This program takes an XMLTV formatted listings file, and adds that data to the Snapstream Personal Video Station  Program Guide. The utility does not scrape listings itself; it only converts existing XMLTV output files.   This allows Snapstream users in the various regions that XMLTV supports (Canada, UK, Germany, Austria, Sweden, Norway, Finland, New Zealand, Spain, Italy, Netherlands, Hungary, Denmark and others) to enjoy full use of Snapstream's Program Guide features.
 
This tool was originally produced by MrPhil.  Kudos to him for working through all the complexities of populating the PVS database.   As he no longer has the time to continue maintaining the importer,  I've been contributing some changes on that front, and have setup this site.
 
-ctebo
 
 

Updates:

Dec 28 2003:  Version 1.17 released.

- Fixed bug causing imports of more than 32,000+ shows to fail.

- Corrected date handling logic for shows crossing year boundaries.

- Corrects some overflow bugs.

- Introduced SAX based XML parser for processing station data for better performance. Configuration option allows fallback to legacy DOM parser.

- Code cleanup while visiting error handling code.

- Introduced additional exception handling logic. Exceptions through key modules are caught within every function and then propogated with the exception's source value extended to include the name of the function that caught the exception.


Dec 13 2003:  Version 1.16 released.

- Supports PVS 3.3, and 3.4 betas after build 865.
- The importer now includes a step to correct recording manager jobs that will not work in 3.4 build 865 or later. This will allow for those recording manager jobs to continue working after a migration from 3.3 to 3.4.

Dec 13 2003:  Version 1.15 released.

- New installer. Support upgrades of v1.14+ and full installations.
- Continues to support 3.3, and now supports 3.4 betas after build 865.
- Importer modified so that it doesn't clear EPG data until xmltv output file has been validated, and confirmed not to contain any new channels. This avoids empty EPG data in snapstream when no xml/or bad xml file is processed.
- Various performance tweaks. Performance is now determined by the performance of Microsoft's XML Parser when called from VB.
- 3.4 search data now correctly produced. And articles (the, a) are moved to the end of the search title string.
- Added preliminary diagnostic tool. Its not really done, but is bundled here as a build needed to get out to support the new beta.


Nov 15 2003:  Version 1.14 released.

- This version supports both the 3.3 PVS and the 3.4 beta PVS program guide database formats.

- A Windows Installer Version is available.   The old zip format is also available.  If you choose the windows installer method remember to modify your scheduled tasks to reference the XMLTVImport.exe from the new location (by default C:\Program Files\PVS XML Import\ImportXMLTV.exe).

- Configuration is now handled by a separate application (XMLTVConfig.exe).   This is where file locations etc are specified  AND where channel lineup changes should be made.  Note that this assumes your guide data is to be displayed in PVS's channel lineup called "default lineup" .

- If the importer is run and channel changes are found in the XMLTV file,  processing will abort.  You should then run the configuration application to update your channel lineup.

- The configuration application provides a clear epg database function.  This function has been extended to optionally clear the channel data that has been previously entered.  This should avoid users having to manually clear their database when channel entries are fudged.

- Progress updates that are logged in the importer UI, are now logged to XMLTVImport.log.

 

Oct 21 2003:  Version 1.12 released.
- Added support for time-zone offsets that include minutes as well as hours. Existing config files will default to 00 minutes. The configuration window will allow a user to specify minutes as hours. This was specifically requested by a user in Newfoundland where the offset is 3:30.
- When the pvs epg database is cleared (by replacing it with ss_pvs_db.mdb.clean), the importer will now preserve existing Recording Manager Jobs as recorded in the JobCollection.xml file.
- The log entries displayed in the importer UI are now scrollable both horizontally and vertically, so that all content presented there can be viewed.
- Progress updates are logged in the importer UI, so that during long imports, users can get some visible feedback that the process is still running.
 

Oct 15 2003:  Version 1.11 released.
- Bug-fix Release:  Vesion 1.10 fails to run against a clean database.  This release corrects this problem.
 

Oct 14 2003:  Version 1.10 released.
- Duplicate Recording Problems Fixed:  Duplicates are corrected by inspecting the "SlaveStoreCollection.xml" file maintained by PVS. This includes entries for each program that has been recorded and maintained in your Video Library. I have made the assumption that this file is sitting in the same directory as your snapstream program guide database file, rather than somewhere else. If anyone is running the import tool to populate a database other than the one snapstream is using, let me know and I can add a configuration entry to fully specify the path for the slavestorecollection.xml file.
- Performance improvements.  Processing 25,000 shows (10 days worth of data) on my setup now takes only 15 minutes as opposed to 40 minutes previously.