[mythtv] Use callsign for scheduling

Bruce Markey bjm at lvcm.com
Fri Apr 16 18:58:08 EDT 2004


Tako Schotanus wrote:
...
> Where I live the situation is the same as in other european countries
> where an official callsign does not exist but like you said you can just
> fill in whatever you want.

Exactly. The only reason I mention "official callsign" is because
the grabber I use has them and they are clearly a better source
of unique ID than what xmltv provides. No "official callsigns"?
Screw 'em. Put in what ever makes you happy.

> But what if you want to change that callsign later on? Reasons might be
> as simple as wanting to change "BBC1" to "BBC 1" or because a channel
> decides to change their name. Will a change like that somehow mess up
> the system? Or will it just continue to work?

Astute question. For any record rules that specify a station
(Single, Timeslot, Weekslot and Channel) that were created for
"BBC1" they would not match a channel with "BBC 1". FindOne and
All would not be affected. You would need to add new record
rules and could remove the old record rules on the Recording
Priorities page.

This has always been a problem in another form and while this
is a step backward, there are at least two steps forward.

In versions up through 0.14, when you run setup to clear or
change your video source, the new sourceid is incremented and
all of your existing record rules no longer match :-(. Also,
if a cable provider changes the channel for a station, the
chanid for it's shows would no longer match. Neither of these
is a problem if the callsign is used. In fact, I've already had
a channel change and saw that all the record rules still work.

So, no, you don't want to go around making little changes if
you don't have to.

Any change that breaks record rules is a bad thing. For the
environment that I'm in, not using the chanid is a big step
forward. I could change cable providers, switch to satellite,
the provider could change the channel they use for a station
or I might need to change my video source for some other reason.
Any of these would break chanid but "KVBC" will be "KVBC" until
they go out of business.

> Actually I can think of a some examples where people could get confused.
> Some channels have changed their name so often that nobody knows what to
> call them anymore ;-)
> (not trying to say anything here, just thought it was a funny anecdote)

I was kind of alluding to that in an earlier message. If a
new station is added or an old one is removed by the provider,
there is no question. But sometimes a station changes. A few
months ago, many of us got TNN (The Nashville Network). There
are now some successful stations for women only so TNN decided
to try to be a station for men called SpikeTV. Well, they
are on the same channel and it's the same company but is it
the same station? They have some of the same programs as they
did before but they were promoting all of their new shows.

If myth was using callsigns for record rules at the time, I
don't know if I'd change the callsign but I think I would.
Realize that if a station was flaky about changing their
name you would not be compelled to keep up. You could give
it a generic name that you are happy with and stick to it.

--  bjm



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