[Dweller]

Originally posted by Zirak


A thought - You could configure the input for a local cable company, remap the channels to where they really are, and just set the rest to channels you don't receive.

It may or may not work, depending on whether the cable company provides all the local channels. I think they are required to, by law.

I tried this, but for whatever reason I was not able to recieve the UHF channels in this configuration. Thanks though.

When set to Cable, I get blue screen on 49 and 54. When on antenna I get 49, but no 54, since TiVo doesnt know its there.

And as for bugging pony, I already have. It may not result in any response, but at this point I have tried every single option I have and am desperate. I dont feel I should be paying TiVo for an invalid lineup, and if I cant get it corrected I will have no choice but to shut teh service off.

Thanks again for the idea on the cable thing. I just wish it would work :/

 

[Zirak]

Originally posted by Dweller


I tried this, but for whatever reason I was not able to recieve the UHF channels in this configuration. Thanks though.

When set to Cable, I get blue screen on 49 and 54. When on antenna I get 49, but no 54, since TiVo doesnt know its there.

And as for bugging pony, I already have. It may not result in any response, but at this point I have tried every single option I have and am desperate. I dont feel I should be paying TiVo for an invalid lineup, and if I cant get it corrected I will have no choice but to shut teh service off.

Thanks again for the idea on the cable thing. I just wish it would work :/

Indeed this wont work for UHF channels as they aren't the same as for cable frequencies.

 

[Dweller]

yeah that was my suspicion, but a quick search here was not able to confirm or deny it.

Thanks for letting me know I wasnt crazy

 

[Zirak]

Over the air (antenna) service has no "lineup." The ChannelMap module assumes lineups exist. It modifies those, and combines them into the channel list.

The net effect is that you can not directly remap antenna service using this module.

It is possible to setup using a local cable company's basic service, and then remap the channels using the module. Unfortunately, cable channel frequencies don't map to over the air frequencies for UHF channels. This means channels over channel 13 won't work.

The attached code will change the "source" to be an over the air (antenna) source. If you setup as basic cable, remap the over the air channels and then run this short program, UHF channels will work. This solved Dweller's problem. You must lookup the object id (XXXXX/YYYYY) and provide it as an input. This is easily done using Tivoweb (MFS/setup/source).

Good luck, no warranties.

 

[Francesco]

When I click "info" in TiVoweb, it displays the program info for the original occupant of that channel number, not for the remapped channel. Any ideas?

 

[bradtem]

Zirak, if you are interested in studying the structures of a dual headead system, might I suggest you simply do a guided setup on your TIvo and tell it you have a satellite box in addition to your OTA cable?

As far as I can see this won't hurt anything other than it will now require you to type longer channel numbers or hit enter after doing 1 and 2 digit channel numbers. You can mark all the satellite channels as do-not-receive.

it does mean more downloading while doing this, so after playing with it, understanding the structures and testing software, you may wish to undo it.

Not that you have a special duty to try this to help those of us with two headends, but I thought you might be interested in seeing how it works.

If you have a reverse engineered diagram or description of the internal data structures, mappings between channel numbers, station IDs, TIMS IDs, internal file numbers, headends/sources, lineups etc. I would be interested in seeing that.

My latest curiousity is to wonder if you can convince a Tivo to have two cablesystem head ends, one for OTA cable and the other for a IR controlled satellite box that isn't really cable but uses the listing data of a cable company.

That's because my satellite box is not supported by Tivo, but if I could get the listing data of a Buffalo cable company into it and remap the numbers, the result would be halfway to what I want, which is better than none of the way.

Another tool that would be useful would be a general backup for the entire MFS "source" tree with all the lineup information, so I could save it and restore it if I screw it up playing with it. Anybody written one of those?

 

[Zirak]

Originally posted by satguymtl
When I click "info" in TiVoweb, it displays the program info for the original occupant of that channel number, not for the remapped channel. Any ideas?

Restart Tivoweb - Without looking, I bet tivoweb is caching the channel information on startup. The channelmap module doesn't use/mess with that stuff.

 

[Francesco]

Yup. You are good. Damn good.

 

[Zirak]

Originally posted by bradtem
Zirak, if you are interested in studying the structures of a dual headead system, might I suggest you simply do a guided setup on your TIvo and tell it you have a satellite box in addition to your OTA cable?

By now I think I have a pretty good understanding of it.

Originally posted by bradtem

If you have a reverse engineered diagram or description of the internal data structures, mappings between channel numbers, station IDs, TIMS IDs, internal file numbers, headends/sources, lineups etc. I would be interested in seeing that.

I do have a diagram of sorts, but I don't have a brain scanner so I can put it in an emailable format.

Originally posted by bradtem

My latest curiousity is to wonder if you can convince a Tivo to have two cablesystem head ends, one for OTA cable and the other for a IR controlled satellite box that isn't really cable but uses the listing data of a cable company.

That's because my satellite box is not supported by Tivo, but if I could get the listing data of a Buffalo cable company into it and remap the numbers, the result would be halfway to what I want, which is better than none of the way.

Two cablesystem headends wouldn't be hard. The trick is to get the tivo to download the data for two different cable systems, if that is what you are looking for. Not sure what you mean by OTA cable, unless its just the OTA channel delivered via some apartment complex cable feed, which may remap channels.

Originally posted by bradtem

Another tool that would be useful would be a general backup for the entire MFS "source" tree with all the lineup information, so I could save it and restore it if I screw it up playing with it. Anybody written one of those?

The whole MFS tree can be backed up with MFStools.

If you are just worried about the lineup/channel stuff, a guided setup might do the trick, depending on how bad you trashed things.

The channelmap module lets you save and restore the first headend. A simple source change (which you could do) would let you make that work for the second. Don't try to run two copies of the module at the same time.

Nothing here will ADD a channel to headend/lineup/otherwise. Beyond the scope of this module.

 

[bradtem]

If a two cablesystem config wouldn't be hard, then I would be quite interested. I want it to be configured so that I have my regular AT&T cable on the RF (which is what I mean by OTA) inputs, and an echostar satellite box with a western new york (ie. Buffalo area) cable lineup on the SVideo inputs. Then I will remap the buffalo lineup to match the channels coming from my satellite box since many of them can be found in the Buffalo lineup, or so I am told (Anamertics Cable of Amherst seems to have most of the Canadian stations)

I know MFStools can back up the tree, but can I do it on my Tivo? I thought that was for use under regular linux. Is there an MFS Tools for the Tivo itself? My goal would be to backup not the OS or other things, but just the MFS tree with my configuration in it, so that if I screw it up, I can get it back with the shell.

I tried your channelmap script, the one from this thread, and it aborted on my 3.0 Tivo with two headends. It was acting on the "first" headend, which oddly is my satellite headend (currently configured as DirecTv even though I don't have that) and not my RF headend.

 

[Zirak]

Originally posted by bradtem
If a two cablesystem config wouldn't be hard, then I would be quite interested. I want it to be configured so that I have my regular AT&T cable on the RF (which is what I mean by OTA) inputs, and an echostar satellite box with a western new york (ie. Buffalo area) cable lineup on the SVideo inputs. Then I will remap the buffalo lineup to match the channels coming from my satellite box since many of them can be found in the Buffalo lineup, or so I am told (Anamertics Cable of Amherst seems to have most of the Canadian stations)

Changing the input type to cable isn't hard. The small script posted earlier does that, except it changes it to antenna not cable. However, this won't make the tivo have a clue about what channels are on the other feed, or get the schedule information for those channels.

Originally posted by bradtem

I know MFStools can back up the tree, but can I do it on my Tivo? I thought that was for use under regular linux. Is there an MFS Tools for the Tivo itself? My goal would be to backup not the OS or other things, but just the MFS tree with my configuration in it, so that if I screw it up, I can get it back with the shell.

No one has pursued that strategy as far as I am aware. Easier just to restore to drive and pursue more interesting things.

Originally posted by bradtem

I tried your channelmap script, the one from this thread, and it aborted on my 3.0 Tivo with two headends. It was acting on the "first" headend, which oddly is my satellite headend (currently configured as DirecTv even though I don't have that) and not my RF headend.

It will always act on the first headend. You have to change the code to make it use the second one, but the change is trivial.

What error did it give when it aborted? I haven't heard about a blowup problem with this in some time.

 

[bradtem]

Which is "the small script earlier?"

As for the blowup, I was remapping about 5 channels and it took place when I did a commit. As I have rempaped them other ways with other TCL scripts, it is not easy to duplicate but I will let you know.

Right now when you add a 2nd headend in the Tivo, you are given the option of picking a satellite provider from their short list. I guess I should hunt further for that script, but it seems to be able to do this I would need some way of telling it "Still act like I have a satellite box of type Echostar 10010, but use listing data like I ahve the headend of Anametrics Cable of Amherst NY"

Then remap the Anametrics lineup (which will be sub-100 channels) to use channels in the above 100 set that the Expressvu satellite box actually uses.

If you have advice on how to do that, many users of Canadian signals will thank you.

 

[Zirak]

Originally posted by bradtem
Which is "the small script earlier?"

channelsetuptoantenna.tcl

Originally posted by bradtem

As for the blowup, I was remapping about 5 channels and it took place when I did a commit. As I have rempaped them other ways with other TCL scripts, it is not easy to duplicate but I will let you know.

I took a quick look, and think I know the problem. At approximately line 125 change

set channels [dbobj $source 0 get Channel]

to

set channels [dbobj [lindex $source 0] get Channel]

That should fix it, let me know. This is relatively new code.

Originally posted by bradtem

Right now when you add a 2nd headend in the Tivo, you are given the option of picking a satellite provider from their short list. I guess I should hunt further for that script, but it seems to be able to do this I would need some way of telling it "Still act like I have a satellite box of type Echostar 10010, but use listing data like I ahve the headend of Anametrics Cable of Amherst NY"

Then remap the Anametrics lineup (which will be sub-100 channels) to use channels in the above 100 set that the Expressvu satellite box actually uses.

If you have advice on how to do that, many users of Canadian signals will thank you.

No real advice here. It doesn't sound like changing the second source to cable is really what you want to do.

 

[bradtem]

Well, I'm new to learning how this database works so I am still looking for where to start.

If you don't think changing the 2nd source to cable is what I want, what do you think I want? It's true that I don't want it to think the 2nd source is a cable company or cable box. It really is a satellite box. What I want it to think is that the 2nd source has the _lineup_ of a particular cable company in the Tribune Database, but still know it's a satellite box when it comes to controlling it.

The first soruce would remain my regular AT&T cable with it's ordinary lineup coming in the RF port.

No ideas on how to do this? Where to look to figure out how to do this?

As for your patch, I will try that. I've been a bit scared since after I ran your program (and did some other lineup change programs) my Tivo has had 2 strange random crashes of the UI process and inexplicable and unduplicatable times, within infinite loops complaining about promotion codes.

 

[Zirak]

The only reasonable thing I can suggest is setting the second source to a satelite provider that has all the channels you want and remapping them.

It may be possible by spending a good deal of time playing trial and error in MFS. I don't know enough about satellite stuff inside or outside to tivo to guide you intelligently.

There is no script that I am aware of that will do what you are looking to do. If you are going to make it work, you will need to get your hands dirty.

I can't imagine how the tivoweb or the channelmap script would have caused the other problems you are describing. Very unlikely.

 

[bradtem]

Right, but since I have no documentation on the form of the MFS datbase, I have no idea how to set the second source. There is no satellite provicer that has the channels I want that Tivo supports -- that is the whole point. Tivo does support the channels through some cable providers, but no U.S. satellite provider supplies Canadian channels.

I'm not up to speed enough to do trial and error in the MFS, not without a safety net to restore what I screw up. That's why I was hoping for whatever docs people have figured out. I guess I will keep hunting for such docs.

Thanks.

 

[Zirak]

A new version of the ChannelMap module is available.

The previous versions are incompatible with tivoweb v.1.9.4 beta and higher.

Download the new version from the tivoweb website here:

ChannelMap

 

[finster869]

Zirak -

I am using the new version of channelmap from the tivoweb website along with beta 4. I cannot get the restore function to work. If I remap a channel and save it, tivoweb reports that it has been saved. If I open that saved file, I see the script has written itself. However, when I go to restore it, it says that is restoring and may take a minute, but then nothing changes. I have tried rebooting tivo, so it isn't a caching problem. Has anybody else had this problem? Any ideas?

 

[Zirak]

After the restore, do you commit changes to the active channel list?

 

[finster869]

When I go to apply the changes, it gives a message saying that there appears to be no changes.

I have opened the channelmapscript.tcl script that it saves in /var/hack/tivoweb-tcl, and it appears as though the script saved all of the channels properly. The channels in the script are definitely different than those in the tivo database. For some reason, when I go to restore it, it isn't working.

I also tried removing the channelmapscript.tcl file all together from the /var/hack/tivoweb-tcl directory to see if I would receive a "file not found" or some type of error message, but I don't.

It is almost as though the module is not finding the channelmapscript.tcl file, or not running it. Is there any way to run the channelmapscript.tcl file outside of tivoweb as means of troubleshooting?