I’m new to Channels. Is there a way to pass a movie title and search Channels thru the api to automatically set up a recording if it is available? I’ve seen python scripts that process a dvr recording and get Radarr to treat it as if where a download but I can’t seem to find any scripts or information for that matter on searching thru the api. Is it actually possible to do this?
Channels can record anything it has a source and guide data for.
If you look at the web UI in the upper right by your username there's a search box.
You can search for a title and see hits from your library or guide data.
In order to record, you would select the item and choose to record it.
You can also setup an advanced pass to record by matching title (amongst many other things).
I use this for future airings that aren't in the guide data yet.
You could explore what the search box and creating an advanced pass does using your browser's network inspector if you want to script it.
I create New Advanced Passes in the Web UI for Cast == "Person Name". Try a New Advanced Pass for Title == "Your Movie". Channels will schedule the movie where the Conditions are set. Pretty simple.
Is it possible to do this via a python script so I can connect it to Radarr? I am not familiar with Network Inspector.
Network Inspector is one of the developer tools in your browser.
I've heard of both Radarr and Python, but don't use either one, so can't help you there.
In simple terms Python is a relatively simple programing language that is used in web development to interact with a website's API (like the Channels API). At a very high level Radarr (and it's clone Sonarr) are applications that essentially scour a portion of the internet called the Usenet (where people share such things as movies) for copies of sought after movies (and TV shows) and downloads then organizes them into a personal library that is then used by apps like Plex to essentially play them back. The fundamental issue that I am trying to solve is Radar essentially has my "wish list" of movies that I would like to watch that it is searching the Usenet for. In my case this list is large and duplicating and keeping it synched in Channels would be a maintenance nightmare because Radarr is constantly finding media and updating itself. The problem with Radar is it doesn't always "find" what I am looking for and I believe that Channels, with it's ability to incorporate all of the media sources that it does, can close the gap. The problem with Channels is their API doesn't seem to offer a "function" that searches their EPG. That would ultimately solve the problem that I am trying to resolved. Based upon your suggestion I am going to research "web scraping" and try to automate that process.
If anyone has gone down this same rabbit hole I would very much appreciate your feedback. For those that are researching the same issues here is a useful thread on this forum to look at
I don't have code, but you can "search" via api using:
http://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:8089/dvr/guide/search/groups?q=xxxx (xxxx being search term)
For example, searching for "Snitch" (a movie example I spotted in the guide for this example):
http://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:8089/dvr/guide/search/groups?q=Snitch
produces JSON:
[{"ID":"MV004203660000","Image":"https://tmsimg.fancybits.co/assets/p9488349_v_v8_aa.jpg?w=480\u0026h=720","Name":"Snitch (2013)","SeriesID":"MV004203660000"}]
I use this search API for scanning for movies list I have, but nothing further (results display, I manually followup and set recordings as needed)
@kcshield just showed you an example of what you would have found using the browser network inspector. i.e. a Channels API/Endpoint to search for shows/movies it knows about. This is what your browser does when you do the search I mentioned.
Not sure what you mean by that?
kcshield.. Can't thank you enough. Is there any documentation available about that section of the api. I haven't been able to find anything like that.
chDVuser .. Thank you so much for your input, it really steered me in the right direction. Web scraping is the process of reading the underlying HTML code on a website and interacting with data contained within it via code. Here is a short tutorial on it
Beautiful Soup: Build a Web Scraper With Python – Real Python
Now the next question, is there a way to read the api to tell the recordings that are scheduled? That would allow me to update my "wish list" on Radarr when I see something new in Channels that I want to record that I don't have Radarr already searching for.
http://x.x.x.x:8089/dvr/jobs
Will return scheduled shows.