[mythtv-users] MythUtil interest?

[Gary Buhrmaster]

Before I spend the time authoring a wiki article for make
things "official", I am going to ask if the following utilities
seem to have any value for anyone other than myself.

The initial work was just to gain familiarity with the
Services API (and the idiosyncrasies).  However I have
graduated to using them for my own purposes.

Source of MythUtil utilities:
   https://github.com/garybuhrmaster/MythUtil

A few warnings:
  * Some of the utilities can optionally update
    the MythTV database via the services API.
    Always insure you have a current backup
    before allowing updates to be performed
  * These utilities are only tested on 0.28
  * The utilities that work with the HDHomeRun
    devices only support the recent generation
    devices (4th gen, or 3rd gen HDHR3-CC
    (aka Prime)) with recent firmware.  You may
    want/need to use "Detect Channels" to get
    the current channel list for your HDHR for
    accurate information.
  * Before running any of the utilities, it is
    recommended to run it with the --help option
    to examine the command line options

For the following examples, it is presumed that
one is running on the MBE (which eliminates the
need to specify the --backend), and that the [interesting]
videosource-id is 1, and the HDHomeRun has the
name myhdhr.local (and for the last, the xmltv config
file is named CABLE for the xmltv config file).  btw,
tv_grab_zz_sdjson_sqlite is not yet in an official
XMLTV release, but can be obtain via their cvs repo,
or the original master can be found at:
   https://github.com/garybuhrmaster/tv_grab_zz_sdjson_sqlite


The utilities (and a sample scenario).

   MythUtil-Channel-videosource
     - will display the existing videosources (one should
       normally use mythtv-setup, but this was an initial
       test/experiment)

   MythUtil-Channel-HDHR-channelCheck --hdhr myhdhr.local --videosource-id 1
     - compares the HDHR and MythTV channel list
       This can indicate that the MythTV lineup channels do not
       match what the HDHR thinks are the appropriate channels
       that it can tune.  You may want to add/delete/update the
       MythTV channel list (or not).

   MythUtil-Channel-HDHR-visibilityCheck --hdhr myhdhr.local --videosource-id 1
     - compares the differences between the MythTV and HDHR visibility.
       Visibility (for CableCARD devices) will depend on your
       subscription tier.  So your channel lineup may have 500+ channels,
       but your subscription tier may only has 150 channels.  This utility
       can automate (and maintain) the MythTV channel visibility to match
       your tier (if you are using a HDHR).

   MythUtil-Channel-HDHR-visibilityCheck --hdhr myhdhr.local
--videosource-id 1 --update --channel 123 234
     - Will update channel 123 and 234 visibility to be what the HDHR indicates

   tv_grab_zz_sdjson_sqlite --get-lineup --quiet --config-file
~/.mythtv/CABLE.xmltv | MythUtil-Channel-XMLTV-getLineup
--videosource-id 1
     - Will take the output of the XMLTV schedules direct grabber
       and compare with the MythTV database.  This is (sort of) a
       prototype for some (maybe) future MythTV setup using the
       --get-lineup capabilities for some grabbers (no scan for channels
       would be required for xmltv sources that have the needed info
       from the provider).

There are numerous other options to check/compare/update depending
on the utility (check the --help).

I would be interested to know if any of these utilities seem to be
useful to anyone else (other than me).  If you find real bugs, please
open an issue on github (for tracking purposes).

I tend to (semi-regularly) use the last example to update my MythTV
channel list from my schedules direct lineup, and the next to last
example (without a channel selection) to update the visibility based
on my HDHR channel list (running both in reporting mode first, to
see what they are going to do before letting them go and do it).

At some point I will try to write up a couple of issues/limitations I
encountered with using the services API and send them to the
devs for consideration (and try to create patches if I can figure
how to address the issue(s)).

Thanks for any feedback.

Gary