[mythtv-users] Difficulty getting HDHomeRun setup

R. G. Newbury newbury at mandamus.org
Tue Jun 5 04:04:59 UTC 2007


William Munson wrote:
> Bob Diss wrote:
>> Hi.  A recent post suggests that channel scanning for
>> the HDHomeRun should be just fine in 0.20.1.
<snip>
>>   
> The only thing I see is that you set it to delete which will delete any 
> existing scans. Try minimal updates and turn on the quick tune feature.
> 
> Unfortunately  it appears that channel scanning for QAM channels is 
> still broken.  Its still broken in SVN as of last night too.


Channel scanning is NOT broken. It properly finds and reports on the 
channels it finds. Unfortunately, it cannot report things which it does 
not know and cannot discover.

There is nothing we can do about it. Myth can determine and report the 
frequency and serviceid of a digital stream. But the channel number 
given by the cableco is arbitrary and NOT reported in the digital 
stream. Nor is the call-sign. Those things are unknown to myth and not 
discoverable. IT IS NOT MYTH'S FAULT.

That is why we have to go through the steps given below. Do NOT blame 
the myth developers for this problem.

Good writeup BTW Bill although the same thing can be done without the 
necessity for a windows box. The hard part is determining which channel 
matches which digital stream and it is not often easy. Moreoever some 
facility with mysql is required to make the changes. That's what it 
takes. Get over it.

  There is
> some work being done on a replacement scan tool however nothing has been 
> checked into the SVN branch created for that effort so I cannot report 
> any progress. Right now setting up channels is a labor intensive manual 
> process that starts with a channel scan to pull in the basic info on 
> which transports are used and to populate the channels table with 
> (mostly useless) info.
> 
> Since there have been many requests for me to post my procedure for 
> fixing the data I will detail what I ended up doing. You may want to use 
> different tools to arrive at the same results.
> 
> I tend to use windows tools as I have windows boxes on the network and 
> my linux boxes are dedicated usage. I set up myphpadmin on my myth box 
> to allow me to directly edit the mythconverg database. This allows me to 
> edit the tables from a nice web interface.
> 
> Start by using the windows/mac scan tool and go thru all the channels 
> reported by the tool and write down the qam channel and transport 
> frequency and subtransport number for each channel you want myth to be 
> able to tune. Write down the callsign of each one that includes that 
> info and any you can figure out from watching the channel with vlc. Dont 
> bother with music channels as myth will not tune them.
> 
> Next go to www.zap2it.com and bring up the channel listing for your 
> area. When you hover the mouse over the channel name or logo (left most 
> column) the bottom of the browser window will have a longish string that 
> identifies the channel in their database. Look for stnNum= and write 
> down the number that follows, this is the xmltvid for the channel. Also 
> note the exact channel name. The scan tool will report the channel as 
> something like WJXX-DT and zap2it will use something like WJXXDT. You 
> will need that info too.
> 
> Now comes the "fun" part. Edit your channel table as follows:
> 
> chanid - Unique number for each channel in database - normally set by 
> myth but can be changed if you add a new channel to database
> channum - The on-screen channel number used to tune the channel. Can be 
> whatever you want as long as its unique.
> freqid - This is the QAM channel number reported by the scan tool.
> sourceid - The source number associated with the HDHR.
> callsign - The channel callsign in the zap2it format. Very important!!
> name - Can be whatever you want but normally should be the same as callsign.
> icon - Leave blank, will be filled in by master-icon.pl.
> finetune - Leave at current setting.
> videofilters - Leave at current setting.
> xmltvid - xmltvid from zap2it
> recpriority - Leave at current setting.
> contrast - Leave at current setting.
> brightness - Leave at current setting.
> colour - Leave at current setting.
> hue - Leave at current setting
> tvformat - Set to ATSC.
> commfree - Leave at current setting
> visible - Make sure its set to 1.
> outputfilters - Leave at current setting.
> useonairguide - Make sure its set to 0.
> mplexid - This is the multiplex number from the dtv_multiplex table that 
> matches the channel frequency reported by the scan tool.
> serviceid - This is the subchannel reported by the scan tool.
> atscsrcid - Should be NULL.
> tmoffset - Leave at current setting.
> atsc_major_chan - Set to 0. This is not used in quick tune mode.
> atsc_minor_chan - Set to 0. This is not used in quick tune mode.
> last_record - Leave at current setting.
> default_authority - Leave at current setting.
> commmethod - Leave at current setting.
> 
> Generally myth finds lots of "garbage" channels so delete any that you 
> no longer need.
> 
> Once you have everything set you can run mythfilldatabase to populate 
> the program info. Be sure to use a different lineup at zap2it from your 
> other inputs as any channel not used in the channels table will be 
> deleted from your lineup. This will cause missing channels in a shared 
> lineup. In my case I use a basic cable and digital cable lineup under 
> the same login but you can also set up two logins under different user 
> names and myth will be happy. You can check your channels before you 
> fill the database if you want but it helps to have a show description to 
> verify you have the correct xmltvid set for the channel.
> 
> Once done you may find that some channels do not tune. I have found this 
> is usually caused by a incorrect mplexid. Try setting it one higher or 
> lower and try the channel again.
> 
> There you have my manual-matic way of setting up the database. Good 
> luck, feel free to ask questions if you get stuck.
> 
> Bill

Geoff--
              R. Geoffrey Newbury			


        Helping with the HTTP issue
<a href="http://www.w3.org/Protocols/">HTTP</a>


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