[WIP] TV Adverts addon
#1
I'm working on an addon that lets you browse TV Adverts. Currently, it lets you browse by country, brand, and business sector.

At first this was a tongue in cheek piece of work, but frankly, after watching some of the ads, it is actually kind of fun.

I'm new to coding and python, so bear with me. This is currently just a scraper/browser for the website http://www.advertolog.com.

To do:
1. Add the ability to browse the "Awards" section
2. Add the ability to browse the "Current Top" section
3. Add the ability to play a random advert based on addon settings (preferred country, preferred year)
4. Add script functionality so that it can be called by other addons, and also autoplay ads before/after playback or during paused videos (based on the settings)
5. Possibly scrape and play from other sites like adsoftheworld.com

Anyways, I'm posting this as a placeholder to avoid duplicate work by others (because, you know....everybody wants to make an addon to watch tv commercials) Laugh.

Here is the WIKI link..simply install my repo, then install the addon and browse.
Installing LordIndy's repo and addon

Bugs:
- some HTML formatting issues when displaying titles
- Next page detection (may be fixed)
- Some "sections" get parsed for only TV ads (not print media), so the page display shows none or only a few links, with a next page link. Will need to 'scrape ahead" in these cases so that users don't have to keep "next paging"
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#2
Looking forward to trying this out!
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#3
Star 
We used to have a restaurant that would show humorous and award winning international commercials as entertainment while people chatting over the food. It was always packed and everyone talked about it... and the subject they brought up. Alas the local media moguls shut it down...

Now when some says.... I miss the commercials on XBMC, here it is.
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#4
Great! Going to have fun with this. Since moving to Canada I miss the creative UK adverts.
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#5
Hi Lordindy - This looks real nice so far. Any chance you could add the ability to download ads? I was also thinking of perhaps a scheduled download of anything new based on Addon settings. i.e., If I have it set to Ireland, 2011, and schedule it to check every 7 days. It would check if there is anything new and download the new ones to a specified location. This way things like PsuedoTV can use that location also and always have a fairly recent pool of adverts to use.
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#6
This sound just like what I've been looking for.
in my usenet streaming addon, there is some time to kill waiting for the stream to start and this would be perfect. I would really appreciate if you developed some kind of api so I could cal for one or several random/specified adds to play Big Grin

EDIT: you wrote that , I'm to exited Big Grin
Pneumatic | SABnzbd | XBMC that just works - openelec
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#7
Yeah, while waiting for streams to start, would be good (your nzbs streamer as well as the Icefilms megaupload wait)

I'll see what I can do. As I said, I'm new to coding and python, so it's taking me much longer than I thought Smile

Daavid: In terms of downloading to a specific location, I'll see if I can do that, although like the Apple Trailers addon, I had hoped that direct streaming from the site would be preferable to actually storing ads locally on the machine. But, I suppose the Internet is not always enabled for some users, and ISP quotas do suck Smile I'll see what I can do.
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#8
Actually, you don't have to take care of the randomness, since then you risk sending the same add multiple times (unless I ignore a repeat in my code or you keep track of who you sent what). If I could just get a integer of available adds, I could do the random request and you mapped the integer to a add? Big Grin
Pneumatic | SABnzbd | XBMC that just works - openelec
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#9
Well, I wasn't going to track what was randomized, but I suppose I could create 2 functions. One would return a random ad tuple, the other would simply return a list of ads allowing another addon to deal with it's own randomizer. (both functions would read from the settings file to determine country/year limits).

?



Popeye Wrote:Actually, you don't have to take care of the randomness, since then you risk sending the same add multiple times (unless I ignore a repeat in my code or you keep track of who you sent what). If I could just get a integer of available adds, I could do the random request and you mapped the integer to a add? Big Grin
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#10
Perfect!
Pneumatic | SABnzbd | XBMC that just works - openelec
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#11
@lordindy. Is it possible to add a right click menu so i can watch all of the ads same time without having to watch one at a time? If we can have options like "play all", "Shuffle and Play all" that would be sweet.

FYI this addon works great and i am looking forward to the updates and also future possible integration into other addons esp icefilms Big Grin
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#12
Wow, I'm glad people like this addon. Looks like I'm going to have to model my code after the Apple Trailers addon. The ability to download, the ability to call random ads, and possibly play/queue up.

This may take most of the holidays. I'll try and pop up a newer version ASAP
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#13
lordindy Wrote:Wow, I'm glad people like this addon. Looks like I'm going to have to model my code after the Apple Trailers addon. The ability to download, the ability to call random ads, and possibly play/queue up.

This may take most of the holidays. I'll try and pop up a newer version ASAP

I'm glad you are doing this! The idea has been in my back log for quite some time but I didn't know the site existed. If you want help, github is in my opinion the easiest way to collaborate (easy forking and pull requests).
Have a nice holiday and be fast with the coding so I can update my addon ;D
Pneumatic | SABnzbd | XBMC that just works - openelec
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#14
Lordindy, I was just wondering how things with this are going?
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#15
Any update on this addon - I was following a similar thread a couple of months back and would be interested in having this?
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[WIP] TV Adverts addon0