Re: [vdr] Undetected channels on transponders switching from DVB-S to DVB-S2

2011-09-13 Thread Henning Pingel


Am Sonntag, den 11.09.2011, 13:49 +0200 schrieb Udo Richter 
udo_rich...@gmx.de:

There's currently no 'official' method to track down channels that
are no longer announced. There's a trick however: Modify your
channels.conf so that all channel names start with [outdated], then
start VDR and wait for a full transponder scan to finish. All 
existing
channels will be renamed back to their proper names, and all 
remaining

[outdated] channels can be dropped after some grace period.


That sounds like a handy trick. I will try to use this as a workaround.


I use a more advanced variant using a small patch and a plugin, both
currently not publicly released: The patch tracks a 'last seen'
timestamp to all channels, where 0 means 'not seen since VDR start'. 
A

matching plugin holds a second channel list and periodically syncs
with the regular channel list, with the additional info 'first seen'
and 'last seen' tracked persistently across VDR sessions. Also, the
plugin renames channels that are gone for some time so they can be
identified and deleted.


That sounds *very* interesting to me. If I can assist you in going 
public with this patch + plugin, please let me know. I currently don't 
see a reason to reset the timestamp to zero on VDR start, but I probably 
just don't get your concept yet.



This has however two downsides: First, a VDR that hasn't been running
for some time will instantly mark all channels gone, and the same
thing happens if a source is temporarily unavailable - for me, DVB-T
is regularly not plugged, so all DVB-T channels are usually marked as
gone.


More examples: Multiswitch/DiSEqC/cable malfunction.

It would potentially be possible to check a list of channels that are 
considered to be outdated against a web service like Channelpedia (as 
long as it offers many concurrent users to send in their own channel 
list at the same time - and Channelpedia doesn't do that yet...).


Thanks!

Cheers,
Henning

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Re: [vdr] Undetected channels on transponders switching from DVB-S to DVB-S2

2011-09-13 Thread Henning Pingel


Am Sonntag, den 11.09.2011, 14:32 +0200 schrieb Luca Olivetti 
l...@ventoso.org:

My actuator plugin has menu options to mark, unmark and delete marked
channels.
The idea is, you mark the channels, do a complete satellite scan,
then delete the (still) marked channels.
Even if I wrote that specifically to get rid of obsolete channels, I
never use it, because there are some channels that are not advertised
in the nit.
As a result I now have a channel.conf with more that 7000 channels
and most of the entries are rubbish.


Hi,

Can actuator be used by people without a motor behind their dish?

Cheers,
Henning

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Re: [vdr] Undetected channels on transponders switching from DVB-S to DVB-S2

2011-09-13 Thread Luca Olivetti
Al 13/09/11 11:09, En/na Henning Pingel ha escrit:

 Can actuator be used by people without a motor behind their dish?

Yes, with the -s option it will just offer the channel scanning functionality.

Bye
-- 
Luca

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Re: [vdr] Undetected channels on transponders switching from DVB-S to DVB-S2

2011-09-13 Thread Reinhard Nissl

Hi,

Am 11.09.2011 11:37, schrieb Henning Pingel:


My questions are based on the experience when two transponders switched
from DVB-S to DVB-S2 in 2011:
1) On S28.2E the transponder containing the BBC HD channels did this.
2) On S19.2E the transponder now containing the Sonnenklar.HD TV did
this.

In both cases VDR wasn't able to add the new DVB-S2 channels to the
channels.conf automatically as long as not all predecessor channels had
been manually removed from the channels.conf.


From VDR 1.7.20 announcement:


- Now scanning new transponders before old ones, to make sure transponder 
changes
  are recognized (thanks to Reinhard Nissl).


Regarding Sonnenklar.HD TV: it appeared automatically in my 
channels.conf without further modifications. I have developed 
this patch for 1.7.17 so I haven't modified my channels.conf by 
hand since then. In case this transponder change has happened 
since 1.7.17, it seems that VDR 1.7.20 should be able to add the 
new channel automatically.


Bye.
--
Dipl.-Inform. (FH) Reinhard Nissl
mailto:rni...@gmx.de

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Re: [vdr] Undetected channels on transponders switching from DVB-S to DVB-S2

2011-09-13 Thread Udo Richter

Am 13.09.2011 11:03, schrieb Henning Pingel:

That sounds *very* interesting to me. If I can assist you in going
public with this patch + plugin, please let me know. I currently don't
see a reason to reset the timestamp to zero on VDR start, but I probably
just don't get your concept yet.


Minimal invasive. The patch has less than 2k size and adds 8 lines of code.
For persistent storage it would need either a modification to 
channels.conf or a separate conf file. Thats why I moved all that to a 
plugin.


Maybe I'll polish and upload the code some time, but the next 3-4 weeks 
are blocked.



Cheers,

Udo

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[vdr] Undetected channels on transponders switching from DVB-S to DVB-S2

2011-09-11 Thread Henning Pingel
Hi,

I think it is a great feature that VDR will update channel parameters
and add newly found channels automatically if UpdateChannels is set to
value 5 in setup.conf.

But my impression is currently that VDR might fail to find new channels
on a satellite transponder in the special situation that the transponder
has changed it's broadcasting method from DVB-S to DVB-S2.

Of course, prior to changing the method, a transponder might be scraped
from any channels so that there will be nothing on the transponder any
more for a couple of days or weeks (this of course totally depends on
the habits of the provider).

And this tackles another small problem: I think that VDR doesn't delete
any channels from the channels.conf in any case. So outdated channels
have to be removed manually. Has there been an attempt to offer a
functionality that VDR makes a note of those channels that get the line
frontend timed out while tuning to channel X in the syslog and offers
those channels for manual deletion via the OSD in a special OSD page
called Outdated channels?

My questions are based on the experience when two transponders switched
from DVB-S to DVB-S2 in 2011:
1) On S28.2E the transponder containing the BBC HD channels did this.
2) On S19.2E the transponder now containing the Sonnenklar.HD TV did
this.

In both cases VDR wasn't able to add the new DVB-S2 channels to the
channels.conf automatically as long as not all predecessor channels had
been manually removed from the channels.conf.

It would be nice if this could happen automatically and users could
remove outdated channels from the channels.conf easily.

Regards,
Henning

P.S.: My own special situation is that I use my VDR as a channel list
provider for the Channelpedia project and I want to make it easier for
me and other people to contribute their channel lists to this directory.
(http://channelpedia.yavdr.com/)


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Re: [vdr] Undetected channels on transponders switching from DVB-S to DVB-S2

2011-09-11 Thread Udo Richter

Am 11.09.2011 11:37, schrieb Henning Pingel:

And this tackles another small problem: I think that VDR doesn't delete
any channels from the channels.conf in any case. So outdated channels
have to be removed manually. Has there been an attempt to offer a
functionality that VDR makes a note of those channels that get the line
frontend timed out while tuning to channel X in the syslog and offers
those channels for manual deletion via the OSD in a special OSD page
called Outdated channels?



There's currently no 'official' method to track down channels that are 
no longer announced. There's a trick however: Modify your channels.conf 
so that all channel names start with [outdated], then start VDR and wait 
for a full transponder scan to finish. All existing channels will be 
renamed back to their proper names, and all remaining [outdated] 
channels can be dropped after some grace period.



I use a more advanced variant using a small patch and a plugin, both 
currently not publicly released: The patch tracks a 'last seen' 
timestamp to all channels, where 0 means 'not seen since VDR start'. A 
matching plugin holds a second channel list and periodically syncs with 
the regular channel list, with the additional info 'first seen' and 
'last seen' tracked persistently across VDR sessions. Also, the plugin 
renames channels that are gone for some time so they can be identified 
and deleted.


This has however two downsides: First, a VDR that hasn't been running 
for some time will instantly mark all channels gone, and the same thing 
happens if a source is temporarily unavailable - for me, DVB-T is 
regularly not plugged, so all DVB-T channels are usually marked as gone.



Cheers,

Udo

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Re: [vdr] Undetected channels on transponders switching from DVB-S to DVB-S2

2011-09-11 Thread Luca Olivetti
Al 11/09/11 13:49, En/na Udo Richter ha escrit:
 Am 11.09.2011 11:37, schrieb Henning Pingel:
 And this tackles another small problem: I think that VDR doesn't delete
 any channels from the channels.conf in any case. So outdated channels
 have to be removed manually. Has there been an attempt to offer a
 functionality that VDR makes a note of those channels that get the line
 frontend timed out while tuning to channel X in the syslog and offers
 those channels for manual deletion via the OSD in a special OSD page
 called Outdated channels?
 
 
 There's currently no 'official' method to track down channels that are no 
 longer announced. There's a trick however: Modify your channels.conf so that 
 all channel names start with [outdated], then start VDR and wait for a full 
 transponder scan to finish. All existing channels will be renamed back to 
 their proper names, and all remaining [outdated] channels can be dropped 
 after some grace period.

My actuator plugin has menu options to mark, unmark and delete marked channels.
The idea is, you mark the channels, do a complete satellite scan, then delete 
the (still) marked channels.
Even if I wrote that specifically to get rid of obsolete channels, I never use 
it, because there are some channels that are not advertised in the nit.
As a result I now have a channel.conf with more that 7000 channels and most of 
the entries are rubbish.

Bye
-- 
Luca

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