[mythtv-users] Some channels from SchedulesDirect not getting added in mythtv

Michael T. Dean mtdean at thirdcontact.com
Mon Apr 29 19:17:50 UTC 2013


On 04/29/2013 02:57 PM, Scott Chevalley wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'm using the latest 0.25.3+fixes (0.25.3+fixes.20130423.94d67fc) from mythbuntu
> on a standalone backend with 3 hauppage dcr-2560 tuners, which are rebranded 2
> Tuner HDHR-Primes.  I have one video source from schedulesdirect and I recently
> noticed that I'm missing a few channels in my listings, namely CNN (100) and HLN
> (101).  I'm in Virginia with Verizon Fios.
>
> I logged into my account on Schedulesdirect and checked my lists and saw a bunch
> of channels disabled, so I reenabled all the channel.  I then readded all line-ups.
>
> Then I ran
>
> mythfilldatabase --only-update-channels --do-not-filter-new-channels
>
> and
>
> mythfilldatabase --dd-grab-all
>
> I did see some channels get added, but not 100 and 101.
>
> I also tried going into mythsetup and going to the video source and having it
> redownload the channels, but same thing.
>
> I downloaded the raw xml from SD and I only see CNN and HLN in there once with a
> station id listed for each.  I'm curious how the channel number is determined
> from just the callsign and station id.
>
> I do have channels 1541 and 1542 that also show up as CNN and HLN.

That's likely the problem--your XMLTV IDs are mapped such that you're 
saying 1541 and 1542 are the 2 channels in the listings, so there's 
nothing to add.

> I'm wondering if mythfilldatabase is ignoring channels 100 and 101 because the
> station id for those channels are the same as 1541 and 1542.

Yes.  You can't define the same channel in a single video source 
multiple times.

> Do I need to delete 1541 and 1542 and then update channels or should I just
> delete the video source and recreate?

If you're going to rely on mythfilldatabase to re-add channels, then you 
need to delete the old channels yourself manually.

Generally, though, once your channels are set up properly, the best 
solution is to just edit the XMLTV IDs and call signs of the channels 
that got moved.  So, if CNN got moved from 1541 to 100, you would edit 
whatever channel used to be on 100 to give it the XMLTV ID for CNN and 
an appropriate call sign (and, if desired, change channel numbers to 
whatever you want to use so you don't have to worry about the numbers 
your cable company is using) and do the same to edit the 1541 channel to 
the XMLTV ID/call sign of the channel that's now there.

Note that mythfilldatabase isn't a "fill up the database with channels" 
program--it's simply meant to fill the database with listings data.  
However, as a shortcut, we can use it to mass-insert channels for some 
types of inputs (non-scannable inputs, such as analog, firewire, HDHR 
Prime, ...) into an /empty/ video source.  It's almost always bad for 
"change around my existing channels to match the new layout my cable 
company is using" because a) it never deletes channels and b) the 
information in your database is often different from the information 
(aka garbage) in the stream (since the cable company changes the info 
over time and has no reason to make it easy for 3rd party systems to 
interoperate) and c) you'll usually end up with duplicates (as you have) 
that make it seem it's not adding something that should be added or it 
will change some values of ones that are correct and make them incorrect.

So, if you want to use mythfilldatabase to add channels, the best 
approach is to use it as it was designed to be used--to mass-insert 
channels into an empty video source by doing a "Delete all video 
sources" approach.

Mike


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