[mythtvnz] Extracting EPG from sky

[Steve Hodge]

On 2/2/06, Corrin Lakeland <lakeland@go.org.nz> wrote:
> Short of buying a DVB card and splitting my digital signal, is there
> any way to get the EPG data out of my sky box?

None I know of. There is a serial port on the back of the decoder but
I've never managed to get anything meaningful out of it.

> What about Sky UHF?

Does the UHF decoder even have an EPG?

> PS: The local free newspaper contains TV listings, so it can't be
> that expensive.

Maybe not if you're publishing it on paper. But, e.g. 3 charge $2000
per month for you to host their data on your website
(http://tv3.co.nz/FAQs/tabid/62/articleID/71/Default.aspx). I doubt
they'd consider this proposal to be any different.

> Would people be interested in contacting sky and
> asking to purchase a legal EPG feed which we could then distribute
> amongst subscribers/  Probably via bittorrent?

I would be, but I suspect the costs would be prohibitive. Sky in
particular now have a huge incentive to keep electronic guide data
locked up: it's one of the major selling points of their PVR.

Steve