[mythtv-users] How to properly use the new svn channels.conf import?

[Brian Merrill]

Hi. 
I am one of the unlucky HDTV cable users who can't get valid information 
from a standard QAM-256 scan from mythtv-setup.  I have managed to 
manually hand edit the information using mysql and get all my cable HDTV 
channels working well with 18.1 but since it's a big pain in the 
knickers to do each time, I am anxious for a quicker method.  The new 
channels.conf import method appears to be the answer to my problems on 
the surface, but so far I have not been able to get it to work the way 
the various posts I could find on the subject seem to make it out to 
be.  Most likely I am being incredibly dense on some small factoid, but 
perhaps somebody could point out what that might be.

Step 1:  From what I can tell, the format of the channels.conf file 
should be "name, frequency, modulation, atsc channel"
Step 2:  Using the latest dvb-apps form linuxtv.org cvs I run 
"/usr/local/bin/dvbscan -v -v -a1 -A2 
/usr/local/share/dvb/scan/atsc/us-Cable-Standard-center-frequencies-QAM256 
 > ~/.azap/channels.conf"
This results in a file with lines of the form:
[0001]:711000000:QAM_256:17:20:1
which, in this case, corresponds to my local CBS station.
Step 3.  I edit the above output to be:
KUTVDT:711000000:QAM_256:1
which should correspond to the format that everyone seems to be using in 
step 1.
Step 4.  Run mythtv-setup, select channels, select scan for channels, 
select scan type, import channels.conf after which I see the loaded 
channels of the form:
KUTVDT(1) DVB-C
where DVB-C is my zap2it program listings.

Now this is where I start to get a little fuzzy.  Is there anything left 
for me to other than run mythfilldatabase?  Or do I need to now do a 
full scan?  If I do a full dvb scan, myth setup still detects no 
channels.  If I just simply run mythbackend, it still won't tune.  But 
this doesn't surprise me since I don't think I'm getting all the 
information into mysql.  If I do "select 
chanid,channum,freqid,mplexid,serviceid from channel;" the output shows:
+--------+---------+--------+---------+-----------+
| chanid | channum | freqid | mplexid | serviceid |
+--------+---------+--------+---------+-----------+
|   1000 | 1       | NULL   |       1 |         1 |
|   1001 | 11      | NULL   |       1 |        11 |
|   1002 | 12      | NULL   |       1 |        12 |
|   1003 | 13      | NULL   |       1 |        13 |
etc, etc...

So obviously I'm missing something.  Why doesn't the channels.conf 
import add the freqid information?  It's there in the channels.conf.  
Also why is the channum set to the serviceid?  Should I include another 
field in channels.conf with the name I want the channel to be?  Is there 
an extended format for channels.conf that allows you to add addition 
information?  Or am I still just stuck manually adding this information 
to mysql? 

I appreciate any thoughts and help.

Thanks,
Brian Merrill