Channel Selection/EPG Relationship - Technical Overview Available?

[wacole]

I have read the SageTV manual on setting up channels, however, I don't come away from that understanding how it all works [though I can follow the step-by-step instructions] and am hoping that someone who has worked with SageTV for awhile knows of a good description of the architecture of channel setup. I find this part of what is otherwise a really good product, to be my nightmare.

I can get the basic channel setup to work, it is, however, the fine turning that is a frustration. Maybe I'm expecting more than the product can deliver. For example I want to add a Baltimore channel that, apparently, is not in the listing for Washington, DC (Hagrstwn) Digital -- [BTW what does Hagerstown, MD - no offense to anyone living in Hagerstown; have been there and like it a lot -- have to do with Washington, DC?] and have not been able to make that happen. Is the channel not being received [a possiblity as the HVR-1600's sensitivity isn't all that great] or is there no EPG data associated with the Washington, DC (Hagrstwn) Digital channel set or both or something else?

Some other questions:

1. Why, under Channel Setup, do I get channels listed that don't work [that is don't have a green dot to their left]. Can these be removed from the listing entirely? Why are they there is the first place?
2. Why does this same listing include, for example, 34-1-DTV34.1 -[34-0-1] which works, but is really 4-1 -WRCDT WRCDT (WRCDT), which doesn't work but is listed anyway? [OK, I remapped 34-0-1 using "Map Different Station to this Physical Channel".]
3. Remapping -- which is the logical channel number and which is the physical and where are these to be found? For example I have a channel entry line 30-4 - MHz4 - [24-30-4]; what are the names of each of this entry's components? An example would be very helpful.
4. If I Delete a Video Source and then re-add it, with the idea of deleting whatever mistakes I made in preparing the channel lineup, it appears that the channel line up remains unchanged; i.e. the mistakes are still there. Got to be misunderstanding something here.

I feel like a dope asking these questions, but I really want to make this work and can't seem to grasp understanding what's going on under the hood. Obviously in a post like this I'm not looking for answers to each question, just a gentle nudge in the right direction would be very welcomed.

I thank any and all for assistance.

Bill Cole

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by wacole

I can get the basic channel setup to work, it is, however, the fine turning that is a frustration. Maybe I'm expecting more than the product can deliver. For example I want to add a Baltimore channel that, apparently, is not in the listing for Washington, DC (Hagrstwn) Digital -- [BTW what does Hagerstown, MD - no offense to anyone living in Hagerstown; have been there and like it a lot -- have to do with Washington, DC?] and have not been able to make that happen. Is the channel not being received [a possiblity as the HVR-1600's sensitivity isn't all that great] or is there no EPG data associated with the Washington, DC (Hagrstwn) Digital channel set or both or something else?

Sounds like you're using an OTA lineup? What happens there is SageTV uses Zap2It for guide data, it I'm guessing the Baltimore channel isn't "available" in Washington according to Zap2It, so when you pick the Washington lineup, it's not listed.

Before I get too far though, it would help to know what version of Sage you're running and what your tuner/guide source are.

Some other questions:

1. Why, under Channel Setup, do I get channels listed that don't work [that is don't have a green dot to their left]. Can these be removed from the listing entirely? Why are they there is the first place?

What you see in channel setup is the full list of channels for which Z2I provides guide data in the "market" you selected. The one's with green dots are "default" enabled, I guess ones Z2I assumes you'll get.

2. Why does this same listing include, for example, 34-1-DTV34.1 -[34-0-1] which works, but is really 4-1 -WRCDT WRCDT (WRCDT), which doesn't work but is listed anyway? [OK, I remapped 34-0-1 using "Map Different Station to this Physical Channel".]

Either you need to do a rescan or you need to understand something about DTV. DTV doesn't require the stations "physical" channel (the frequency that's tuned) to be the same as it's "logical" channel (the number displayed when you view it). For example here, we've got a station 2.1, but it broadcasts on RF 52. So it shows up as "2-1 - KGANDT - [51-2-1]"

The way that works out is the first part is the major and minor logical channel of that station, the second is the callsign, and the last is the physical channel (RF 52, program 2 subchannel 1).

It looks like you either haven't done a channel scan, or got some bogus data when you did, I'd try another one.

And FWIW, according to the FCC, WRC is on RF48, so I'd expect it to be:
"4-1 - WRCDT - [48-4-1]"

Or let me guess, you're using QAM....

3. Remapping -- which is the logical channel number and which is the physical and where are these to be found? For example I have a channel entry line 30-4 - MHz4 - [24-30-4]; what are the names of each of this entry's components? An example would be very helpful.

See above, but that's logical program/channel "MHz4" which would be displayed as 30.4, being broadcast on physical (RF) channel 24.

And FWIW, I'd recommend giving the latest beta a try, looks like they did a lot of work on the remapping functionality, it might make more sense to you.

[wacole]

Thank you very much. This clears up a lot and I'm REALLY grateful for that.

I'm just doing OTA and using SageTV 6.5.9.204 with SageMC STV Version 6.3.8a running on top of it.

Interestingly WRCDT shows on my channel setup as: 48-1 - WRCDT - [48-0-1]; not quite sure what to make of that.

I did a re-scan and nothing appeared to change.

Thanks for the tip on the Beta for SageTV; will give that a try.

Bill Cole