[mythtv] [mythtv-commits] Ticket #1520: Don't automatically add new channels in mythfilldatabase

[Michael T. Dean]

On 03/15/2006 04:00 PM, MythTV wrote:

> #1520: Don't automatically add new channels in mythfilldatabase
> 
> DataDirect likes to automatically add new channels added by the 
> provider to one's lineup. When it comes to satellite providers, these
>  are almost always channels you don't subscribe to. It's a pain to 
> have to go to DD to unflag the channels and then delete them in 
> mythtv-setup every time this happens.
> 
> This new commandline option to mythfilldatabase, "--no-new-channels",
>  makes it ignore any channels DD adds without your knowledge. It has 
> the side-effect that you have to manually run mythfilldatabase 
> without this option whenever you really want to add new channels to 
> your listings in Myth.
> 
> 

It also has the side-effect that many (most?) users will /never/ go to 
http://labs.zap2it.com/ to remove unwanted channels from their lineups. 
  That will mean that the DD servers will have to process (= more CPU 
time) and send (= more bandwidth) larger datasets to these users.  Since 
TMS has been fighting exactly these resource issues, this may not be A 
Good Thing.

I'm a DISH subscriber and I have removed literally hundreds of channels 
from my lineup throughout the 2 years I've been using DD (usually having 
to remove one or more channels once or twice a week).  If I hadn't been 
prompted to fix the lineups by the new channels appearing in Myth's 
program guide, I probably wouldn't realize that instead of a lineup with 
the 13 channels I can actually receive from DISH, I'd have a lineup of 
213 channels or so...

I think Myth should continue to have a negative side-effect to encourage 
users to fix their lineups or should fix the lineup for the users.  I 
agree that the current (possibly destructive) side-effect is not ideal. 
  I've had Myth tune my receiver to a channel I didn't receive to record 
an "All channels" recording.  Once the receiver is tuned to a channel 
the user doesn't get, the receiver will only accept channel up/down 
requests (no numbers for changing directly to a given channel). Not 
expecting this to ever happen, at the time, I didn't have Myth doing a 
channel up before sending the digits for the new channel, so I lost 
about a week of recordings on that receiver (fortunately, the second, 
and least-used, receiver). Since I worked around it (and will be 
dropping DISH for OTA HDTV soon :), I haven't done to much too fix the 
problem.

I would say that if anything, mfdb should also send the appropriate 
requests to labs.zap2it.com to remove the new channels from the lineup 
if the user specifies he/she wants a "static" lineup.  I should have 
some time next week to do some remote hacking (1000 miles from my Myth 
box :), but should be able to make progress on that task even without a 
local Myth for testing.  I'll post more then.

Mike