Feature Request: Allow users to change startIndex for Guide to first HD channel

[trmb 2]

I was wondering if we could make it easier to use the Live TV guide to record/watch HD as opposed to SD. Mainly, I'd like the all the HD channels to show up first in the guide. Comcast has all my HD channels numbered from 650+.

 

Currently I sorta do this by manually setting all of my favorite HD channels so they display first, but I've been looking at the Emby server code and trying to come up with a better way.

 

It appears that the starting channel number is determined in tvGuide.js when reloadGuide initially calls channelsQuery and it sets the startIndex to 0 on first load.

 

Would it be possible to have a admin user accessible setting to customize the channelsQuery startIndex to be the first desired channel number? E.g. the first HD channel... In my case that would 650, but other locations/providers would differ.

 

Then the page +/- buttons could work forwards/backwards from there.

 

I saw an old thread about something similar, filtering by HD, but Luke pointed out that the system can't easily determine which are HD.

 

But the end user can definitely supply the number of the first HD channel. (Though it might also be possible to build some rudimentary intelligence in by scanning through the guide information channel names for the first channel with HD in its name... and having the suggested value in this field default to that...)

 

Now I'm no C# whiz, but it seems like line 23 in the attached screenshot of tvGuide.js would be StartIndex: userStartIndex ? userStartIndex : 0, where userStartIndex would come from the admin setting page with first channel #. (Of course, the index likely doesn't map isomorphically to the actual channel number, so that UI routine might have to have do some translation from channel 650 to index xxx.) I know that's probably not how it will actually get done, but maybe I've started your brains ticking...

 

Might even be useful to do the same thing for the channels tab.

 

Thanks again for all your marvelous work devs. I'm already amazed I can watch Live TV in HD on a Roku 100 miles from my home.

Edited June 19, 2016 by trmb

[trmb 2]

I have done some cursory hacking around some on my live server code to test this idea out.

 

First, it appears that the filename has changed and moved in the latest version of Emby server. The StartIndex variable is now found in guide.js on line 28 and the file has moved inside the dashboard-ui/bower-components/emby-webcomponents/guide directory tree.

 

If I hack that guide.js to change the StartIndex to 322 and turn favoriteSorting to false (off) in the following line, use emby from a new private window to eliminate some sort of cache issue, then I do get a guide starting with my Comcast HD channels at 650.

 

But I cannot scroll up so I lose access to the guide for the SD channels and even some HD movie channels (which I don't pay for, so I don't care). The scrolling to see more channels is now on demand rather than page +/- buttons, at least in the web client.

 

In principle, the hack demonstrates that this idea works. Of course this file is overwritten as soon as a server upgrade rolls out.

 

I do think it would be nice to be able to toggle somehow between seeing all and just my HD guide listings, preferably right there on the guide web page. Perhaps the simplest way to go is to add an HD guide tab?