[bmn001]

I'm starting to seriously look into the PVR functions of XBMC now that it's more or less "official" and have been experimenting with the different back ends. Can't say I'm very happy with any of them...they all handle channel numbering differently and seem to all require some external online source for guide data, rather than pulling down the data embedded in the ATSC stream. In fact most seem to be written with the European market in mind, focusing on DVB users.

In the US, ATSC subchannels mean that television channels natively are numbered like "2.1, 2.2, 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 4.4" etc. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_sub...ted_States ) However, all the backends seem to want to assign their own channel numbering schemes to these stations, some want to re-order them based on alphabetizing their broadcast callsigns...it's kind of a mess.

Of all available backends (including the newcomer NextPVR) what's the best way to carry over the native ATSC channel numbering scheme into the XBMC interface? And can XBMC even handle channel numbers with decimals or hyphens?

Windows Media Center seems to handle it right, but it seems that technical reasons (and a lack of an open API) are barriers to a front end plugin for WMC. Which is tragic, because WMC is so easy to setup, use, and maintain.

Right now I'm floating between backends trying to find one that works well, but these are not exactly lightweight pieces of software and doing the install/uninstall dance to switch between them is getting tedious. OTA USA users, how are you guys approaching this? What backends are you using?

[sub3]

The reality is that there usually isn't enough guide data in ATSC streams to be usable for PVR purposes. A lot of channels only carry 6 hours (the required minimum), which makes it pretty much useless for backends which need a good knowledge of what is coming up to be able to schedule recordings. You really need multiple days of data to be available for it to be usable for a PVR. So while my NextPVR app does support using the ATSC EPG, I doubt it'd be a realistic option and you'd probably need to use xmltv or schedules direct.

Microsoft doesn't use the ATSC guide data either. They download the listings aswell.

And can XBMC even handle channel numbers with decimals or hyphens?

No it does not, so even if the backend supported it, you couldn't do this in XBMC

[bmn001]

Well that's all good info to have! Thanks!

And can XBMC even handle channel numbers with decimals or hyphens?

No it does not, so even if the backend supported it, you couldn't do this in XBMC

Bummer! So those of us with antennas in the US (Canada too?) are in a situation where we'd need to tune XBMC to channel 6 if we wanted to watch channel 4.

For example:

Code:

XBMC Channel# : Broadcast Channel#
2: 2.1
3: 2.2
4: 2.3
5: 2.4
6: 4.1
7: 4.2
etc...

Good to know though. I'll stop trying to make this work!

[sub3]

You can probably come up with a better numbering scheme for your channels that makes it easy to remember. For example, replacing the "." with zero. ie 4.1 would be 401.