Recordings Import Problem

[Reddwarf]

I've made a change for the next release to try finding the channel by name if the channel oid stored in a recording does not refer to a valid channel. This should give a correct channel icon if a channel as been deleted and rescanned, or if the channel name doesnt match an existing channel at the time it was imported (by that channel is later added).

Well, part of the problem if that the imported recording finds a valid oid, but it is the wrong channel. trying channel name first would not have resulted in that situation.

[sub]

The import process has always looked for the channel by channel name. It never used the channel oid.

ie, the issue raised at the beginning of this thread was about import recordings ending up with a channel oid of zero, because no channel could be found when matching by name (because the recordings were imported before the channels were setup).

[Reddwarf]

I probably should have started another thread, but anyway, why did my recurring recordings end up on the wrong channel when the correct channel were set up prior to the import? Unfortunately the logs are gone, but for the future; is here some setting for number of log generations to keep?

[Jaggy]

I also had the exact same issue as Reddwarf when I imported my old recordings into a new database, this is after I had setup the exact same channels in the new database??

[sub]

Try it with the next release. It should work fine.

[jcjefferies]

The trouble is that its difficult to cover all changes. As well as channels changing OID others have rebranded so in the UK earlier in the year “FIVER” became “FIVE*” and “FIVE” became “Channel 5”.

Lao Pan
I dont understand what you mean about “these 2 channel oid's from the name or channel number” changing when there is a retune. I live up the road in north Glos and none of our channel OIDs changed at our switchover in April. Its easy even for me to write a SQL query which writes a specified number into “channel _oid” for every entry with a specified “channel_name”. However as “Recordings” uses the XML data in “event_details” its not “easy” to make bulk changes to that data.

[imilne]

I guess I haven't really experienced this yet with NPVR, but it sounds like one example where being able to manually edit the tuning cache files for GBPVR and then remap via them was handy. It meant you could "keep" the channel, but update its tuning information when needed, rather than having to delete it and re-scan, which would probably have changed all the OIDs. Now I'm not advocating being able to do that in NPVR, but perhaps there needs to be a way to update/rescan a channel without doing a delete?

Iain

[Lao Pan]

@jcjefferies

Yep it is these channel oid entries in the event_details column that cause the problem - not all oid's change on rescan but when channels keep changing mux etc (3 times in the last year here on Mendip) I have to delete the channel then rescan - infact last time I ended deleting the db then reimporting all recordings. I think it is because the mux frequency's have changed they are scanned in a different order and are then assigned different oid's - BBC1 - 2 ITV1 - Channel 4 all keep the same oid it is the channels down the list that are being reassigned.

[jcjefferies]

I always assumed that "channel _oid" was something generated at the transmitter. I have recordings going back to January which have the same OID as current recordings in spite of Digital Switchover, at least three server reinstalls and serveral clean installs of NPVR each of which required a rescan. However it could be that some channels have have changed OID but I dont still have any old recordings from them. When you press the Info button on my Freeview TV several PID numbers are displayed but they are nothing like the OID number.

[sub]

The channel_oid is just a unique number assigned by the database when the channel was first created. It has no relationship to anything the broadcaster is transmitting. It exists to identify a channel within the database.