How do I make OTA channels not merge with cable channels?

[Kirby]

Anyone know how I can get my OTA channels to not be combined with my QAM/cable card channels in the program guide? I specifically want them separate so that in the event that I want to view the OTA channel, I can do that.

I tried setting up sage with OTA for my zip (same zip as the CC/QAM tuners) and that didnt work like I want. Then tried to trick Sage into using a zip from a city 20 miles away for OTA, and it still combined the OTA channels into the cable channel on the guide.

Here's an example of one of the channels (CBS HD, WWMTDT):
OTA logical = 3-1
OTA physical = 8-3-1 (in tuner setup)
cable channel equivalient = 782.

I want 3-1 in my guide as 3-1, and to also have 782 be just the CC & QAM tuners for that channel. But once Sage scans OTA and find "WWMTDT" it merges it under '782'.

Is there not a way to do this? What am I missing?

[harco]

If you don't mind it not being flagged with HD you can change the station ID in SageTV. I set mine up with the OTA tuner listed in HD. Then I created channels (I numbered mine 50 thru 54 to keep them grouped together) and used the std def station ID.

So WWMTDT is station ID 34884
and WWMT is station ID 11982

Create a new channel with WWMT as name 11982 as ID and 782 as the physical channel number.

Hope that helps

[Kirby]

Didnt think about doing that. So I could manually add channels like this:

Logical: 3-1
Physical: 8-3-1
Station ID: 11982

And I could name is something a little more specific like "CBS HD" or "WWMT-HD" instead of just WWMT or WWMTDT, right?

[cat6man]

i keep two orthogonal channel lineups, one for HDHR and one for HDPVR channels. i select the north jersey fios lineup for one and the south jersey fios lineup for the other, then activate only the channels that are needed for each lineup........works perfectly. (note: my HDHR is for cable unencrypted, and HDPVR is for cable STB)

[Fuzzy]

If you want to use the same guide data, then yes, they will be combined in sage (as they are, effectively, the same thing). The only way to get them to be separate channels in sage, is to give them different channelID's, complete with different guide data. The built in provider can't really do this. You might be able to use Slugger's EPG plugin to do this, but it would take some work outside of sage.

Out of curiosity, why do you want them split? they should be showing the exact same programming. If they are not, that is an issue with zap2it, and they should not be shared on their end.

[Kirby]

I want them split so that I can use OTA as a backup tuning source for when cable goes out. Its not all that often, but we lost cable just yesterday and would be nice to be able to force sage to an OTA channel.

I am saddled between 2 TV markets and can get both on OTA, but not strong enough to get solid viewing for recordings all the time. Thats why I just want the OTA for backup. I know I can set the tuner merit for OTA to be low, but I dont think Sage would cycle through the cable tuners first and then drop to OTA if cable was out, would it? It would just tune in a black screen?

[Fuzzy]

In that case, the way sage expects it to be done is to disable the cable tuners for the outage... I think at some point someone made a plugin that could mark a tuner as non-functioning (which removes it from the logic, but keeps it in the setup).

[IVB]

Fuzzy/others - it didn't used to merge them in V6, right? I wonder why it was changed. I used to see channel 2 and channel 2-1 separately. For me, it appears that OTA PQ is much higher than D* PQ, so some shows I prefer to force the OTA tuner.

[Kirby]

Correct, in V6 you could do exactly what I want, and I used to do it.

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by IVB

Fuzzy/others - it didn't used to merge them in V6, right? I wonder why it was changed. I used to see channel 2 and channel 2-1 separately. For me, it appears that OTA PQ is much higher than D* PQ, so some shows I prefer to force the OTA tuner.

Originally Posted by Kirby

Correct, in V6 you could do exactly what I want, and I used to do it.

No - All stations with the same ID have been merged in the Guide since way back when. This was not a v7 change.

If they were listed separately before, they had different station IDs.

- Andy

[IVB]

Originally Posted by Opus4

No - All stations with the same ID have been merged in the Guide since way back when. This was not a v7 change.

If they were listed separately before, they had different station IDs.

- Andy

Ok then, I guess I need to look up what a station ID means since my understand is clearly wrong.

All I know is that in my program guide, I literally never saw any merging of stations across OTA & D*. It was always 2-1, 5-1, 7-1, versus 2/5/7. I'll go research how to get that back.

[Fuzzy]

The logical number (what you see listed in the guide) is not the same as the station ID, and can be changed to whatever you want. The Station ID is a unique number given to a particular station (regardless of how it is broadcast to you) that represents it's program guide information. KTTVDT over the antenna is the same Station ID as KTTVDT from the satellite, or from the cable company, because what is on, and whether it is HD or not, is the same regardless of source. (there will be a different stationID for KTTV (the SD version) that many cable companies carry - which was the basis for the suggestion up above).

In the past, if your OTA and cable stations were being represented separately, than it is because they were different in Zap2It's database (incorrectly). Over the years, Zap2It has done a lot of cleaning up of these discrepancies, and that is likely what has changed.

[stanger89]

Sometime, I think during the V7 beta, or maybe just before (can't remember exactly) Sage did change how their OTA listings worked, used to be you picked a City, then it was updated to work like regular cable/sat listings by zip.

[Fuzzy]

Yes, but this didn't change this particular behavior. Matching station ID's have always been combined to a single channel in the guide. What they DID change in v7 (possibly late v6 versions) was better matching of OTA scanned channels with zap2it ID's. Previously, if the callsign from the scan didn't match the zap2it info, it wouldn't match it with the zap2it ID, and the EPG would be limited to OTA in-band guide data. Somewhere over the years, they improved the mathcing, so, for instance, KTTV-HD would match with KTTVDT, and KTTVHD, and KTTV-DT.

[Kirby]

It still would be nice to have the option to keep the OTA channels separate. At least in my case. Maybe others dont have this issue, but living far from transmitters and having cable go out creates an issue where i cant have my OTA tuner be high merit as signal can be so-so, yet if cable goes out, then I have to do a special dance and disable tuners and whatnot.

Maybe what I need is an add-on for "OTA only mode" that could be a one button hit to toggle cable tuners off. If I still could code....

[Fuzzy]

The problem is, the sage UI never asks to watch a specific channel, it asks to watch a specific show. Then the back-end starts recording that show (if it isn't already recording) from whatever free tuner has that show available and at the highest merit. This isn't something a plugin can change, as it is back-end behavior.