Re: [Xmltv-devel] XMLTV method for channel identification

[David G. <da...@dg...>]

Concept-wise it sounds good.

Are "the four bits of information needed to track channel information and its
associated artwork" :

* Network / Affiliate
* Station
* Headend
* Lineup Channel


Chris Petersen wrote:
> One of the biggest problems I've had in dealing with channel logos is  
> trying to understand exactly what a "channel" is. 
Here's something I posted a while back which has a little relevance (in case you
missed it and it's useful).

Yes... so I thought it worth doing some analysis on the xmltv/Myth/TV situation
in the UK based on my knowledge...

In the UK we have the following TV sources (Service Providers)

OTA (analogue) (tuned)
DVB-T (tuned)
DVB-S (tuned)
Freeview Box (captured s-video +lirc)
Freesat Box (captured s-video +lirc)
Sky (captured s-video +lirc)
Sky (tuned on DragonCAM)
Cable: Virgin (tuned)
(any more?)


There are 2 kinds of geographical variation:
1. regionalisation of programming (mainly BBC? eg south.bbc1.co.uk ? Also Welsh?)
2. reception/tuning

Regionalisation is tied to tuning for DVB-T and OTA it's configurable on Sky/DVB-S.


Listing data sources:
EIT data is handled by Myth directly so isn't really relevant here.
RadioTimes - grabbed and roughly 1:1 relationship for <nnn>.dat -> xmltv id
Bleb - grabbed and roughly 1:1 relationship for bleb-xmltv id -> xmltv id (can
probably persuade Bleb to standardise)

Given a service provider + geography (implying transmitter and hence tuner
selection) should provide a set of frequencies and channels. This can be
whittled down based on a paid subscription.
The geography will also setup the mapping for regional TV for Sky boxes.


Myth channels have a source which is a capture stream. This can be tuned
directly or via a channel change script. Either way it relates numbers to an
xmltv channel.

So sourceid+tuning->xmltv id.

Issues
New channels
These need to be identified, tuned and then the user needs to select them.
Probably need some kind of grabber driven email notification saying "new
channel, subscribe or decline"

channels moving
Typically occurs with Sky - maybe cable too. A channel will move from 1 STB/lirc
channel to another.

Channel renames
Channels are rebranded BBC Choice to BBC3. In the short term it's not a problem
- but years later it's confusing when bbc3 is labelled choice.bbc.co.uk
potential solution: Add a column to channel_ids for a deprecated xmltv id.


also Simon Kenyon wrote:
> one thing i noticed when i tried to do this sort of thing myself (and
> posted some code on the mythtv-dev list about 9 months ago)
> was that BBC and ITV did not agree on regional variations
> i decided to base things on post code
>
> i found mappings between post code and station for ITV/BBC here:
>
> http://www.ukfree.tv/itvsky.php
> http://www.ukfree.tv/bbcsky.php