Us Customers *no* Epg Support

[Glennbo]

I emailed this message to ChrisTV support three days ago and got no response, so I'm posting it here in the forum to see if I can get any action..

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I have a question that I hope you guys can answer for me. As you probably already know, Zap2It Labs is shutting down their free access to TV listings in the next month. I am one of your US customers, and as such will be impacted by this shutdown. I think I have found an alternative way to achieve an EPG in ChrisTV using a web browser. I am a programmer, primarily writing in Dataflex for business applications. Anyway, the site http://www.titantv.com/index.aspx has listings with "record" and "watch now" buttons that can initiate a file transfer of what looks a lot like XML, and I've been able to, although in a very non elegant way, associate my batch file and Dataflex program in Windows with .tvpi and .tvvi files. I have found on the forum the construct for adding or deleting an entry in ChrisTV Agent using ctv_browser.exe, but I haven't seen any command line parameters for switching the preview to a show that is currently running. Is there a parameter that can be passed, and if so can it specify a capture device? I have a dual tuner card and always use device 0 for watching, and device 1 for recording.

Unfortunately Dataflex does not have a free runtime, so I can't really give my compiled program away for US customers who will be losing the Zap2It support for their TV guide. I will however include my short source code that makes it work for me. Maybe you guys could incorporate something like what I've done only with some plugin that can be freely distributed or something. Anyway, here's how I made the record programming work for me, and I'd still like to know if there is a command argument for switching the live preview to another channel. Thanks in advance.

------- Cheezy Dataflex Source Code -----------------------------------------------------
/*
String Year Month Day
String Hour Minute
String Record_Date
String Work_Line
String Start_Time
String End_Time
String TV_Channel
String Title
Indicator Shift_Date
Indicate Shift_Date False
Direct_Input "C:\ProgramFiles\Opera\profile\cache4\temporary_download\Program.tvpi"
If [SeqEof] Abort
Repeat
Readln Work_Line

If "<program-title>" in Work_Line Begin
Move Work_Line to Title
End

If "<start-date>" in Work_Line Begin
Move Work_Line to Record_Date
Left Record_Date to Year 4
Mid Record_Date to Month 2 5
Right Record_Date to Day 2
End

If "<start-time>" in Work_Line Begin
Move Work_Line to Start_Time
Left Start_Time to Hour 2
If (Hour - 5) GE 0 Move (Hour - 5) to Hour
Else Begin
Move (24 + Hour - 5) to Hour
Indicate Shift_Date True
End
Right Start_Time to Minute 2
Move "" to Start_Time
Append Start_Time Hour ":" Minute
End

If "<end-time>" in Work_Line Begin
Move Work_Line to End_Time
Left End_Time to Hour 2
If (Hour - 5) GE 0 Move (Hour - 5) to Hour
Else Move (24 + Hour - 5) to Hour
Right End_Time to Minute 2
Move "" to End_Time
Append End_Time Hour ":" Minute
End

If "<rf-channel>" in Work_Line Begin
Move Work_Line to TV_Channel
End

Until [SeqEof]
Close_Input
If [Shift_Date] Move (Day-1) to Day
Direct_Output "Titan.bat"
Write '"C:\Program Files\ChrisTV PVR\ctv_browser" "-addrec"'
Writeln ' "' TV_Channel ';;' Day '.' Month '.' Year ';' Start_Time ';' End_Time ';' Title
Close_Output

Runprogram Wait "Titan.bat"
Erasefile "Titan.bat"
Erasefile "Program.tvpi"