Channel mapping & changing display (zap2it changes)

[Braklet]

zap2it changed their digital ATSC channel reports recently, substituting base channel frequency for the customary PSIP "major.minor" channel numbers. To maintain EPG, GB-PVR users have to reallocate all channels to correspond to the new scheme.

This results in some annoying by products when using GB-PVRs EPG. I'd like to learn a little more about GB-PVR channel naming and display to see if I could modify things more to my liking.

GB-PVR maintains a database of Channel Name and Source Channel. I initially set these up by updating EPG from zap2it. zap2it EPG names end up in Channel Name and GB-PVR assigns Source Channel integers in order.

I have set up desired channel order via the Channels tab, by modifying the internal GB-PVR source channel #s.

Can I also modify the Channel Name, originally downloaded from zap2it? Or would this break the EPG update function?

Thanks!

[Braklet]

I wish the GB-PVR EPG displayed the internal "Source Channel" #s in addition to the "Channel Name" originally pulled down from labs.zap2it.com.

Taking a look at the SQLite DB table CHANNEL, I find these columns:

oid, name, channelID, channel_number, favourite_channel, display_name

CHANNEL.name contains the annoying zap2it name, while CHANNEL.channel_number corresponds to GB-PVR "Source Channel."

Could I somehow add CHANNEL.channel_number to the EPG display? It already displays in that column's order.

Has anyone tried editing CHANNEL.name or does that break EPG update?

[sub]

Could I somehow add CHANNEL.channel_number to the EPG display? It already displays in that column's order.

Unfortunately not at this stage. Maybe in a future release.

Has anyone tried editing CHANNEL.name or does that break EPG update?

It would break the EPG update process.

[sub]

Any chance you could send me your zap2it username/password, so I could check what changes they've made to the digital channels? I dont really understand what exactly you're saying has changed. I've got a test account, but it only has analog channels.

[Braklet]

Any chance you could send me your zap2it username/password, so I could check what changes they've made to the digital channels? I dont really understand what exactly you're saying has changed. I've got a test account, but it only has analog channels.

I could do that (check your PMs a little later), but I can also attach a copy of zap2it.xml which should show all the pertinent details.

Looking at zap2it.xml, what I can glean is that they previously used the analog broadcast channel number as "fccChannelNumber" . Now they're using the actual ATSC channel allocation as "fccChannelNumber" . Technically this may be more correct but the underlying channel carrier is used in no EPGs (including zap2it.com).

EDIT: That is not correct; obviously the labs.zap2it.com EPG updates use the new channel format, but none of the online guides (including http://www.zap2it.com) nor my ATSC tuners do.

Ideally, labs.zap2it.com would use the same channel names as http://www.zap2it.com. I just quick-scanned the latter and ATSC channels show up in the standard "analog broadcast.digital offset" format. In my case, the channel that shows up in GB-PVR as "59 WUNCDT" is listed in the website matrix as "4.1 WUNCDT" . I've edited my own corresponding GB-PVR channel number to 1041.

Thanks for at least thinking about it. All I'd like at this point would be an editable channel name within GB-PVR that wouldn't break EPG updates.

[Braklet]

Here's an interesting aside:

I just logged into my GB-PVR install's web admin portal, and the EPG matrix contains "CHANNEL.channel_number" "CHANNEL.name" . That's sort of what I'd like to see in the internal GB-PVR screens, since we have some control over the channel_number.

[sub]

I could do that (check your PMs a little later), but I can also attach a copy of zap2it.xml which should show all the pertinent details.

Looking at zap2it.xml, what I can glean is that they previously used the analog broadcast channel number as "fccChannelNumber" . Now they're using the actual ATSC channel allocation as "fccChannelNumber" . Technically this may be more correct but the underlying channel carrier is used in no EPGs (including zap2it.com).

EDIT: That is not correct; obviously the labs.zap2it.com EPG updates use the new channel format, but none of the online guides (including http://www.zap2it.com) nor my ATSC tuners do.

Ideally, labs.zap2it.com would use the same channel names as http://www.zap2it.com. I just quick-scanned the latter and ATSC channels show up in the standard "analog broadcast.digital offset" format. In my case, the channel that shows up in GB-PVR as "59 WUNCDT" is listed in the website matrix as "4.1 WUNCDT" . I've edited my own corresponding GB-PVR channel number to 1041.

Thanks, I'll take a look. I wont need the zap2it login details since you've supplied the zap2it.xml.

I'll see if there is some alternative I can give you in the next release.

All I'd like at this point would be an editable channel name within GB-PVR that wouldn't break EPG updates.

Sorry, but we probably wont be able to do that any time soon. Pretty much everything in GB-PVR is based on the channel name, and letting the user edit that will cause all sorts of grief, and require a lot of changes.

[Braklet]

Pretty much everything in GB-PVR is based on the channel name, and letting the user edit that will cause all sorts of grief, and require a lot of changes.

I'd be happy with CHANNEL.channel_number showing up in the in-app EPG, as it does in the web portal.

I understand why it would be bad to let people muck around with the actual channel name, but perhaps an alternate "channel label" field could be added?

This ATSC stuff is very goofy for everyone involved.

Thanks again for taking a look.

[sub]

It wasnt really intended for this purpose, but have you tried editing "display_name" column of the CHANNEL table? It might do the job for you.

[Braklet]

It wasnt really intended for this purpose, but have you tried editing "display_name" column of the CHANNEL table? It might do the job for you.

Um, no. I noticed that CHANNEL.display_name was always NULL and paid it no mind. I'll try some simple edits just to see what happens. What purpose does that column currently serve?

Thanks for the tip!