/ubu24h

Algorithmic selection for the 24h Ubu (2018) screening at Onassis Cultural Centre–Athens.

Ubu24h is a collection of three scripts, built to be used sequentialy with the purpose to:

1. ubuscrape.py — create a database of the films available on Ubuweb
   • IN:
     • https://www.ubuweb.com/film the page to scrape
     • the creator’s index (starting point, default = 1)
   • OUT:
     • ./output/ubuscrape.csv contains the scraped data
2. ubucurate.py — generate an arbitrary selection of films
   • IN:
     • ./output/ubuscrape.csv or the provided ./sample/ubucurate.csv
     • the duration in hours (default = 24)
     • the maximum duration per film in minutes (default = 20)
     • the time the screenings start in hours (default = 20)
   • OUT:
     • ./output/ubucurate.csv the selected films
     • ./output/ubucurate.html a rich formatted programme of films
3. uburip.py — download the films and rename them appropriately
   • IN:
     • ./output/ubucurate.csv
   • OUT:
     • ./videos/ …

Things to improve

… in general

• The efficiency and style of the code.
• The inline comments that explain how it works.
• …

… in ubuscrape.py

• Confirm wether film_duration_human is logged correctly.
• Warn and request confirmation if scrape file exist in /output/.
• Don’t fail on errors and log them.
• Display progress of scrape in a better way.
• Some Creator (see Artist) and Film names cannot be scraped, because of inconsistent HTML. Check with WTFcsv
• Films are not scraped at all if Vimeo link is not found; needs a better way to check if there’s a video link available in the page.
• Hash (or check for filename) the scraped entries or check against the video file, to ensure films appear once (there are duplicate 3-4 cases).
• Strip HTML comments to include hidden Creators as well.
• Attempt to fix broken UTF8 (most likely via ftfy)
• Normalize filenames (eg URL decode etc)

… in ubucurate.py

• Warn and request confirmation if curation files exist in /output/.

… in uburip.py

• Display progress of download, current index and running time.
• Warn and request confirmation if files exist in /videos/.
• Continue from the last file existing, or prompt for index.

Known Issues

• The following pages cause ubuscrape.py to halt:
  • ...
• Several videos cannot be probed for duration (or the method times out), therefore are returned with 0 duration and ignored by ubucurate.py.
• Some films (3-4 cases) may be scraped twice because they are references from multiple points.
• Partial HTML code in some scraped entries.

Licence

Copyright (c) 2017 Heracles Papatheodorou, https://heracl.es

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.