[mythtv-users] Easiest way to edit channels

[Simon]

Kevin Johnson <iitywygms at gmail.com> wrote:

> Thank you for the suggestion.  Do I need to do this for each and every channel?
> That would be kind of time consuming doing it for 900 channels.  Maybe I am not understanding?

Yes, it is time consuming - but whatever method you use will be time consuming with 900 channels.
But, by scripting it, you put in a bit more effort up front and save time later. I use a script which is a little developed from https://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Database_editing_script The script as shown there adds 10,000 to the channel number if it’s not 7nn (radio channels on our UK Freeview) to move everything out of the way. Then it makes all but radio channels non-visible.
Then for each “useful*” channel it sets it back to visible, gives it a sensible channel number, and sets the xmltv identifier for listings.

Yes, it’s a complete pita to set up the first time, then just a minor pita to maintain each time Freeview changes stuff.

But whenever I need to re-scan, I can just “delete all channels, scan, run the script and see all my channels reset as they were”. Then it’s a case of looking to see what channels are still at 10,000 upwards and not visible (they still chow in the channel editor in MythWeb) and edit the script to catch those I want.

* For whatever value of “useful” you apply - pesonally I don’t want to see shopping channels etc. I’m guessing that you’ll have a lot of encrypted channels you can detect in a scan but which aren’t usable.


> Command line editing a database is just not something I am familiar with.

Yeah, it’s not the easiest thing in the world to learn.

Simon