An easy way for Channels DVR to watch YouTube Live vids

Playground Custom Channels
#93

hey @jkister thank you so much for this super awesome tool.

there's something weird going on with encodings on some videos with East Asian language titles and descriptions, shows up as gibberish in the output m3u. for example v=tD_a03trUvE

could be that the title and description are some non-unicode encoding, in this. instance maybe Big5? I wonder if there's an easy fix?

also some videos like this one have extremely long descriptions with rich text and hypertext that likely won't render well in channels app even if the encoding were fixed, is there a way to skip generating tvc-guide-description?

normally I'd just write the m3u myself and use your "w" argument, but I found a way to export YouTube playlists as csv, with a bit of processing I was hoping to use that in combination with your tool to generate very long m3us complete with titles, from YouTube playlists like this one which would be pretty cool.

#94

The script just grabs whatever youtube has -- if there're funky characters, it just relays them to Channels. There have been other characters that don't show up quite right, we/i never put much effort figuring it out.

the script does chop it down to the first ~300 characters by default. but yeah that one's a garbled mess.

well, no description will be printed if you add the tgd=0 parameter. like
https://kister.net/mpl/yt2m3u8?v=tD_a03trUvE,tgd=0

tgd being shorthand for the full tvc-guide-description.

YMMV with very long URLs. Channels won't wait forever for my side to generate all the data, and the maximum length is 8177 characters. If it works once, it'll likely be fine.

#95

thanks, good to know about the tgd=0 parameter. I'm just using the long url once to generate the m3u, then pasting it into channels with Source=Text.

1 Like
#96

interestingly, adding tgd=0 fixed the decoding issue in the tvc-guide-title! so I'm golden, thanks again

1 Like
#97

This works fantastic for me. Thanks so much for this.

1 Like
#98

I just learned there's no more 24/7 livestream from TWiT.tv, apparently it's now only going live now when they are actually recording a new show. :frowning:

Kister Method should still work for recordings in Channels DVR though, right?

Since the stream is "offline" the icon is no longer showing. Instead we get a ALERT! icon. Can this be changed?

SCR-20231120-ptpf

I'll probably just end up removing this from the Channel Collection entirely. Replace it with a Virtual Channel of my own? Or just watch these recordings "on demand" from my library instead. Regardless, I have a feeling this means I'll ultimately be watchibg less TWiT.tv content...

Details here: Looking for Live Content?

Due to costs associated with hardware and software used to provide the TWiT live stream 24/7 to multiple streaming providers, TWiT has made the difficult decision to end its always-on live stream.

As of November 13, 2023, we will no longer stream re-runs while not doing live production. We will strive to stream on YouTube as often as possible during live production of some of our shows. If you wish to watch any pre-show setup and post-show discussions, these will now be exclusive to full Club TWiT members via our Club TWiT Discord server. (Discord access is not available with any discounted single-show subscriptions.) Hosts who choose to participate with chat will now do so via Discord.

#99

Where does this icon come from? Since there is an option in Custom Channels to "Prefer channel logos from Guide Data" I thought maybe I could manipulate the XMLTV Guide Data file to add a custom logo. Since this XMLTV file is generated from GitHub - tmm1/ical-to-xmltv: Converts a iCal/Google Calendar Feed to an XMLTV File (to load into TVHeadend/other EPG Reader), I thought I could just add a logo to that file. Knowing virtually nothing about XMLTV, I tried to add an icon source line to the basic.xml (XMLTV) file like so and pointed it to a logo that I had TWiT-logo-square.png":

<tv xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="resources/xmltv.xsd">
  <channel id="TWiT.tv">
    <display-name>Twit Live Schedule</display-name>
     <icon src="/volume1/web/TWiT/TWiT-logo-square.png" />
  </channel>

This did nothing. I tried reloading the M3U and redownloading the XMLTV but that did not add the icon to the guide.

2 Likes
#100

Quite the bummer about TWiT. It's beyond my know-how, but I'd keep it in my guide if there were away to make it show as "Off air" instead of blank when there is nothing streaming.

#101

Yeah, it'll still be able to view the stream when it's live.

yeah the code looks at the icon that's set by the channel owner. if the stream is offline during the times that it checks, it gets an error back that no stream exists -- and it displays that error logo.

you can specify the icon so it doesn't try to auto-detect, append tl=logo.png to the end of the URL, like: https://kister.net/mpl/yt2m3u8.mpl?v=@twit,tl=https%3A%2F%2Ftwit.tv%2FTWiT-iOS-1024x1024.png. that one in particular isn't a great logo but it works.

#102

@jkister FYI it looks like there may be an issue with your process.

2024/04/03 21:07:13.296627 [ERR] Failed to parse m3u for HLSTUBE: malformed M3U provided

I verified that the youtube link that I am using is good:

here is my link for channels:
https://kister.net/mpl/yt2m3u8?v=CG2XDTgvZPo

#103

Try using https://kister.net/mpl/yt2m3u8?w=@CBNnewsonline

These are the settings I'm using, gets guide data using tvc-guide-stationid="109977"

#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:-1 channel-id="CBNnewsonline" channel-number="3779" tvg-chno="3779" tvg-id="CBNnewsonline" tvc-guide-stationid="109977" tvg-logo="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/CG2XDTgvZPo/maxresdefault.jpg?v=6255aa76" tvg-name="CBN News" tvc-guide-title="LIVE NOW: CBN News - Because Truth Matters" tvc-guide-description="CBN News. Because Truth Matters",CBN News
https://kister.net/mpl/yt2m3u8?w=@CBNnewsonline
#104

Fixed. I think I broke it yesterday while dealing with an unexpected volume of traffic due to an app developer and another group who distribute a large list of channels started using this method in their stuff. I built this thing with Channels in mind, never really considered people finding this thread from googling and using it on their own.. Nothing was broke, but i had to go and tinker with it.

Sorry about that.

3 Likes
#105

Thanks! This remains such a great tool, I'm so grateful to you for it.

Well now you've got me curious which app or group is this? I'd love to follow those discussions too.

1 Like
#106

IPTV and M3U community is big. The m3us Matt Huisman maintains are mentioned on EVERY iptv community. Only a matter of time until they found yours.

You should be proud. You came up with a method to make YT playlist very easy. Lots of people enjoy it. Thats how my son watched Mrs. Rachel on CDVR

@jkister youbdid a GRRRRREAT! Job accordingbto Tony The Tiger

4 Likes
#107

thanks! I like your config better. I've always struggled getting good guide info...

1 Like
#108

Sorry if I have missed it, is there a way to request a specific resolution like 4k ?

#109

See this post

There was a post showing how to query a You Tube channel to see what resolutions it offered, but that post has disappeared from this thread for some reason and the method no longer works. I'm guessing someone was abusing it.

#110

thanks for this thread! here is a question / clarity that would be most appreciated. If I find consisted live channels (see below). and they aren't live 24hrs a day but do have gaps... how can I ensure the link within the Text file that points channels to it is updated when it does go live. ( and when its not can I make channels show a screen that says no live at this time). Was that clear? using the two below BigJetTV and LA Flights, I used this link to extract the M3U link then inserted into TEXT file... when it was live it works fantastic. when not I see server error (that is message I would like to make generic)(equally when it goes live again im hoping the link works and I don't have to generate M3U every time?

here is extractor

BigJetsTV. https://www.youtube.com/@BigJetTV/streams
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gONtw18mgcU

LA Flights. https://www.youtube.com/@L.A.FLIGHTS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikVbalBKqUA

#111

You can set the title/description manually (post 85), but there's nothing that can modify the guide data automatically when they go live.

There's nothing that can do that either. I changed the error message from the ugly "400 Bad Request" to a little more friendly "400 No Stream Found" though.

for this one, you can do something like (change the channel number at the end):
https://kister.net/mpl/yt2m3u8?v=@BigJetTV,logos=https%3A%2F%2Ftiny.cc%2Fbigjettv,tgd=LIVE%20AVIATION,tgt=Big%20Jet%20TV,c=0.0091

it'll error when you try to watch it and they're not live, but the guide will look right all the time.

https://kister.net/mpl/[email protected],logos=https%3A%2F%2Ftiny.cc%2Flaflights,tgd=Home%20of%20the%20One%20More%20Plane,tgt=L.A%20Flights,c=0.0092

#112

Thank you!

just tried with your new link for LA flights

they are live JFK as i type but the link copied and pasted

https://kister.net/mpl/[email protected],logos=https%3A%2F%2Ftiny.cc%2Flaflights,tgd=Home%20of%20the%20One%20More%20Plane,tgt=L.A%20Flights,c=0.0092

produced error of

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