Check if a channel can tune in with a bash script

[birdman]

Terrestrial frequencies don't change as often as satellite if that is of any use to you

The Freeview website also updates them overnight at the time they change, so you can always know when to do a re-tune.

 

[Huevos]

Yes I have read that post.

I have a Timer recording than runs every week day, Monday to Friday.
In my case my goal is to have a method whereby I can be notified of an upcoming channel frequency change....... in advance of that frequency change. Otherwise I will probably miss one or more days of recordings. I find this very annoying.
As a human being I don't work with Channel IDs I think in terms of the Channel name that is in my Timer recordings.
With the KingOfSat approach my script can "listen in" for announcements about changes to the frequency of a channel by the channels name.
The way channel update announcements work on KingOfSat I have the option to know about an upcoming channel frequency change BEFORE it occurs so I have the chance to update my timer and not miss any timer recordings.
The autobouquetswiki wouldn't tell me anything about the channel frequency change until it has already occurred and now my Timer went for one or more days not recording my favourite daily TV show.

I'm sure you still think I have this wrong though. If so please come back to me.

Flex

How do you think you are going to know about changes in advance? Maybe you should get a crystal ball.

 

[FlexMcMurphy]

Go back and read #36.

KingOfSat made an announcement on 24th Oct 2024 that ITV2+1 had started to broadcast on a new frequency. Two weeks later they made an announcement that ITV2+1 had stopped broadcasting on its old frequency.

My script will check these announcements daily for channel names I define in a python list and inform me about these types of announcements if relevant to channels I am interested in. I will use these "new frequency" announcements as an indicator that a channel may be about to change its frequency in the coming days. When it comes to the big name channels this seems to be how they manage channel freq changes: they start broadcasting the channel on a new frequency and some time later they stop broadcasting it on the old frequency.

I think this strategy should have been clear from my previous posts.

 

[Huevos]

Go back and read #36.

KingOfSat made an announcement on 24th Oct 2024 that ITV2+1 had started to broadcast on a new frequency. Two weeks later they made an announcement that ITV2+1 had stopped broadcasting on its old frequency.

My script will check these announcements daily for channel names I define in a python list and inform me about these types of announcements if relevant to channels I am interested in. I will use these "new frequency" announcements as an indicator that a channel may be about to change its frequency in the coming days. When it comes to the big name channels this seems to be how they manage channel freq changes: they start broadcasting the channel on a new frequency and some time later they stop broadcasting it on the old frequency.

I think this strategy should have been clear from my previous posts.

Ok, so you know everything and obviously don't want help.

 

[FlexMcMurphy]

I'm back with this same issue.

Lately Channel 5 London SD stopped broadcasting.
Enigma2 Service Reference was: 1:0:1:835:83D:2:11A0000:0:0:0:
As of March 14 2026 when I zap to it and go to http://box-ip/api/tunersignal in a browser I still see SNR > 0.

What if I had an enigma2 timer recording on that channel to record some TV series daily?
Previous suggestions in this thread spoke about using autobouquets in a clever way but I just think that idea was too involved and confusing.
Ideally I would like a solution where I can find out about an upcoming channel change before it happens.
I think the only way to do that is to consult some website that posts that info. Originally I thought KingOfSat could be relied on but now I don't think such a site exists that is 100% up to date and reliable about every single channel broadcast and transponder change on Astra 28.2E.

I had a few conversations with ChatGPT and Google Gemini and now have these commands that I can put in a script.
Unfortunately they are a retrospective solution but I think they are robust to capture a change to or removal of a channel.

Test 1 - has the channel PID/SID etc.. footprint changed?
$ timeout 15 ffprobe -v quiet -show_entries program=program_num -show_entries stream=codec_type,codec_name,width,height,id:stream_tags=language -of csv=p=0 "http://192.168.1.104:8001/1:0:1:835:83D:2:11A0000:0:0:0:" | sort | md5sum

Test 2 - does the channel contain moving frames?
$ timeout 15 ffmpeg -i "http://192.168.1.104:8001/1:0:1:835:83D:2:11A0000:0:0:0:" -t 3 -c copy -f null - 2>&1 | grep "frame="
Terminated

Together these two commands could be put in a script.

• The first command checks if anything has changed (e.g: SID or PID) about the channel broadcasting at a given service reference which might indicate it has been reused for a different channel. You would run that command before creating a timer recording and put the hash string in the script to compare against the value returned from inspecting the channel again in future runs of the script.
• The second command could detect the (?very unlikely) scenario that the channel has stopped broadcasting its usual content but somehow is still active enough to have SNR > 0 and a test card or black screen or a blank screen... key point.... WITH THE SAME SIDs and PIDs of the streams that were there previously.

Would be grateful for any comments and feedback on this approach?

Cheers,

Flex

 

[abu baniaz]

I check the sky website which gives advance warning of changes. Roughly a week.

https://helpforum.sky.com/t5/What-s-On/bd-p/sky_programmingchannels

There is a sticky thread, changes for month yyyy. As you can see for March, 5 SD closed on 05/03/2026.

An approach is to use bouquets for autotimers instead of services. It will create timers based on the service reference.