[mythtv-users] UK DVB Tuning Nightmare

[Fluf]

Heya all,

I seem to be banging my head against a Myth brick wall.
I'm in the UK with reception from around 11 frequencies, giving me around 90
channels, many of them repeated.
Four of those frequencies are weak, and I'd like to delete / forbid them.
I'd like to keep all the duplicates of channels for the other 7 frequencies
just in case I can find 2 programs on the same freq / mux at times and
record both.
Easy huh?

Nope. I can't run a full UK channel scan in mythtv-setup because my DVB
dongle gives I2C errors and needs a reset after about a dozen scans, esp if
it hits a weak signal and gets scrambled data. It's fine for scanning strong
signal frequencies. So that's the "preferred" method binned. [I can't find
the UK full channel scan list to edit it to the frequencies I actually want
either and cheat like that].
I can't use a generated channels.conf file and import it, because for some
reason Myth won't find EIT data for imported channel.conf channels.

I can enter the frequencies I want in myth-setup .. channel edit! YAY!
Hope!!?

For one thing. If I set up my transport list, then do a single scan of one
transport, it finds more information (including other frequencies to scan),
than if I ask it to scan all known transponder frequencies. This worries me.
But heigh ho. Lets go. The best I've managed so far is...

Setup generic "Auto" transponders for the 7 frequencies I want.
Scan each transponder in detail, individually and add all of the channels
found including duplicates each time.
[If I don't add all the channels, the new found transponders don't get added
to the list!!!]
Go back to the channel list and delete all channels.
Repeat for next frequency.
Finally. Go back and delete the found bad transponders, and delete the
generic auto transponders that now have more precise information at the same
(or offset) frequencies.
Delete all the channels ... again ..
Now I can do a scan of all known transports, add the channels and pray.

Finished? Nope. In doing this, my channelscan_channel table now has 14322
rows. I doubt that's a good thing ... My channelscan_dtv_multiplex table now
has 711 rows. So as far as I can tell, when I hit delete in mythtv-setup on
a transponder or channel list, it doesn't actually get deleted.
Some of the channels I've got still don't get EIT data.
I'm still not sure if making a duplicate channel invisible stops Myth from
recording from it, because nothing in the docs seems to mention that.
The docs don't tell me if deleting a transport will also delete linked
channels either.
It looks like the backend is sort of working, but sometimes it will now
start to record, then silently fails, presumably because it's found the
program on a channel that no longer exists. My current best option on that
seems to be wait a week or so and see if the schedule data recovers.

All I want to do is ... Tell it the 7 good freqs. Scan the 7 good freqs. Use
all of the good program feeds from the 7 good freqs. IE. Have 2 x Film4 both
pointing at Film4. One from each mux. Yet this seems impossible using
mythtv-setup and I can't begin to fathom what the database should look like
for that configuration.

So. VDR? Freevo? Or use dvblast or some other external streamer to Myth that
I can actually control? Because I'm about to give up on Mythtv's tuner
entirely as a joke.
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