auto program?

[woribhabor]

I have DirectTV. With all the channels I don't know what I get and don't get. Is there any kind of autoprogram? When ever I choose a show to record, I sometimes first have to check out that channel to make sure I get it. Or if Sage is making the decision itself it will choose a channel I don't have. I'm stuck with two hours of the amazing DirecTV logo bouncing around on my screen.

If there is no auto program, then anyone have an "Easy" way to setup and maintain the channel guide?

[stanger89]

It's not that hard to set up, just go through the channel config and enable the channels you get. It's basically a one time thing.

[woribhabor]

I appreciate the advice. But its a little more difficult than that i'm finding. DirecTV has over a thousand channels. Going through the SageTV channel setup, and to preview each channel to see if i have it, would take hours.

Not to mention I get channel updates from DirecTV every week.

I get where you are comming from with your answer. There are a lot of smart people in here, was hoping someone automated the process.

[razrsharpe]

i would look at the channel lineup for the package you subscribe too (must be available from direct tv's website)... then go through and enable only the channels you have access to... or like i did only the channels you want to see...

[GKusnick]

Sage can't tell the difference between a logo bouncing around the screen and actual program content, so there's no easy way to do an automated channel scan to find out which channels you get. You'd have to get the information from somewhere else, such as the My Account page on the DirecTV website (as previously mentioned).

Conceivably there could be a plugin to scrape that web page and use the info to enable or disable channels. But I don't think anybody's done that.

[woribhabor]

why can't sage tell the difference? (Actually it is a screen that says you have not purchased this channel or something, not a logo bouncing around)

sage can tell the difference between commercials and my tv shows, but not between a standard blue screen and everything else?

[razrsharpe]

Originally Posted by woribhabor

sage can tell the difference between commercials and my tv shows, but not between a standard blue screen and everything else?

no it can't... whatever external commercial processing program you have running against the file that is recording can tell the difference... but not sage

[GKusnick]

Originally Posted by woribhabor

sage can tell the difference between commercials and my tv shows...

Actually, Sage can't. It has no commercial-detecting code built in and does not analyze the contents of the video stream in any way. Commercial detection is done by third-party add-ons that analyze the recorded video.

So sure, it would be possible in principle to record a snippet from each channel to a file, and then run them through a comskip-like analyzer (which nobody has written yet) to decide which ones are real channels and which are error messages. But that would not (in my opinion) be easier than just looking up your channel package on the provider's website. (That's why I said "no easy way to do an automated channel scan ".)

[JetreL]

It 1000x times faster if you do it local on the sage server or through the Placeshifter client with a mouse. We have all been there.

[woribhabor]

thanks guys. I was not trying to start an argument or get into semantics. I realise its not "Sage" that does the commercial detecting, however I assumed you were all smart enough to understand my comparison. I appreciate GKusnick for at least moving past his initial condescension to answer my original question.

[GKusnick]

Wasn't trying to be condescending; just trying to be clear. We get posts here all the time from people who've forgotten what plugins they have installed and have no idea which functions are part of the base product.