Who uses the channel scanning "create group" options? (1 Viewer)

[mm1352000]

Hello everybody

I'd like to know how many people use the scanning "create group" options, so I can decide whether they should be kept in TVE 3.5 or not.

To be clear, I'm talking about these options:

• create groups for each provider
• create "analog"/"cable"/"satellite"/"terrestrial" group
• create groups for each satellite

For example, these:

Please vote in the poll. Feel free to also comment in the thread.

Thanks!
mm

 

[CyberSimian]

Please vote in the poll. Feel free to also comment in the thread.

I was in two minds whether to participate in this thread, as I would not want my vote to give a misleading indication of the value of the "create groups" function.

I voted "No, I've never used them". But I voted that way because I have only DVB-T tuners. If I had DVB-S tuners, or both DVB-S and DVB-T tuners, I might vote differently. So I am not convinced that you should place any weight on my vote.

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

 

[morpheus_xx]

I voted to keep them, I always use "group per provider" for DVB-C, this is very useful to separate the free and payed services. I usually only watch group for 1st, 2nd and sometimes 3rd provider. The rest is not interesting or I have no subscription (KabelKiosk, Sky...)

 

[mm1352000]

Thanks for the feedback guys.

@morpheus_xx

this is very useful to separate the free and payed services.

FYI, the channel search in my branch makes it possible to specify both encryption and provider as a search criteria.
Some examples might help...

A simple example first: you could search for all channels with only non-encrypted tuning detail(s)...
encryption == "free"

Or maybe you want to include any channel that has at least one non-encrypted tuning detail...
encryption != "encrypted"
Alternative:
encryption == "free" | encryption == "mixed"

To find all free channels from a specific provider:
encryption == "free" & provider == "MyFreeProviderName"

Or maybe two specific providers?
encryption == "free" & [provider == "MyFreeProvider1" | provider == "MyFreeProvider2"]

Or maybe you want to match only a part of the provider name?
encryption == "free" & provider : "abc"

From these examples I hope you can see a glimpse of the potential.
Search is much more powerful than the group options... but perhaps too complex or inconvenient, at least for some people (not me!!! ). So, I started this thread to try to understand how many people are using the options, as well as some of the use cases...

Would you change your vote after knowing this?

 

[morpheus_xx]

I like those options!

But I don't change my vote, as I have 6 groups where I can watch 3 of them. This provides a very good selectivity I'm also used to access the channels in their groups in miniguide / EPG. If I wouldn't have the scanning automatism I would have to create groups manually and assign channels to them.

More work for one checkbox less

 

[jehe]

Thanks for the feedback guys.

@morpheus_xx

this is very useful to separate the free and payed services.

FYI, the channel search in my branch makes it possible to specify both encryption and provider as a search criteria.
Some examples might help...

A simple example first: you could search for all channels with only non-encrypted tuning detail(s)...
encryption == "free"

Or maybe you want to include any channel that has at least one non-encrypted tuning detail...
encryption != "encrypted"
Alternative:
encryption == "free" | encryption == "mixed"

To find all free channels from a specific provider:
encryption == "free" & provider == "MyFreeProviderName"

Or maybe two specific providers?
encryption == "free" & [provider == "MyFreeProvider1" | provider == "MyFreeProvider2"]

Or maybe you want to match only a part of the provider name?
encryption == "free" & provider : "abc"

From these examples I hope you can see a glimpse of the potential.
Search is much more powerful than the group options... but perhaps too complex or inconvenient, at least for some people (not me!!! ). So, I started this thread to try to understand how many people are using the options, as well as some of the use cases...

Would you change your vote after knowing this?

Hi mm,

Can you also search by country?

 

[mm1352000]

Can you also search by country?

No. Country is not part of the tuning details except for analog TV...

 

[JDWestoby]

I did use it when I had a motorised dish (currently down for a year or two).

Currently have FreeSat and FreeView (aka Digital Terrestrial/Satellite).

Adding in a lot of sat stations (later, patience, patience) would make 'All Channels' massive when you can get lots of satellites!

So I'd at least like one per satellite.

 

[RobNorthcott]

I only use the "create group" option for terrestrial channels, to keep them separate from the DVB-S ones. If there was another way to pick all DVB-T channels and copy them to a group then I'd be happy with that instead.

 

[mm1352000]

So I'd at least like one per satellite.

Yes, this is one of the things that I thought might come up. Point understood.

If there was another way to pick all DVB-T channels and copy them to a group then I'd be happy with that instead.

There is.

For now what I've done is keep the options, but move them to a central place to simplify the scanning screens.
Some screenshots to illustrate...

The options:

Note that "update tuning details" also moved here, and will update all tuning details, not just satellite transponders.

The scanning screens, simplified but not changed all that much (though note the extra options in the satellite and DVB-T/T2 screens)...
DVB-IP/stream:

analog TV/FM radio/capture:

DVB-C:

satellite (DVB-S, DVB-S2, DigiCipher 2, turbo FEC etc.):

DVB-T/T2:

(Sorry, I don't have an ATSC tuner to show that screen.)

TV Channels list on first view, sorted by channel name alphabetically:

Note the "tuning detail(s)" column, which contains "<tuning detail type> (<count of type>)".
So, if you had a channel with one DVB-T tuning detail and one DVB-S2 tuning detail it would show as "DVB-S2 (1), DVB-T (1)".
You can sort by that column (as with all the columns)...

Note that since I sorted by name first, the channels are "sub-sorted" alphabetically by channel name. In other words, the DVB-S channels are sorted alphabetically; as are the S2 channels etc.

You can also use the search function to search for the tuning detail type you want, as follows:

Note the filter 'type : "DVB-T"' means give me all channels with at least one tuning detail whose type contains "DVB-T". That's going to include channels with at least one DVB-T or DVB-T2 tuning detail.
If you only wanted channels with at least one DVB-T2 tuning detail you'd use 'type : "DVB-T2"'.
If you only wanted channels with at least one DVB-T tuning detail you'd use 'type : "DVB-T" & !type : "DVB-T2"'.

...and so on.

So in short, I'm keeping the grouping options for now... with some changes.

PS:
You may be wondering where the CI menu access, DiSEqC motor and analog settings tabs have disappeared to (since they're no longer in the scanning screens).
They've gone into the tuner settings:

For now DiSEqC motor support is completely removed. The plan is to create a new screen for defining which satellites are available to each tuner. That will include specifying 22kHz tone, LNB type, toroidal dish, and DiSEqC switch and motor stuff (including USALs... hopefully!).