Please, please, please, please fix "automatic addition of new channels"

[IncredibleHat]

EDIT: *narf*

[GKusnick]

Originally Posted by IncredibleHat

I'm a programmer, and something like this is a few freaking dang lines of code!

Have you considered writing those few lines of code yourself? How hard could it be to come up with a plugin to automatically disable newly added channels?

Sure, you can argue that you shouldn't have to, that it's the devs' job to fix it, not yours. But waiting for the devs to fix it hasn't proven very successful so far. So why not take matters into your own hands and become a hero to all the other folks affected by this issue?

[IncredibleHat]

Originally Posted by GKusnick

Have you considered writing those few lines of code yourself? How hard could it be to come up with a plugin to automatically disable newly added channels?

Sure, you can argue that you shouldn't have to, that it's the devs' job to fix it, not yours. But waiting for the devs to fix it hasn't proven very successful so far. So why not take matters into your own hands and become a hero to all the other folks affected by this issue?

I can code, but I don't know Sage-Code...

Plus, I didn't think there is even a possibility to affect the inner workings of SageTV with 'UI' modifications. I mean... editing buttons and moking it aspect with a remote button press is all UI stuff. Having its internal EPG download service and channel lineup code affected by a UI mod, just doesnt seem feasible. If SageTV code was open (non compiled) I could prolly find where it does it and change those lines of code. Except for me, I would just be commenting them all out instead of making an Option for it lol. Who wants that ON?

[GKusnick]

Originally Posted by IncredibleHat

Having its internal EPG download service and channel lineup code affected by a UI mod, just doesnt seem feasible.

Anything you can configure through the UI can be affected by a UI mod. Since you can enable, disable, and remap channels through the UI, it follows that you can automate those tasks with a UI mod. I wasn't suggesting that you change the internal EPG download, but that you go in after the download is finished and restore the channel lineup to your preferred state. Whatever it is that you're sick of doing manually every week, write a plugin to do it automatically.

A UI mod is one way to do that, but in this case it's probably better to do it as a pure Java plugin that runs in the background on the server without interacting with the UI. That way you don't need to know anything about Studio; you just need a Java IDE and a SageTV API reference. (Although it probably wouldn't hurt to take a look in Studio at how the channel lineup config screen is implemented to see which API functions it's using.)

[IncredibleHat]

HMmMmm...

Java huh... learn one language, any other language should be easy to figure out, aye? Java cant be THAT far from C++ right? =) I'll have to dig around in it.

Ugh, last week DirectTV went and added more HD channels... whats really bad, is they come in as the same channel number, but dont 'tune'... yet have the same shows listed at the same times! (I wont be going to HD anytime too soon so its not a priority to me to make it work with HD channels).

Basically, all the channels DTV keeps adding are channels I don't get with my packages heh. I can only imagine how much more difficult this will be when I add that second tuner box and have two channel lineups that I have to keep cleaning every few days.... I will get to work on this plugin/app for the channel lineup.

[priority]

I tried hopelessly to get this to work with an Actisys IR blaster. I could never get the Actisys to "record" and UP or DOWN button...it would cause SageTV to hang forever.

Finally broke down and bought a USB-UIRT. Bought the one with the 56kHz sensor as it seemed that Dish uses this. The setup is a bit of a pain compared to the Actisys; you have to "record" all the keystrokes and set up a new device. Also, you will need to edit the newly created .ir file to set the repeat count to something other than 1. I have had good luck with a repeat count 10 as the second line in the .ir file created for my Dish receiver. Why in the hell the Sage developers force you into crap like editing a text file is astonishing to me. How about the incredibly sane idea of having this as being configurable through the Sage GUI????

Anyway, I have intentionally tuned the Dish Receiver to a "you are now hosed" screen and waited for Sage to change the channel at the next recording...and IT IS WORKING. The prefix of "DOWN" is sent before the channel change digits roll out. Sweet!

[FMAX]

Have a few 600 channels programmed for international stations,
scrolling through 10-15 new B.S. channels is annoing.
I have Comcast, Use Dish for HDhomerun lineup, use DirectTV for HVR-1600 Line-up, so I have to check all 3 guides to disable these channels....

seems like every week I have to do this, mainly because of sports PPV always popping up.

just thought I'd add my 2 cents!

[CarlR]

I figured I'd post here to bump this thread, as I just had to delete a half-dozen HD channels that Comcast added to my local lineup (that I can't get because I only use the unencrypted QAM stations). Unfortunately, I was a couple days too late and ended up with empty recordings because Sage tried to record shows on the new HD channels instead of the old SD channels.

If there's no way we can prevent the automatic changes, could there at least be some way that Sage could notify us that the channel guide has changed?

[Narflex]

OK....this is in V6.4 now. There's a setting for it (it'll be in the UI).

[CarlR]

Originally Posted by Narflex

OK....this is in V6.4 now. There's a setting for it (it'll be in the UI).

sweeet

[hemicuda]

excellent news, thanks.

[BFisher]

excellent - thanks!

[IncredibleHat]

I SO LOVE YOU GUYS!

=D

Yeah, I was getting NO where with a 3rd party script that muddled with the config file and channel numbers. Then again, I also didn't have the time to really get into it as I would have liked.

After removing 20 sports event channels yesterday, this is Very Excellent News!

[heffe2001]

Originally Posted by Narflex

OK....this is in V6.4 now. There's a setting for it (it'll be in the UI).

Now how's about a version of 6.4.0 for us poor Windows users, lol.

[IncredibleHat]

In light of this:

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=32648

SageTV V6.4.1 Beta 4/29/08
Core Update #22

"Added core support for not enabling newly added channels by default. It's controlled by the property: epg/enable_newly_added_channels."

I deem this thread Closed! Thank you so much for the feature. If it works well or not is something else we will find out through testing, but as far as adding the ability, that is now done. Hooray!