North America (zap2epg using tvlistings.zap2it.com)

tv_grab_zap2epg will generate an xmltv.xml file for Canada/USA TV lineups by fetching channel list from tvheadend and downloading relevant entries from tvlistings.zap2it.com.

zap2epg was originally designed to be easily setup in Kodi for use as a grabber for tvheadend. This is a fork of the original code from edit4ever Python3 branch of script.module.zap2epg based on my PR edit4ever/script.module.zap2epg#37 (much thanks for your great original work @edit4ever !!!)

It includes the ability to automatically fetch your channel list from TVH to reduce the amount of data downloaded and speed up the grab. It has an option for downloading extra detail information for programs. (Note: this option will generate an extra http request per episode) It also has an option to append the extra detail information to the description (plot) field, which makes displaying this information in the Kodi EPG easier on many skins.

Note that zap2epg is a proof of concept and is for personal experimentation only. It is not meant to be used in a commercial product and its use is your own responsibiility.

zap2epg TV guide grabber script provides baseline capabilities (ref: http://wiki.xmltv.org/index.php/XmltvCapabilities):

• --quiet: Suppress all progress information. When --quiet is used, the grabber shall only print error-messages to stderr.
• --output FILENAME: Redirect the xmltv output to the specified file. Otherwise output goes to stdout along with a copy under epggrab/cache/xmltv.xml.
• --days X: Supply data for X days, limited to 14.
• --offset X: Start with data for day today plus X days. The default is 0, today; 1 means start from tomorrow, etc.
• --config-file FILENAME: The grabber shall read all configuration data from the specified file. Otherwise uses default under epggrab/conf/zap2epg.xml It also provide the following "extra" capabilities:
• --zip or --postal or --code: Allow can be used to pass US Zip or Canadian Postal code to be used by the grabber.

• <setting id="zipcode">92101</setting>: US Zip or Canada postal code
• <setting id="lineupcode">lineupId</setting>:
• <setting id="lineup">Local Over the Air Broadcast</setting>:
• <setting id="device">-</setting>:
• <setting id="days">1</setting>: Number of TV guide days
• <setting id="redays">1</setting>:
• <setting id="slist"></setting>:
• <setting id="stitle">false</setting>:
• <setting id="xdetails">true</setting>: Download extra Movie or Serie details
• <setting id="xdesc">true</setting>: Provide extra details to default TV show description
• <setting id="epgenre">3</setting>:
• <setting id="epicon">1</setting>:
• <setting id="tvhoff">true</setting>: true=fetch channel list from TVH server, false=do not fetch channel list
• <setting id="usern"></setting>: Username to access TVH server, anonymous if both usern + passw are empty
• <setting id="passw"></setting>: Password to access TVH server
• <setting id="tvhurl">127.0.0.1</setting>: IP address to TVH server
• <setting id="tvhport">9981</setting>: Port of TVH server
• <setting id="tvhmatch">true</setting>:
• <setting id="chmatch">true</setting>:

This feature is enabled by default using anonymous access. You must have a * user defined in TVH with minimally:

• Change parameters: Rights
• Allowed networks: 127.0.0.1 or 0.0.0.0;::/0

Using the following configuration:

• <setting id="tvhoff">true</setting>
• <setting id="usern"></setting>
• <setting id="passw"></setting>
• <setting id="tvhurl">127.0.0.1</setting>
• <setting id="tvhport">9981</setting>
• <setting id="tvhmatch">true</setting>
• <setting id="chmatch">true</setting> It can be disabled by setting <setting id="tvhoff">false</setting>. It can also be set to using another user account by filling in the usern and passwd fields.

Already included in the SynoCommunity tvheadend package for DSM6-7 since v4.3.20210612-29

• https://synocommunity.com/package/tvheadend

DSM7 file structure:

/var/packages/tvheadend/target/bin
└── tv_grab_zap2epg
/var/packages/tvheadend/var/epggrab
├── cache
│   ├── *.json
│   └── xmltv.xml
├── conf
│   └── zap2epg.xml
└── log 
    └── zap2epg.log

DSM6 file structure:

/var/packages/tvheadend/target/bin
└── tv_grab_zap2epg
/var/packages/tvheadend/target/var/epggrab
├── cache
│   ├── *.json
│   └── xmltv.xml
├── conf
│   └── zap2epg.xml
└── log 
    └── zap2epg.log

1. Install tv_grab_zap2epg script addon in /usr/local/bin or /var/packages/tvheadend/target/bin
2. Install zap2epg.xml configuration file under tvheadend epggrab/conf directory such as ..var/epggrab/conf
3. Manually adjust zap2epg.xml configuration file as needed or use capabilities (see description below)

In order to test tv_grab_zap2epg EPG grabber under Synology DSM:

$ sudo su -s /bin/bash sc-tvheadend -c '~/bin/tv_grab_zap2epg --capabilities'
baseline
$ sudo su -s /bin/bash sc-tvheadend -c '~/bin/tv_grab_zap2epg --days 1 --postal J3B1M4 --quiet'
$ ls -la ~sc-tvheadend/var/epggrab/cache/xmltv.xml
-rw-rw-rw- 1 sc-tvheadend tvheadend 16320858 Jun 13 07:43 /var/packages/tvheadend/target/var/epggrab/cache/xmltv.xml

Installation is somewhat different where it uses the hts user account to handle the directory structure such as:

/usr/bin
└── tv_grab_zap2epg
/home/hts/epggrab
├── cache
│   ├── *.json
│   └── xmltv.xml
├── conf
│   └── zap2epg.xml
└── log 
    └── zap2epg.log

Create the directory structure and adjust permissions:

# mkdir -p /home/hts/zap2epg/conf
# mkdir -p /home/hts/zap2epg/log
# mkdir -p /home/hts/zap2epg/cache
# chown -R hts:hts /home/hts/zap2epg
# chmod -R 0755 /home/hts/zap2epg

Copy the configuration and adjust permissions:

# cp zap2epg.xml /home/hts/zap2epg/conf
# chown hts:hts /home/hts/zap2epg/conf/zap2epg.xml
# chmod 644 /home/hts/zap2epg/conf/zap2epg.xml

Copy the script to /usr/bin and adjust permissions:

# tv_grab_zap2epg /usr/local/bin
# chmod 755 /usr/local/bin/tv_grab_zap2epg