Missing OTA guide data

[vikingisson]

Been there done that, got pointed to the same workarounds mentioned in the threads. My earlier questions were about how the guide relationship is structured in particular OTA and Canadian services. Those Qs are never answered in a way that gives me any confidence. Had the same issues with a v7 test so this isn't getting better. I also tried 64 bit versions for other reasons but of course bumped into the same guide headaches again since it was a new install. I had a little hope when asked for detailed debug logs but then never a word back. I can ultimately deal with it but I can't/won't build one for friends and family and am now stuck with a few licenses and hardware bits that I can't use. I won't buy a v7 and think that things would magically get better. It was fun while it lasted.

[wayner]

Originally Posted by vikingisson

The guide data is arguably the most critical function and is where sagetv falls down for many in particular OTA channels and for Canadians. Some of us don't have or want cable tv so it takes lots of fiddling to get it right.

Getting OTA right is a pain in the butt and really shouldn't be as hard as it is. I really don't understand why Sage's data license does not provide for "OTA-only" channels since there really can't be thqt many channels that aren't carried by one cable or satellite provider. That is particularly the case for Canada where the CRTC mandates that any local OTA channels are deemed "must-carry" on cable.

All that being said I have never had guide data issues once the channel is initially setup properly. Once you have the correct channel ID in Sage I don't know how you would have problems with the guide data that doesn't show up for everyone else as I would assume that the Zap2it database is somewhat normalized and that if the guide data for CBLTDT was wrong or missing then this would also be the case for Rogers, BellTV, etc. I have had more issues setting up data for US channels like ion and quvo.

But my antenna is currently in my attic aimed to receive primarily Buffalo channels and the only Canadian OTA channel that I get is CBLTDT. I don't really care about the other Canadian channels as anything they have worth watching is generally on the Buffalo channels and I also get the Canadian channels on my two HD-PVR tuners hooked up to Rogers HD cable boxes.

I also believe a contributory factor to this problem is that Zap2it does not seem to carry local OTA channels for Canadian cities. Perhaps us Sage users could help since currently this is not a hard list to maintain since you could fix 90% of the issues by mantaining such a databse for Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. I would be willing to maintain Toronto.

[j3rt]

Guide data seems to be stable and populating now.
I really appreciate the help.

Next step is to direct favorites at those HD channels instead of the analog cable....

[vikingisson]

The issues changed with v7. I'm trying to pick digital OTA channels and of course the city pick list is still u.s. only, so like v6 you pick cable/sat and one of the choices is Antenna. However it pulls down the analog list where in v6 it pulled the correct digital list. My only choice is back on the city list and pick the nearest u.s. city and manually add channels which is very difficult if you don't know the tuning details. This info isn't on zapit or anywhere else I can find.

The guide and usable channel list is the most important piece of the puzzle if you intend on using a tuner especially OTA. Right now I'm very disappointed that OTA gets so little love. The v7 problem is a bug so I'll post that.

[wayner]

Can't you just do a scan and see what it pulls in? Sure you might have to manually map some of the channels but you only have to do that once.

[footandmouth]

Thats what I have had to do, but it's only partly successful because it takes so long to go through each station, I don't find WNED anywhere. it really should be much easier than sage makes it.

[wayner]

What do you mean when you say "I don't find WNED anywhere" - do you mean that you don't find it in a scan? If you don't find it in a scan then doesn't that mean that you can't receive the channel? Or is it just that you can't find guide data for subchannel 3 - Thinkbright? That was the trickiest channel but I do have guide data for that channel - let me know if you need the channel code.

[footandmouth]

Originally Posted by wayner

What do you mean when you say "I don't find WNED anywhere" - do you mean that you don't find it in a scan? If you don't find it in a scan then doesn't that mean that you can't receive the channel? Or is it just that you can't find guide data for subchannel 3 - Thinkbright? That was the trickiest channel but I do have guide data for that channel - let me know if you need the channel code.

Hi Wayne,
Yes that is the issue, I can get the channel in the scan but the program data for the subchannels I couldn't find. I have manged to remap most of the others, although like most I find the process annoying, at best. Where can I get the channel remaps for the Wneds subchannels?
thanks for your help

ian

[wayner]

Here are the channel IDs that I am using for the channels:
17-1 34915
17-2 34918
17-3 34921

If you are also using cable then you should likely be able to remap 17-1 and 17-2 to the channels already existing in your cable lineup. For example, WNED-DT (aka 17-1) is in my Rogers lineup at something like channel 525. I am pretty sure that 17-2 is the same as the SD version of WNED which is in my Rogers lineup on channels 61 and 161. Thinkbright is the only one missing.

To add in Thinkbright you likely have to add a Channel to Lineup, call it WNED-DT3 (or even ThnkBrt) and give it the 34921 ID noted above. Then go and remap 17-3 to this channel.

If you don't have cable then follow the above process for all three channels.

I also had to do this to get guide data for the Qubo channel 51-2.

[footandmouth]

Thanks Wayne,
Very helpful. I did try a rescan yesterday, it seemsed to have sorted out some of my issues, I like Sage a lot, and gave up Rogers to go OTA. ($90 saving) I subscribed to Netflix, which I really like, and now can access the BBC Iplayer as well, not through sage unfortunately though

[wayner]

I still have cable as 95% of what I watch is not available OTA. I have two HD and one SD box connected to my Sage TV as well as an HD HomeRun which is kind of overkill because the only OTA I end up recording is Saturday night's hockey game and a few golf tournaments.

Have you looked into the BBC iPlayer in Sage - you might want to post on the UK forum. Are you using a VPN service to get a UK IP address? Do you use the Netflix Canadian service or do you also use a VPM there to get the Netflix US service?

[granto]

Thanks for this thread. I'll have to go over it in more detail this weekend.

I've just switched to OTA and cancelled cable completely. It took me a while to get the guide data sorted out for BeyondTV but I finally got it perfect. I'm hoping I can do the same with Sage.

[j3rt]

Given the 'grief' experianced trying to load guide data for OTA here, should we compile a list, see if we could have it added as a sticky in the Canada section?
Channel Name->OTA channel->Guide ID
I am not suggesting for the whole country in one shot, but if members want to contribute from different areas/provinces we could keep a running list.
I also did not have much luck tracking down channel IDs through Zap2it.

[granto]

I'm having moderate success.

Does the guide receive data using the "station ID" or the "guide" number in the channel settings. I'm trying to set up a custom channel list for OTA HD, I'll post whatever I can once it's working.

[wayner]

Originally Posted by j3rt

Given the 'grief' experianced trying to load guide data for OTA here, should we compile a list, see if we could have it added as a sticky in the Canada section?
Channel Name->OTA channel->Guide ID
I am not suggesting for the whole country in one shot, but if members want to contribute from different areas/provinces we could keep a running list.
I also did not have much luck tracking down channel IDs through Zap2it.

What channels do you need? For 90%+ of the channels the ID is easy to get if you subscribe to cable. When I have set up Sage I first set up my cable tuners so the lineup is populate with any and all channels available via cable. This means that I am only missing the channels that are not in my cable lineup and that is a very small list - I think it is just stuff like NBC Universal Sports (2-2), the retro channel (2-3), Thinkbright (17-3) and all of the ion channels (51-1-4).

Even if you don't have cable you might be able to fake a cable lineup and then remove it.

[footandmouth]

Have you looked into the BBC iPlayer in Sage - you might want to post on the UK forum. Are you using a VPN service to get a UK IP address? Do you use the Netflix Canadian service or do you also use a VPM there to get the Netflix US service?[/QUOTE]

Last time I looked there was no support for the BBC iplayer, Yes I use a harware VPN router to access the BBC, I use a PS3 to play directly on to my tv it works well, even using wifi.
I subscribe to Netflix canada, at $8 a month I am more than happy to support them. That price point is where the cable operators are going to have to go, interesting times ahead, as we move to a pay for play option.

[wayner]

To be fair to the cable companies, they do have a hardware network that they have had to put in place whereas Netflix just travels over the wires of your ISP. Somebody is going to have to pay for the broadband connectivity to your house.

Can the cable companies survive if they just get $50/month for broadband + $10/month for content? I don't know. Plus that $8/month doesn't get you any channels wher eyou have to pay a subscription fee, for example TSN. I am a big sports fan and sports content is increasingly moving to subscription channels - if you were on OTA+ Netflix you wouldn't get any Toronto Raptors games, no CFL games, and only Saturday night hockey games.

[j3rt]

Originally Posted by wayner

What channels do you need? For 90%+ of the channels the ID is easy to get if you subscribe to cable. When I have set up Sage I first set up my cable tuners so the lineup is populate with any and all channels available via cable. This means that I am only missing the channels that are not in my cable lineup and that is a very small list - I think it is just stuff like NBC Universal Sports (2-2), the retro channel (2-3), Thinkbright (17-3) and all of the ion channels (51-1-4).

Even if you don't have cable you might be able to fake a cable lineup and then remove it.

I can't speak for the others, but when I set my system up, I only had analog Rogers, no STBs whats so ever.
Thus I never had the HD IDs "in my system".

[granto]

Originally Posted by j3rt

I can't speak for the others, but when I set my system up, I only had analog Rogers, no STBs whats so ever.
Thus I never had the HD IDs "in my system".

I also only had analog Rogers. I found all the HD ID's on zap2it.

I actually got everything setup and working fine over the weekend. I had to use a couple of unusual tuning numbers but I have all the guide data for OTA working 100%.

One thing I did do is change the application setting in my HDhomerun setup from "Sagetv" to "other/ASTC". I'm not 100% sure if that made any difference but that's the setting I used when I set up my Beyondtv channel lineup.

[wayner]

Originally Posted by j3rt

I can't speak for the others, but when I set my system up, I only had analog Rogers, no STBs whats so ever.
Thus I never had the HD IDs "in my system".

You wouldn't have known this at the time but you could have selected Rogers Digital rather than Rogers Analog when setting up your source and then disabled all channels above 100 (the easiest way to do this is to disable all channels and then manually enable all of the channels that you want up to 100 or wherever the analogs end - that is easier then disabling all channels from 100-900). Then you would have pretty much all Canadian channels available in your system and you can turn on the ones you get via OTA.