Advanced Channel Management

[NumberFive]

Just a thought on scanning / updating / adding / removing channels.

It's quite frustrating how many channels keep coming and going, moving about and changing name on Freeview. On a TV it's handy enough just to let it scan and see what it finds, but on NextPVR there's a clear need for a more considered approach as there are several tuners, different types of tuner (DVB-T, S, IPTV), and so on.

A tool I think would make things easier is something that would let you compare the latest channel scan against the present database of TV channels. I've attached an example. The orange channels have moved LCN, the purple channel has renamed, and the red channel is no longer broadcast. The green channel is new.

There'd be more subtly to it I'm sure sub knows lots more about, but I imagine it could have some logic based on if these channels are currently assigned to the tuner being scanned.

[sub]

When you do a scan, any existing channels found are shown in grey, and any new channels are shown in black. To determine if a channel is new or existing, it looks for match based on sid/onid/tsid identifiers used by the broadcasters.

For existing channels, being found in a scan will cause it to update the tuning information if it has changed (like it's moved to a different frequency). It doesn't currently bother to update the name or number if these have changed, since these don't have any effect on the applications ability to record these channels. I could relatively easily have it make those that have changed another colour, and potentially update the channel number/name.

It doesn't currently do anything with existing channels that were not found during a scan. (it leaves them in place, on the assumption that the user could just be having temporary reception issues etc)

[NumberFive]

Thanks sub,

That would be brilliant.

The current functionality of updating the tuning information is great, I've used it many teams and its very reliable.

It would be really useful is there was a way to ask NextPVR to update the names and LCNs in the database.

I was thinking about the issue of existing channels not found. I completely understand that it wouldn't be desirable to delete them due to intermittent reception, or indeed like me if you are using multiple antennas pointed to different jurisdictions. One way I can identify channels no longer broadcast is if they are missing EPG data. Just a thought, if it were possible to add "Now / Next" columns to the Channel settings menu, channels with no data available could be quickly spotted and I could make a decision as to where to delete them. This is actually what I do at the moment, although I have to use the TV guide, note down the channel numbers to delete, then go and do it. Sometimes I get confuses (particularly after a scan which creates more than one channel on a number) and have to chop back and forth between the settings and the TV guide - or sometimes there are two channels with the same name, on the same channel number, with different tuning information and I need to go and check which one is to be deleted.

The system is great, these features are icing on the cake!