Setting up sat channels confusion (1 Viewer)

[Chris005]

Hi all... I'm having a bit of a mare... I'm hoping people can help me!

I am trying to set up the tv server with satellite channels.
When I scan 28.2E Eutelsat,astra I get many hundreds of channels. I am unable to determine which channels I actually need. For example, I get many different BBC1's, Many different ITV's etc etc... You get the idea.

Now, I realiise that these are regional variations but I can find absolutely no way of telling which are which. They all say they are channel number 1000.

I have read many many posts on this forum but cannot seem to crack this problem.

I'm getting hacked off with watching the local news for the scottish islands and the cymru weather

On my digital terrestrial tuner its simple but dual tuner on satellite is just confusing the hell out of me. I don't really understand about different transponders. I'm quite a novice with this although I have been using media centre for many years now.

I'm guessing iv'e missed something really simple... I hope so.

Help!


Chris

 

[erichzann]

Hi Chris,

This is just the way it is with freesat. Not much you can do about it. BBC1 and ITV1 are the worst for regional variations.

I simply untick everything in the channel manager and then work up the list ticking only the channels I want to appear and I only select the BBC1 channel for my region etc. Also you probably have loads of channel 4s. Just choose one.

It can also help to create groups to make channel management a bit easier e.g. Entertainment, News, Lifestyle, and move the channels into those as you select them.

I use the groups that are given on the Freesat website, http://www.freesat.co.uk/what-you-get/our-channels/

Also, if you have already tuned the freeview tuner then when you come to combining your DVB-T and DVB-S channels use the freeview channels as a guide. That is, click on each of the freeview channels in turn and then select from the list of possible DVB-S channels that you want to combine. This is much easier than doing the mapping the other way by clicking on the DVB-S channels first, as there are less DVB-T channels.

I hope that makes sense!!!

 

[porky996t]

Hi Chris,

This is what I do. It maybe right, it maybe wrong - there may be easier methods

I setup a new channel group which I call "Favourites". This will then list four tabs in the TV Server channels section, namely ;"Channels" "All Channels", "Digital Terrestrial", "Digital Satellite" & "Favourites".

When I combine channels I trawl through the terrestrial Freeview channels and try to find a match in the satellite ones, for example, BBC One terrestrial for me is the North West (Winter Hill transmitter) and I combine this with the regional BBC satellite channel shown as "BBC One North West". That is the easy bit. Don't do this for ITV yet, as all ITV channels say only ITV1, ITV+1, or ITV HD with no regional variations listed which is a bit of a bugger, although we sort this later. I continue to go through the list and even combine things like Dave, Dave Ja Vu and Yesterday with the satellite ones, even though the sat ones are encrypted (I do this as I use a satellite EPG grabber and then can use series link facility). I also combine all the Channel 4's, and Channel 5's by using Ctrl+ click

After combining channels, do as Erichzann says, above, untick everything in the channel manager.

Then go through the list of channels adding your "usual" ones into the new "Favourites" group - you can do this by right clicking the mouse over the relevant channel. I also sort the channels alphabetically by clicking at the top of the Name column. When you get to the ITV ones add them all to your favourites group. Continue down the Channels list adding the channels you are most likely to watch. Go into the Favourites tab and use the up and down arrows on screen to move the channel into it's preferred place. Again, I use Ctrl + click to highlight several and move them in one go. I tend to group mine together starting with the "BBC One's" at the top, followed by BBC Two, BBC Two HD. I also list the Scots, Welsh & NI BBC channels as you sometimes get variations on them. I then list ITV next, followed by ITV +1 etc, then Channels 4, More 4, Film 4, E4, Channels 5, 5+1 5 USA etc, etc. I follow these with the CBS channels, Dave, Yesterday, Drama etc which are just general channels outside of the main 5 channel groupings. All the movies channels such Men & Movies, True Ent etc get grouped together, some music channels get grouped together and then at the end of the list the news channels are all lumped together.

After arranging all your channels into your preferred order in your "favourites" folder you should have about 12 or so ITV's, followed by about 8 ITV +1's and four or five ITV HD's. You now need to populate your EPG - I use DJBlu's Sky Grabber ( I am still running MP 1.3 though). Once your EPG has populated, you can then see which of the ITV channels is for your region by scrolling to the six o'clock news where it should list the news for your area - in my case it is Granada news - yours should be different, unless you live in North West England. Make a note of which channel is correct, i.e. fifth ITV channel in the list. Then go back into TV Server, and untick all but the correct channel from your "favourites" folder. I do this for ITV, ITV+1 and ITV HD channels. Your EPG list should then show only those correct channels.

Once you have identified the channels as being the correct ones by using the EPG, you can then look at the Channel details ("Channels" Tab & Edit button) and note the ID's of the ITV Channels for your region. I then delete all but the correct ITV channels from the Satellite tuner - the correct ones have a tick next to them and show as being listed in Favourites folder. It is easy to go back and combine these remaining ITV satellite channels with the terrestrial channels for your region.

A bit long winded I know, but blame ITV for removing the regional variations names from their Freesat channels.

I hope that helps.