[mythtv] channels.conf-import

[Ed Wildgoose]

Julian Scheel wrote:

>Hi all,
>
>this is my first post to mythtv-lists. I looked through the sources of mythtv 
>for some time now and already did some small hacks for my personal use...
>
>Now I'd like to contribute my first part - I'm working on a 
>channels.conf-import-module for DVB-cards. I already have a working parser. 
>Now it comes to the question what's the best way to interact with the user 
>and write it into the database.
>
>I thought of a solution like this:
>Parsing the channels.conf and showing all the channels in a list - For example 
>a UIListBtnType. In this list you can check on/off which channels you'd like 
>to use, and over a menu it should give you the ability to select a 
>channel-number and maybe a callsign and xmltv-id.
>
>Then it comes to writing it to the database. Should I use direct SQL-queries, 
>or is there any standardized interface for that, which I haven't found yet?
>
>What do you think of this considerations?
>  
>

Hi Julian,

You didn't get much response to this, so let me just lend my support.  
This sounds like an excellent idea, and a much needed feature.

A couple of ideas.  First, make the import function take the text from 
channels.conf in an arbitrary way and then you can even call "scan" in 
the background to generate the file if you need to.  Also, I can supply 
an xmltvid mapping for all UK channels, and I'm sure others could do 
sky, etc, and that way you would probably quickly get a lookup table for 
just about all major channels.

Features that I would find useful would be a way to import a whole 
channels.conf and mark some channels as not wanted, but then later when 
I refresh by re-importing, it remembers that info (think all those data 
channels...)  Perhaps this can be done by importing the channels and 
then marking them as unwanted in the DB using myth features?

It would also be useful to be able to choose the ordering of channels on 
import, but again, that could be more usefully a function of the 
channels setup page in the setup screen anyway...?

I think it would be easiest to use direct SQL queries, but there are a 
lot of powerful features that the "settings" interface offers which 
could probably work, but I don't really understand that stuff... Perhaps 
someone like Kenneth can help out with ideas?

There is also some parsing code in the old Mythchannels stuff if you 
look in the archives.  The discussion we had at the time was that the 
VDR style channels.conf contained more info than the tzap style one, and 
it would be better to parse the VDR channels.conf (perhaps more likely 
the user has one as well?)  Beware the slight differences between t/c 
and s style channels.conf though

Good luck

Ed W