Help! Adding 400+ channels via external input from sat box (1 Viewer)

[gdirwin]

I have a settop box for starchoice satellite (Canada) connected via S-Video into my PVR150 card. The starchoice channels start at 200 and go up to 999. I setup xmltv to generate TVGuide.xml (works well) and then imported these channels into MP (so far so good). The problem is that each channel gets an internal type, yet I want every channel to be external (from my settop box).

I know I can edit each channel one by one - how do I edit hundreds of channels to change them to external?

The first channel is 200 - I want to enter 200 on my remote or keyboard to get channel 200 - I do not want to enter 1 (ie the first channel) to get channel 200. Is this possible? I know I can enter hundreds of false channels to achieve this, but again is there an elegant way of doing this?

Can I even enter 3 digit numbers with my Hauppauge 45 button remote?

I am using the latest CVS version. All help or advice would be appreciated!

 

[gdirwin]

Anyone?

What about using a database editor and editing the .db3 file directly to change the input type and enter the external channel numbers - is this possible, if so what editor?

 

[Callifo]

sqlitebrowser can edit them quite well but im not sure if it can do what you want. Might as well give it a try.

 

[gdirwin]

Thanks Callifo - good advice that got me on the right track...

I used sqlitebrowswer to export the .db3 channel database into a .csv list. I then used Xcel to change all the channels to external, change the channel to 250000 (external svideo input) and modify the external channel numbers. I then exported from Xcel back to a .csv list. Back to sqlitebrowswer, delete the old table, re-import the new table, a bit of sorting in Setup and voila - it works. Simple (well at least better then editing hundreds of channels one by one).

MP Setup crashes (unhandled exception) if you sort by Channel - it works if you have only pure channel numbers (ie 1, 2 etc...) but if you have 250000/1 (the format for external channel 1 input via s-video) then it is toast. Manual sort up/down works though - this can also be done with groups of channels so it is not too bad.

3 button channels work via remote or keyboard.

The only remaining problem is logical channel numbering (press 55 to get channel 55, not the 55th channel in the list). It is not feasible to pad my channel list with hundreds of channels (even with editing of the database).

I will find the latest thread on LCN and give it a bump.

Thanks again for the sqlitebrowswer tip.

 

[kaliatech]

Fwiw, I had written up how I approached the same problem here:
http://nolanparty.com/mediaportal.sourceforge.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=10330

I would also like to figure out a solution to the LCN. (I already bumped the threads...your turn. )

 

[mzemina]

Fwiw, I had written up how I approached the same problem here:
http://nolanparty.com/mediaportal.sourceforge.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=10330

I would also like to figure out a solution to the LCN. (I already bumped the threads...your turn. )

kaliatech - I read that you are a .Net developer, how about your adding development support and fixing this problem? I'm sure there would be MANY people thanking you after this fix is released!

Mike

 

[kaliatech]

I read that you are a .Net developer, how about your adding development support and fixing this problem?

RE: LCN handling. AFAIK, that is already being worked on per this thread:
http://nolanparty.com/mediaportal.sourceforge.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=62281. I'm assuming the core dev team is reworking some things to support this in an upcoming release. If someone posted up definitively that they were NOT work on it though, I would definitely be looking in to myself.