[mythtvnz] Local help in Dunedin?

[Stephen Worthington]

On Tue, 05 Apr 2011 13:08:36 +1200, you wrote:

>Hi Tim,
>
>David Lowe has been giving me some help by email which has been grate.
>Getting closer at finding what the problem is. Seems to be something 
>with the grabber not updating the file located in 
>/Home/(yourname)/.mythtv/Freeview.xmltv
>I don't understand if this file is made by tv_grab_nz-py, and updated 
>with the xmltv data from the grabber. I need to confirm this first, if 
>the grabber is downloading the data, and where it's data is stored.
>Can anybody explain to me where the grabber data goes?
>If I run tv_grab_nz-py from a terminal, the screen scrolls with xml data 
>which look like what I would expect to be in the Freeview.xmltv file.
>
>Cheers Doug.

The /home/(yourname)/.mythtv/*.xmltv files are configuration files,
not where the downloaded EPG data is stored.  There should be one for
each EPG "source" you are using.  I have two, one for FreeviewHD and
one for SkyTV (I have a Sky decoder attached to an S-VHS input on my
PVR-500 analogue tuner card).  Here is mine for my FreeviewHD source
(FreeviewHD.xmltv):

channel=tv1.freeviewnz.tv
channel=tv2.freeviewnz.tv
channel=u.freeviewnz.tv
channel=tvnz7.freeviewnz.tv
channel=tv3.freeviewnz.tv
channel=tv3-plus1.freeviewnz.tv
channel=four.freeviewnz.tv
channel=c4.freeviewnz.tv
channel=maori-tv.freeviewnz.tv
channel=parliament.freeviewnz.tv
channel=prime.freeviewnz.tv
channel=ctv8.freeviewnz.tv
channel=tv33.freeviewnz.tv
channel=tvcentral.freeviewnz.tv
channel=trackside.freeviewnz.tv
channel=rnz-national.freeviewnz.tv
channel=rnz-concert.freeviewnz.tv
channel=base-fm.freeviewnz.tv
channel=stratos.freeviewnz.tv
channel!cue.freeviewnz.tv
channel!te-reo.freeviewnz.tv
channel!george-fm.freeviewnz.tv

There is one "channel" line per channel in the EPG data.  Channels
that are used in your MythTV setup have an = and unused channels a !
separating the "channel" keyword from the xmltvid value on the right.
I do not believe it matters if you have any ! lines with invalid
xmltvid values, or if you have any xmltvid values in the EPG data that
are not in the .xmltv config file - any EPG data that does not match
an = line is just ignored, so the ! lines are just a convenience for
us humans.

It is a very long time now since I installed tv_grab_nz-py, but I
believe it has an install mode where it will set up the config file
for you.  It is a tedious process where you have to answer a set of
questions about each channel.  I maintain my config files manually so
I have not run the install mode for many years and probably never in
the current version of tv_grab_nz-py.  The option to do this if
running tv_grab_nz-py manually is --configure.

When you are setting up MythTV to use a grabber, it should run the
grabber using the --configure option and use the data to also set up
the "channels" database in MythTV.  Last time I did that procedure,
the software was a bit broken and it did not work.  I presume that
will have long since been fixed.  The tv_grab_nz-py file needs to be
put on the path somewhere it will be recognised as being a grabber -
the proper place seems to be in /usr/local/bin - and then when you are
setting things up using mythtv-setup, it will appear as a grabber
option when creating a new Video Source (menu item 3).  Using the
"configure" option on the new page that appears for a video source
should run the grabber with the --configure option.

I also maintain my MythTV channel database manually using direct SQL
commands when channel changes occur, so I have no idea any more how
the updating of channels would work using tv_grab_nz-py, or even if
there is a way to do it without having to go through the entire
tedious initial install process again.  If I was installing a new
MythTV setup for someone, I would probably just dump a copy of my
existing "channels" database and load it on their system and then
modify it to suit.

I am in Palmerston North, and the channels above are for what I get
for DVB-T from the Wharite transmitter.  There are probably some
regional variations eg tvcentral is not universally available.  In PN,
the tvcentral channel seems to be present on the transmitter, but does
not actually transmit programs, so I should probably disable it too.

If anyone sees any problems with my data above, do please let me know.

The normal way the EPG grabbing works is that there is an option in
the MythTV setup somewhere that runs mythfilldatabase automatically.
Mytfilldatabase then runs the grabbers that are configured for it, and
receives and processes the EPG xml data that the grabber generates. It
puts all the EPG data directly into the MythTV database - the EPG data
may never be stored to disk in a file and if it is, that file is only
a temporary one.