Automatically delete unwanted channels? (1 Viewer)

[JDWestoby]

I have many (many, many, many, sob!) times scanned channels and then spent half an hour deleting those I do not want.

OK, for me it is mainly the UK Sky channels - all of the encrypted channels go with a press of the Delete button.

But that still leaves me with a lot of channels I >can< get but don't want (trust me, I NEVER watch QVC et al - but I do keep the NHK channel).

It would be useful if there were some way to delete these by name automatically after a scan.

Even a SQL script would do, but I'm not that sure of the database format and wouldn't want to stuff it up (forcing another scan or at the very least a reload of an export).

(Actually I've even forgotten how I get onto the MySQL server - it's been ages since I tried. MediaPortal is my TV box, IO don't fiddle around with it, it just works - something that I just take for granted now. Big kudos to all at MP behind that statement.)

Talking of which, the export IS useful for recovery, but doesn't address the fact of being able to get new channels as they turn up.

I've never seen anything like this and just wondered if anyone else thinks it sounds like a 'good idea'.

 

[mm1352000]

The approach MediaPortal takes to dealing with surplus/unused/unwanted channels is to enable you to not show the channels in the front end. You can do that by:

1. Unticking channels in the TV/radio channels sections in TV Server configuration.
2. Using the TV/radio channels sections in TV Server configuration to configure channel group(s) for the channels you actually use, and hiding the "all channels" groups by unticking the "show 'all channels' group" option in MP configuration.

Given the above info, my question to you would be: why do you want to delete channels?
As you've described, trying to manage deletion of channels you're not interested in while scanning new/moved channels is difficult... and that's simply because TV Server isn't designed to be used that way.

 

[The Doctor]

What I do. I scan all satellites and then move the channels that I want to see in a new group (I called it the zaplist). You just need to rightclick them and add them to your group.

But I agree that the tv-server channel scanning/handling is abit oldschool. Even the mp2 isn't better. It is very user unfriendly, escpecially if your provider changes something in the transmission details. Tv-server scanning abillities are faling in detecting the changes. So it's all a manual process in changing settings using sites like King of Sat and the likes.

That said I am still very satisfied with MP1. It's the media source in our house for years be it radio, tv, movies, music, photo's, news, weather, we use every feature it has to offer.

 

[mm1352000]

It is very user unfriendly, escpecially if your provider changes something in the transmission details. Tv-server scanning abillities are faling in detecting the changes.

Can you please expand on this?
I'm interested to hear specific improvements that you think could be made to fix what you find to be unfriendly.

 

[JDWestoby]

Right-oh.

Deleting channels makes more sense because it stops the database getting full of kruft. With any database smaller will always be faster/better (OK, not a massive issue as my C: is an SSD. Timeshifting folder is on a 5GB SuperSpeed RAMDisk, so I do try to optimise.)

Unticking/Moving them would not achieve that (although perfectly valid in themselves).

Basically if I could have a 'blacklist'* of channels (and I'm not saying this has to be part of TV Server) so that they could be binned it would mean that a scan wouldn't put a lot of channels I don't want.

Just the way MP says delete encrypted (because I can't see them) it would be nice to be able to bin those I KNOW I don't want!

(*Obviously a whitelist makes no sense - I'd never get to see any new channels.)

I am impressed by the answer/responses though - if nothing else it shows that it has made people think about how to work around this.

Give me an SQL command that won't stuff up the TV Server database and I'd be happy , after all I have to scan from Windows.
(Actually for the last two months the MP PC has been running a server system only - stopped the TV cards from crashing it too!)

 

[mm1352000]

Deleting channels makes more sense because it stops the database getting full of kruft. With any database smaller will always be faster/better...

Is performance your primary concern? If so, I honestly think you'd be very hard pressed to measure any performance difference, even if you were using a standard HDD. With the caching, indexing etc. that modern database systems do, not to mention the caching that TV Server itself does... etc.

Basically if I could have a 'blacklist'* of channels (and I'm not saying this has to be part of TV Server) so that they could be binned it would mean that a scan wouldn't put a lot of channels I don't want.
Just the way MP says delete encrypted (because I can't see them) it would be nice to be able to bin those I KNOW I don't want!
(*Obviously a whitelist makes no sense - I'd never get to see any new channels.)

Intellectually I understand what you're saying, but I still don't "get" the point.
I mean organisationally, the approach where you create and maintain a blacklist seems like a similarly time-consuming task to the unticking and/or grouping approach.

I guess there is something nice about having a "clean" TV Server channel list. However I know for myself that I only use TV Server configuration to rescan and/or manage channels about once every few months, if that.

Please understand: I'm not trying to be insensitive or say that your reasoning or preferences are invalid. Rather, I'm trying engage and get to the crux of what you see to be the problem.

 

[osre]

I think what @JDWestoby does is scanning on a regular basis, and all unwanted channels are coming back, and back, and back, ....
The most user friendly approach would be to have an option in channel list to add a channel to a blacklist.
Next time a scan runs the same channel would not be added again.

 

[mm1352000]

I think what @JDWestoby does is scanning on a regular basis, and all unwanted channels are coming back, and back, and back, ....

I can absolutely see how TV Server's current behaviour and limitations would be really annoying if one was rescanning frequently and insisted on deleting the channels that were inaccessible or not used. From a design perspective I'd call that a worst case scenario. The combination of those two elements (rescanning frequently and deletion) is pretty much the antithesis of how TV Server configuration was designed to be used.

The most user friendly approach would be to have an option in channel list to add a channel to a blacklist.
Next time a scan runs the same channel would not be added again.

Well, let's just tease this out a bit.
As mentioned in my previous post, the thing about having a blacklist is that you then have to have configuration for managing the blacklist. Cue all the people who say MP/TV Server configuration is way too complicated already. That's one reason why I'd like to explore the options before concluding that adding blacklist really is the most user friendly thing to do.

If rescanning frequently is the reason for all this misery, my first question would be to ask why the frequent rescanning is necessary and what if anything can be done to avoid it?

 

[osre]

Isn't rescanning needed to find new or moved channels?
Or is there a better way to do it.
Personally I do not need the "feature" discussed here. On my WMC in living room I do not even use a favorite channel list.
Just sorted some channels to the front of the list and ignore the other several hundred ones.
But how about an option to not add encrypted channels in the first place instead of automatically delete them on a button click afterwards?

 

[mm1352000]

Isn't rescanning needed to find new or moved channels?

Practically, yes. To be clear: by that I mean that TV Server currently does not have any other mechanism for finding new channels or detecting channel movements.

However, that's not to say that it wouldn't be possible to implement other mechanisms for finding new channels and detecting channel movements, and so completely avoid the need for rescanning. For example, I know the DVB standards specify various formats for network change messages. If those messages could be received then that problem could be solved.

Note I'm hoping JDWestoby and The Doctor will chime in with more information, because I'm still not clear on their reasonings.

But how about an option to not add encrypted channels in the first place instead of automatically delete them on a button click afterwards?

Yes, that could be done.