[mythtv] A perl QAM scanner - call for volunteers

[Robert Kulagowski]

On Thu, Nov 17, 2011 at 9:58 AM, Brian J. Murrell <brian at interlinx.bc.ca> wrote:
> On 11-11-10 08:22 PM, Robert Kulagowski wrote:
>>
>> I've created a perl scanner which leverages the information we can get
>> from a HDHR-cable card system to create an accurate call sign to QAM
>> mapping.  It will help end the issue of not knowing which QAM
>> frequencies have which content on them (without watching each channel
>> to figure it out).
>
> I guess this is specific to HDHR and CableCard setups only?  :-(

For now, yes.  The cable card allows the script to tune a virtual
channel "channel 346", and I know that 346 is WMAQ-DT from my
Schedules Direct lineup, so I know the QAM freq and program ID that
correlates to WMAQ-DT.

> I was so excited thinking that this was a generic [clear]qam scanner
> that one could use on a say, nightly, basis to find and/or document the
> changes in [clear]qam channels from one day to the next.
>
>> Tribune's systems (the source of the data for Schedules Direct) are
>> not programmed to support QAM because the cable companies don't want
>> to distribute QAM data, so Tribune isn't going to do the R&D to
>> support QAM if there's no "market" for it. Since the cable companies
>> are the ones that would need to request the requirement, (and they're
>> not), Tribune isn’t going to implement something which won’t be used,
>> and which the cable companies won’t supply data for in the first
>> place.  We've asked Tribune, and for whatever reason, the cable
>> companies seem to consider QAM tuning information as proprietary.
>
> Right.  But is there any reason this facility that you are building into
> SD cannot be also used for clearqam users that want to share the
> mappings they have developed?

Not at all.  The format of the resulting conf file is 99%
channels.conf, but I've repurposed the VID and AID fields (which
aren't used in QAM) to store the virtual channel number and the XMLID.
 I don't have a MySQL dumper perl script that will do that, but I'm
sure that's just a Small Matter of Programming.