[mythtv-users] Comcast doing massive channel reorg

[Michael T Dean]

On 10/8/2015 4:32 PM, Aaron Klein wrote:
> I am looking for best practice on what to do when my cable provider 
> changes a massive amount of channels.
>
> I got a mailing a while ago telling me that my local cable provider, 
> Comcast, will be moving all of their HD content to another channel 
> range.  Right now all HD content is on channel 2XX and it is also 
> mirrored at 8XX.  In a few weeks they will drop all of the 2XX 
> channels and only have programming on 8XX channels.
>
> I figure that I can at some point refresh my channel lineup with 
> schedules direct but I fear that their lineup will be behind the 
> actual change.  I used to have in my recording options to say record 
> all shows on this specific channel option but that seems to have gone 
> away at some point as I have many recordings set to record to a 
> specific channel and of course I selected the 2XX channel.
'
The only reason to wait for Schedules Direct to change things is 
laziness.  OK, actually ignorance is another reason to wait--but after 
reading this post, the only reason to wait will be laziness.

If you're not lazy, you can fix everything without a single change from 
Schedules Direct.  Since this is a reorganization, you already have all 
the channels that you need.  You just need to make sure that a) your 
listings data from Schedules Direct gets to the channels you have, b) 
your MythTV system knows how to change to the channels you want, and c) 
your MythTV system no longer has channels that don't exist (the ones 
being dumped--assuming you have duplicated the ones that were available 
from 2 different channel numbers in your database, which really wasn't 
necessary and really would have had no practical benefits and only 
increased resources used by MythTV, so I'm guessing you didn't duplicate 
them).

So, as far as a) goes, you simply need to use MythTV's channel editor 
(in mythtv-setup or MythWeb) to edit the XMLTV ID for each channel in 
your database to match the channel ID shown on the Schedules Direct 
lineup (on SD's website).  For b) simply use MythTV's channel editor to 
edit the Frequency ID of your channels to correspond to the new ID used 
to tune the channel in its new position.  The Frequency ID will be 
different things depending on your setup.  For example, if using an STB 
(with a PVR-xx0 or HD-PVR, for example) or an OCUR/CableCARD tuner to 
tune the channel, it's simply the cable system channel number (e.g. the 
8XX channel number it will be on instead of the 2XX channel number) you 
give to the STB to tune the channel.  If you're tuning with ClearQAM 
(which is highly unlikely in today's "encrypted for your viewing 
pleasure" world), it's more difficult, but basically rescan first, then 
take care of a) after (feel free to ask for more detail if you really 
are using ClearQAM).  As far as c) goes, simply use the Channel Editor 
to remove the 2XX channels that are duplicates.

Note, though, that chances are a) is not a problem--if the channels were 
actually identical, they should have the same SD channel ID, so whether 
it was given the channel number 203 or 803, the XMLTV ID was the same.  
I'm guessing you only had one copy of the channel in your database 
(rather than having both 203 and 803 channels as identical channels, you 
had only 203), in which case c) is not a problem. Therefore, all you 
really need to do is b) (and, again, if using ClearQAM, that means a 
rescan followed by a).

If you want, you can change the channel numbers for the channels to 
match what the cable company is using with the Channel Editor, but there 
is no reason to--the channel numbers are there for you to use as you 
please and have no bearing, whatsoever, on what is used by your cable 
company (Frequency ID is used to specify how to tune with the 
cable-company numbers and channel number exists only for display 
purposes to let you know from where a recording was made and to allow 
you to jump directly to a channel in Live TV).  So you can keep the 2XX 
channel numbers if you want, or change them to 8XX channel numbers or 
even change them to XX channel numbers or 12345XX channel numbers or 
whatever you want--as long as their unique on your system, they're good 
channel numbers.  As a matter of fact, I've never understood why people 
use stupid cable/satellite company channel numbers, like 10703 for some 
local channel 3, when they could just use 3 by simply telling MythTV 
that's what they want to use for the channel.

In other words, channel reorganizations are one of the few things that 
cable companies can do that aren't a problem for MythTV users--at least 
not for the ones who aren't too lazy to fix their setups. :)

Now if they get new channels that aren't available in your SD lineup, 
/then/ you have to wait for SD to update your lineup.

Mike