[mythtv-users] How To Deal With New and Modified Channels and Scanning?

Eric Sharkey eric at lisaneric.org
Sun Sep 18 11:52:08 UTC 2011


On Sat, Sep 17, 2011 at 4:45 PM, Brian Fischer <brianafischer at gmail.com> wrote:
> I am currently on Comcast in Michigan.  Comcast enjoys changing channel
> frequencies at least every 6 months which has been a painful process.

If you have room in the budget, I recommend picking up a HDHR Prime.
Comcast is the only provider, as far as I know, that has made it an
official policy to not block non-premium/non-PPV channels from
recording through non-DRM enabled DVRs, so it's a good value.

Even if you don't use the recording capabilities of the prime, the
fact that it will tell you the channel map and you can use that
information to configure your HDHR is a big win.

I have Comcast in NJ, and here's a section of what I see when I run
hdhr_config scan with my regular hdhr:

SCANNING: 603000000 (us-irc:87, us-cable:87)
LOCK: qam256 (ss=98 snq=100 seq=100)
TSID: 0x23F4
PROGRAM 2: 0 (encrypted)
PROGRAM 3: 0 (encrypted)
PROGRAM 4: 0 (encrypted)
PROGRAM 5: 0 (encrypted)
PROGRAM 6: 0 (encrypted)
PROGRAM 7: 0
PROGRAM 8: 0 (encrypted)
PROGRAM 9: 0 (encrypted)
PROGRAM 10: 0 (encrypted)
PROGRAM 11: 0 (encrypted)
PROGRAM 12: 0

And the same hdhr_config scan when running with the prime:

SCANNING: 603000000 (us-irc:87, us-cable:87)
LOCK: qam256 (ss=94 snq=100 seq=100)
TSID: 0x23F4
PROGRAM 2: 33 CNBC (encrypted)
PROGRAM 3: 63 DISCOVE (encrypted)
PROGRAM 4: 32 CNN (encrypted)
PROGRAM 5: 123 OXYGEN (encrypted)
PROGRAM 6: 30 HEADLIN (encrypted)
PROGRAM 7: 21 TBS
PROGRAM 8: 67 TNT (encrypted)
PROGRAM 9: 68 CARTOON (encrypted)
PROGRAM 10: 66 SYFY CH (encrypted)
PROGRAM 11: 70 WEATHER (encrypted)
PROGRAM 12: 20 TV GUID

I'm currently working on some scripts to help automate creation and
maintenance of a clear qam video source with information from the hdhr
prime scan output.  Even if doing it by hand, it's a lot faster to
update your channel map if you have this information and can say with
certainty that TBS is now on 87.7 without needing to go to live tv and
watch it for a while and see what's there.

Hopefully I'll have something worth posting here in a week or so.

Eric


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