[mythtv-users] Advice on re-doing my channels/capture cards

[Harry Devine]

Recently, Comcast added new HD channels to my lineup (which are actually 
the same channels I had, but they grouped them better now; the originals 
are still available, but I know at some point, they'll go away).  I can 
only see them via the HD-PVR, which is no big deal.  I was thinking that 
since I just put 0.24 on my system, it might be worth re-doing the 
capture cards and channel lineup.  But I'd like some advice on if my 
approach is worth it.

I have the HD-PVR, an HDHR, and a pcHDTV-5500 card.  I can't get 
anything on the analog portion of the pcHDTV card without a converter 
box due to the "enhancements" (cough, cough), so I will have OTA 
channels on the pcHDTV card as well as the HDHR.  I know that I can do 
the "fetch channels from listing source" deal for the HD-PVR.

My issue/question comes with the scanning: When I scan for channels on 
one of the cards, I use QAM-256 and get channels.  I get a lot of boxes 
that come up that say "Found xx MPEG channels" with options to add 
manually, or add them all automatically.  But they are the digital 
streams (like 79.1, etc.), so I'm not sure what they are yet.  What 
muddies the water in my head is that, after I add the channels, I'd like 
to number them according to the card they're available on.  For example: 
my local ABC HD affiliate is channel 231.  So I'd like to have the Myth 
channel be 1231 for the pcHDTV card, 2231 for the HDHR-0, 3231 for the 
HDHR-1, and 4231 for the HD-PVR.  I think that'll make scheduling easier.

Should I do this process 1 card at a time?  Do the pcHDTV card and video 
source, see what I have, get rid of the crap I don't care about, and 
re-number the channels, then move onto the HDHR, them lastly the 
HD-PVR?  Or does anyone have any better ideas?

Thanks for any thoughts.
Harry