ADBTuner: A "channel tuning" application for networked Google TV / Android TV devices

Playground
#2166

I actually beta tested that Humax unit. That's a name I haven't heard in forever!

Absolutely. You are correct. When TiVo launched there was nothing like it (well, besides the short-lived ReplayTV). TiVo built best DVR money could buy for a very long time.

In addition to limited subscription revenue, it was just a very tough sell for most people when the cable company would just put a DVR under their TV for them. The same cable companies that intentionally made activating CableCARDs far more difficult than it ever should have been. TiVo was fighting a lot of battles they really had no chance of winning.

Nowadays TiVo's core business is licensing patents and retail DVR hardware is a thing of the past. :frowning:
We still eat popcorn out of a TiVo popcorn bowl in our house though!

@jsfullam I pushed a new experimental build just now. When you have the time, can you give it another test? Tuners should be released instantly, but in some situations it may take ~15 seconds to timeout.

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#2167

@turtletank, I have recordings running for the next hour and a half. Once they have completed, I'll happily give the new build a test.

#2168

I pulled and tested the new experimental build.

I initially opened three simultaneous channels by recording through Channels DVR client. All recorded with no problems, and all released instantly when I cancelled each recording.

Next, I opened three individual channels through the "Preview" on the ADBTuner interface. I played each preview for a short bit, and then closed the preview before opening another. Closing the preview did not release the tuners. So at the end, I had three tuners locked "In Use". I manually released one by clicking, and all released at once.

Logs on the way by message.

#2169

@turtletank I have been testing experimental and did not notice anything better with tuning Paramount+ channels. Sometimes they got past the who's watching and sometimes they hung on it. I have noticed that my ONN 4K Pros do seem to generally always tune in now using the latest build but my ccwgtv 4k tuners are more random. After looking at this some more I am thinking that the ccwgtv tuners are slightly slower and may be running up against the ~20 seconds to complete the load. Maybe the problem is they have not been on the whos watching screen long enough for adbtuner to make a selection but it does just stay on the whos watching screen. Just a thought. I have also noticed that the Paramount+ app seems to have the slowest load times compared to YTTV, MAX, and Peacock. YTTV is very fast with just around 5 seconds, MAX is closer to 10-12 seconds, Peacock is probably around 12-15 seconds while Paramount is in the 16-18 seconds when it works. Maybe the ONN 4k pro is more successful at tuning because they are slightly faster processing. Just enough of a difference so load times are are not as big of a problem compared to ccwgtv 4k.

Also, with the experimental build the Peacock channel does not work anymore. With Peacock when the channel 1st tunes in it has the bottom 2/3 of the screen with a guide overlay that drops away after 4-5 seconds. This is not a problem on the latest build but the experimental build seems to not like this and releases the tuner.

A 2nd issue I am seeing is when I go into Portainer to view the adbtuner logs with experimental build only it causes my Portainer web page to become unresponsive. All containers continue to run but I have to close out my browser and go back in.

I am a little busy this week but I will continue to do more testing tomorrow and see if I can get some better substantiated information.

#2170

Good Morning, Can you please explain how you got GAF to work through Pluto. I have not even been able to find the GAF channel on there. Thank you for your help.

#2171

How are you downloading from TiVo? There used to be a lot of ways to do that yet none of the ones I know of work any more?

That would be particularly useful as my wife's TiVo HD is dying and she is in the process of migrating to Channels DVR.

#2172

To my knowledge, Great American Family is not available on Pluto. The user in the original post (2 years ago) also had Philo, which does carry GAF.

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#2173

Prompted by a recent inquiry, I became interested in finding out which apps support deeplinking and are compatible with ADBTuner. I did some digging around and have only found references to individual apps.

Do we have a complete list which summarizes all compatible apps? If so, perhaps someone can direct me to it. If not, can one of you more knowledgeable folks put one together?

It would be nice to pin such a list at the top of this topic, along with the rest of the information about installation. It would certainly be helpful to me, and anyone else who is beginning their journey into the wonderful world of ADBTuner. :tv: :grinning:

#2174

Great idea. I have email notifications for this project turned on, so I like to think I am reasonably up to date and I've been surprised to see some things lately (Paramount+?). I've got Sling and a couple Peacock live channels running thanks to help on this forum. I believe others have Philo and YTTV working.

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#2175

I have YTTV and Peacock working, and have been meaning to try Paramount+. I have also seen MAX mentioned.

By the way, Peacock has very few linear channels to choose from. So far, I have only found Circle Country and MovieSphere.

#2176

I have YTTV for most channels and supplement MAX, Peacock and Paramount+ live linear channels.

#2177

Peacock I have Reelz and Hallmark working.

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#2178

It turns out that Peacock has many more linear channels than I initially thought. Evidently, @laughsbrightly , they discontinued Hallmark a few months ago. :frowning_face:

Here's a list of the live linear channels I managed to find:

Dateline 24/7
Reelz
Law and Crime
That 70's Show
SNL Vault
LOL Network
Ebony TV
GameShow Network
Circle Country
MovieSphere
NBC News Now
Sky News
Today All Day
Noticias Telemundo Ahora
Telemundo Al Dia
Sports Now
NFL Channel
Golf Pass
Premier League
WWE
Team USA
This Old House
Home
Nosey
Confess by Nosey
Top Gear
Ghost Hunters

All of the Local News Channels

#2179

Hey there. Downloading to mobile is simple thru the TiVo app, but it’s a dead end since you can only watch them on that device. But I’ve used an app called cTivo for years to download content from TiVo to computer, it’s very simple. You can even set up a “season pass” kind of thing where it will automatically download new recordings of a show when they appear in your Now Playing List. It also allows you to remove commercials and to convert it to another format automatically when downloading, but the nice thing about using it with Channels is Channels can play a .ts file as is so no conversion is necessary.

#2180

Oops. Thanks @jsfullam Good thing I don't watch a lot of Hallmark. Apparently, it went away on May 1.

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#2181

I've tried it both ways and it doesn't make a difference, the behavior is the exact same. For whatever reason, I've never had to use compatibility mode since I've had this setup.

#2182

The fubo app works with compatibility mode on.

#2183

cTivo is for Mac and I require Windows 11. Any one have a suggestion how to download and convert TiVo files?

#2184

I added a channel from Paramount Plus. At first, it didn't launch past the "Home" screen. Then, I remembered that @Rockies had mentioned compatibility mode a while back. Enabling that did the trick.

Yeah, it's definitely much slower to tune than YTTV and even slower than Peacock. However, I'm very happy to get another source working through ADBTuner. There are quite a few channels which look like they'll work. I'll try adding a few more tomorrow. :smiley:

#2185

Can you post the deep link format?