Store Program Images Locally Option

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NOYB

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Store Program Images Locally Option

#1

Post by NOYB » Tue Sep 22, 2020 11:10 pm

Has it been considered to optionally store program images locally? Maybe be a nice option for those with slower Internet or for viewing the guide while off-line somewhere (notebook).

Of course the updates will take longer. But that is a non interactive background process. Whereas viewing the guide is interactive.
Of course if done it should be an opt-in option.

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garyan2

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#2

Post by garyan2 » Wed Sep 23, 2020 3:15 pm

No, not a path I want to go down. A user with a large number of channels with thousands of unique series and thousands of unique movies would be an unnecessary and costly burden on the Schedules Direct servers. WMC will download images as needed for the guide display and cache them locally keeping the downloads to only what is needed. Schedules Direct has been working on their next version API and a big change in that is it will require a Schedule Direct token to download images due to the excessive image downloads (possibly from non-members) that costs them. With EPG123 downloading everything, it will either add to or replace the issue they are trying to fix.

This also goes against the ideal "whole home" configuration whereas only a single machine downloads guide listings from Schedules Direct and shares the generated MXF file to as many WMC machines that the home has. Any machine that you want to cache all the images locally would be default have to download guide listings from SD separately from any other machine in the household.

I just don't think the cost/reward is sufficient here.
- Gary
Keeping WMC alive beyond January 2020. https://garyan2.github.io

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Gripweed

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#3

Post by Gripweed » Wed Sep 23, 2020 11:41 pm

Speaking of cost, any thoughts on theTVDB going over to a subscription model? https://www.thetvdb.com/subscribe
I'm thinking that it won't have much of an effect on EPG123 but, Gary, you would know best how deeply it is woven into the works. Any thoughts on what you are going to do yet?

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garyan2

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#4

Post by garyan2 » Wed Sep 23, 2020 11:54 pm

No real effect for EPG123. I only used their API with the Transfer Tool to try and find a Zap2it ID for a series if my database didn't have it (rare for US shows). It may impact Schedules Direct's relationship with them where they provide theTVDB season and episode numbers along with the series and program IDs. If that stops, then we may see that some episodes in WMC will have different S/E numbers than what theTVDB catalogs them as. That would be for series that have "special" in-between shows like talking with the cast or a recap or something. Gracenote will just increment the episode number for that season whereas theTVDB will make them a special in Season 0.
- Gary
Keeping WMC alive beyond January 2020. https://garyan2.github.io

adam1991

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#5

Post by adam1991 » Thu Sep 24, 2020 10:40 am

Well, theTVDB subscription thing is news to me.

https://www.filebot.net/forums/viewtopi ... vdb#p52085

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