[ZetaVu]

Rolling eyes...

Ok, in my opinion (of which I have no supporting facts, hence an opinion) zap2it is sick of freeloaders (commercial apps) and really does not want ot go through the effort of setting up a system for hobbyists (maybe they've failed to see how free access benefits them in any way). Now, one thought is that someone could sign up for their commercial access (whatever that cost is) replicate the data on their own server, then feed it to whoever signs up for a subscription service.

Likewise, this is an opportunity for Snapstream to take their guide data (net or coucheville) and make it available at a subscription to users of mythtv or media portal, not sending the data as an xml feed but as a proprietary feed that interacts with their software (make one that works with Media Portal, one that works with Mythtv, one for GBPVR, hell one that works with MCE) and of course each locked with subscription etc just like Donk said. Hell, you could even force links to snapstream.com on each guide page. Trick is it has to be reasonably priced, couple bucks a year, then people will move to it. It also needs to be locked so it is not easy to grab the data and send it out to other users. ANd the info format changes periodically so people can't strip it themselves.

Then, you can put the little advert of "Switch to Beyondtv and get guide updates free for life", as well as occasional blurbs about benefits of BTV over that particular htpc. Hell, I'd go the way zap2it used to do it, offer it for free, but they have to reactivate the subscription (say monthly) and each time, they have to go through a whole spiel about BTV benefits, or offer it as an adware plugin, boast BTV or sell ad space. I bet you'd get a ton more people taking you up on a free adware service and after a while a lot of them would go for BTV (especially if you sent them special offers, specifically bundles with new hardware) Also opens the door to making BTV more interchangable with other software (at least MP etc).

Either way, I still think BTV is better than the other tv offerings, and have no plans to change, free guide updates is one of the icings on the cake. Now if I could get it to work on linux...