Best approach to map channels (1 Viewer)

[mm1352000]

Hi again Ian

After another look at the code and your latest logs, it looks to me like SD has created a whole lot of channels in TV Server that you may not necessarily have access to. Further, my current understanding is that once SD has created channels it won't attempt to map them to "real" channels that you scan in afterwards. To be extremely clear, the process is:
1. Scan in all your channels.
2. Rename them as necessary.
3. Import channels from SD.

If you import channels before you scan for them with your tuners then SD won't link them.

Regarding the preview function in TV Server: this is a codec issue. Preview doesn't necessarily use the same codecs as MediaPortal. This is because MediaPortal may not be installed on the same PC as TV Server. Instead, TV Server uses the codecs with the highest "merit" in the system that claim to support the audio and video formats in the stream. If your system codecs aren't prioritised correctly then the "wrong" codec will be selected and you won't see video and/or you won't hear audio. Use filmerit or similar to manage the merits of the installed codecs in such a way that a video codec that can decode the streams has the highest merit.

mm

 

[ijourneaux]

I figured out the problem wiht the preview not working. As you mentioned it was an issue with the merit of the prefered codec. As I was debugging the problem this afternoon, I found the text you quoted and that got me on the right track.

Now regarding the mapping to schedules direct.

After another look at the code and your latest logs, it looks to me like SD has created a whole lot of channels in TV Server that you may not necessarily have access to. Further, my current understanding is that once SD has created channels it won't attempt to map them to "real" channels that you scan in afterwards. To be extremely clear, the process is:
1. Scan in all your channels.
2. Rename them as necessary.
3. Import channels from SD.

This could be it. I was was trying to be careful and adding the channels one tuner at a time and make sure it worked. If I understand you correctly, All of the channels need to be added before you attempt the import the channels from SchedulesDirect.
I will try that out next. What is the trigger to import the channels from SD? Restarting the TVServer after the channels have been added?

My system has 5 tuners. The HD-PVR has about 250 channels. The 2 HDHomeRuns have 15 channels each. The 2 Adaptec analog tuners have about 70 channels each. The HD-PVR has access to all of the available channels while the others are limited to a subset of the channels available on the HD-PVR.

I see a problem here though. What about the case where you really do add a new tuner to your system? There is no way to get them to be mapped to SchedulesDirect without removing all of the channels and starting over? Maybe this is a limitation of the SchedulesDirect plugin?

The steps you describe are clear and I will try them out (probably be Tues before I get to try). But I am having a hard time wrapping my mind around how the SchedulesDirecxt Plug in handles mapping the guide info to multiple tuners when the TUners only have access to a subset of the total channels available.

Sorry for being dense.

 

[2BitSculptor]

Have you checked to see which channels the HDHR has available to it? Check out the Channels page at SiliconDust to get a listing of Digital Antenna (8vsb) and Cable (qam256) channels for your area (zip code).

Channels « Welcome to SiliconDust

Chuck

edit... The way I understand it. YOU assign channels to the tuners in TV Server config. You can add available channels from column 1 to column 2. When a tuner is busy then The next Tuner in the priority list is chosen if it has the channel assigned to it, if it doesn't, then it goes to the next, and so on. SD only lists the channels you can get an EPG for. It really doesn't care which tuner uses it. You can group the channels to represent the channels that can be played on certain tuners if you choose. Then display that group as your guide view. If there is overlap in the channels the tuners can display, then the first available tuner in the priority list will be chosen.

Am I rambling? (sorry)

Chuck

 

[mm1352000]

I figured out the problem wiht the preview not working. As you mentioned it was an issue with the merit of the prefered codec. As I was debugging the problem this afternoon, I found the text you quoted and that got me on the right track.

Good

What is the trigger to import the channels from SD? Restarting the TVServer after the channels have been added?

It happens whenever you import EPG info. In your case though it is effectively only on the first EPG import. That is because you're allowing SD to create channels in TV Server.

When SD imports a channel, it first attempts to find an existing [MP] channel to link against. If it doesn't find one then it can optionally create a channel for you. In my opinion that is not always helpful (especially for digital channels) because once a link is established it will not be broken. In other words, if SD creates your channels then it links the guide data to those channels. To see the guide data you have to somehow make those channels tunable - either by checking and correcting the default tuning detail or adding the correct tuning detail(s). If you create the channels then all SD has to do is link the guide data, which is theoretically much less problematic, but possibly more work in some cases.

So when SD creates channels what does it do? SD creates channels with analog tuning details even when the channel is a digital ATSC or clear QAM cable channel. In the case of digital channels that are being received by a QAM or ATSC tuner that is not necessarily helpful. Why do I say that? Well obviously an analog tuning detail is not going to work with a digital tuner. Further, when you actually scan for channels with a digital tuner, TV Server won't correct the tuning details. In fact it will create an entirely new channel. This is because TV Server doesn't use the name to identify a channel, and further it treats analog and digital tuning details completely separately - they're like apples and oranges to TV Server. You *can* "fix" such a situation though in two ways:
1. Delete the SD channels, rename the TV Server channels with the call sign and then re-import your guide data. SD should link the guide data to the channels scanned in by TV Server.
2. Combine the SD channel with the TV Server channel and delete the useless SD tuning detail. Go to TV Channels combinations sub section, select a channel on the left, select one or more channels on the right, click "combine". Go back to channel list, select the combined channel, click "edit", select the analog tuning detail row, click "delete", click "OK".

The second approach is somewhat trickier as the combining has to be done just right. You only get to keep the guide data for one channel (which I assume would be the channel selected in the left hand pane - not 100% sure), so you have to make sure you select the SD channel on the left and the TV Server channel(s) on the right. Better in my opinion to take option 1, or don't allow SD to create channels in the first place.

Getting back to the discussion about SD creating channels...
As I've said, this functionality may not be so useful for digital channels, but it is *really* useful in the case of digital channels that are being piped from an STB via a capture input. Lets take your HD-PVR as an example. An HD-PVR can't scan for channels. Right now the only automated channel creation that TV Server offers you is the "add s-video channels" button, which is not helpful when you're using a blaster. You have to create the STB channels in MP somehow. People who know how to manipulate a database may write a script. Others slog it out and do it manually with the "add" button in the "TV Channels" section. People from North America would currently be advised to use SD as it can save you a lot of time. What you have to do is:
1. Allow SD to create channels (you don't have to allow creation of digital channels).
2. Select your country - I believe this is an SD setting somewhere.
3. Select the video input - I believe this is also an SD setting somewhere.
4. Import guide data.

Assuming that the SD channel numbers match the STB and/or analog cable channel numbers (that assumption is a *big* assumption, but it seems to work in practise) this should mean that the analog tuning details in the SD channels are actually correct. Then it is just a matter of mapping the SD-created channels to your tuners/capture cards.

So in summary, with SD you've got to know how to avoid or workaround the tricky parts and exploit the useful parts.

I see a problem here though. What about the case where you really do add a new tuner to your system? There is no way to get them to be mapped to SchedulesDirect without removing all of the channels and starting over? Maybe this is a limitation of the SchedulesDirect plugin?

If you add a new tuner it will most likely provide access to channels that you already have access to, so in most cases you can just link/map your existing channels to the new tuner. If the new tuner has access to new channels then your options are the same as above. With a digital tuner:

1. Scan in the channels with the tuner.
2. If the SD channels weren't created in TV Server then simply import guide data to link the guide data to the new channels, else either combine the SD guide channels with the channels created by a scan or delete the SD channels (*only the new ones*) and import guide data to create the links (as described above).

With an analog tuner or capture input:

1. Use SD to import the channels - add them to your SD lineup or do whatever is necessary (I'm not sure about this).
2. Map/link the SD channels to the tuner/capture card and check that the tuning details are correct.

But I am having a hard time wrapping my mind around how the SchedulesDirecxt Plug in handles mapping the guide info to multiple tuners when the TUners only have access to a subset of the total channels available.

It is not so much SD that has to handle this as TV Server. You have one big limitation from SD, and that is that an SD channel can only be linked to one MP channel. With your setup, that means that you have to be quite clever and careful to get it working.

Lets straighten this out. You have the HDPVR that has access to all channels. Obviously the HDPVR can't scan for channels so ignore it to start with.

Scan in your 15 clear QAM and ATSC channels from one of the HDHomeRuns. Map those channels to the HDHomeRun that you didn't scan with (or rescan with the other HDHomeRun - mapping is just faster ).

Rename the channels to match the call signs in the SD lineup.

Scan in the analog cable channels with one of the Adaptec tuners. Again, map those channels to the Adaptec tuner that you didn't scan with.

Now comes the tricky part. We want to link the TV Server channels that we have with the SD guide data, *and* in the same step create the channels that are unique to the HD-PVR. Your SD settings need to be:
- allow links by channel number ("Allow EPG Channel Mapping by Channel Number Only")
- allow creation of digital channels as analog channels in TV Server (for this one we enable channel creation, but *don't* enable channel creation for analog [cable] channels)
- select the appropriate video input on your HD-PVR - probably YRYBY#1 for component (not 100% certain of this)

Now import guide data.

Once that is done, map the HD-PVR-exclusive channels to the HD-PVR.

At this point you should:
- have one entry for each channel in your SD line-up in TV Server
- the analog cable channels should work with both Adaptec tuners, and they should have guide data
- the digital clear QAM and/or ATSC channels should work with the HDHomeRuns, and they should have guide data
- the encrypted HD-PVR exclusive channels should work with the HD-PVR (I'm assuming you've correctly set up your blaster at this point), and they should have guide data
- all that doesn't work are the analog cable and clear QAM channels on the HD-PVR

To fix the clear QAM channels on the HD-PVR, you need to add an analog tuning detail to each of those channels:
1. Open TV Server configuration.
2. Go to the "TV Channels" section.
3. Locate and select a clear QAM/ATSC channel that the HDHomeRun can tune.
4. Click "edit".
5. Click "add".
6. Select "analog" and click "OK".
7. Set the channel number as the number used to select the channel on the STB so that blasting will work.
8. Select the correct country.
9. Select "cable" as input type.
10. Select the appropriate crossbar video input (again, probably YRYBY#1).
11. Click "OK" to save the analog tuning detail.
12. Click "OK" to save the channel.
13. Repeat instructions 3 - 12 for each clear of the other 14 clear QAM/ATSC HDHomeRun channels - a little tedious, but not too bad.
14. Map the HDHomeRun channels to the HD-PVR.

Now the HD-PVR should be able to tune the clear QAM/ATSC channels.

Finally the only thing that doesn't work is the analog cable channels on the HD-PVR, and my recommendation would be that you actually don't try to get them working on the HD-PVR. I say that for two reasons:
1. You will have to manually create an additional tuning detail for 70 channels - very tedious, but there's no other better way unless you can script it.
2. Creating the extra tuning detail as per step 1 will actually not be ideal from TV Server's perspective.

Let me explain point 2 in more detail. You will have two analog tuning details for each channel after creating the extra tuning detail for the 70 channels. One tuning detail in each channel will only work with the Adaptec tuners and the other will only work with the HD-PVR. There's a 50-50 chance that TV Server will select the wrong tuning detail whenever you try to tune any of these channels because (unlike the HDHomeRun channels) TV Server can't implicitly tell which tuning detail to use with the Adaptec tuners and which tuning detail to use with the HD-PVR. Again to be very clear: in the case of the HDHomeRun channels TV Server knows to use the digital ATSC tuning detail with the HDHomeRuns as they are digital tuners and the HD-PVR is not, and vice-versa with the analog tuning detail and the HD-PVR. The same does not apply with the analog cable channels. The analog cable channels can work with the HD-PVR... it is just that you would have an ongoing consequence with the potentially slower channel changing on all three devices. It's completely up to you if you think it is worth the effort. If it were me, I would buy another analog tuner if the channels were that important to me.

Sorry for being dense.

Dense?!? Not at all! I've just taken 2000 odd words to explain it. If it takes that much of an explanation then I categorise this as a complex subject. When I thought about it for a while, the 3 steps I gave you in my previous post were *massively* oversimplified for your situation, so completely my fault for not thinking deeply enough. I just hope my theories are correct and that my plan actually works. I still haven't actually used SD so all of what I've said is based on my current knowledge of TV Server and examination of the SD code.

mm

 

[ijourneaux]

As always, appreciate your time and effort. I haven't had the time to digest your comments above. but will do so after this. Progress but still trouble.

Following your guidance, I started over.
1. First I deleted all of the channels.

2. Since I have dual tuner digital HDHomerun, a dual analog Adaptec avs3610 and an HD-PVR, I first scanned the channels on the AVS-3610 (about 70 channels) that all come identified with the channel number. I doesn't appear as if I have to scan both tuners as they both have exactly the same lineup. I allocated the same channels to both tuners

3. I scanned the channels on the HDHomeRun (15 channels). THese come acros with names that don't match Schedules direct so I renamed them to match the call sign in SchedulesDirect. As with the previous tuner, I allocated the same channels to both tuners

4. I had the SchedulesDirect plug set to match on channel number.

5. I had Schedule Direct set up appropriately to generate the channels for the HD-PVR. I know how to do this now but this is less than obvious. My complaint here is not that it isn't obvious but it is difficult to locate the instructions on how to do this. (I promise will write I clear guide<grin>)

6. Restart the TVServer. This triggers the generation of the HD-PVR channels from SchedulesDirect.

7. Low and behold, as you described a couple of posts ago, this causes all of the channels to be mapped to the channels in SchedulesDirect. Except not quite (as in life it seems there is always an exception)

1. The first problem I noticed is that the channel on the HDHomeRUn I had identified as WAOWDT was renamed to 81 G4 TV. Based on the other HDHomeRUn Channels it should have been renamed to 9-1 WAOWDT. 9-1 WAOWDT is on HD channel 81 not channel 81 in the guide. I just edit the channel back to 9-1 WAOWDT. That seemed to work. I suspect the guide data though will be wrong and I nolonger have an entry for channel 81 that should be available on the AVS-3610 and the HD-PVR.

2. More seriously though, when the guide information was associated with the HD-HomeRUn Channels the corresponding channels on the HDPVR were eliminated and not available to be selected. For instance on the HDHomeRun I originally renamed a channel to WHRMDT that matched the guide channel 600-WHRMDT. When the channel was mapped, it was renamed to 8-1 WHRMDT and the guide information was correctly available. But Channel 600 WHRM is no longer available to be tuned on the HDPVR.

A couple of steps forward and a step back.

I am going to review your notes above and see if your comments address the problems I just observed. I think what is needed here is, if you have an HD-PVR that includes all of the channels you have available on all tuners, Let SD generate the channels for the HD-PVR and channel infomation and use a manual process to link the other tuner channels to the appropriate channel in SD.

I can post the logs if you are interested.
-------
Is this functionality and thus complicated process strictly in the SD plugin or in TVServer? There has to be an easier more reliable way to do this mapping. I can appreciate that there are lots of complications but BeyondTV and SageTV both make the process "relatively" painless but certainly more reliable.

How can I help? Where can I start? I am reasonable comfortable with both C and C#.

Again

 

[mm1352000]

1. The first problem I noticed is that the channel on the HDHomeRUn I had identified as WAOWDT was renamed to 81 G4 TV. Based on the other HDHomeRUn Channels it should have been renamed to 9-1 WAOWDT. 9-1 WAOWDT is on HD channel 81 not channel 81 in the guide. I just edit the channel back to 9-1 WAOWDT. That seemed to work. I suspect the guide data though will be wrong and I nolonger have an entry for channel 81 that should be available on the AVS-3610 and the HD-PVR.

I would say this is because the maching by channel number option was turned on. What you may need to do is modify the process even further:

1. Scan HDHomeRun channels.
2. Rename.
3. Run SD with channel number mapping *off* and channel creation *off* to establish the correct digital channel links.
4. Scan analog cable channels with the AVC-3610.
5. Run SD again with the channel number mapping *on* and channel creation *on* to link the analog cable channels and create the remaining exclusive HD-PVR channels.

2. More seriously though, when the guide information was associated with the HD-HomeRUn Channels the corresponding channels on the HDPVR were eliminated and not available to be selected. For instance on the HDHomeRun I originally renamed a channel to WHRMDT that matched the guide channel 600-WHRMDT. When the channel was mapped, it was renamed to 8-1 WHRMDT and the guide information was correctly available. But Channel 600 WHRM is no longer available to be tuned on the HDPVR.

Sorry but I don't understand. The HD-PVR is the *last* thing you should set up.

I can post the logs if you are interested.

Not necessary at this stage. I think I'm starting to get my head around the complexity...

Is this functionality and thus complicated process strictly in the SD plugin or in TVServer? There has to be an easier more reliable way to do this mapping. I can appreciate that there are lots of complications but BeyondTV and SageTV both make the process "relatively" painless but certainly more reliable.

As I see it there are a few issues:
1. My lack of knowledge of SD.
2. The mixed mode nature of your TV setup.
3. The fact that SD is not integrated more tightly in TV Server (like the XMLTV plugin) - you can't manually map channels. SD devs have assumed that their heuristics for matching will be enough. In most cases they are *if you understand how they work*, but not always...

How can I help? Where can I start? I am reasonable comfortable with both C and C#.

I didn't realise you were a developer - maybe you told me and I forgot? In any case, familiarising yourself with the code is a good first step. What do you want to tackle? How do *you* imagine this working better? Keep in mind that I've never used BeyondTV, Sage, or SD so I have no concept of how they do things. All the logic for linking is in SD - the code can be pulled from their Google code repository:

mp-schedulesdirect - Revision 28: /trunk

Have a look at the EpgListingsImporter class, and the FindTvChannel() function in particular - that is where all the linking logic is.

mm

 

[ijourneaux]

I don't think I told you that I was a developer so I don't think you missed anything.

Let me answer this question first

2. More seriously though, when the guide information was associated with the HD-HomeRUn Channels the corresponding channels on the HDPVR were eliminated and not available to be selected. For instance on the HDHomeRun I originally renamed a channel to WHRMDT that matched the guide channel 600-WHRMDT. When the channel was mapped, it was renamed to 8-1 WHRMDT and the guide information was correctly available. But Channel 600 WHRM is no longer available to be tuned on the HDPVR.

Sorry but I don't understand. The HD-PVR is the *last* thing you should set up.

I didn't do anything to "add" the HDPVR. I scanned for avaialbe channels on the other tuners and restarted the TVService. SD added in the HDPVR channels and mapped the Adaptec and HDHomeRUn tuners. Unfortunately if it mapped a channel to the HDHomeRun tuner, it did not add it to the list of channels available for the HDPVR tuner.

Hope that explanation is clearer as to what happened

I realize now that adding the HDPVR channels last is the key to getting it to almost work with SchedulesDirect and perhaps that would work in a final more robust solution. The problem is that all channels in the SD guide need to be added to the HDPVR tuner. This did not happen as I describe above.

I see a system where you bring in all of the available channels from SD (This would be the starting point for the HDPVR) then map the SD channels to the actual tuner channels using a best guess (This is what SD tries to do). Then display the mappings and allow the user to make any corrections as necessary. I can image that as you handle channel umbering/naming across the different standards, that it will be virtually imposible to handle all cases correctly. In that case, the best approach is to get the user as close as possible and then allow him to easily make corrections when he notices errors.

Since you indicate XMLTV allows for manual mapping, perhpas that is the model that should be use.

Ok I have the latest version of the code checked out. Compiling doesn'tget too far as it is dependant on the TVServer project. I suppose I can check that out as well. Any other trick to creating a buildable environemnt. I am sure I can figure it out but somtime there is a prefered directory structure for the plugin in reference to the main project.

I realize that I need the TVServer and MP common folder trees as well but do the projects require tthe folder to be in certain places relatieve to one another.

Take Care.

 

[mm1352000]

I didn't do anything to "add" the HDPVR. I scanned for avaialbe channels on the other tuners and restarted the TVService. SD added in the HDPVR channels and mapped the Adaptec and HDHomeRUn tuners. Unfortunately if it mapped a channel to the HDHomeRun tuner, it did not add it to the list of channels available for the HDPVR tuner.

I'm not sure that you've quite understood how the linking between channels and tuners works. If you add channels by scanning for them in TV Server then the tuning details and links to tuners are automatically created for you. SD can create channels and guess at tuning details, but it has absolutely nothing to do with linking channels to tuners.

SD has nothing to do with tuners *at all*. When it creates channels in TV Server, they are not linked to any tuner/capture device. You have to do that manually as only you know which devices can receive each channel. That is why I specifically said:

Once that is done, map the HD-PVR-exclusive channels to the HD-PVR.

...and then...

To fix the clear QAM channels on the HD-PVR, you need to add an analog tuning detail to each of those channels...

Without the first step, TV Server knows that there are channels, and it knows how to tune them, *but it doesn't know what tuners can be used to tune them*.
Without the second step, TV Server know that there are channels and it knows how to tune them with *some* tuners. You have to tell it that it can also use the HD-PVR to tune them, and how they are tuned when you use the HD-PVR.

Is that what you were referring to?

The problem is that all channels in the SD guide need to be added to the HDPVR tuner. This did not happen as I describe above.

Again, to be very clear: SD does not deal in tuners. It deals only in channels and guide info. Only you can possibly know which tuners are capable of tuning each channel, therefore SD does not even attempt to guess.

Personally I think you need to separate the complexity of the HD-PVR (or indeed any blaster) setup from the SD setup - I consider SD as a tool that you're using to get guide info that *happens* to also have the ability to create channels in TV Server. If it didn't have those capabilities then you would have to create the channels, tuning details and tuner<-->channel mapping for each HD-PVR channel manually. This is a function of the fact that the HD-PVR can't scan. It isn't a tuner, therefore it has special setup requirements. The fact that SD can help you with this should be considered a bonus, but SD is not geared towards HD-PVRs any more than TV Server is.

I see a system where you bring in all of the available channels from SD (This would be the starting point for the HDPVR) then map the SD channels to the actual tuner channels using a best guess (This is what SD tries to do). Then display the mappings and allow the user to make any corrections as necessary. I can image that as you handle channel umbering/naming across the different standards, that it will be virtually imposible to handle all cases correctly. In that case, the best approach is to get the user as close as possible and then allow him to easily make corrections when he notices errors.

I think I understand where you're coming from. As above though, I think that expecting SD to create channels for the HD-PVR is the wrong approach. No other plugin that I know of does this - they don't need to usually. It is just the special requirements of capture devices that make that function desirable. I have some ideas myself about how we can streamline the channel creation process for such setups in TV Server...

Since you indicate XMLTV allows for manual mapping, perhpas that is the model that should be use.

I definitely encourage you to take a look at XMLTV. If SD worked that way then I think it would be *much* easier to use.

mm

 

[mm1352000]

Ok I have the latest version of the code checked out. Compiling doesn'tget too far as it is dependant on the TVServer project. I suppose I can check that out as well. Any other trick to creating a buildable environemnt. I am sure I can figure it out but somtime there is a prefered directory structure for the plugin in reference to the main project.

I realize that I need the TVServer and MP common folder trees as well but do the projects require tthe folder to be in certain places relatieve to one another.

I've not actually compiled the SD plugin - I've been browsing the code over the net. The compilation errors should tell you where SD is expecting to find things.

 

[ijourneaux]

Again, to be very clear: SD does not deal in tuners. It deals only in channels and guide info. Only you can possibly know which tuners are capable of tuning each channel, therefore SD does not even attempt to guess.

I am on the same page. I am just not expressing my self very well. I am refering to the HDPVR as a tuner when it isn't. THe HDPVR via the attached cable box can tune in any of the channels in the SD line up. If I just configure up the HD-PVR only, SD creates a guide entry for every channel in SD line up. WHen you use the HDPVR within MP MP blasts the channel to the cablebox. The HDPVR records the output and MP can watch the channel. IN this case it creates an entry for channel 600 WRHMDT.

In this last go around, I scanned all of the channels on all of the tuners and allocated the channels to the tuners. When I restarted the TVServer, SD mapped all of the the channels in the SD lineup to channels on the tuners. It failed in two places
1. HDHomeRun HD Channel 81-1 WAOWDT was mapped to the SD guide channel channel 81 G4 likely because it match on channel number
2. SD successfully mapped the other HDHomeRun channels to the correct SD program guide channels. BUT for each channel it mapped to the HDHomeRun, it did not create an equivalent entry for the HD-PVR when it should have.

For instance both the HDHomeRUn (by itself as it is a tuner) and the HDPVR (via the cablebox) can tune in channel 600. ON the HDHomeRUn, I renamed the channel from WRHM-HD to WHRMDT to match the entry for channel 600 WHRMDT in SD. After SD mapped the channel, WHRMDT became 90-3 WHRMDT associated with the correct channel on the HDHomeRun. But SD should have also created an entry for the HDPVR (which isn't really a tuner) corresponding to 600 WHRMDT. It didn't so I can not watch channel 600 using the HDPVR. So I have to add an entry to channel 600 (and the 15 other channels that are missing) for the HDPVR.