What are the specific functions in 'General settings'? (1 Viewer)

[MadDuke]

I've install the days SVN (both TV-server and Media Portal)!

I am interested in knowing exactly what the different fields in 'General settings' in the TvServer is (like ‘PAT’ & ‘CAT’) – and if I can make them fit me needs better! (there has to be a reason why they are there!)

/MadDuke

 

[MadDuke]

Let me ask in another way...
In the TvServer there are a 'General settings' tab with the following feilds;

-> Scanning
-Tune (secs)
-PAT (secs)
-CAT (secs)
-PMT (secs)
-SDT/VCT (secs)

-> EPG Grabber
-Timeout (mins)
-Refresh every (mins)

-> Timeshifting
-Minimum (files)
-Maximum (files)
-Filesiza (MByte/file)

->Linkage Scanner
-> Enable [on/off]

Some of them seem clear (like EPG), but I would like to know what the effect changing in the different feilds (like 'PMT') actually have for Media Portal!

/MadDuke

 

[CommGuru]

The 1st section and someone more knowledgeable should correct me but the scanning section are time out paremeters of the different settings for scanning. ie: if you are getting hex names for channels, it helps to double certain settings, gives the client more time to parse the data stream to get the correct channel info.

 

[KevinM]

Well, not sure I know exactly what MP means by these things but trawling the net gives :-

PAT : PAT stands for Program Association Table. The PAT lists PIDs for all PMTs in the stream. Packets containing PAT information always have PID 0x0.

PMT : Program Map Tables, or PMTs, contain information about programs. For each program, there is a PMT, with the PMT for each program appearing on its own PID. The PMTs describe which PIDs contain data relevant to the program. PMTs also provide metadata about the streams in their constituent PIDs. For example, if a program contains an MPEG-2 video stream, the PMT will list this PID, describe it as a video stream, and provide the type of video that it contains (in this case, MPEG-2). The PMT may also contain additional descriptors providing data about its constituent streams.

CAT : Conditional Access Table, metadata in a MPEG-2/DVB stream

SDT : Service Description Table (SDT - used to tell the receiver the names and types of programming available on each channel) along with the Time and Date Table (TDT - tells the receiver about programming events on the channels - used to build the electronic program guide).

VCT : the Virtual Channel Table (VCT) is the thing that ties everything together. This lists each channel on the entire DCII system across multiple satellites and contains an index the appropriate TDT, SDT, MMT and CDT tables so that the receiver can select the correct channel analog or digital. If the channel is digital, the VCT also contains the MPEG-2 Program Number (although it's called Service Number in Motorola parlence) so the receiver can process the MPEG-2 PAT and PMT to actually display the program

 

[tomtom21000]

How about putting that into the wiki?

http://wiki.team-mediaportal.com/TV-Engine_0.3

and/or

in the glossary: http://wiki.team-mediaportal.com/glossary

tomtom

 

[KevinM]

How about putting that into the wiki?
http://wiki.team-mediaportal.com/TV-Engine_0.3
and/or
in the glossary: http://wiki.team-mediaportal.com/glossary
tomtom

Well - I would do but as these are just explanations gleaned from the web I would hope that a developer could confirm that this is what they mean within MP. Would not want wish it to look more authoritative than it is.

Also, I think there is an implied question here about whether changing any of these settings might improve anything. Several people - myself included - are having difficulties getting TV Server to pull in the EPG using the DVB streams. It would be really useful to know how these settings actually affect that.

It has been suggested that increasing the EPG timeout from 10 mins to between 12-15 minutes might help but this has made no difference in my case. In my experience, the DVB EPG grabber just sits there doing nothing a lot of the time and gets stuck on one channel.

Some people would say, "why don't you just use WebEPG or XMLTV?" and the answer is I do for most channels. However, there are several channels that don't have any web EPG data available and the DVB stream is my only hope. At the moment they sometimes get populated with one or two programs but appear blank the rest of the time.