Author Topic: Script for TV.com  (Read 8559 times)

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Offline Luke_S

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Script for TV.com
« on: July 14, 2009, 04:04:02 pm »
I need your help fellas. I've only found three posts on the forum concerning TV.com as a data source for PVD and no solutions to actually making it work.

It was suggested that I look at one of the existing scripts (of which I could only find two in the download, AdultDVDempire and AllMovie). I thought I could figure out how they were coded so that I could make one of them work for TV.com but I haven't written any scripts before and seeing as neither of these two scripts were made for TV-series (although AllMovie.com has information about TV-series the script won't retrieve the information unless it's a "regular" movie) I failed miserably.

The imbedded theTVdb.com works fairly well but since there's no script that I could base a new one on I'm stuck.

Is there anyone out there that could put one together a search script for TV.com?

I managed to refine and fix some bugs in the html-export template but there are still some quirks to deal with before I feel I can share my changes with the general PVD-public. Where do I do this once I'm done?

/Luke
« Last Edit: August 23, 2009, 03:39:03 am by rick.ca »

Offline rick.ca

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Re: TV.com
« Reply #1 on: July 14, 2009, 08:40:55 pm »
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Is there anyone out there that could put one together a search script for TV.com?

If there is, they're being very quiet. Given the structure of the site, I don't imagine it would be very easy. Specifically, what information are you interested in? Some of it looks good, but it doesn't seem consistent enough.

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Where do I do this once I'm done?

Attach it to a new topic here.

Offline Luke_S

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Re: TV.com
« Reply #2 on: July 14, 2009, 09:45:23 pm »
First of all Rick, thanks for being crazy active on the forum. It's like you're everywhere at once... please don't get a life  ;D

Secondly I did some thourough comparison between theTVdb.com and TV.com on one of my favorite series Battlestar Galactica 2003 and had a hard time finding information that only existed on TV.com. I was able to though, cast and crew for each episode being one of the few. I didn't know about theTVdb.com before I found PVD and the reason for that is that I never felt like I needed any other databases than IMDB and TV... but there will always be data that one database has and the otherone lacks which is why having AllMovie as another good database for movies (and as I suggest) TV.com for TV-series would make the collection of data so much more exhausting  :)

All I can say is that I tried and failed realising that I just don't have enough experience to make a script. So all you PVD users out there... HILFE!

Thanks Nostra for a great program though. I hope we can all help in making it even greater.

/Luke

Offline rick.ca

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Re: TV.com
« Reply #3 on: July 14, 2009, 11:26:02 pm »
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First of all Rick, thanks for being crazy active on the forum. It's like you're everywhere at once... please don't get a life  Grin

You're welcome. One of these days I may succumb to the pressure to get a life, but now I'm driven by the need for the perfect database to keep track of all the movies I don't have time to watch. ;D

A problem shared by IMDb, TheTVDb and TV.com is the information is user-contributed. This means they will have information other sources don't, but it won't be consistent and much of it will be of poor quality. For example, the Battlestar Galactica information you found on TV.com may have all been contributed by one or a few conscientious fans. The same quality and consistency won't be there for other series. Yes, this seems to support your argument for multiple sources, but there's there's also the problem of standards varying between sites. Episode cast information is a good example. There doesn't seem to be any standard for distinguishing stars, guest stars and recurring roles. Even on TV.com, this may be provided for one episode and not the next.

My point is, I think these issues need to be sorted out before a script can be written. Otherwise, anyone capable of writing such a script knows they're going to put a lot of effort into something that won't work for most people most of the time. Another possibility is we narrow the need to a very specific piece of information we want from a particular site. A script with a narrow scope might be much easier to write.