issues with Music Choice (mostly audio only) channels

[LouCypher]

On my cable system, Charter, they have Music Choice channels. These are music channels that infrequently update the picture with information about the current track and station ID. They're in clear QAM so I can pick them up with GB-PVR (but not WinTV).

The issues I have are twofold:

1. In the Digital Channel Manager the preview screen is most often black unless I get lucky enough to change the channel for the brief period the video signal is sent. My HDTV television gets the same channels on clear QAM and the picture is "sticky" and doesn't change until another update. Digital Channel Manager never updates the picture or black screen no matter how long I leave it on a channel.

2. In Live TV I get the "No Signal detected..." message with the quality/strength bars. Quality is 100%, Strength is 0% even though the audio is playing all the time. I'll see the picture occasionally flipping through the MC channels but after a few seconds it goes back to the "No Signal detect..." message.

Obviously I'd like an updated picture in both the DCM and Live TV. I'm not sure how GB-PVR goes about detecting the video but it seems the check isn't frequent. Is there anyway to force updates?

Also, is there anyway (short of editing the skin) to get rid of the "No signal detected..." message? A checkbox or something in the DCM to label it as a music channel would be nice, perhaps a little music note on the guide or replacing the "No signal detected..." box with a graphic or something?

[sub]

Unfortunately there is no official support for this type of audio only channel at this stage (ATSC audio or DVB Radio). I do hope to add support for these channels in the future, but I couldnt tell you when.

[mvallevand]

The QAM digital audio from my cable provider appears to be sent without any video. My guess is the on screen display with the song title, album, artist is sent in a data stream of some kind of that the STB software (SARA) understands.

Martin

[LouCypher]

The QAM digital audio from my cable provider appears to be sent without any video. My guess is the on screen display with the song title, album, artist is sent in a data stream of some kind of that the STB software (SARA) understands.

On Charter is seems to be more than just text as there are images (albeit low quality) displayed as well. My HDTV and the GB-PVR display the same images, although it's possible they're decoding data in the stream to display the graphics.

[mvallevand]

Thats sounds like you do have a video feed. On mine, the remote even lets you page backwards to scroll thorugh the names of the last few songs that have played, and there is even a screen blanker.

Martin

[whurlston]

Music Choice shows a static image that refreshes in the stream every few seconds. There is too long of a delay between refreshes for any software decoder to consider it a "video" stream which is why you get the "No Signal" message.

I was working on a plugin that would insert a video loop but my cable company started encrypting the MC stations so it became a moot point and I scrapped the code.