XMLTV - Channel ID Remap & tv_sort queries

[Black Sky]

I would like to doublecheck on the following
my epgdata.xml has <channel id= 101> tags (this is an example) all set like this.
Tried Importing with different plug-ins into clean SageTV (V5) installs, and SageTV will always number the channels from 2 to 100.
Will I always have to remap the channels first time around in SageTV.
(OK StephaneM's plugin will do this, but I have to change them on the grid there anyway, so more or less the same amount of editing anyway).

Also some of the how-to's on the forum point to using xmltv tv_sort to sort xml files, pre-import to SageTV, and I wonder is this any longer necessary, as SAGE EPG GUI will do chanel sorting instanteously.

Thx...

[nielm]

tv_sort is necessary if your xmltv data does not contain stop times for each program -- this field is required by most of the plug-ins, and will be added by tv_sort...

Some of the importers use a numeric channel <display-name> to get the channel number, others use the ID. (off hand, I cannot remember which ones)

Normally the channel ID field in XMLTV should be used for a unique domain-name-style channel reference (such as bbc1.bbc.co.uk, or raiuno.rai.it), not for the channel number (which may vary from location to location)