Careful with changing channel names (breaks remote on EyeTV)

[futzle]

IceTV has recently changed its channel names for Melbourne, to accommodate regional Victoria with the same guide.  So "ABC Melbourne"  has become just "ABC".

[Edit: Ok, I take that back.  Something has broken, though, so I will take it up with EyeTV.]

This silent change broke the EyeTV/IceTV-remote link because EyeTV considers the station name, not the LCN, to be the key field that identifies a channel.  EyeTV doesn't know that the guide data for "ABC" is to be used for the channel "ABC Melbourne", unless I tell it by going into the channel-editing screen.  (Which I have done, but if I was on holidays I couldn't have done so, and that's kind of the point of IceTV Remote.)

IceTV people: If you make changes to the guide format, can you please announce what you did, so that we can judge whether it is going to break our respective setups?

[Daniel Hall at IceTV]

We have not changed any channel names, the Melbourne channel names have stayed the same since the Melbourne guide was first created over 2 years ago.

EyeTV should be using the unique mapping of LCN to IceTV channel number for matches in Remote.

[futzle]

EyeTV should be using the unique mapping of LCN to IceTV channel number for matches in Remote.

I agree, EyeTV should be doing that.  It isn't.  Whatever the cause, the upshot is that Ice guide for EyeTV no longer Just Works.  There is now a manual step, namely, associating an Ice guide channel with an EyeTV channel.

(Even better, now that IceTV regional Victoria LCNs are in the Ice guide data, and numerically lower than the Melbourne ones, EyeTV has decided to renumber the LCNs of my channels, so I have channels 5, 6 and 8 rather than 7, 9 and 10.  I'm not attached to the numbers, but it does seem to be a consequence of the additions to LCNs in the Melbourne guide.  I'll be telling EyeTV about this one.)

[Edit: On further digging, I am suspecting that EyeTV decides which channel is which by looking at the frequency, not the LCNs.  Both ABC and SBS were auto-tuned wrong, and those were the ones that EyeTV lost the guide association for.  Hmm.]

[Daniel Hall at IceTV]

I should also then point out that the regional LCN's have been part of the Melbourne guide listing from the start as well, this is nothing new to the feed.

Also the channel number cannot be changed manually (or by adding the IceTV guide listing to it), the channel number comes directly from the LCN that is picked up from the broadcast signal, if you are seeing the regional LCN's then its most likely that you are now picking up the regional channels.

[futzle]

Also the channel number cannot be changed manually (or by adding the IceTV guide listing to it), the channel number comes directly from the LCN that is picked up from the broadcast signal, if you are seeing the regional LCN's then its most likely that you are now picking up the regional channels.

The appears to not be true in EyeTV 3.  TEN SD was (correctly) LCN 10 for me after doing auto-tuning.  It was only when I edited the guide source for the channel in the EyeTV channel list, and re-selected "Ten (5,10)" from the list*, that EyeTV instantly renumbered the channel's LCN to 5.  Same for Seven (6) and Nine (8).  IMO that's an EyeTV bug, not a bug with the guide data.

* This channel was already correctly associated.  I did it again out of paranoia.