Having the starting channel number for a source would prevent sources from stomping on each other during source deletion/addition. It would also allow easily to keep track of sources. The default numbering scheme is not perfect.
1 Like
Yeah, this is literally a weekly activity with the Custom stations. Oh, I got a new one, time to go through every single source to see which one added it and decide if I want to favorite/hide/nothing the station.
1 Like
I'm sure they (the networks) couldn't care less since they want you to watch it via their method.
I think you've misunderstood what is happening with me. This is about ignoring channel numbers from m3u...
... and seeing "Oh great, I have a another new station!"
Which one of my eight custom sources does it belong to? Oh look, I found it on Pluto between two numbers that are nowhere close to each other!
If only I could say "Start this source at station10,000, start this one at 20,000..." within Channels, then it would be easier to figure this out. Just a nice addition, nothing critical. Also, nothing to do with the networks and everything to do with how Channels assigns station numbers when you ignore what is coming from the m3u.
And yes, I know I can do this myself if I put numbers into the m3u that I prefer. And I do do that for streams (80,000) and EPlusTV (90,000). Yes, I am aware that if I used https://nocords.xyz that I could at least do this for Pluto with the ?start= variable, but I'm already maintaining my own Dockers so I might as well keep trucking.
2 Likes
Another example is a custom 10 entries source with channels say 9001-9010 followed by other sources. When another channel is added it doesn't get 9011. This one is already taken. It gets 9734. Now you have to travel through a few hundred entries to find another channel from the list. 
Initial support in new prerelease
2 Likes
So I took a source that already existed and added this setting...
... but the station numbers remained the same, even after manually reloading the m3u. Is this only for when adding a source as new and when stations get added to an existing source? Is there not a way to update an existing source without completely removing and adding again?
If it is possible to get a source to update to the new numbers, that would be very helpful, but I'm also concerned about downstream impacts. For instance, let's say I've already put favorite/hide settings:
Will those be maintained or will everything be lost because because they are "new" stations.
The same thing with Channels Collections...
Will I get the dreaded "This channels *** no longer exists" message?
Trying to gauge how much rework I have in front of me if I want to implement this for my existing sources!
2 Likes
I confirm the same behavior and I have the same questions.
I think it works during the very first move but then it gets stuck. We should be taking backups before playing with this ....
Okay, after this...
I can confirm this works with no issues. I changed the starting channel number and everything stayed as it was before except the station number itself:
I even changed the number a couple of times and it worked perfectly fine. You can see when you change the number, it immediately does a reindex of the m3u.
FYI, if you have already saved a number in there during the prior build, you need to change it once and save. Just make it something else, save, put it to what you want, and save again. All was well. Now to do a backup before I test with my real sources!
Awesome stuff, @tmm1!
3 Likes
I realize that this thread is a bit old, but I am wondering if the same ability is available for TV Everywhere sources? I currently subscribe to Philo TV and to XFinity TV NOW. Both services have Hallmark Channel on channel 6090. I would really like to renumber my XFinity sources to start with 7000 instead of 6000, if that is even possible, for the same reasons as above. Or is that covered somewhere and I just need a pointer to some documentation?
That is correct. No matter what TVE sources you use that offer the same channels, they all use the same web link to stream one channel.
In your case, whether you use your Philo TV or Xfinity TVE source, in the end, the DVR will stream the Hallmark channel from the Hallmark website.
@mjitkop Then how do I fix my "glitchy" Hallmark recordings? Or is it not possible? I was thinking the problem was that the recording was coming from Hallmark to me via Philo. But you are saying that it's direct, and the problem is either on the Hallmark side or on my side? BTW, Hallmark seems to be the only one that glitches and cuts out or drops parts of the show. And of course, doesn't seem to be ever during a commercial. Only during the movies and/or shows. And not all of the time. But for a while, it seems as though every recording had a drop out. (I'm using Channels via TVE to connect to my SageTV system to record the shows and movies I want. I don't get all of my channels that I used to have when I had a STB, but the cost is way less, and I get the channels we are mostly interested in, so it works out for us).
This. All the TVE sources get the stream from the same place
You can also try recording directly from Channels DVR to see if there's an issue there. Please open a new thread if you have problems.