channel_management.md

neumoDVB

Channel lists and channel numbering

neumoDVB distinguishes between services and channels. A service is a TV or radio service being broadcast via satellite. On the other hand, a channel is a service which has been put in a bouquet. The difference is important: channels and services are stored as separate records in the database. They can be assigned separate numbers for easy zapping.

Services are created when they are discovered in the SDT data or in the PAT data of muxes. Most of their properties are updated automatically, so there is little sense in changing them. For instance, you can change the name of a service in the service list, but this change will be overwritten with the name in the SDT table as soon as you tune to the service, or even an other related service.

There are a few exceptions:

• the service number is purely user defined.

• some information like VPID (video PID) and PMT PID is usually not needed for tuning. In rare cases, their value is needed for tuning. One example is services that are not listed in the SDT, nor in PAT. These streams are non-compliant, rare, and are not yet handled well by neumoDVB (please submit a ticket if you find an example)

  Another example are the encrypted BBC streams at 27.5W. In this case the PMT is encrypted and it is not even possible to discover the video PID prior to decrypting this PMT. Currently this decryption is implemented in a way that requires the user to specify the video PID.

Similarly, it is pointless to remove services from the service list because they will be recreated when neumoDVB discovers them in SI information, even from other muxes. One exception would be to remove erroneous services due to software bugs or no longer existing services. The latter are flagged as "expired", but not immediately removed, to avoid deleting user specified information accidentally. In general, services are considered "expired" if their mux still exists but the services are no longer there. Not being able to receive a mux is not enough to expire services. After a certain amount of time (one month currently) expired muxes are deleted.

In general there are two practical ways to prepare your channel list for viewing

• Stick to services and give them a suitable service number. Other services will have the default number 0. Your services will therefore appear at the end of the list.

• Create bouquets, copy the channels you are interested into the bouquet and during viewing use those channel list(s) instead of the service list.

Assigning service numbers

Service numbers will be used to order services in lists, when "numeric" sorting is active.

First check if some services have actually been found during scanning: Ctrl-Shift-S (Lists - services). Select the desired service and enter edit mode by pressing Ctrl-E. Click on the number in the left most column (#) and then type the desired number.

To store the changes, move the cursor to another service and or turn off edit mode by pressing Ctrl-E.

To navigate the service list, click on one of the column headers. e.g. Name, to sort the list to make it easier to find what you want. You can also restrict the list to services on a specific satellite using the combo-popup on top. By default, it shows services from all satellites. In the examples below we assume that "BBC One HD" has been assigned channel number 101 and "BBC Two HD" number 102. The numbers you enter are assigned to services.

You can also activate a filter by right-clicking on the column header.

Bouquets and channels

As an alternative, it is also possible to group services into bouquets, either bouquets defined by the Service Information in the stream, or by defining a bouquet yourself. To view all SI defined bouquets, use Lists - Bouquets. The example below shows the bouquets discovered while scanning 28.2E. In this list you can add (Ctrl-N) a user defined bouquet.

User defined bouquets are called "favorite lists" to distinguish them from SI defined bouquets. In general, it is not advised to alter data in SI defined bouquets, because your changes will be overwritten by neumoDVB when it processes SI data. The only exception is the channel number, which will be preserved by such updates. In user defined bouquets (favorite lists), you can also change channel names.

As explained above, bouquets consist of channels (not services). Each channel corresponds to exactly one service (note the difference with TVHeadend), but multiple channels (in different bouquets) can refer to the same service. A channel is stored as a separate record from the service, which is why the channel number can differ from the service number and why services can receive different channel orders in different bouquets/favorite lists.

Bouquets defined in Service Information

Instead of creating a favorite list, you can also stick to predefined bouquets and service provider define channel numbers. The following shows an example.

Creating favorite lists

To create a favorite list, proceed as follows:

• First create a new favorite list: Lists - Bouquets, Edit- New. Only enter a new name e.g., MyList.

• Select the new favorite list and enter Edit - Bouquet. This will enter bouquet-editing mode. In this mode the service and channel lists will highlight in red all services in the selected bouquet. At this point, there are none yet, so obviously no services are highlighted.

• Move to the service or channel list. Select a service/channel to add to the bouquet and press Ctrl-M (Edit - bouquet add service) to add the service to the bouquet. If a service was already added, then Ctrl-M will remove it.

• When done, press Alt-B to exit bouquet-edit mode. You can repeat the process to create additional favorite lists

Now check the Chanel list List - Channels/Bouquet. Use the combo list on top to select MyList, Notice that the channel numbers are initially zero, even if you would have changed the service numbers. The two numbers are indistinct. You can of course enter edit-mode and update chno as you wish. In the example below, three channels have been assigned the numbers 1, 2 and 3