[mythtv-users] Freeview & Freesat combined (UK DVBT & DVBS)

[Andre Newman]

On 16 Mar 2009, at 13:02, Mike Perkins wrote:

> Andre Newman wrote:
>> ...I get all my schedule from EIT (tried uk_rt and the extra data  
>> is nice but it seems unreliable and a PITA day to day)...
> My experience is exactly the opposite, the EIT can be well behind  
> whatever's going on on the screen. Besides which, you only get a  
> couple of days with EIT, if you're lucky. The RT site will give you  
> a full fortnight's worth.

Good to know, I've found some channels to be a couple of days but most  
are the full 7 days, to the nearest hour sometimes. I've found it to  
be a set and forget option.
>
> A PITA? Mine runs automatically 6am-9am. It just happens. What are  
> you doing to make it give you a PITA?

Well, I tried it for a few months on a friend's Freesat system before  
the EIT patches were done, so some time ago. The channel mapping took  
hours every time you needed a retune which is quite often on  
Satellite, more importantly it stopped updating some channels at all,  
then stopped completely! I grabbed an updated version of xmltv and it  
started working again, this happened several times in a few months  
(maybe I caught it at a bad time), as soon as EIT was working I  
switched to it and haven't switched back.

On my DVBT system I ran uk_rt for a week, I found I had a couple of  
completely wrong recordings that my DVR had recorded correctly (DVR  
only uses EIT), then it stopped working, then i went back to EIT. Late  
last November I tried again as I was planning to be away for 2 weeks  
over Christmas and New Year so 2 weeks schedule seemed worthwhile.  
After a couple of evenings spent digging through parser errors I  
checked the list to find that uk_rt was down, website out of action! I  
then found a thread about uk_rt being unreliable and full of mistakes  
for the last two Christmas breaks so I switched the EIT back on and  
forgot about uk_rt.

I find that you need one DVBT tuner with active EIT on or the schedule  
doesn't update fully or quickly, maybe it's better if you watch live  
TV but I almost never do. I've had one wrong recording due to EIT  
errors (Five US I think it was) in a couple of years, so unusual it  
was memorable! Although I rarely record anything on ITV and I know  
they are a nightmare with EIT like they were a nightmare with video  
plus.

I'll give uk_rt another go this week.

Thanks