[mythtv-users] Schedule changes

Nick knowledgejunkie at gmail.com
Tue Jan 17 19:06:38 UTC 2006


On 17/01/06, Mike Richardson <doctor at mcc.ac.uk> wrote:
> On Tue, Jan 17, 2006 at 01:06:51AM +0000, Nick wrote:
> > On 16/01/06, Mike Richardson <doctor at mcc.ac.uk> wrote:
> > > Hi,
> > >
> > > I set up mythtv over Christmas and am just working out some of the
> > > idiosyncrasies with my setup. I'm new to the list so apologies if I ask any
> > > commonly answered questions.
> > >
> > > Myth backend is doing lots of unwanted schedules changes like this:
> > >
> > > 2006-01-15 21:01:25.424 Schedule Change on Channel 1296
> > > 2006-01-15 21:01:25.430 Old: 2006-01-18T06:00:00 2006-01-18T06:58:00 GMTV
> > > Newshour
> > > 2006-01-15 21:01:25.432 New: 2006-01-18 05:30:00 2006-01-18 09:25:00 ITV
> > > Early Morning News
> > >
> > > which are overriding the mythfilldatabase updates each morning with
> > > (apparently) incorrect data (e.g. one film shown four times in a row with
> > > each showing less than an hour long.)
> > >
> > > 1. Why does it do this?
> >
> > This scenario is possible if you are running >1 card using separate
> > listings grabbers - e.g. for the UK, you could be using a PVR-xx0 card
> > with the uk_rt XMLTV grabber, and a DVB card using the DVB EPG. If you
>
> Good guess. I should have said that I am using a Nova-T card and a PVR-250.
>
> > channels are configured in a certain way, the first update could be
> > populating program information using the uk_rt grabber against
> > channels which include the DVB channels, and then any DVB channels
> > which are configured to get their listings from the DVB EPG will be
> > updated again, resulting in the log entries you are seeing.
>
> For starters I didn't know that the DVB had an EPG, which probably didn't
> help. It would explain a lot.

If you've not got a digibox, the two big things DVB gives you are
excellent video and audio and listings automatically. The MythTV RPMs
from atrpms.net are compiled with DVB EPG support, so I get it is
automatically turned on for all channels added when channel scanning.

>
> > > 3. How does it know which channels to update?
> >
> > DVB channels can be configured to get their listings from the DVB EPG
>
> Would you know how? I've can't remember seeing anything related to this in
> mythtv-setup, just the radio times grabber. I'm now assuming that the radio
> times et al are *external* data sources but the DVB card provides, what you
> might call, an *interal* data source. This data is being used by Mythtv
> despite my ignorance of it so somehow it is setup by default and I need to
> find a way to restrict it.

You can use the channel editor to individually turn off use of the EPG
for DVB channels, or you could edit the DB directly (obviously more
dangerous in case something goes wrong - backup, usual disclaimers
apply etc). The EPG is very useful if you don't have a net connection
on the box as the listings can be obtained 'over the air' - the
downside is that the Radio Times source has better descriptions and 2
weeks of listings.

>
> > > 5. How do I stop it?
> >
> > Assuming that the behaviour is caused by having 2 sources of listings
> > data running, I would ensure that only DVB channels for which there
> > are no listings available from the uk_rt grabber are set to use the
> > EPG, and all other channels use a common source. This should not only
> > stop data being overwritten, but also aid the scheduler tremendously
> > by ensuring that channels available on multiple input sources have the
> > same listings information. (Imagine if you have ITV1 available on your
> > PVR's tuner, PVR's direct cable input from an external Sky/NTL box,
> > _and_ on a DVB card. If the listings information for the channel
> > differs on the three sources, there is a very high chance that a
> > program's listing information will have different description/subtitle
> > etc which will wreak havoc with the scheduler.)
>
> Sage advice. Until now I thought that this was how it was set up :-(
>
> Any suggestions where I might start looking for the configuration side of
> this internal data source?

Use the channel editor to turn off the EPG for those channels you are
also getting information for from the Radio Times source and
reconfigure the <source>.xmltv file (the uk_rt config file). Ensure
that it contains only channels that have a valid xmltv ID entered for
them otherwise it will annoyingly autocreate extra channels which
complicates things even further.

>
> > Obviously, I have made a few guesses here about your setup, but
> > without a DVB card I can't see another possible source for the
> > listings updates you are seeing.
>
> Good guesses, and thanks for the very informative response.

No problem. Mixing listings sources is quite difficult to get exactly
right - once it's there, don't touch it! I've found that running the
grabber and mythfilldatabase manually from a cron job against each
source I have (tuner, direct input, DVB channels I'm using uk_rt for)
ensures that each group of channels gets the correct listings
information. Only DVB channels that are not available from the Radio
Times (e.g. radio channels and the odd one or two other channels) are
configured (on a per channel basis) to use the EPG.

Nick


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