ch=74 is the number used in the config file, so find the channel you want, hover over the icon [or use copy link location],

then look for the channel number in the .conf file and change from channel!xxx to channel=xxx.

The scraper takes several hours to run, and will produce XML output, so you either need to run it from TVH, or redirect the output to a file which you load into TVH.

Yes, it's as slow as a wet week, but it does work.

Sean Warner

Thanks for the response.

I have since figured out how to use this grabber but I really think it needs some blogger to do a full instruction summary.

I posted another issue about it on GitHub and got helpful explanations from the author [https://github.com/XMLTV/xmltv/issues/94]

There are TWO configuration files:

They are created in the .xmltv directory

../.xmltv/tv_grab_uk_tvguide.conf In this file you specify what channels you want the grabber to get epg data for.
With contents like this:

cachedir=/home/osmc/.xmltv/cache
channel=74
channel=89

../.xmltv/supplement/tv_grab_uk_tvguide/tv_grab_uk_tvguide.map.conf In this file provide mappings from tvguide.co.uk channel ids to channel names.. eg:

map==498==CBS Justice

I was importing the epg data into TVHeadend and I don't think it's necessary to use that second "mapping" config file at all. You can see the name of the channel in Tvheadend, because it is part of the epg data anyway, and can map it there to channels you have scanned in yourself.

I have attached a currently up to date listing of all the channels on tvguide.co.uk with their ids and names.

Flex