Multiple Channel combination

[Tre4Bax]

Okay so I now have something working that I am pretty happy with and it is time to organise the channels (the tedious bit).

I have a lot of duplicated channels but I'm concerned about what happens if I use the bulk change interface to combine them. Some of those channels have weak signal and some are even encrypted so if they all get combined onto one what is the overall affect? I'm using combined DVB-T2 and DVB-S2 tuners which complicates this. What I don't want is for something to be recorded on that channel and a weak or encrypted frequency gets chosen causing failure.

Any help or suggestions readily accepted.

[johnsonx42]

When you combine or "merge" channels, they will all be treated equally by the system. Tuner priority will affect which version of a channel gets used first, but once you have multiple recordings in a timeslot, and/or add live tv to the mix, all bets are off.

If you have channels that are encrypted (which you can't decrypt), you should just delete them as they serve no purpose. Likewise if you have channels that come in too weakly to receive.

I recommend you delete these bad channels from the Devices screen. Then you can merge the remainder from the Channels screen.

[Tre4Bax]

I always used to do that with MCE but this then set me up for having to do this every time I do a rescan. What I could do with is a disable / never user option that turns them off but in such a way as they won't be re added and enabled when I do a rescan.

Challenge is of course telling which channels are the weak ones. With MCE I could have both in the guide and view each, disabling the weaker one in the channel menu with one or two button presses. Haven't yet figured an equivalent for NextPVR so I'm not sure how I tell if I am deleting the good or the bad channel, especially as they don't always get shown in the same order....

[johnsonx42]

if you have several versions of the same channel and you want to test them, just temporarily give them a different number or name. If they've already been merged, just right-click and select "Unmerge". Once you've got them sorted out, you can merge them manually - just ctrl-click on each version of the channel, then right-click on whichever one you want to be the primary channel (the one that's got the right name, number and EPG data), and select "merge".

[Tre4Bax]

Excellent. Many thanks I will look at doing that :-)

Trevor

[Tre4Bax]

Well I have tried that, merged them fine but they cannot be unmerged. Right clicking and selecting the option does nothing, they stay resolutely merged.

In addition when two channels merge like the two tunings of BBC 1 on FreeView the count on the right hand side stays as 2 even though there is now only one channel.

I think I may well just have to go ahead and do the deletion thing :-( Is there anyway to get a signal strength indication?

Trevor

[Graham]

Is there anyway to get a signal strength indication?

If you have Hauppauge devices there is this http://www.hauppauge.co.uk/forum/showthr...ty-Utility I have used the Hauppauge version and it works. I dunno about this which might work for any device http://nate.dynalias.net/dev/scanchannelsbda.rails All this is for DVB-T.

Plus, if you look in the NextPVR nrecord logs there will be strength and quality messages ... but ... the values from different devices can't be compared. Strength = 90 for one device might equal strength = 900 for a different brand. The quality values might be okay ... typically, quality = 80 ish (or higher) should be okay.

[Tre4Bax]

I have a blackgold so no use to me, but on the plus side the log should work as it is all one tuner card :-)

[martint123]

I have a blackgold so no use to me, but on the plus side the log should work as it is all one tuner card :-)

That hauppauge utility works on more than just their tuners. I've had it going on kworld and tbs tuners. Possibly it uses standard dvb-t calls?? ISTR the source floating around as well for the knowledgeable.