adding and removing TV stations in TVH

1st Official Post

    I have LibreELEC 9.01 running on a RP3 B+ with the TVHeadend service and PVR client. It's working except for one thing. This maybe a configuration issue and not a bug, but I don't know how to do what I need.

    My RP3 together with my SiliconDust HDHR tuner are mobile. When I move to a new location I want to keep my recordings, but I need to add new TV stations and remove others. What is the proper way to do this without restarting the wizard and loosing everything including my previous recordings. Rerunning the wizard finds all the channels, but removes knowledge of the recordings. The .ts files are still there, but you have to find them as video files.

    Any help would be appreciated.

    • Official Post

    I don't think there is a "native" way of doing it or even if it is possible

    If I was you I would either look at having a separate TVH data folder or even a cloned SD LE card for each location.

    For simplicity, I would go for a cloned image but it depends on how many locations you are talking about.

    I have found that starting the wizard again does work, but sometimes it requires several attempts so it will redo the scan for channels. Since I resolved my consistence problem with external USB drive mount, I'm not loosing previous recordings. So for now I'll just run Start wizard multiple times after deleting all channels and muxs.

    I would suggest a "simple" solution - do not run the wizard.

    You will have to do everything manually but it is not that much work. Also, why don't you just create a new network for each location (Networks) and then when you arrive at the new location, set the priority of that network higher (higher value = higher priority) and then that network's muxes will be used. You can create Bouquets of channels for each network (Bouquet) and give those channels a particular starting channel number so you know where each network's channels are starting. Don't ever delete any networks, just keep them all and keep changing priority.

    It should not be too difficult. For example, I have two networks set up in my Tvheadend. One is from my cable TV provider and the other is IPTV. The one from cable TV provider has channel numbers up to 999. So I set up the channels from IPTV network to start from 1000 and as I was creating the network, I checked the box "Create bouquet". As the network was being created, the channels were automatically listed under the bouquet of the name of the network and channel numbers were assigned starting from 1000. Then in Kodi (as long as the settings are for Kodi to pick up channel numbers, groups, and channel order from backend) you can simply select the channel group you want to see. This way for each network you can create a bouquet (or channel group in Kodi) and whenever you arrive at new location, just select the relevant channel group in Kodi. This way you will only see the channels from the location you are currently in and Tvheadend would only tune to channels of that network.

    Update on what I got working:

    I spent the last 4 months on the road in my RV and that meant setting up new local channels every week or so. I was looking for a way to do the setup very quickly and not loose recordings previously made in other local markets. Here are my steps that work repeatedly:

    1. Scan and optimize antenna location with just the TV.

    2. Login into TVheadend server over the local network and delete all current channels and the ATSC Network in DVB inputs/networks.

    3. Restart the Wizard under General. It would remember everything until the tuner screen.

    4. I would selected ATSC Network for both HDHomerun tunners.

    5. I then selected the MUX for OTA center channels and let it scan to 100%.

    6. save and exit.

    Generally after allowing time for a complete scan of the EPG, I'd reboot to clean everything up, if needed.

    Hope this helps someone else.