[mythtv] Possible bug from "setup" using tv_grab_uk

[Matthew Burnham]

> Here's what I've thought so far.
> 
> I've got tv_grab_uk to have a --list-providers (the postcode 
> isn't used but handled to maintain compatibility with 
> grab_na). For providers my initial idea was:  Analogue 
> Terrestrial (one for each region, Central, Yorkshire, etc)  
> Digital Terrestrial (FREEVIEW)  Analogue Cable (NTL)  Digital 
> Cable (NTL)
>  (etc)

Either way with the analogue, what's best would probably depend on how
the GUI handled it - having each of the different regions listed next to
the various digital/etc. services would look a little busy, but if
there's lots of digital/etc packages it will be busy anyway. If the GUI
side of things was made semi-intelligent to allow a choice of a service,
then a (regional) variation of that service (which I think XMLTV does
already use/support in a way, eg. BBC Radio 4 had LW and FM variants).
This could be useful for the problem of having umpteen different
packages for each provider (eg. Sky Digital Sports package, Sky Digital
Movies package, etc.)

> So far in GUI terms with the user would enter their postcode, 
> and select tv_grab_uk, and then choose a provider.

Again, a semi-intelligent GUI needn't ask for the postcode.

> At this point there needs to be some intelligence in XMLTV to 
> gather the correct channels for NTL Digital Cable- as I see 
> it this would be all NTL channels  available. 
> There then needs to be a facility in MythTV to be able to 
> drop channels which are not required (QVC/TV 
> Shopping/News..), and channels which might not be in their package.
> 
> I see it to be a time consuming to integrate a providers 
> individual packages as different providers e.g "Telewest Base 
> Package", "NTL Base Package", "NTL Family Pack".

Indeed, but all it requires is a user of each particular package to
submit their details. It's a bit of a bother for maintenance when
anything changes, but would be of benefit to share the common ones to
avoid each new user having to repeat the process, even if its not 100%
accurate.

> There doesn't seem to be a facility to do this in the CVS 
> version I dragged out this morning. Maybe a GUI based channel 
> editor to just display the channels available, and allow 
> channels not required to be deleted. ???

I think the process in XMLTV (stable and CVS) is to comment out the
unwanted channels in ~/.xmltv/whatever from what I can gather. The GUI
could do this, but it would probably be better to let XMLTV keep control
of its own config file, even if it has to be called from the GUI in a
fashion: tv_grab_uk --configure --add-channel:name

> I've already added the --list-providers, and approaching the 
> --list-channels, although a bit more understanding of the 
> file structures and how XMLTV works is needed on my part.
> 
> will see how it pans out in the next few days, might come 
> across a showstopper. 

Sounds good, good luck. I might have a dig into the GUI side of things
as I did seem to get somewhere with that, though I've never used Qt
before, and didn't like it much once I started having to look inside the
mythlib and mythtvlib stuff...

-- 
Mat Burnham