ATSC tuning and mapping.

[hondaman]

I use schedules direct for my listing. I have a hvr-1800 capture card. I have setup the svid from my stb, and its working fine. I now am trying to add the atsc ota channels via an antenna.

I added the source, and scanned for channels. Now I dont know what to do. I guess I'm supposed to map the channels it found to channels in the guide? The problem is there are ~500 channels, and no way to sort/search them in the interface. Am I missing something, or is this just an all day job trying to:

a) figure out what the channel is that was scanned and then to
b) find it in the list of 500 channels, of which i cant find a way to sort or make sense of.

Please help!

[sub]

Your setup doesnt find hundreds of atsc ota channels. Most people only find a small handful, half a dozen or so, and I'm sure yours is no different. This means you only have to manually map those half dozen or so channels. You dont need to do anything to the remainder of those 500 channels in your EPG, those that arent mapped to anything - they'll be automatically disabled in your channel line up when you leave the config app.

(If the PSIP info transmitted with the channels exactly matches the listings, then it'll try to automatch those channels, so if you're lucky you wont have to manually map any channels - ie, just requiring you to hit the 'ok' button at the end of the scan)

[hondaman]

No, the channel scan finds about 30 channels. After the scan, I clicked ok, without mapping any channels. I found a ATSC channel, channel 830 which is KDFW and should be a broadcast channel, however when I go to that channel, it says channel unavailable.

My channel lineup skips 2-67, which are the broadcast channels. I suppose I have no choice but to map all my broadcast channels somehow from the mire of the EPG list?

[NI2O]

It shouldn't be too hard to map the channels.

I'm guessing that your downloaded EPG has the channels in broadcast order. If your local NBC is on CH8 then it'll be the 8th one on the list. You should just click on CH8 in the list and then choose the relevant OTA channel for it.

You'll find however that your OTA channels differ from your cable list. In my experience the OTA listings only include the "primary" channel and not any "sub" channels for a given RF channel. For example, your local PBS is probably transmitting their regular output along with perhaps PBS kids and some demo channels. The listings providers are not told about these extra channels.

If you want to view some of these extra channels (We like Qubo here which is on the back of our local ION outlet) you would have to create a new channel and then map it.

I then find that I have to go through the rest of the list and disable the rest of the channels.

What would be useful (and apparently doable but I don't know how) would be to be able to choose the listing set relevant to the card you are installing. Sub: perhaps some insight or even a drop down choice of listings from a particular provider (MythTV has this).

[sub]

Wow - 30 is good. I'm pretty sure thats the most I've ever heard of someone receiving.

If it didnt map them automatically, then you'll have to map them manually. You could tell if it had mapped them automatically, because it would have the name etc showing in the 'tuning request' column on the left of the screen next to the channel name at the end of the scan. It wont take you that long to do it manually.

[sub]

What would be useful (and apparently doable but I don't know how) would be to be able to choose the listing set relevant to the card you are installing. Sub: perhaps some insight or even a drop down choice of listings from a particular provider (MythTV has this).

For those that have multiple lineups, there is one trick you can do. When setting up the capture source, in the username field you can do the following to get it to use the channels from only one lineup:

username;DISH501:-

This is a semi-colon followed by the lineup code. This lineup code can be seen on the SchedulesDirect website (shown in the URL when you click the 'edit' button on a lineup).

If you've got a specific channel lineup that contains just the OTA channels, then doing this should result in a much smaller list for that capture source, making the mapping a little simpler.

[TornadoTJ]

Sub, it sounds like hondaman's here in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. I have all mine mapped perfectly. Is there a way I can copy or export the file that controls this so he could import or paste it into his config?

[sub]

No there is nothing built-in for doing that.

[hondaman]

Sub, it sounds like hondaman's here in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. I have all mine mapped perfectly. Is there a way I can copy or export the file that controls this so he could import or paste it into his config?

Do you have a setup like mine, directv + an antenna for ota?

If you were able to get it working, I'd LOVE to know how you did it!

[TornadoTJ]

I'm using TimeWarner Cable for my "pay" programming, and a rooftop antenna for my OTA HDTV. I'm still not able to tell for sure which part you are having trouble with. Is it the OTA HD channels?