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- #31
changing the unique ID from channel name to the 3 identifiers doesn't seem to make much sense, unless lots of other things have been changed or there are plans to do so.
Channel name is not ever unique. Same channel name can be received from multiple sources (-S, -T, -C, -IP) or broadcaster can even use the same channel name multiple times in the same broadcast type. Also broadcaster can change the channel name (rename it) and the channel content would be still the same.
I have seen all those to happen and name is not able to make unique channel identifier in those cases. DVB spec has already that issue sorted out, it just needs that both applications and broadcasters behave correctly. Now MP is complying the specs and if broadcaster isn't then we cannot unfortunately do anything about it.
I understand channel name is not unique, which is why it can't be used as the unique identifier and something else needs to be used. I think it's clear from my previous posts that I appreciate that. I can only assume that when channel name was used as the unique identifier however, that the actual tuning details (the three identifiers) must have been stored in a separate table and linked to the unique identifier. So if the unique identifier is now changed from channel name to the three identifiers, it would seem that there is some unneccessary duplication by having these details stored in two places, unless other changes have been made to do away with this separate table. If this separate table is still being used, it seems unneccessary to make the unique ID as complicated, when perhaps T-BBC1, T-ITV1 would suffice.
As for the DVB spec, that's a separate issue but if we know that broadcasters don't compy with it, it seems rather daft to ignore this and decide to make MP work on the assumption that broadcasters do follow it, as we know they don't and thus MP will encounter problems. I'm just trying to see if there's a better way to approach this that will make MP work better, even when broadcasters choose to ignore the spec. I think if the broadcaster changes the three identifiers but the channel name remains the same, MP could be made to be able to cope with this. It might not be possible for it to be able the handle broadcasters just changing the name, in which case perhaps the only solution is for the user to manually tell MP that channelname1 is now channelname2.