From: "Andrew de Quincey" <adq_dvb@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> > http://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/File_Format_Comparison > Please let me know your thoughts. I'm not sure I fully understand your format. You have a "section" named "[transponder]" in there, and under it transponder data for one transponder (or channel). Where do you put the other transponders, or do you only store one per file? BTW, I don't like the term "transponder" as it is specific to satellite reception. Microsoft uses the term "locator" in their unified tuning model, and this seems more appropriate to me. FWIW, in my Windows application, I use the good old Windows "INI" file format, and the format is unified for DVB-C/S/T. The scanner "seed" files look like this: ; Name=Frequency;Polarisation;Bandwidth;Modulation;SymbolRate;CodeRate [Locators] Trp 1 (1F)=11214250;1;-1;20;22000;6 Trp 3 (1C)=11243750;1;-1;20;22000;6 (for DVB-S) -or- CC 02=113000;-1;8;3;6900;-1 CC 03=121000;-1;8;3;6900;-1 (for DVB-C) -or- CH 05=177500;-1;7;-1;-1;-1 CH 06=184500;-1;7;-1;-1;-1 CH 07=191500;-1;7;-1;-1;-1 (for DVB-T) I set unused/unneeded values to -1. This allows only one set of locators for one transmission system to be stored in a file, but then again I don't think it makes much sense to mix them. But if you wanted to store e.g. the transponder data for several satellite positions, how about appending them to the section name, e.g. [Locators.ASTRA 19.2?E] ... [Locators.HotBird 13.0?E] ... BTW, originally I even used the same file for DVB-C and DVB-T... It might be a good idea to add an identification section, though, like your "dvbchannels" one, best also specifying the transmission system type, e.g. [Version] System=[DVB-C|DVB-S|DVB-T|ATSC] Version=Version[;Date] Now the scanner will read the above locator file, and output its results in a similar format: [Locators] ONID:TSID=Name;Frequency;Polarisation;Bandwidth;Modulation;SymbolRate;CodeR ate e.g. 1:1008=Trp 8 (1F);11317500;2;-1;20;22000;6 [Services] ONID:TSID:SID=NetworkName;ProviderName;ServiceName;ServiceType e.g. 1:1008:29800=ASTRA;DOC;DOCUMAN?A;1 1:1008:29801=ASTRA;FK;JETIX;1 1:1008:29802=ASTRA;DCH1;DISNEY CH. +1;1 You could also add other data, e.g. the encryption system. The actual TV application then reads the Locators section and then the Services section and retrieves the corresponding locator data for each service by the ONID:TSID pair (as per DVB specification). For the TV application to store presets, I use another section in the same file: [Presets] Number=ONID:TSID:SID e.g. 1=1:1101:28106 Now this could definitely be more sophisticated, e.g. to allow several presets groups. A simple extension would be: [Presets.Default] ... [Presets.Sports] ... [Presets.News] ... This could even be taken several levels deep: [Presets.Movies.Action] ... [Presets.Movies.Horror] ... I'm not sure, though, if it is good to keep the presets and the scanner output together in one file, as the presets are a user preference, whereas the scanning results are not, and might be updated with a new scan. OTOH, there is somewhat of a relationship between the presets and the scan results... An alternative solution would be to make the presets somewhat independent of even the service identifiers, and leave it up to the application to find a matching service. Then you could get away with something as simple as this: [Presets] 1=ARD 2=ZDF 3=RBB And the application would try to find the closest matching service name... You could enhance this by adding a transmission system preference, e.g. if you prefer DVB-S reception over DVB-T... Just my thoughts, -- Robert Schlabbach e-mail: robert_s@xxxxxxx Berlin, Germany
