Server Version#: 4.52.2
Player Version#: (web)
Tuner Make/Model: Hauppauge HVR 1950
Guide/Lineup name: SF Bay Area OTA
Using XMLTV?: No
Channel number/Name: KTVUDT
From my location, my tuner is able to lock on to both KTVU from its primary physical channel 31 and also from its translator much further away on physical channel 26.
The latter is a much weaker signal and does not seem to provide any actual viewable content. This, however, appears to be the channel that the Plex DVR setup chooses to use for KTVU when I try to watch it.
Is there any nice way to manually tweak the channel database to convince Plex to use physical channel 31 for KTVU instead of the translator on channel 26? I can find no way to choose which physical channel it will use in the DVR settings. (Choosing the DT instead of the LD value in the setup just changes the program guide, not the physical channel Plex uses when tuning.)
Perhaps someone else has the specific approach you request, but I’ve not seen it that option. Alternately, are both transmitters in the same direction from your house? (There are a number of online tools that will show a map of OTA transmitters for a location.) If the transmitters are not in the same direction, you might work around by changing the direction of your antennae away from the weak transmitter, at least for long enough to scan, so that it doesn’t see the weak transmitter. This works better if your antennae is directional/has a reflector.
I know I’m not answering your question directly… just brainstorming ideas.
The problem is that if I do that, I’ll lose several other channels that I would rather not lose, and it might not work anyway; even pointed away from the translator station, it’s still strong enough for the tuner to get a lock (even though it isn’t strong enough to actually receive the streams).
Opened the %LOCALAPPDATA%\Plex Media Server\Plug-in Support\Databases\com.plexapp.plugins.library.db database
Opened the media_provider_resources table
For the row identified by tv.plex.grabbers.tunerservice, selected the data column, copied the contents and pasted to Notepad for ease of editing
Navigated in the HTML-encoded XML to the channels in question to the KTVU (and, it turns out, also the KGO row)
Found the wrong number wrapped in <fr>…</fr>, changed it to the right number (e.g., changed <fr>26</fr> to <fr>31</fr>)
Copied the corrected text back to DB Browser, pasted, applied the change
Closed the database
Restarted Plex Media Server.
I can find no rhyme or reason to why Plex chose the translator channel over the main (and stronger) channel; in the case of KTVU, it picked 26 over 31, and in the case of KGO, it picked 35 over 12… so it isn’t a question of channel ordering or of signal strength.
