another Comcast head-end goes digital

[tmetro-blu-5a1Jt6qxUNc at public.gmane.org (Tom Metro)]

Bill Bogstad wrote:
> If you have any kind of Comcast STB the bottom of the page:
> 
> http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Comcast_Users_And_scte65scan
> 
> tells you how to dig the VCT_ID out of the box.

Yeah, I saw that. I see 6 lineups, and two have only two channels in
them, so I'm ignoring them. Of the remainder, they have IDs 3003, 3002,
3018, and 3019.

I followed the instructions for looking up the ID on my Motorola STB,
and although they weren't a perfect match, I did get to a sub-menu of
the diagnostic page that matches what was described on the wiki. The
only ID listed is 0x0006.

The wiki does say that in some cases only the last two digits of the ID
will be significant, and so an ID of 02 would correspond to a VCT_ID of
3002. But I find no VCT_ID like 3006.

Going with plan B, I tried examining the lineups. It's easy to see which
channels broadcast stations appear on using the HDHR tools, I grepped
the lineups for "WCVB" and looked to see if any had it located at the
same channel number. All scte65scan lineups have WCVB on 90.3. The HDHR
has it on 82.3 (HD on 92.1). 90.3 doesn't exist. Grepping for WHDH
(90.4) shows a similar mismatch, and WBZ isn't found at all in the
scte65scan output (ah, they use "CBS4" (90.2) instead).

Maybe I need to repeat the scan? (Did you find your results varied
between runs? Aside from when Comcast was actually messing with the
lineup. A repeat run looks identical to me.) Or try with different
options? (That was already with the -p option.)

Is my assumption correct that the channels numbers, like 90.3, reported
by scte65scan, should match the numbers shown by HDHR tools, like 82.3?

SCANNING: 571750000 (us-hrc:82)
LOCK: qam256 (ss=99 snq=100 seq=100)
PROGRAM: 1: 202.1 WGBH2
PROGRAM: 2: 204.1 WBZ4
PROGRAM: 3: 205.1 WCVB5
PROGRAM: 4: 207.1 WHDH7
PROGRAM: 6: 11.1 WENH11
PROGRAM: 7: 225.1 WFXT25
PROGRAM: 8: 27.1 WUNI27
PROGRAM: 9: 238.1 WSBK38
PROGRAM: 10: 44.1 WGBX44
PROGRAM: 11: 50.1 WZMY50
PROGRAM: 12: 256.1 WLVI56
PROGRAM: 126: 0 (no data)
PROGRAM: tsid=0x826C

The program numbers seem to match for WGBH, WBZ, WCVB, and WHDH, so
maybe there is a fixed offset in the channel number? Is that expected?

I repeated the test for FOXNEWS, MSNBC, and CNN (easy targets as they
almost always show a station ID), and found them on the same channels in
all 4 scte65scan lineups, and they matched the HDHR GUI. So I don't get
why the broadcast channels are showing up wrong.

Looks like 3003 is a good match for my actual lineup except for the
offset for the broadcast channels, including the UHF stations on channel
83 which are all listed by scte65scan at the same program numbers on
channel 91. Lineup bug? That would mess up their STBs, no?

 -Tom

-- 
Tom Metro
Venture Logic, Newton, MA, USA
"Enterprise solutions through open source."
Professional Profile: http://tmetro.venturelogic.com/