[mythtv-users] Automatic channel scans

[Mike Perkins]

On 10/08/17 17:41, John Pilkington wrote:
> On 10/08/17 14:46, Mike Bibbings wrote:
>> On 10/08/17 13:13, John Pilkington wrote:
>>> On 10/08/17 12:19, Mike Bibbings wrote:
>>>> On 08/08/17 19:01, Jeff wrote:
>>>>> It seems to me that there are changes to the channel line-up on Astra
>>>>> something every couple of weeks. Mostly I don't notice until recordings
>>>>> start failing, and then I don't have the necessary block of couple of
>>>>> hours to do anything about it, and so I end up running mythtv-setup
>>>>> perhaps every 18 months.
>>>>>
>>>>> Would it not be possible to achieve something like automatic channel
>>>>> updates by having a job run, say once a week or once a month, which
>>>>> performs a scan when the backend is not being used (e.g. in my case,
>>>>> before it is shutdown), compares the results to the previous scan, and
>>>>> then presents the differences to the user?
>>>>>
>>>>> e.g. 'New channel "XYZ" found on Input 1. Add/Ignore?'
>>>>>       'Channel "XYZ" moved to frequency/sid/... Update?'
>>>>>
>>>>> Is this feasible?
>>>>>
>>>>> Does anyone else think this is a good idea?
>>>>>
>>>>> Regards
>>>>>
>>>>> Jeff
>>>>>
>>>> Yes, it is a good idea and is probably feasible with some changes to mythtv.
>>>>
>>>> mythtv-setup already has the capability to perform an automated scan and either apply
>>>> immediately  or save it for later use, see https://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Command_Line_Channel_Scanner
>>>> However, as far as I can tell this automated scan does not work for DVB-S/S2, hence changes to
>>>> mythtv.
>>>>
>>>> I was thinking of something along the lines of comparing current channel setup with automated
>>>> last scan and just identify something has changed, the user would then use mythtv-setup
>>>> manually, to either rescan existing transports (with search for new transports selected) or
>>>> import the automated scan results.
>>>>
>>>> Mike
>>>
>>> That wiki page lists a lot of DB tables which don't appear here
>>>
>>> https://code.mythtv.org/doxygen/group__db__schema.html
>>>
>>> I tried  [mythconverg]> describe dvbt-ofdm-uk ;
>>>
>>> and got an SQL syntax error.  mythtvsetup --help doesn't show anything I can identify with it.
>>> Does it exist?   I did try to use a saved scan once, with DVB-T, but got nothing useful.  The
>>> scan hadn't been made with this tool, though.
>>>
>>> John
>>
>> Those are not mythconverg DB tables, they are just instructions , within mythtv_setup code and
>> associated libs they get split (at the -) and processed so the command line channel scanner knows
>> what to do.
>>
>> Mike
>
> OK, I found some related code in libs/libmythtv/frequencytables.cpp, but attempts to run it just
> show me
>
> $ mythtv-setup --scan dvbt-ofdm-uk 1 DVBInput --scan-save-only
> Received '1' but unassociated arguments have not been enabled
>
> mythtv-setup version: master [v30-Pre-v30-Pre-3-g538f99e] www.mythtv.org
> (and yes, the version number is eccentric)
> followed by the usual result of
> mythtvsetup --help
>
> I have tried:
> mythtv-setup --scan
> mythtvsetup --scan
> mythtv-setup --scan dvbt-ofdm-uk 1 DVBInput --scan-save-only
> mythtv-setup --scan dvbt-ofdm-gb 1 DVBInput --scan-save-only
> and various others
> but
>
> mythtv-setup --scan-list
>
> did print a plausible-looking list of past scans.
>
> Any suggestions?
>
Have you tried putting all the options before all the arguments?

mythtv-setup --scan-save-only --scan dvbt-ofdm-uk 1 DVBInput

Personally, I would prefer any functionality of this kind to be part of the backend, or triggered by 
it. After all, the backend runs mythfilldatabase, preview generation and other tasks so why can't it 
do this as well if required?

-- 

Mike Perkins