[mythtv-users] Adding channels not present in lineup

[Bruce Markey]

Srikant Sharma wrote:
> Hi All,
>  
> I am facing a small problem regarding adding new channels. Recently I 
> subscribed to couple of international channels from Comcast Cable. These 
> channels are not there in the lineup. How can I add these channels to
> the myth channel database? Of course I will have to give recording 
> schedule manually. Right now I can;t even switch to these channels.

I had just mentioned this last night so it's fresh in mind.
What you need to do is find a provider that has the stations
that you want to add, create a lineup and add a videosource,
mark those channels as invisible, add 'fake' copies of the
channel info for your real video source then run mfdb. I've
done this a few times so I know it works.

This first came up when I saw that Cox in Las Vegas had added
FOX Reality but zap2it did not include it until a few weeks later.
What I did was I added a zap2it lineup from a cable company in
Los Angeles. I started to Google for LA zipxodes then 90210
came to mind. I picked a DigitalCable service that did have
listings for FOXREAL. I unchecked all but this one channel and
saved. The provider does not have to be in your city but it
should be in the same timezone so the the times will be correct.

Next, I added a videosource with mythtv-setup for this lineup.
I didn't associate it with any inputs. Exited and then ran
"mythfilldatabase --max-days 1 --sourceid 3". This added the
new channel and I could verify that it received listings data.

I used mysqldump to show insert commands for the channel table.

$ mysqldump --extended-insert=FALSE -v -u mythtv -pmythtv mythconverg channel > channel.sql
$ grep REAL channel.sql > real.sql
$ vi real.sql

I changed the chanid from 3122 to 2364, the sourceid from 3 to 2
then channum and freqid from 122 to 364 and I shortened the callsign.

$ mysql -u mythtv -pmythtv mythconverg < real.sql
$ mysql -u mythtv -pmythtv mythconverg
mysql> select channum, sourceid, callsign, xmltvid from channel where callsign like 'REAL' order by channum;
+---------+----------+----------+---------+
| channum | sourceid | callsign | xmltvid |
+---------+----------+----------+---------+
| 364     |        2 | REAL     | 46619   |
+---------+----------+----------+---------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

[FYI the new fake channel could instead be created with Channel
Editor in mythtv-setup making sure to use this new 'xmltvid'.]

I ran mythtv-setup again an used to channel editor to mark the
90210 channel 122 on source 3 as invisible so that it would not
be used for scheduling, searches, EPG. etc.

Then ran "mythfilldatabase --max-days 1" this time for all sources
in the same grab. When mfdb grabbed the 46619 data for the invisible
Beverly Hills channel it filled my channel 364 listings for my Cox
LV videosource also. Once zap2it added my 364 I just dropped the
90210 lineup and deleted the videosource.

Some people have tried looking up the station ID on the web then
just adding a new channel entry with that ID. That doesn't work.
You need a channel in a lineup that will send the listings for
the station ID and row in the channel table with that station ID
to receive the listings.

--  bjm