Show only hd channels in guide

[Gustovier]

All,

Is there anyway to filter the on display guide to just show HD channels?

[Fuzzy]

There's not really any way sage knows whether a 'channel' is HD or not. It has HD flags for individual airings, but nothing for a channel. With that in mind, no, there isn't a way to filter out the standard guide to limit it to HD only programs (also, the other programs would end up just as blank sections - so not much use). You can view the program guide in the Malore menu's, which aren't the traditional grid view, but do offer a myriad of filtering and grouping options.

[Gustovier]

Thanks for taking the time to reply. So it looks like it's really just a fault of the guide data not providing an HD flag? I haven't looked at the raw guide data(is there even a way how? but if there is something in there that could be parsed to indicate it's an HD channel and then I would say it's possible. The other way although not as nice.. is creating your own list of channels you designate to be HD, and then filter on that(seeing that the melore menus offer filtering I guess this is all possible via the plugin API/architecture and doesn't have to be built into the core sage software). This is something the user would have to manage, albeit changes to channel lineup don't happen often.

This is something that I miss from Windows Media Center...

[Fuzzy]

The guide data DOES contain HD flags, but it's a per-program flag, not a per-channel flag.

[Gustovier]

Hmm, I wonder then will you ever have the scenario of non HD flagged content on a HD channel. I understand a lot of channels will "upscale" SD content on HD channels, but do they then flag them as HD.. If that happens 99.9% of the time then I could possibly then use that to flag a channel as Hd, and for the remaining .1% possibly add in the ability to manually add/remove and HD channel.

[GKusnick]

If there are channels you never want to watch or record or see listed in the guide, disable them in your channel lineup.

[Gustovier]

Originally Posted by GKusnick

If there are channels you never want to watch or record or see listed in the guide, disable them in your channel lineup.

That's not really and ideal solution for this.. Need something more dynamic and efficient..

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by Gustovier

Hmm, I wonder then will you ever have the scenario of non HD flagged content on a HD channel. I understand a lot of channels will "upscale" SD content on HD channels, but do they then flag them as HD.. If that happens 99.9% of the time then I could possibly then use that to flag a channel as Hd, and for the remaining .1% possibly add in the ability to manually add/remove and HD channel.

That's actually quite often. Local networks, especially, air a LOT of SD content during the day, and HD stuff for news and prime-time. In my experience, zap2it is pretty accurate in the flagging of this content.

[banshee]

There is a "favorites list" plugin that you can use to create different classifications of channels (e.g., news, sports, movies, HD)...and it allows you to create groups and change the guide view accordingly.

It was written for Sage 6. It works in Sage 7, but there are some "imperfections" in how it is graphically represented. (I am using it in this mode now.)

[Gustovier]

Originally Posted by banshee

There is a "favorites list" plugin that you can use to create different classifications of channels (e.g., news, sports, movies, HD)...and it allows you to create groups and change the guide view accordingly.

It was written for Sage 6. It works in Sage 7, but there are some "imperfections" in how it is graphically represented. (I am using it in this mode now.)

Now that seems like it could work, I'll have to check it out when I get home. I wonder if I can easily look at the source code. I have no idea how the plugin architecture works as I haven't looked into it, but I have general programing skills in different langs including java so i figure it's just a matter of semantics.(unfortunately no real graphic/artistic abilities though...lol)

[Fuzzy]

The better fix is to just stop using the program guide.. ;-) It such an antiquated idea... :-)

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by Gustovier

Now that seems like it could work, I'll have to check it out when I get home. I wonder if I can easily look at the source code. I have no idea how the plugin architecture works as I haven't looked into it, but I have general programing skills in different langs including java so i figure it's just a matter of semantics.(unfortunately no real graphic/artistic abilities though...lol)

It was done entirely in Studio. So the source code is available. It has allot of code to implement parental controls on channels as well as ancient import code ala SageTV V4.0. Also has code to try to import correctly on versions of SageTV from 4.0 to 6.x. So it isn't easy to read the RAW import code. Once it is imported you should be able to see the changes made to the guide. I suggest importing it into the SageTV3.XML interface to get a better import when looking at the code changes. I just haven't had the time to update FCL to SageTV7 - sorry about that.