AndroidHDMI for Channels (ah4c): A virtual channel tuner using HDMI Encoder(s) + streaming stick(s)

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#1719

Thanks for pointing this out. I was using a old spectrum scripts that were hanging around on my system since June of 2025 and had to tweak them. I'll take a look at the @PSPS scripts. Hopefully they dont have any emojis @mackid1993

I will test this with the new container deployment in a totally new HOSTDIR area on my machine I can test up to beta4 release easily in my portainer/docker Mac environment within the next few days. Happy to stress test everything.

Are there significant changes pending? I dont have the whole repo cloned here, Ive been using the docker/portainer method to deploy. I can start looking into cloning the repo and all that but am stretched thin here for the next few days and defiantly dont want to break my working production tuners..... Is there a workaround within portainer/docker to deploy what @mackid1993 has released that is after beta4

Otherwise I have a learning curve with uncle Claude on how to grab the full repo locally here without portainer - which has made life incredibly easy, but Id prefer not to have Claude drag me down into a rabbit hole and break my production tuners (lol) . No emoji.

#1720

All you have to do is just type mackid1993/ah4c and swap the tag to :beta. Just that simple. And then, when it gets rolled in, you just swap it bnhf/ah4c:whatevertag.

I would just like someone who's messing with M3Us to kind of exercise that since I made some pretty significant changes and could really use the feedback because I've been noticing just minor little things and patching them as I've gone on today.

This is my last little bit of work, and I'm calling it done unless people find bugs.

I think we've basically made this tool as friendly as possible for right now. I'm open to suggestions as to how we can make it even more friendly down the line. :slightly_smiling_face:

#1721

I spent a number of hours trying to figure out a way to make the View & control feature work with "virtual encoders" (Capture Cards with a CDVR Custom Source transcoding their streams), but was unable to make any meaningful progress.

For some reason the viewer starts displaying the virtual encoder output, but then quickly decides it's no good and grays it out, followed by a spinning circle.

It's not a huge deal for me, but as more people discover just how fab the FastChannels ah4c bridge is, I think we'll see more new users wanting to manage multiple Capture Card solutions using ah4c.

Anyway, if you're up for yet another challenge :slight_smile:, it'd be great if you could take a look at this -- as I'm sure it'll come-up as an issue in the future otherwise.

#1722

I could use a little bit of rest after this one, but I'll look into that. I just don't have a virtual encoder to test with, that's the problem.

You mean like a cheap USB capture card? Like one of those ten dollar ones? I have one of those really cheap ones.

If fhat's the case, I can try that. I just would need to know how it's configured. If you can give me, like, you know, just a basic rundown of how you configure it, maybe over a DM, I can get that running on my test rig that I plan on setting up this evening.

#1723

Oh! Quick Q: I was messing around with the Fast Channels bridge. How do I get the correct channel numbers for DTV? That will drive me crazy lol.

#1724

You could use a $10 one, or if you DM me your shipping address, I'll have Amazon ship a slightly nicer $25 one to you -- the same one I'm using. I'm passing a couple of these through to a Channels DVR LXC, so they play nice with Linux:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B097DKNS1M

And, I can walk you through the process either for Windows or Linux. In fact, my Proxmox write-up on installing these would probably be close to what you'd need:

#1725

No worries. I appreciate it, the one I have should be fine for testing!

#1726

I know right? FastChannels is a no-go for using sub-channels, so I've been living with not having DTV numbering. My current plan is try the @babsonnexus Playlist Manager, as I believe that would work well for getting the channel numbers as we'd like them, plus allowing for seamless multiple source fallback.

#1727

Yeah, there should be like an option in that to preserve source provider numbering or something if it's an option. Like, DirecTV actually exposes that. So, like, maybe like that could just be like a feature. Like an override or something. Like some providers, most of them don't expose channel numbers. It's not important, but DirecTV actively does and actively uses them.

#1728

I worked on a FastChannels PR for a bit, on this very subject -- but, abandoned it once the scope of the change became apparent. It only made sense to me if we could match the approach we used in ah4c (or ADBTuner and APITuner for that matter), by converting duplicate channel numbers to sub-channels. The duplicate channel number problem is even worse for DTV Satellite customers.

I think PLM can handle this without requiring a significant change to FastChannels, with the added bonus of having a queue of sources to fallback on.

#1729

Hmm. I wonder if we can re-write channel numbers for ah4c with a P1C action! Especially with my latest m3u changes.

#1730

That wouldn't be difficult to implement, other than keeping up with line-up changes. FastChannels does this for you, so the trick would be to come-up with a mechanism so one didn't have to do this manually.

#1731

OK. I've deployed your new stack.

The Apple TV pairing is freakin awesome! I just used VLC to monitor the pairing codes from my two Apple TVs. One possible improvement during pairing of the Apple TV, and possibly even for adb pairing as well. Could you open the same encoder streaming window that you use in the activity and logs tuner "view and control". Then you wouldn't even need VLC to view the displays in another room, or need to use the linkpi dashboard.

After some fumbling I was able to load my custom M3U. Once I did that I didnt even have to change anything in Channels DVR - it found the correct M3U and opened the tuner and tuned to a channel after a ton of delay.

Ive got two tuners running in Channels Multiview.

However @bnhf, the spectrum script files need to be looked at. I am not using sleep at all on my ATVs, they are always on. I noticed that the channels tuned with a lot of delay, and the stopbmitune didnt work at all.

When I shoehorned in my working scripts that I posted above, my system tunes lightning fast.

Please advise on the scripts.

Is there anything else you need me to stress test @mackid1993 ?

#1732

It seems odd these were reported as working a little over a month ago, but if you're confident they don't, I'll swap them out for yours.

EDIT: I'm not seeing your prebmitune.sh...

#1733

Mine is just the null empty prebmitune.sh

#!/bin/bash

# Nothing needed in this file!

What im wondering about is the “wake from sleep” issue. If others need that functionality then the tuning scripts i posted above wont work for them. Mine assume always on ATV. The force quit takes less than a second, and the tuning is almost as fast as a standard native 6xxx channels DVR TVE tuning , but using the spectrum app.

edit:

Give me some time to look at the scripts from last month , and continue to stress test the new container deployment . Perhaps. I can modify to have both sleep and always on usage incorporated.

#1734

Lesson #1:
After uploading m3u, ensure to toggle the Update Sample m3u's to No. But the good news was that it's real easy to re-upload m3u's. Perhaps a future update will pop up a warning after the m3u is updated or changes the value to No.

Guide Issues:
This is probably due to me also having an Osprey ah4c source in Channels.
The guide populates fine on the webui. On clients, the choice is to stack duplicates by either Channel number or guide data. If you select Channel number all show up and channels guide shows all options and you get additional (repetitive) channels showing in the guide. If you stack by guide data, none of the channels in the new source show up because they are duplicates of existing channels of a higher priority.

My quick idea was to just create a new collection to test. After adding the new encoder channels to the collection, they show as correct then switch to the higher priority source channels.

This is not really a concern since I'll add another stick and move to test the FC ah4c bridge. @bnhf Should I expect a similar experience with FC.

@mackid1993 Your redesign and simplicity is superb. This will make life easy for those who don't understand how to use environmental variables but like webui's.

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#1735

@bnhf i'm super proud of this, but I managed to get capture cards working with the preview like you asked. I also added some functionality to make it super easy to add them to channels without really much know how, as long as you have the necessary drivers installed in your system and necessary pass throughs to a potential Docker container if that's the setup used.

Unfortunately for Unraid, there's a video driver but no really good audio driver, so I wasn't able to test the audio. I also have a link pile, so I'm not really looking to use this myself, but if it helps others, I'm glad to implement it.

You can pull my :latest or :beta tag to see.

@mnwxman132 I added that pair button that you suggested. That will show a preview and make it easier to pair on screen. Let me know how it works. It's really only in the wizard. If you want it in the main settings pane, let me know. I can always add it. Edit: I lied, Big Daddy Claude was one step ahead of me and added it to the settings page as well.

I also, just squashed the bug where it would ask you to pair twice on Android, so that should be fixed as well.

#1736

is this a production issue or testing issue? is there a reason when watching tv to pick the source of the channel?
if your just trying to view a channel from a specific source for testing purposes you'll have to disable the sources you don't want for that client (via client or webui)
not sure if your workstation is a mac or pc, but there are a few client apps for windows made by the community and DVRDesk will let you pick the source although I think it will fall back to other sources if the one you pick fails.

#1737

:point_up: ditto also for those who do, but still like webui's :slight_smile:

1 Like
#1738

Perfect! been on my todo list, but now it's next if I don't have to reread those threads first! but it's late, so not now..

I thought that was a IDtenT error. :rofl: