Channel question [LONG]

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StinkyImp

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Channel question [LONG]

#1

Post by StinkyImp » Sun Feb 25, 2018 2:42 pm

PROLOGUE: These questions are posed to garyan2 but ALL responses are welcome!

Those 41's that cropped up last week, plus all the other OTA changes made in my area over the past year, led me to start analyzing my OTA landscape. Interestingly, there have been over a dozen new channels added, channel reassignments, and channel takeovers but I never paid much attention because they didn't affect my recording schedule. I'm speculating that some of these changes have to do with the announced setup for ATSC 3.0 testing in my area. From the announcement ... "The first broadcasts in the new format could be on the air as early as spring of 2018".

I know I need to contact Schedules Direct for this particular issue, so this post is purely academic and seeks to satisfy my curiosity about how EPG123 handles things. It is not a call for changes or trying to place EPG123 in an unfavorable light. EPG123 is the best thing since fire and sliced bread (without which we couldn't have toast)!
END OF PROLOGUE

I'm just going to focus on one block of channels because it represents a microcosm of what I'm experiencing. Here's the comparison between Schedules Direct and Rabbit Ears. The block of 35's were missing from from my guide (and Schedules Direct) so I manually added them in WMC. I then went to the guide to see if they were live. Sure enough they were! They were listed with only their channel number and call sign, no listings. Therefore, I know I need to contact SD and have them added.

I didn't really care about 35.1 and 35.2, but I did think that 35.3 (GetTV) and 35.4 (Escape) would make nice additions to my lineup. I had another "Escape" channel so I assigned those listings to 35.4.

An interesting phenomenon occurred last night during the auto update. Channels 35.1 thru 35.3 vanished from the guide. They still exist in the "Edit Channels" section, but they're now unchecked. I started to analyze any channel changes that occurred over the past few days:
Channel Query.png
Looking for any channel changes over the past few days.
and there wasn't any reference to the 35's so I expanded my search specifically to channel 35.3 for the past year and found nothing.
Channel 35_3 Query.png
Looking specifically for channel 35.3
Questions: (out of curiosity ONLY)
  • 1. How did 35.1 thru 35.3 get removed from the guide?
  • 2. Can channels added to the guide be made persistent even with no listings?
  • 3. Does WMC control the inclusion/exclusion of channels in the guide?
  • 4. Does the addition of channels by SD trigger the addition of new channels automatically in WMC by EPG123?
  • 5. If EPG123 or WMC excludes a channel from the guide, how would I find out? I wouldn't have caught this if I wasn't specifically looking.
  • 6. That's all for now???? :P
Thanks for your wisdom!

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garyan2

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#2

Post by garyan2 » Sun Feb 25, 2018 4:36 pm

1. Your channels are being disabled in the guide due to you have the automatch selected. If you run automatch, and a channel has no listings assigned to it, then automatch will disable the channel. Of course, once SD/Gracenote adds the channels to your lineup and you add them to your download, everything will be just fine.

2. Yes. Disable automatch.

3. No. The enable/disable is done by the user or by proxy (EPG123).

4. No. EPG123 will alert you to added channel listings by having a Warning entry in the trace.log file. That's the best I can do.

5. WMC doesn't exclude and EPG123 will only disable if there are no listings and automatch enabled. Also of note, with OTA the new broadcast channels will only show up if background scanning is enabled or you manually scan for more channels... EPG123 disables background scanning.

6. I'm not going anywhere just yet.
- Gary
Keeping WMC alive beyond January 2020. https://garyan2.github.io

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StinkyImp

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#3

Post by StinkyImp » Mon Feb 26, 2018 10:30 am

Once again, you make it all seem so easy. Thanks for you illuminating answers!

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