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@@ -0,0 +1,85 @@ +This is a "plugin" for the Video Disk Recorder (VDR). + +Written by: Stefan Braun <louis.braun@gmx.de> + +Project's homepage: +http://projects.vdr-developer.org/projects/plg-tvscraper + +Latest version available at: +http://projects.vdr-developer.org/projects/plg-tvscraper/files + +This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify +it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by +the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or +(at your option) any later version. +See the file COPYING for more information. + +Description +----------- + +TVScraper runs in the background and collects metadata (posters, +banners, fanart, actor thumbs and roles, descriptions) for all +available EPG events on selectable channels and for recordings. +Additionally the plugin provides the collected metadata via the VDR +service interface to other plugins which deal with EPG information. + +TVScraper uses the thetvdb.com API for collecting series metadata and +themoviedb.org API for movies. Check the websites of both services for +the terms of use. + +Important: To avoid unnecessary traffic, only activate these channels +to be scrapped which are reasonable. After plugin installation all +channels are deactivated by default, so please consider this point when +you activate the channels you are interested in ;) + +Additionally you are invited to contribute to the used web services with +providing missing data for your favorite movies and series. + +Requirements +------------ + +To run the plugin the following libaries have to be installed: +- libsqlite3 +- libcurl +- libXML2 +- libjansson + +Installation and configuration +------------------------------ + +Just install the plugin depending on your used distribution. During VDR +startup the plugin base directory can be set with the following option: + +-d <CACHEDIR>, --dir=<CACHEDIR> Set directory where database and images + are stored + +If no directory is provided, the plugin uses VDRCACHEDIR as default. +Please care about that the user who runs VDR has full read/write access +to this directory, otherwise the plugin will not start. + +As already mentioned, after first installations no channels are activated +to be scrapped. Please configure these channels in the plugin setup menu. +Additionally you can trigger that your already existing recordings are +scrapped, so that also for this recordings metadata is available. + +The plugins uses a sqlite3 database to store the necessary information. +If /dev/shm/ is available, the database is kept in memory during runtime +which improves performance. In the configured plugin basedir only a +persistant backup of the database is stored then. If /dev/shm/ is not +available, only the database file in the plugin base directory is used. + +Usage +----- + +After the initial configuration the plugin runs completely independent in +the background, you don't have to care about anything. The plugins checks +at least every 24 hours for new EPG events and collects the metadata for +these events automatically. + +Before each run the plugin performs a cleanup, all images for movies which +are not available in the current EPG are deleted. Series and actors thumbs +are kept to avoid unnecessary traffic for the web services, because the +propability that this data is needed in the future again is rather high. + +If a running recording is detected, the plugin marks the corresponding movie +meta data so that the information for this movie will be kept permanentely.
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