Looking for UK Sky Headend registry values?

[stux]

I'm new to this but have been playing around recently with Vista and it's Media CentRE(!) capabilities. I'm now fully setup with a FireDTV DVB-S based system but didn't want to go the XMLTV > Bladerunner route as I thought the system was complicated enough.

I'd been hunting around for the right Headend value to stick in the registry but could only find a couple and they were not for my region. In the end I decided to script a method of incrementing the Headend, downloading the guide, making a channel amendment to force creation of a prefs.xml and then extracting the Headend info from prefs.xml.

The script took ages to run and I stopped it once I had what I needed but I though it might be useful to post what I have obtained so far. Adding attachments isn't working for me so I'll post the list directly, here goes :

"210027" headendname="Sky Digital BBC South/ITV Meridian/London"
"210029" headendname="Sky Digital BBC South/ITV London Meridian/Anglia"
"210030" headendname="Sky Digital BBC South/ITV Meridian London/Anglia"
"210032" headendname="Sky Digital BBC S East/ITV Meridian/London"
"210033" headendname="Sky Digital BBC S East/ITV London Meridian/Anglia"
"210034" headendname="Sky Digital BBC S East/ITV Meridian London/Anglia"
"210037" headendname="Sky Digital BBC Northern Ireland/ITV Ulster"
"210040" headendname="Sky Digital BBC NE & C/ITV Border"
"210042" headendname="Sky Digital BBC NW/ITV Border/Granada"
"210043" headendname="Sky Digital BBC NW/ITV Border"
"210009" headendname="Sky Digital BBC West/ITV Wales/Central"
"210044" headendname="Sky Digital BBC East (E)/ITV Anglia London/Central"
"210045" headendname="Sky Digital BBC East (E)/ITV Anglia/London"
"210046" headendname="Sky Digital BBC East (W)/ITV Anglia/London"
"210047" headendname="Sky Digital BBC Wales/ITV Wales"
"210048" headendname="Sky Digital BBC Wales/ITV Wales/Central"
"210058" headendname="Sky Digital BBC Wales/ITV Wales Granada/Yorks"
"210010" headendname="Sky Digital BBC West/ITV Wales W Ctry/Meridian"
"210011" headendname="Sky Digital BBC West/ITV Wales/Meridian"
"210013" headendname="Sky Digital BBC West/ITV Wales Meridian/W Ctry"
"210014" headendname="Sky Digital BBC West/ITV Wales Central/Meridian"
"210015" headendname="Sky Digital BBC West/ITV Wales/W Ctry"
"210016" headendname="Sky Digital BBC West/ITV West"
"210021" headendname="Sky Digital BBC NW/ITV Granada Yorks/Border"
"210006" headendname="Sky Digital BBC W Mids/ITV Central Anglia/Yorks"
"210061" headendname="Sky Digital BBC W Mids/ITV Central Yorks/Granada"
"210062" headendname="Sky Digital BBC W Mids/ITV Central Granada/Yorks"
"210066" headendname="Sky Digital BBC London/ITV London Meridian/Anglia"
"210067" headendname="Sky Digital BBC S East/ITV London Anglia/Meridian"
"210068" headendname="Sky Digital BBC Scot/ITV Grampian/Scottish"
"210069" headendname="Sky Digital BBC W Mids/ITV Yorks Central/Granada"
"210070" headendname="Sky Digital BBC E Mids/ITV Yorks Central/Granada"
"210071" headendname="Sky Digital BBC E Mids/ITV Central Yorks/Anglia"
"210072" headendname="Sky Digital BBC E Mids/ITV Yorks Central/Anglia"
"210074" headendname="Sky Digital BBC Scot/ITV Border/Scottish"
"210077" headendname="Sky Digital BBC Scot/ITV Border"
"210080" headendname="Sky Digital BBC NE & C/ITV Tyne Tees"
"210084" headendname="Sky Digital BBC Yorks/ITV Tyne Tees/Yorks"
"210085" headendname="Sky Digital BBC Yorks/ITV Tyne Tees Yorks/Granada"

 

[nigelbb]

stux, That is fabulous. A 1st post too!

Please could you share the script/tool that you used? PM me if you like. There are literally thousands of headend ids for the UK alone.

 

[rocketdrew]

I agree with nigel - quality first post!

 

[stux]

thanks for your comments, I've certainly appreciated your help in building the system I have and have found the answers to most of my questions in your previous posts !

I'll certainly share the scripts I've put together but I need to tweak them first, as they are they need a babysitting and if we need to scan through thousands of possible numbers then they'll need to handle certain situations a little better.

I really don't do anything that is particularly clever, just use the senkeys method inside Windows Scripting host to drive the channel changes using the Media center interface itself.

 

[stux]

OK, I've now got the script running nicely and it doesn't need any babysitting. Still takes time though, it's taking me about 6 minutes to download the new guide each time I find a working headend number. Hopefully it should speed up through the night and through the day.

How do you want me to do this? I'm happy enough to let the script run on my machine and post up the results, I'm not restricted with my downloads on my internet connection.

If there really are thousand of possible headend numbers then it might make sense for a few of us to pick a range and share this out a bit.

 

[peskywinnets]

When I read your post I though wow...great stuff, at last, I can change my headend from the well abused Chelmsford code, to the London headend you'd listed.

BIG mistake.

My channels order got totally trashed & nothing matched up anymore, This is after spending two nights putting them all nicley in order & matching up the listings with channels

So a big warning to others...if it ain't broke, don't fix it!

That said, to those starting out from fresh your posting is invaluable, so on behalf of those...THANKS!

 

[stux]

Yep, it looks like changing the headend wipes out any channel re-ordering but I suspect there will be a way of recovering that.

Peskywinnets : if haven't tried to fix your line-up again yet then DONT DO IT until you make a copy of c:\programdata\Microsoft\eHome\EPG\Prefs\prefs.xml, the file should be in tact from your previous setup unless you've made a line-up change.

I think everything below the <s headend="210120" headendname= etc line contains all the line-up changes we make and is the same info no matter what the headend is so I'm hoping that the fix for this issue will be something like:

backup the prefs.xml file
change the Headend value
Force a guide download
make a small line-up change (this creates a new prefs file relevant to current config)
copy the "meat" of the previous prefs.xml file over to the newly created one

I'll have a play tonight.

As the headend values thenselves, I think I now have a complete UK list. I've scanned through 210000 to 211000 and everything after 210196 is inactive, soit looks like SKY UK only occupies 210000 to 210196 unless anyone knows of any other ranges I should scan.

 

[nigelbb]

Great work stux! DVB-T (Freeview) occupies a different range of numbers as does cable so for completeness it would be fun to find those too.

 

[peskywinnets]

backup the prefs.xml file
change the Headend value
Force a guide download
make a small line-up change (this creates a new prefs file relevant to current config)
copy the "meat" of the previous prefs.xml file over to the newly created one

I'd really like to be able to understand more how/when the prefs.xml file comes into play!

I do have an original prefs.xml (with everything in the right order), but no matter what I do, I can't seem to get it 'back into play'.

Your steps make sense, but could you expand on the last step? Do you physically mean copy/paste into the opened (new) prefs.xml files the contents of the backed up (old) prefs.xml?

 

[julianmclean]

I think everything below the <s headend="210120" headendname= etc line contains all the line-up changes we make and is the same info no matter what the headend is so I'm hoping that the fix for this issue will be something like:

backup the prefs.xml file
change the Headend value
Force a guide download
make a small line-up change (this creates a new prefs file relevant to current config)
copy the "meat" of the previous prefs.xml file over to the newly created one

Stux, I've played alot with the prefs.xml file and although editting is possible, it can be a real pain. The XML document format is a nightmare as it is not consistent, and here are a few things I have found:

- It does not contain any details for channels that have not been changed from their default position or shown/hidden. The only way I've found to force it to list all channels is to select every channel in Edit Channels, and then use Change Channel Order to move a channel (lets say no 32) to the start and the channel before it (i.e. channel 31) to the end, forcing every channel to be in a different location.
- You must always run a Guide Update after changing prefs.xml to make it take effect
- Any, and I mean any, error in editting will cause MCE to ignore the file completely it seems. This is particularly tricky when you don't have all the channels listed (see first point above).
- It is possible to edit the channel rename section at the bottom of the file to bulk rename the channels, but again, any errors will screw it up
- If you've trashed the prefs.xml file, using the Restore Channel Defaults screen in MCE will reset it to an empty file.
- IDs for the tuning entries and guide entries generally seem to stay the same in repeated scans/updates, but recent changes like the Sky Movies renaming seems to change the ID for the guide entries in the prefs.xml. (I think the ID for the guide lines is some kind of hash of the channel name, but can't figure out exactly where it comes from.)

To be honest I gave up trying to save a "decent" version and paste it back in because of all the issues above - any change to the scanned channels seems void the file because the original channel order has changed. As such I adopted the approach of forcing MCE to generate a full file by selecting/ordering and then editting, an developed a spreadsheet to modify an existing file and change the channel order and whether selected or not. See here:

http://www.avforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=499892

Although a bit tricky to setup, I can use this repeatedly now and can re-order/select channels fairly easily.

 

[stux]

After having looked at all of the prefs.xml files on my system, all I can say is that there is a definite format to the file. Seems to be a few header lines which do differ dependent upon what the headend info is but the rest of the file, ie the bit detailing the line-up amendments, is identical in the files I have.

peskywinnets, I still think it would be worth a try before having to manually put you line-up right. I do mean to copy and paste the all the line-up info from your old prefs.xml into the new one. As for the exact lines to copy, i'll have a play tonight a post back. Work gets in the way sometimes !

I can certainly scan the 120000 range for the DVB-T stuff but what is the range for cable?

 

[julianmclean]

After having looked at all of the prefs.xml files on my system, all I can say is that there is a definite format to the file. Seems to be a few header lines which do differ dependent upon what the headend info is but the rest of the file, ie the bit detailing the line-up amendments, is identical in the files I have.

All I can say is go for it! I would be extermely happy if a way can be found to paste back in a "good" prefs.xml file and have it work consistently - this would be much simpler than modifying the generated one.

What I meant by it not being consistent is that although it is valid XML, the lines are not always in the same order, so tuning entries and guide entries are sometimes reversed, and I have also seen occasions when they are combined in a single line, (although I haven't seen this in a while, so I think it may have only been when I was still working through XMLTV/Bladerunner issues).

Also because only information that has changed from the original (hidden) default settings, and the fact that new channels picked in scans will throw out the numbering, it is difficult to make sure that your old prefs.xml file is valid, after doing a new scan - it usually isn't from my playing around.

Anyway, let us know if you get anywhere with it...

 

[stux]

I'll have a bit of a play with prefs.xml as soon as I can, my machine is busy scanning the 120000 range at the minute.

Anyway, the full list of Sky Digital headend values is hopefully attached to this post.

 

[stux]

and now the UK digital terrestrial numbers :

 

[nigelbb]

stux, keep up the good work! Unless someone knows any numbers for the cable range the best way is to just run through configuration again telling MCE that you have a cable box. MCE probably won't have caught up with the move from Telewest & NTL to Virgin yet though.

Please could you share your scripts?

 

[stux]

Sorry I've been out of contact for a while, had some illness in the family to look after.

As for the scripts, they should be attached. In order to get it running successfully a few things need to be in place.

First off, extract the files into a c:\headend folder. Also create a folder called c:\headend\output.

Second. We need to be able to detect if a guide download has been a success or not. To do this we use a new feature in Vista to trigger a script in the event of an event if you get what I mean!

There are 2 basic tasks to create:

On event from log "Media Center", Source "Media Center Guide", Event ID 0. start a program c:\headend\worked.bat

On event from log "Media Center", Source "Media Center Guide", Event ID 48. start a program c:\headend\failed.bat

Last but not least, you need to start the Media Center GUI and put it in a Window, now navigate to the Settings / TV / Guide menu.

You should now be able to run c:\headend\headend.vbs

The range you are scanning for is in the line for headend = start to finish

The script should now drive Media Center, react accordingly depending on whether the guide down worked or not, control the Headend value in the registry and create a copy of the prefs.xml file in c:\headend\output but rename it to 'the value of the headend'.txt

I hope all this makes sense !

 

[nigelbb]

Thank you very much for your work on this. I'll give it a spin later & try & find the range for some cable headends.

 

[charlieram]

Did you ever do a scan for the cable headends? I use one currently 520020 but some channels are missing.