Updating DVBS frequency files automatically

[routerunner]

Originally Posted by deanm

I had already removed all the FRQ files and I think that is why all is working now.

A bug introduced in v1.0.2 prevent the plugin to work when the original frq are empty, you discovered that and is fixed in v1.0.5

As for the two channels that's are not added, they appear if I do a full scan.

Of course they will appear as they exists in the satellite transponder, but they are "feed" which means (I'm in the broadcast business myself) they are channels not generally intended for public use and therefore my plugin skips automatically.

Eddy

[Bacon2002]

Eddy,

Great plugin works really well.

Having read Dean's post I was wondering if the channels were all names properly (ie the same as a normal sagetv scan, not Digiguide or any other names) and you were then to perform an update scan (rather than a full scan) from within SageTV would it only update the existing channel or would it totally screw up the frq file?

David

[routerunner]

Originally Posted by Bacon2002

Eddy,

Great plugin works really well.

Having read Dean's post I was wondering if the channels were all names properly (ie the same as a normal sagetv scan, not Digiguide or any other names) and you were then to perform an update scan (rather than a full scan) from within SageTV would it only update the existing channel or would it totally screw up the frq file?

David

David,

I'm glad the plugin has found a good use

The SageTV scan (full/update) gets the channel names from the satellite transponders (OTA) which can be different from the names in websites like KingOfSat or LyngSat where my plugin gets the tuning information from and therefore a subsequent channel scan will definitively change the existing FRQ files.

I cannot see a reason to perform such channel scan once you've got the channels in you FRQ in the order and enumeration you want. This plugin is designed to keep your channel's data up to date and if you need to add a new channel it has a very quick way to do it without performing any unnecessary and time consuming satellite scan.

Eddy

[routerunner]

Originally Posted by deanm

This is one of the reasons I'm not keen on using the King Of Sat website.

The site relys on users updating the data. If a channel FRQ changes how long will it be before the site is updated? But the same could be said about DigiGuide.

The KingOfSat website is changed daily multiple times a day actually and is very accurate, "LyngSat" on the other side is not as good

Originally Posted by deanm

Now if there was a tool/program that could script a scan on DVB-S/DVB-T this would be my preferred methoerd. This is for two reasons one the FRQ would be up to date and the second I can the change my plugin to include DVB-T. This could be run every morning.

I'm pretty sure there are offsite tools that allows you to download all the information OTA and save it in XML format...I recall I found one of those few months ago, but I don't remember on top of my head...

Originally Posted by deanm

The plugin uses your DVB-S Importer and the AreaRegionChannelInfo.xml file from EPG Collector. I then use the Channel Number from DigiGuide to look up the SID in the AreaRegionChannelInfo.xml. Once the SID is found I then look up the SID in the FRQ file to find the FRQ data.

What is the format of the DVBLogic.FRQ files? Am I right to understand that you're getting the data from SageTV.FRQ to export to DVBLogic.FRQ? If is the case I might add an option to export the FRQ data straight into DVBLogic.FRQ format, would that make sense to you? Also, if we introduce an extra correlation file for the SID, I can cross reference that information to produce the "Regionalised" DVBLogic.FRQ file for you.

Eddy

[Bacon2002]

Eddy,

What I originally meant was would it be possible to temporarily modified the .frq file with a view to using SageTV's internal update scan as an alternative way of keeping the .frq file up to date.

I was thinking along the lines of:-

1) Assuming that you start with a .frq file that you are happy with which includes channel numbers from DigiGuide, channel names and frequency details from KingOfSat

2) Somehow you are then able to temporarily replace the channel names in the .frq file with channel names that your .frq would be using had the .frq file have been created using an OTA scan.

At this stage only the channel names within in the .frq file have changed and all the other information including the channel numbers, frequencies, sat details etc. all remains unchanged.

3) You then complete a SageTV update scan (not a full scan but an update scan).

I was wondering:-

a) would the .frq file channel numbers have changed or would they remain as per the original DigiGuide numbers

b) would the .frq file now potentially contain "new channels" that where available OTA but were perhaps not included within the originally .frq file

David

[routerunner]

Originally Posted by Bacon2002

Eddy,

What I originally meant was would it be possible to temporarily modified the .frq file with a view to using SageTV's internal update scan as an alternative way of keeping the .frq file up to date.

I was thinking along the lines of:-

1) Assuming that you start with a .frq file that you are happy with which includes channel numbers from DigiGuide, channel names and frequency details from KingOfSat

2) Somehow you are then able to temporarily replace the channel names in the .frq file with channel names that your .frq would be using had the .frq file have been created using an OTA scan.

At this stage only the channel names within in the .frq file have changed and all the other information including the channel numbers, frequencies, sat details etc. all remains unchanged.

3) You then complete a SageTV update scan (not a full scan but an update scan).

I was wondering:-

a) would the .frq file channel numbers have changed or would they remain as per the original DigiGuide numbers

b) would the .frq file now potentially contain "new channels" that where available OTA but were perhaps not included within the originally .frq file

David

To be quite honest with you I never tried the SageTV update scan option, but I have the feeling that the result will be a pretty mess. Not sure how SageTV will read back and merge the information in the FRQ, but if you're lucky it will probably add the missing channels at the end of the file...

I can see that you're worry about potentially missing new channels, but you had the same chance before this plugin, however the good news is that DigiGuide will probably tell you about the new channels and if you are interested in adding them up then the only thing you have to do in the FRQ files is add a new channel entry where you want with the channel number you want and with the channel name matching KingOfSat like so:

CH:xxxxx sat:0 #:New matching channel name

Also, deanm is working on a solution to make this process automatic from DigiGuide straight into FRQ, whereby a new channel added in DigiGuide will appear into the SageTV lineup so I think you shouldn't worry about this.

Eddy

[Bacon2002]

Eddy,

I wouldn't say I was worried and certainly not about missing channels.

Your new plugin is working great.

David

[deanm]

Originally Posted by routerunner

Of course they will appear as they exists in the satellite transponder, but they are "feed" which means (I'm in the broadcast business myself) they are channels not generally intended for public use and therefore my plugin skips automatically.

Yes you might be right, but it appears in my scans as a normal channel. If I used a SKY box and did a scan then this SID and FRQ is what would be used. Need to do some testing to check if I change the Region/Area in EPG Collector what SID it would use for SKY Sports 1.

Would it be easy to add this to your plugin? Not a problem if you can't. I just thinking ahead as this may be a problem with other channels in the future.

What I’m after is a complete dump of everything. Might try and write my own code for this when I have time.

Dean

[deanm]

Originally Posted by routerunner

I'm glad the plugin has found a good use

Your plugin has found a good use for me its what inspired me to write my own code.

This would be my first attempt at writing any code.

Its just a shame I use DVBLogic, really wish I didn't have to but its the only way I can get SKY into SageTV.

[Bacon2002]

deanm,

I get all the sky channels and I don't use DVBLogic or DVBe4Sage or anything like that, I have tried both of these solutions and neither were reliable enough for me.

You will need to have a tuner (or tuners) that have CAM interfaces and that have native CAM supported built into SageTV such as an Anysee E7 or FireDTV-S2.

Plus a CAM (or one for each tuner) that are compatible with sky, I use Diablo WiFi cams.

Have a look here http://sagetv.wikia.com/wiki/Common_Access_Module

My set up is pretty much bullet proof, in my opinion it works much better than DVBLogic (better than it ever did for me anyway), the set up only rarely misses a beat and has four Anysee E7 S2's running 24/7 365 day of the year.

I just ordered a fifth Anysee E7 S2's. For info they aren't available in UK anymore but you can still order them from Anysee's European website.

David

[deanm]

Originally Posted by routerunner

.

What is the format of the DVBLogic.FRQ files? Am I right to understand that you're getting the data from SageTV.FRQ to export to DVBLogic.FRQ? If is the case I might add an option to export the FRQ data straight into DVBLogic.FRQ format, would that make sense to you? Also, if we introduce an extra correlation file for the SID, I can cross reference that information to produce the "Regionalised" DVBLogic.FRQ file for you.

The reason I looked at using the SID is because it is unique for each channel. I have looked at trying to match the channel names from DigiGuide/King Of Sat/DVBLogic and they are all different and looked like a mess to administer especially all the ITV regions etc. and again I don't fancy matching 320 channel numbers. Why can’t you make it work like a Freeview / Freesat / SKY box? You do a scan and the channels appear in the correct order.

OK here is how DVBLogic handels Channels that appear in SageTV.

1. You need to do a full scan on a DVB-S source. This scan is unique to that source and produces a TVSourceSettings.xml file. If you have more than one source you then need to do a full scan on each source. A unique TVSourceSettings.xml is sorted in its own folder. So if you have 4 sources this can take up to 10 minutes each and a total of 40 minutes.

2. When you have scanned all your channels you then have to added each channel form each source into as sort of master list. So for example to add ITV1 you have to select ITV1 from each source. This is where problems start because there are about 10 ITV1 channels. And you have to make sure that each channel matches.

3. Then you have to add the channel numbers. Once complete a DVBLinkChannelStorage.xml file is created.


4. From this DVBLinkChannelStorage.xml file you then create DVBLink Capture #1-0-DVB-S.frq file which is what SageTV uses. And again each source needs its own FRQ file.

This whole process can take over 2 hours when you first configure DVBLogic and is a complete pain in the arse.

If a channel stops working you have to ether scan every FRQ on each source then find the new channel or look up the FRQ on the King Of Sat Web site then just scan the transponder. But again you have to then add the changes to the master list then add the channel number and remove the old settings.

With my plugin (Which is nearly finished) it takes less than 1 minute to create all 9 files needed. But it heavily relies on your plugin to create a dump of every FRQ from the King of Sat website.

In simple terms it finds a channel number from DigiGuide, then uses the Channel Number to find its SID from EPG Collector, then finds the FRQ from a FRQ list from your plugin. At the same time it uses the DigiGuide Channel Name and Number to create a file for XMLTV.

Hope this makes sense.

Dean

[deanm]

Originally Posted by Bacon2002

deanm,

I get all the sky channels and I don't use DVBLogic or DVBe4Sage or anything like that, I have tried both of these solutions and neither were reliable enough for me.

You will need to have a tuner (or tuners) that have CAM interfaces and that have native CAM supported built into SageTV such as an Anysee E7 or FireDTV-S2.

Plus a CAM (or one for each tuner) that are compatible with sky, I use Diablo WiFi cams.

Have a look here http://sagetv.wikia.com/wiki/Common_Access_Module

My set up is pretty much bullet proof, in my opinion it works much better than DVBLogic (better than it ever did for me anyway), the set up only rarely misses a beat and has four Anysee E7 S2's running 24/7 365 day of the year.

I just ordered a fifth Anysee E7 S2's. For info they aren't available in UK anymore but you can still order them from Anysee's European website.

David

Would like to ditch DVBLogic, but adding Anysee E7 S2 and Diablo WiFi cams sounds very expensive to change.

It would be very easy to get my plug in to add channel numbers from DigiGuide and add them to the FRQ files from DVB-S Importer. Then create a file for XMLTV Importer. That is if you use DigiGuide and XMLTV Importer.

Dean

[routerunner]

Originally Posted by deanm

In simple terms it finds a channel number from DigiGuide, then uses the Channel Number to find its SID from EPG Collector, then finds the FRQ from a FRQ list from your plugin. At the same time it uses the DigiGuide Channel Name and Number to create a file for XMLTV.

Dean, what I could do is to allow to compile the FRQ for a given SID, so if your plugin makes the FRQ as a list of channels (taking the channel number/name from DigiGuide, the SID from EPGcollector), I can then create a FRQ.NEW you just need to rename to DVBLink.FRQ...The new FRQ input format could be a list of:

CH:xxxx sid:xxx sat:0 #:Channel name

Would this simplify things for you? However I think that you need the standalone version of the DVB-S Importer to run offline when you want...

Eddy

[deanm]

Originally Posted by routerunner

Dean, what I could do is to allow to compile the FRQ for a given SID, so if your plugin makes the FRQ as a list of channels (taking the channel number/name from DigiGuide, the SID from EPGcollector), I can then create a FRQ.NEW you just need to rename to DVBLink.FRQ...The new FRQ input format could be a list of:

CH:xxxx sid:xxx sat:0 #:Channel name

Would this simplify things for you? However I think that you need the standalone version of the DVB-S Importer to run offline when you want...

Eddy

Yes that sound like an idea

My plans was to run the plugin every morning say 7am (this is when my server starts). So yes would need to run this off line.

My server starts XMLTV Importer at 7.30 this would give time for frq files to be updated. So any frq or channel names/numbers should be updated.

Dean

[routerunner]

Originally Posted by deanm

Yes you might be right, but it appears in my scans as a normal channel. If I used a SKY box and did a scan then this SID and FRQ is what would be used. Need to do some testing to check if I change the Region/Area in EPG Collector what SID it would use for SKY Sports 1.

Would it be easy to add this to your plugin? Not a problem if you can't. I just thinking ahead as this may be a problem with other channels in the future.

What I’m after is a complete dump of everything. Might try and write my own code for this when I have time.

What I can do is to add a couple of property settings in the plugin configuration page to include "Radio" and "Feeds" type stream (a little bit more complicated with "LyngSat" though).

Eddy

[routerunner]

Originally Posted by Bacon2002

deanm,

I get all the sky channels and I don't use DVBLogic or DVBe4Sage or anything like that, I have tried both of these solutions and neither were reliable enough for me.

You will need to have a tuner (or tuners) that have CAM interfaces and that have native CAM supported built into SageTV such as an Anysee E7 or FireDTV-S2.

Plus a CAM (or one for each tuner) that are compatible with sky, I use Diablo WiFi cams.

Have a look here http://sagetv.wikia.com/wiki/Common_Access_Module

My set up is pretty much bullet proof, in my opinion it works much better than DVBLogic (better than it ever did for me anyway), the set up only rarely misses a beat and has four Anysee E7 S2's running 24/7 365 day of the year.

I just ordered a fifth Anysee E7 S2's. For info they aren't available in UK anymore but you can still order them from Anysee's European website.

David

I'm keeping a very close eye to the TBS6985 which is supposed to be a Quad DVB-S2 card + CAM. SageTV already recognises the CAM interface of the TBS6984 drivers which are common for the two cards, so there are good chances that might work straight away (very wishful thinking here).

Eddy

[Bacon2002]

Eddy,

I would be very interested to know if the TBS6985 proves to have native CAM support within SageTV. The idea of four tuners running off one hardware CAM with native SageTV CAM support sounds pretty good to me.

Let me know how your research goes, it would be an economical solution to adding more subscription channel tuners.

How is it that you know the TBS6984's CAM interface is recognised within SageTV?

David

[routerunner]

Originally Posted by Bacon2002

How is it that you know the TBS6984's CAM interface is recognised within SageTV?

I currently have two TBS6984 cards and the device driver, which is the same for both the TBS6984 and the new TBS6985 (ETA unknown), exposes the CAM interface to SageTV which detects it natively (from the SageTV logs), but of course it fails initialisation because the physical CAM is not present.

Sat 1/12 9:58:33.569 [MainMsg@37c7ee] UnmapPID on TIF pin total:6 
Sat 1/12 9:58:33.570 [MainMsg@37c7ee] Capture filters are connected
Sat 1/12 9:58:33.570 [MainMsg@37c7ee] CAM:Got capture drv info for CAM vendorID:'1131' mfg:'TBSDTV TECHNOLOGY' TBS 6984 Quad BDA Digital Capture DVBS-7
Sat 1/12 9:58:33.570 [MainMsg@37c7ee] CAM:Initialize (tag:TECHNTD ) CAM/CI ctrl block (ver 1.3) TBS 6984 Quad BDA Digital Capture DVBS-7 0x4b27a280 0x0 env:0x4a8e7d18
Sat 1/12 9:58:33.674 [MainMsg@37c7ee] CAM:TechnoTrend CI is initialized
Sat 1/12 9:58:33.675 [MainMsg@37c7ee] CAM:Open CAM/CI device TBS 6984 Quad BDA Digital Capture DVBS-7
Sat 1/12 9:58:33.675 [MainMsg@37c7ee] CAM:TechnoTrend deviceid 117506563 TBS 6984 Quad BDA Digital Capture DVBS-7
Sat 1/12 9:58:33.675 [MainMsg@37c7ee] CAM: open TechnoTrend CI on device id:117506563, tuner:'TBS 6984 Quad DVBS/S2 Tuner D', TBS 6984 Quad BDA Digital Capture DVBS-7
Sat 1/12 9:58:33.675 [MainMsg@37c7ee] CAM:TechnoTrend card type: unkown name TBS 6984 Quad BDA Digital Capture DVBS-7
Sat 1/12 9:58:33.675 [MainMsg@37c7ee] CAM:Failed open TechnoTrend device, due to unkown device type TBS 6984 Quad BDA Digital Capture DVBS-7
Sat 1/12 9:58:33.675 [MainMsg@37c7ee] Tuner Plugin ctrl created 
Sat 1/12 9:58:33.675 [MainMsg@37c7ee] Tuner Plugin not setup in registery 'SOFTWARE\Frey Technologies\Common\TunerPlugin' 
Sat 1/12 9:58:34.647 [MainMsg@37c7ee] DONE: autotune0 hr=0x0 locked:1
Sat 1/12 9:58:34.652 [MainMsg@37c7ee] setEncodingProperties0 1260888704 Great
Sat 1/12 9:58:34.652 [MainMsg@37c7ee] Set encoding property audiooutputmode to 0
Sat 1/12 9:58:34.652 [MainMsg@37c7ee] Set encoding property audiocrc to 0
Sat 1/12 9:58:34.652 [MainMsg@37c7ee] Set encoding property gopsize to 15
Sat 1/12 9:58:34.652 [MainMsg@37c7ee] Set encoding property videobitrate to 3800000
Sat 1/12 9:58:34.652 [MainMsg@37c7ee] Set encoding property inversetelecine to 0
Sat 1/12 9:58:34.653 [MainMsg@37c7ee] Set encoding property closedgop to 0
Sat 1/12 9:58:34.653 [MainMsg@37c7ee] Set encoding property vbr to 0
Sat 1/12 9:58:34.653 [MainMsg@37c7ee] Set encoding property outputstreamtype to 10
Sat 1/12 9:58:34.653 [MainMsg@37c7ee] Set encoding property width to 720
Sat 1/12 9:58:34.653 [MainMsg@37c7ee] Set encoding property height to 576
Sat 1/12 9:58:34.653 [MainMsg@37c7ee] Set encoding property audiobitrate to 384
Sat 1/12 9:58:34.653 [MainMsg@37c7ee] Set encoding property audiosampling to 48000
Sat 1/12 9:58:34.653 [MainMsg@37c7ee] Set encoding property disablefilter to 1
Sat 1/12 9:58:34.653 [MainMsg@37c7ee] Set encoding property medianfilter to 3
Sat 1/12 9:58:34.653 [MainMsg@37c7ee] Set encoding property fps to 25
Sat 1/12 9:58:34.653 [MainMsg@37c7ee] Set encoding property ipb to 0
Sat 1/12 9:58:34.653 [MainMsg@37c7ee] Set encoding property deinterlace to 0
Sat 1/12 9:58:34.654 [MainMsg@37c7ee] Set encoding property aspectratio to 1
Sat 1/12 9:58:34.654 [MainMsg@37c7ee] setupEncoding0 called for 1260888704 'TBS 6984 Quad BDA Digital Capture DVBS-7' (ver 1.0)
Sat 1/12 9:58:34.654 [MainMsg@37c7ee] QAM:Got capture drv info for QAM mfg:'TBSDTV TECHNOLOGY' TBS 6984 Quad BDA Digital Capture DVBS-7
Sat 1/12 9:58:34.654 [MainMsg@37c7ee] CAM:Got capture drv info for CAM vendorID:'1131' mfg:'TBSDTV TECHNOLOGY' TBS 6984 Quad BDA Digital Capture DVBS-7
Sat 1/12 9:58:34.654 [MainMsg@37c7ee] CAM:Initialize (tag:TECHNTD ) CAM/CI ctrl block (ver 1.3) TBS 6984 Quad BDA Digital Capture DVBS-7 0x4b27a280 0x4d6589c8 env:0x4a8e7d18
Sat 1/12 9:58:34.654 [MainMsg@37c7ee] CAM:CAM ctrl block is already initialized 
Sat 1/12 9:58:34.654 [MainMsg@37c7ee] CAM:Open CAM/CI device TBS 6984 Quad BDA Digital Capture DVBS-7
Sat 1/12 9:58:34.654 [MainMsg@37c7ee] CAM:TechnoTrend deviceid 117506563 TBS 6984 Quad BDA Digital Capture DVBS-7
Sat 1/12 9:58:34.654 [MainMsg@37c7ee] CAM: open TechnoTrend CI on device id:117506563, tuner:'TBS 6984 Quad DVBS/S2 Tuner D', TBS 6984 Quad BDA Digital Capture DVBS-7
Sat 1/12 9:58:34.655 [MainMsg@37c7ee] CAM:TechnoTrend card type: unkown name TBS 6984 Quad BDA Digital Capture DVBS-7
Sat 1/12 9:58:34.655 [MainMsg@37c7ee] CAM:Failed open TechnoTrend device, due to unkown device type TBS 6984 Quad BDA Digital Capture DVBS-7
Sat 1/12 9:58:34.655 [MainMsg@37c7ee] Encoding to file \\192.168.1.33\recording\Breakfast-7905858-0.mpg
Sat 1/12 9:58:34.659 [MainMsg@37c7ee] setupEncoding0 Trace27 
Sat 1/12 9:58:34.660 [MainMsg@37c7ee] setupEncoding0 Trace28 
Sat 1/12 9:58:34.660 [MainMsg@37c7ee] startEncoding0 called for 'TBS 6984 Quad BDA Digital Capture DVBS-7'
Sat 1/12 9:58:35.152 [MainMsg@37c7ee] GetBroadcastStandard DVB-S for device:'TBS 6984 Quad BDA Digital Capture DVBS-7'
Sat 1/12 9:58:35.342 [Thread-37@1e2e757] CAM: PMT dumper CapInfo:0x4b27a280 pmt bytes:356 data:0x4d65d4a0 ret:0 (180=180)

Eddy

[Bacon2002]

Eddy,

I used to have a TBS6984 card but I do not recall it having a header for a CAM interface, how would you connect a CAM interface to the card.

It looks like this TBS6991 has a twin CAM interface built onto the card so it might work with SageTV - http://www.tbsdtv.com/products/tbs69...pcie-card.html. If it did work then you would probably still need two CAMs for subscription channels.

For information it looks like TBS6985's are available on eBay.


David

[routerunner]

Originally Posted by Bacon2002

Eddy,

I used to have a TBS6984 card but I do not recall it having a header for a CAM interface, how would you connect a CAM interface to the card.

It doesn't have the headers, but it exposes the software support to SageTV which recognise it. SageTV supports natively some TBS cards even with CAM, so probably SageTV is trying to use it without knowing whether is there or not.

It looks like this TBS6991 has a twin CAM interface built onto the card so it might work with SageTV - http://www.tbsdtv.com/products/tbs69...pcie-card.html. If it did work the you would still need two CAMs.

If this card is the TBS6981 + CAM I seem to remember that SageTV recognise only one of the two tuners. Some users reported that while back, must check in the threads.

For information it looks like TBS6985's are available on eBay.

Unfortunately the new TBS6985 is not the TBS6984 + CAM as I hoped for, but simply a drop in replacement and I think they've done to fix the multiple compatibility issues they had with the PCIe controller on board of the TBS6984.

Eddy