[Xmltv-devel] tv_grab_uk_atlas - Some questions

[Dreamcat4]

Hello!

1st question:

in _uk_atlas grabber, it has multiple platforms:

tv_grab_uk_atlas selects channels to download based on your viewing
platform.
Choose your viewing platform:
0: Sky HD (GB)(IE)
1: Sky SD (GB)(IE)
2: Freeview (GB)
3: Freesat (GB)
4: Virgin (GB)
5: Top Up TV (GB)
6: YouView (GB)
7: Saorsat (IE)
8: BT TV (GB)
9: TalkTalk YouView (GB)
Select one: [0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 (default=0)] 3


However I want to grab for 2 platforms. Bother Freeview + FreeSat. However
they both have many channels in common. It is not effecient to just
download all or the duplicate channels twice (using the grabber combiner).
We are supposed to keep the load on atlas servers conservative and the
minimum possible.

So I would like to select multiple platforms, and have the _uk_atlas
grabber create one config file, containing 1 entry for each channel,
including the unique channels on both platforms. I kindly ask to consider
this issue as many of us have multiple tuner sources, both DVB-T and DVB-S.


It is possible (awkward) to merge these files manually with unix commands.
However it is very hard from the file format to be sure if you got it
right. And manually merging the files together leaves these fields (not
mergable):

platform=cbhv
region=cbhz

platform=cbg2
region=cbhs


Does it matter which one I use? (i.e. to the functioning of the software).
Only one of the 2 choices seems to be settable in the config file.


====

2nd question I have:

_uk_atlas is listing 'lineups' in it's list of capabilities. I understand
that lineups is still in proposal stage and not finished yet. However since
_uk_atlas is now advertising that it supports lineups, then which one of
those 3 lineup proposals does it implement? Or is it broken? There is no
option to enable lineup feature in the `--configure` user questions. So
does that mean it is always 'on' ?


====

3rd question:

Can I set variables in the xmltv config file to specify deafault options
for the command line switches like '--days 1' and '--offset 3' and so on? I
have not seen anywhere that it is documented. But is it possible? Since
tvheadend does not let us specify switches, it would be good to set a
default which is not the full 14 days look ahead everytime it gets run by
tvheadend.




Kind Regards
Dreamcat4

[h***@gmail.com]

On Tue, 7 Apr 2015 10:30:50 +0100, Dreamcat4 wrote:
[...]

Hi,

Post by Dreamcat4
So I would like to select multiple platforms, and have the _uk_atlas
grabber create one config file, containing 1 entry for each channel,
including the unique channels on both platforms. I kindly ask to consider
this issue as many of us have multiple tuner sources, both DVB-T and DVB-S.

You need to be careful as some channels have different programming (or at least varying broadcast times) depending on the source. E.g Dave Ja Vu, Drama, etc. (I can't remember if these have different channel ids or are the same on both platforms e.g. DJV=cbjd).

Personally I don't find it an issue with multiple sources since you shouldn't be selecting *all* channels on all your sources anyway (to reduce server impact as you previously noted). My primary source is Freesat so I select only the channels I actually watch on the Freesat lineup, and then create a second config for the few "fill" channels which I want to add from Freeview (e.g. Dave).

However you're welcome to raise a Change Request to add this functionality if you wish.
https://sourceforge.net/p/xmltv/feature-requests/

Post by Dreamcat4
platform=xxxx
region=xxxx
Does it matter which one I use? (i.e. to the functioning of the software).

No I don't think so. At least not with the current version of the Atlas API.


Re 2:
You use the lineups functionality as per the POD ( tv_grab_uk_atlas --info )

--list-lineups : Write output giving list of available viewing regions.

--get-lineup : Write output giving {channel} elements for every
channel available in the current lineup.

tv_grab_uk_atlas --list-lineups [--output FILE]

tv_grab_uk_atlas --get-lineup [--config-file FILE] [--output FILE]

(Note this is used for fetching lineup/channel info not programme data)


Re 3:
No that's not currently possible. Best you take that up with the tvheadend devs ;-)

Cheers,
Geoff

[Dreamcat4]

Post by Dreamcat4
[...]
Hi,

Post by Dreamcat4
So I would like to select multiple platforms, and have the _uk_atlas
grabber create one config file, containing 1 entry for each channel,
including the unique channels on both platforms. I kindly ask to consider
this issue as many of us have multiple tuner sources, both DVB-T and

DVB-S.
You need to be careful as some channels have different programming (or at
least varying broadcast times) depending on the source. E.g Dave Ja Vu,
Drama, etc. (I can't remember if these have different channel ids or are
the same on both platforms e.g. DJV=cbjd).

Well - doing interactively is far too time consuming for me. And you cannot
be sure which channels, and cannot go back to correct a mistake. So I have
been finding the common channels by the 4 digit channel id's. I found that
the freeview had a total of 104 channels. And 33 of those channel id's were
unique to freeview (terrestrial). The other 71 in that list were common to
both (i.e. they are found in the freesat listing too).

So I have created a combined list. But also a seperate list of just the 33
missing channels.

What I find hard is the generic grabber combiner. Because of the way it
inlines and mangles newline character - then the resulting config file
becomes a mess which is not editable. So I cannot just slot in there my
list of the 33 unique channels. Which of course is a general kind of
problem, not unique to _uk_atlas.

Post by Dreamcat4
Personally I don't find it an issue with multiple sources since you
shouldn't be selecting *all* channels on all your sources anyway (to reduce
server impact as you previously noted). My primary source is Freesat so I
select only the channels I actually watch on the Freesat lineup, and then
create a second config for the few "fill" channels which I want to add from
Freeview (e.g. Dave).
However you're welcome to raise a Change Request to add this functionality if you wish.
https://sourceforge.net/p/xmltv/feature-requests/

Right ok. I may do that. If I can figure out the most reasonable thing /
least efforts solution to ask for. Thanks for the link.

Post by Dreamcat4

Post by Dreamcat4
platform=xxxx
region=xxxx
Does it matter which one I use? (i.e. to the functioning of the

software).
No I don't think so. At least not with the current version of the Atlas API.

Great! I was really hoping for that. It means I can just create my own the
combined single list. Which allows me to avoid the tv_grab_combiner
altogether. And hence avoid the other problem it creates.

Post by Dreamcat4
You use the lineups functionality as per the POD ( tv_grab_uk_atlas --info )
--list-lineups : Write output giving list of available viewing regions.
--get-lineup : Write output giving {channel} elements for every
channel available in the current lineup.
tv_grab_uk_atlas --list-lineups [--output FILE]
tv_grab_uk_atlas --get-lineup [--config-file FILE] [--output FILE]
(Note this is used for fetching lineup/channel info not programme data)

Right, ok. So we can play about with it. It would be nice thing to try
support in Tvheadend program in future. But you guys have yet to officially
decide upon the final xml output format.

Post by Dreamcat4
No that's not currently possible. Best you take that up with the tvheadend devs ;-)

Ok. Thanks for letting me know.

Post by Dreamcat4
Cheers,
Geoff
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Post by Dreamcat4
Well - doing interactively is far too time consuming for me. And you cannot
be sure which channels, and cannot go back to correct a mistake.

True. I normally just say "none" and then edit the config file manually. But it does require a list of which Atlas channel ids you want (which you can get from trawling through tv_grab_uk_atlas.map.channels.conf which should be in your XMLTV "supplement" dir).

Not easy but then it's not something I do every day :-)