I know this data exists, because there's a product that I saw that somehow uses it. But in the spriit of my other post that nobody cared about, I have another idea that maybe nobody cares about

I was thinking that when using the Tuner, it would be cool to be able to hit a key on the player and record a record (record a record? testament to the human brain that you can read that at all) that contains the current radio station and a timestamp. Then when you get home and sync (assuming this data is publically available -- no idea), it would lookup the name of the song that was playing on that station at that time and then download it for you. So basically you could tag a song from the radio when you like it.

This one is a huge if, but if somebody can find out if that database is public and lets me know, I will write the other parts.

Mike

So I know the data exists:

http://www.bricklin.com/emarker.htm

OK, so I answered my own question:
http://www.bdsonline.com/products/encore.shtml

Broadcast Data Systems (BDS) is the company that provided the data for the Sony eMarker project.

"There is a separate service, Broadcast Data Systems (BDS), that provides the playlists (time and song) for over 1,100 radio stations (mainly popular music). BDS gets their information by having computers around the country that "listen" to a number of radio stations. Using a proprietary algorithm, they create "signatures" for songs as they are played, and compare them to songs in their database."

http://www.bdsonline.com/bds/bds.shtml

After actually reading the link I posted, I saw that too I emailed them and asked if they have a program for not-for-profit use of the data and/or what the price would be for a single search for a specific moment of time of all the stations in a particular area. My hopes aren't too high, since I've spoken with the guys who provide guide data for TiVo about another random personal project. The guy there was willing to work with me if I could figure out some way to protect the data -- that's the biggest reason these guys don't want to go direct-to-consumer -- they're concerned that people would just take the data and give it out to everybody. They're probably right

Mike

Very cool idea! I dont know who would be willing to provide that data though.

Sean

I suppose using tvguide.pl is right out? (If you're only a doing a hobby project, it really depends how much data you need whether this is practical)

Yeah .. I was going to write my own TiVo that had some additional features that I've always wanted. There were a couple things like tvguide.pl that I looked at, but I thought it would be interesting to talk to one of the actual providers and see what it would take to get the data "for real". Oh well, that project fell into my pile of graveyard projects that I'll "work on again someday"

Thanks
Mike

I wanted to build my own TiVo right up until I found target was clearing out TiVos, and I bought 2 that weekend. One got a TiVonet card and is in the graveyard project pile now

Of course I then found 2 more even cheaper, one of which has since been gifted to my parents and one of which is waiting for one of my siblings to get their own place, and then will also be gifted. In another "not enough free time" meme, my own got an 80gig disk when I got busy in January and fell behind on Buffy reruns on FX. Now the sucker has probably 80 hours of programming banked that I have no time to watch, and thanks to FX skipping 2 season 5 episodes, UPN blowing it on the rerun of the musical (bastards) and my own programmning error when I was traveling for work, I'm rapidly approaching the point where I'll have to stop catching up on Buffy, or start watching stuff out of order.

I thought the sony thing was a good idea but I figured it would only have the major radio stations that I don't listen to anyway.

Oddly enough, I don't have enough time to finish projects, but I apparently have time to watch the 50,000 episodes of Law and Order that come on every day I love TiVo.

http://www.bdsonline.com/Stations/stations.shtml

It probably supports the stations listed here ... It has several Richmond, VA stations -- I figured we'd be left out.

ms

Oddly enough, I don't have enough time to finish projects, but I apparently have time to watch the 50,000 episodes of Law and Order that come on every day I love TiVo.


I can multitask while watching TV, except for certain rare cases, like the Buffy episode where everyone lost their voices. Plus, the instant reply button on the TiVo makes it easy to deal if I miss a line of dialog or look up a second too late.

I have two friends that are AVID buffy fans, and they have nearly every buffy episode downloaded from one of the many p2p networks... If you don't want to watch them out of order, just download the ones you don't have...

Goth-willow in the season finale is well worth catching up...

Matthew

but I apparently have time to watch the 50,000 episodes of Law and Order that come on every day

Oh, you're just one of those pitiful Jill Hennesy addicts. Admit it!

am I that transparent

I have two friends that are AVID buffy fans, and they have nearly every buffy episode downloaded from one of the many p2p networks... If you don't want to watch them out of order, just download the ones you don't have...

Watching things on the tiny screen instead of on the small screen just isn't very appealing, and if I use the video out, it's all artifacty, typically more than "basic" TiVo encoding. Hopefully my local "source" has what I need on tape. Hopefully.

In reply to:

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Watching things on the tiny screen instead of on the small screen just isn't very appealing, and if I use the video out, it's all artifacty, typically more than "basic" TiVo encoding. Hopefully my local "source" has what I need on tape. Hopefully.

---

Yeah, good luck. My monitor is bigger than my TV, so I don't really have the same problems you do... Downloading is better than not watching them, and all morals aside, I love having the comercials edited out for me... (South Park is my addiction, and luckily the realvideo format seems to have been designed for south park specificaly)

Matthew

Heh heh - the way forward is DVD. My sister-in-law just got DVD's of the first 6 series for her birthday from my brother. I have a feeling that this gift was not bought just for her

And yes I agree - 'bored now' Willow and her 'super witch' incarnation are yummy.

Unfortunately, they're not yet available in the States. Well, the first two seasons are, but the second season just came out about a month ago. You see, there was this big licensing todo about what company should get the proceeds from the DVDs, as Fox owns the property, but they were shown on the Warner Bros TV network. Oddly, this seemed to have been resolved when the program moved from the WB network to the UPN network. Go figure.

Heh heh - the way forward is DVD. My sister-in-law just got DVD's of the first 6 series for her birthday from my brother.
I've avoided getting a second DVD player thus far, and I wasn't planning on it now (my DVD player doesn't support region changing, and I have better things to spend the money on)

am I that transparent

Index of refraction ~= 1.01!

Wow .. that's dorky. The Empeg Programming forum has got to be one of the only venues where you can pull that one off and get away with it

Mike

That was "Hush." One of the best episodes ever. So other people DO watch BtVS.

VCD's are always nice, and lately I've been burning multiple episodes to DVD instead. I've got the first 2 seasons on (official) DVD, and all the rest (and the first 2 seasons as well) either on self-burned DVD, or VCD. Not to mention the 40 or so episodes on my TiVo. Ok, I'm shutting up now...