2011-02-16, 06:50 PM
I've just gotten a WinTV-2250 to replace 2 analog PVR-150s. Got it installed and it's working fine. I'm having a problem understanding exactly how channel-mapping should work though. this gets kind of involved, so pls bear with me... Here's the situation:
With the old analog tuners, I had analog channels available, from 2 to 105 or so, and they all mapped to my EPG source with no problems. So I never needed to do any channel mapping since they were all set up correctly.
Now I have 2 analog tuners and 2 QAM tuners with the 2250. When I scan for channels on the QAM tuners it finds 230 channels, all labeled something like "Unknown 66.2". I can view those channels OK, so they're valid, but no station data is present. Each of these is also assigned an integer channel number, so in Live TV I can go to channel 268 and I see what's on QAM channel 66.2. So far so good.
However, the integer channel numbers assigned to the QAM channels do not correspond to the integer channels from my cable provider. In fact, there is no channel 268 defined by my cable provider. QAM 66.2 is actually the TOON channel, available at cable-box channel 62 (it's the digital counterpart to analog channel 62).
So, I figure, no problem, I can just map those channels to the ones I want. So if I were to want to view the TOON channel (for some reason), I would want to go to Channel 62 and see QAM channel 66.2, not analog 62, because the picture is better with the digital channel.
(what I want to achieve is that in NPVR the "familiar" channel list is available, i.e. the channels we're all used to selecting on the TV or cable box. By selecting the "familiar" channel in NPVR, I want to see the "best" picture available, whether that is an analog channel, its digital-QAM-480p counterpart, or its HDTV-QAM-1080 counterpart.)
So, In Settings->Channels, I can see the full list of analog and digital channels present on all my tuners. If I select channel 268 (labeled as "Unknown 66.2") and click Details, I can change the channel number to 62 and I can change the EPG source to Schedules Direct, select channel 62, and I should be in business. I click OK.
Now, I can go to the NPVR main screen, right-click, select Channels, and look for channel 62. There are actually 2 listed, the old analog one and the new QAM-mapped one. I can select either one, and I get what I expect (fuzzy picture on old analog 62, sharper picture on new QAM-mapped 62).
However, there are 2 problems that I can see. They are:
1. on the TV Guide, it shows me 2 rows for Channel 62 (as expected), but the one corresponding to the QAM channels has no show details. For most channels, this is the case, but sometimes it works just the way I expect it to (2 channels listed, both mapped to the same EPG data, both have the show details I expect.) I've tried emptying and updating the EPG data but it doesn't help.
2. During mapping, it's easy to completely lose the association between the "virtual" channel and the "true" channel (i.e. does "62" refer to analog-62 or QAM-66.2). When I mapped the QAM channel to "virtual" channel 62, I didn't touch the channel name of "Unknown 66.2", because that's the only way I can know that this is actually a QAM channel. I would like to change that to "TOON" so I know it corresponds to that channel. But, if I do that, it will be indistinguishable from the original analog channel. This is a problem for the following reason: my cable company likes to shift the QAM channels around from time to time, so there's no guarantee that TOON will always be on QAM 66.2. If it moves, I'll have a very difficult time remapping it. I can hunt for the new QAM channel and map 62 to that new channel, but how will I then "re-use" QAM-66.2? That channel is "gone", there's nothing left in the channel mapping to identify it. I'll have to re-scan the tuner for channels, and then I will also lose all the other mappings I've laboriously created.
Also, if I were to delete a channel mistakenly, how can I get it back? If I accidentally delete "Unknown 66.2", it's gone - I have to re-scan to get it back, and then I lose all my mappings and have to re-create my recurring recordings.
Am I missing something? Is there a better way?
Channel-mapping nirvana would seem to include a notion of a persistent "virtual" channel that's created via an association of a virtual channel number and description with an actual channel (whether an analog or a QAM channel), and an EPG source, all of which can persist if individual tuners are added, removed or re-scanned. Virtual channels should be able to be added or deleted easily, without affecting the "actual" channels on the tuners. Right now, it seems that "actual" channels can be mapped to EPG data (but it doesn't always work), but deletions from the list of channels are permanent and additions are impossible.
I would be happy to be corrected if I've got all this wrong....
With the old analog tuners, I had analog channels available, from 2 to 105 or so, and they all mapped to my EPG source with no problems. So I never needed to do any channel mapping since they were all set up correctly.
Now I have 2 analog tuners and 2 QAM tuners with the 2250. When I scan for channels on the QAM tuners it finds 230 channels, all labeled something like "Unknown 66.2". I can view those channels OK, so they're valid, but no station data is present. Each of these is also assigned an integer channel number, so in Live TV I can go to channel 268 and I see what's on QAM channel 66.2. So far so good.
However, the integer channel numbers assigned to the QAM channels do not correspond to the integer channels from my cable provider. In fact, there is no channel 268 defined by my cable provider. QAM 66.2 is actually the TOON channel, available at cable-box channel 62 (it's the digital counterpart to analog channel 62).
So, I figure, no problem, I can just map those channels to the ones I want. So if I were to want to view the TOON channel (for some reason), I would want to go to Channel 62 and see QAM channel 66.2, not analog 62, because the picture is better with the digital channel.
(what I want to achieve is that in NPVR the "familiar" channel list is available, i.e. the channels we're all used to selecting on the TV or cable box. By selecting the "familiar" channel in NPVR, I want to see the "best" picture available, whether that is an analog channel, its digital-QAM-480p counterpart, or its HDTV-QAM-1080 counterpart.)
So, In Settings->Channels, I can see the full list of analog and digital channels present on all my tuners. If I select channel 268 (labeled as "Unknown 66.2") and click Details, I can change the channel number to 62 and I can change the EPG source to Schedules Direct, select channel 62, and I should be in business. I click OK.
Now, I can go to the NPVR main screen, right-click, select Channels, and look for channel 62. There are actually 2 listed, the old analog one and the new QAM-mapped one. I can select either one, and I get what I expect (fuzzy picture on old analog 62, sharper picture on new QAM-mapped 62).
However, there are 2 problems that I can see. They are:
1. on the TV Guide, it shows me 2 rows for Channel 62 (as expected), but the one corresponding to the QAM channels has no show details. For most channels, this is the case, but sometimes it works just the way I expect it to (2 channels listed, both mapped to the same EPG data, both have the show details I expect.) I've tried emptying and updating the EPG data but it doesn't help.
2. During mapping, it's easy to completely lose the association between the "virtual" channel and the "true" channel (i.e. does "62" refer to analog-62 or QAM-66.2). When I mapped the QAM channel to "virtual" channel 62, I didn't touch the channel name of "Unknown 66.2", because that's the only way I can know that this is actually a QAM channel. I would like to change that to "TOON" so I know it corresponds to that channel. But, if I do that, it will be indistinguishable from the original analog channel. This is a problem for the following reason: my cable company likes to shift the QAM channels around from time to time, so there's no guarantee that TOON will always be on QAM 66.2. If it moves, I'll have a very difficult time remapping it. I can hunt for the new QAM channel and map 62 to that new channel, but how will I then "re-use" QAM-66.2? That channel is "gone", there's nothing left in the channel mapping to identify it. I'll have to re-scan the tuner for channels, and then I will also lose all the other mappings I've laboriously created.
Also, if I were to delete a channel mistakenly, how can I get it back? If I accidentally delete "Unknown 66.2", it's gone - I have to re-scan to get it back, and then I lose all my mappings and have to re-create my recurring recordings.
Am I missing something? Is there a better way?
Channel-mapping nirvana would seem to include a notion of a persistent "virtual" channel that's created via an association of a virtual channel number and description with an actual channel (whether an analog or a QAM channel), and an EPG source, all of which can persist if individual tuners are added, removed or re-scanned. Virtual channels should be able to be added or deleted easily, without affecting the "actual" channels on the tuners. Right now, it seems that "actual" channels can be mapped to EPG data (but it doesn't always work), but deletions from the list of channels are permanent and additions are impossible.
I would be happy to be corrected if I've got all this wrong....