Sunday, October 02, 2005

- WebScheduler
Had a couple of queries about interfacing with WebScheduler.
Both have similar work-arounds.
One was that recordings of some channels were not working.
The failing ones were where the channel name from the EPG (DigiGuide in this case) did not match the channel name in WebScheduler (e.g. BBC 3 and BBC Three).
This sort of thing could potentially happen with other software that DABDig schedules into. Often it is cirumvented by DABDig performing matching on "3" and "Three" or by using the channel number rather than the channel name.
If the automated ways to get around this do not work - then the user has to do something.
There are essentially 3 routes:
a) tackle the problem at source - and change the name in the EPG (in DigiGuide you can right-click on the channel icon and change the channel detaild)
b) modfy the name in the target - but this might be based on data in receives over the broadcast network and could change back on the next scan that it performs
c) using a mapping facility in DABDig

In this case - the mapping in DABDig was used.
However, there is one extra twist. The mapping facility in DABDig (via the optional dabdig.map file) is really for generating a channel number from a channel name.
So - although this might appear to change BBC 3 to BBC THREE ... that resulting conversion is stored as the "Channel Assignment" (think of it as channel number).
So - you then have to make a small configuration change in DABDig (via dabdig.ini) to tell DABDig to use the channel number when controlling WebScheduler rather than the channel name. The result is that DABDig then sends "BBC THREE" ... exactly as required.
But - there is now an additional problem. Namely, for channels that do not have a name map, the real channel number will be sent rather than the required original channel name. So - while I think of a simple way to resolve it via a change to DABDig - the simple work-around is to put all of the channels into the dabdig.map and for those where the name is the same ... simply put the same value on each side of the mapping.
e.g.
BBC 3=BBC THREE
five=five

The second problem reported was that a feature of WebScheduler is that if it is asked to record an audio only DVB channel (often called radio) using using capture type that it usually uses to record TV (video and audio) then it appears to record but the end result is not saved properly.
Therefore, until WebScheduler is changed, it is necessary to be able to specify a different capture type for audio-only stations.
In theory - this should be easy - especially if a dabdig.map has already been created from the steps above.
Simply hide the capture type in the output map.
e.g.
BBC Radio Four=BBC Radio 4&captype=5
(It might also be necessary to remove the captype=2 from dabdig.ini and add &captype=2 to each of the TV stations if WebScheduler can not handle 2 captypes in the request)