Automatically Tune to Strongest Duplicate Channel (5 Viewers)

[vapourEyes]

@CyberSimian :
Tuning results... with channel movement detection to follow.

I did this test twice to be sure.

 

[vapourEyes]

@CyberSimian
I have looked into the code to see what might be the issue.
I can't find anything yet though.

I'm loathe to ask you to clear all channels and try without movement detection, but that could be a next logical test.
I get different results with Movement Detection on and off. I get more channels with it off.

There must be a reason for your results in the code though. Just struggling to understand where.

 

[CyberSimian]

I'm loathe to ask you to clear all channels and try without movement detection,

I have been performing these tests using the test partition in my HTPC (my test partition is a copy of my production partition). I can try your suggestion and see what happens, but I won't be able to try that until later.

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

 

[CyberSimian]

try without movement detection

Still no success, sadly.

I deleted all TV and radio channels, rebooted (just for good measure), and then used the new scanner without "enable channel movement detection" selected. This is what I got; notice that it did not detect any channels for MUXes 1 and 5 (and the counts of the channels found are consistent with this):



I then deleted all of the channels, rebooted, and used the old scanner; this time it found channels in all MUXes:



Sorry, but I don't know what the problem might be.

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

 

[vapourEyes]

Still no success, sadly.

Sorry, but I don't know what the problem might be.

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

No problem.

Just back to the drawing board a little.

Very much appreciate your efforts !!!

I've clearly got some work to do....

Oddly a new MediaPortal build environment for this work is, errr, shot to **** at present
Bear with me.

I found a candidate for the behaviour, but setuptv.exe terminates on use from the current build env.
Once I get further I'll update with new test code.

New release with promising results I hope shipped here.

Name: 1.25.n.7z
Size: 846927 bytes (827 KiB)
SHA256: 98E9364AEB5F9B52B2950A0C083D22B8F3861BA09A7AE5101287810E4E7A4089

Name: 1.25.n.zip
Size: 1220683 bytes (1192 KiB)
SHA256: 6F623E0F0009BB03590CF3542AE48278E3D074F22B43ED4217C2888F3023B8CD

 

[vapourEyes]

A new candidate complete with UI element defaulting to false will be available in the next few minutes/hours.
Code has been updated in this repo: vapoureyes/mediaportal

So far we have this:

Conscious not to waste test time I'm doing some comprehensive tests here.

 

[vapourEyes]

I deleted all TV channels and brought them back again.

I completed 2 regional scans and an 'All Regions' scan. The first 2 picked up most channels.
'

Full implementation, subject to test.

Strongest channel selection defaults to false and is not persisted between Setup sessions.

*** also this test .exe is for +ve Bias cards (0 -> -100 & 0 -> +100) only.
*** global reach dictates another switch, maybe called 'Negative bias cards' for cards -100 -> 0.

 

[CyberSimian]

Full implementation, subject to test.

Well, this version is better, but we are not there yet.

I performed four tests:

• Empty channel database, with and without prefer strongest, without channel movement detection.
• Filled channel database, with and without prefer strongest, with channel movement detection.

The number of channels detected was the same in all cases: 94 TV channels and 33 radio channels.
What looks wrong is the handling of channel movement detection:

• The screen shot on the left shows the result when prefer strongest is not enabled.
• The screen shot on the right shows the result when prefer strongest is enabled.

Notice that when prefer strongest is not enabled, the number of channels updated is equal to the number of channels detected, but this number is always zero when prefer strongest is enabled:



Even if there is no change to an existing channel, the old scanner considers it to be "updated", and so that channel appears in the count of updated channels. Is the new scanner excluding existing channels if they have not actually changed? The disadvantage of this is that there is no indication at the end of scanning of how many channels were found.

Strongest channel selection defaults to false and is not persisted between Setup sessions.

This is consistent with the way that the other settings on that panel are not saved between successive invocations of "TV Server Config" . Personally, I think that there would be some advantage to the user if certain of those settings were perserved, but that is a separate work item.

also this test .exe is for +ve Bias cards (0 -> -100 & 0 -> +100) only.
global reach dictates another switch, maybe called 'Negative bias cards' for cards -100 -> 0.

I am not happy about the need to externalise this . How many users will know whether their tuner cards are positive or negative? And what about those users who have a mixture of cards?

Also, I thought that you had decided to use signal quality as the determining factor, and not signal strength? Is it the case that signal quality can also be on a negative scale (0% quality = -100; 100% quality = 0)?

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

 

[vapourEyes]

Well, this version is better, but we are not there yet.

I performed four tests:

• Empty channel database, with and without prefer strongest, without channel movement detection.
• Filled channel database, with and without prefer strongest, with channel movement detection.

The number of channels detected was the same in all cases: 94 TV channels and 33 radio channels.
What looks wrong is the handling of channel movement detection:

• The screen shot on the left shows the result when prefer strongest is not enabled.
• The screen shot on the right shows the result when prefer strongest is enabled.

Notice that when prefer strongest is not enabled, the number of channels updated is equal to the number of channels detected, but this number is always zero when prefer strongest is enabled:
Even if there is no change to an existing channel, the old scanner considers it to be "updated", and so that channel appears in the count of updated channels. Is the new scanner excluding existing channels if they have not actually changed? The disadvantage of this is that there is no indication at the end of scanning of how many channels were found.

I am working on this. I have code that updates counts better. I now need to pay closer attention to it.

This is consistent with the way that the other settings on that panel are not saved between successive invocations of "TV Server Config" . Personally, I think that there would be some advantage to the user if certain of those settings were perserved, but that is a separate work item.

Noting your comments here.

I am not happy about the need to externalise this . How many users will know whether their tuner cards are positive or negative? And what about those users who have a mixture of cards?

Also, I thought that you had decided to use signal quality as the determining factor, and not signal strength? Is it the case that signal quality can also be on a negative scale (0% quality = -100; 100% quality = 0)?

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

Forgive me. I am mixing terms. in the code we do have:

public int signalQuality;

Please ignore the previous comment about card bias.

I'll check latest results here - and ensure they are an improvement and then post for test ?

 

[vapourEyes]

Empty DB. Local region scan.

Updates appearing... I think this is better ?

Will do more and update this same post.

Second - different region scan.

Both with Strongest channel selection latest.

Updated SetupTV.exe... not sure which DLL's are needed ... included.