Xteve is a 'proxy' that claims to make IPTV streams look like an HDHomeRun tuner on the network. I've yet to get it working, since the documentation is non-existent and between one provider for IPTV and another for XMLTV, there are a few moving parts that need to line up.
I was wondering if anyone else here had tried using it with Channels DVR, and if they were successful?
Hey. Did you ever manage to get this working? Trying myself now and xTeVe seems to be pretty steep learning curve!
No, I didn't. Turns out that Channels needs a better emulation of an HDHomeRun device than Xteve provides. Apparently Plex is much less demanding and the Xteve developer only implemented enough to make Plex happy.
I did come across another developer who claims to have prototyped a more complete emulation, which may work for Channels too. I haven't contacted him yet, though.
Thanks for the info man!
Has there been any progress with anyone getting xteve to work with Channels? I love the channels app waaayyy more than Plex but would love to get my xteve proxy channels into it as well.
Hopefully Channels will never allow streams from pirated sites. They do have streams from TV everywhere apps. If you are legit use them.
I believe the xteve dev has a version which works with Channels, however this is not something we plan to support officially.
Entirely understandable that you wouldn’t want to support Xteve officially - that’s the responsibility of its developer. If it accurately emulates the HDHomeRun API, I wouldn’t expect it to pose a problem for Channels DVR (famous last words... 
Is the version of Xteve that supports Channels DVR available publicly? Or is it still a work-in-progress?
In recent versions of Channels, we've simplified our HDHR integration and rely on less of their api. I think you can simply add your xteve or Telly into the Channels app by clicking Add Source. The video feeds should show up, but guide data will not work. I haven't tested with Channels DVR.
We are not interested in supporting shady IPTV providers, but if you have a legitimate use for m3u integration please send me a private message with more details on your use-case.
I can verify that Xteve can be added as a source to Channels DVR. Though without guide data, it's not useful to do so, in my opinion.
Yes, IPTV providers streaming US channels are definitely skirting laws, though elsewhere in the world, the situation may be very different, both from a commercial and legal perspective.
Though with Hollywood insisting on licensing content by geography, the situation where you're watching content from a different country than you're residing in is definitely a (dark) grey area.
It's been quite possible to watch TV stations from adjoining countries in Europe for decades using a normal TV antenna. I assume the same is true for folks living close to the Canadian border. Viewing 'cross border' content is not something new, though streaming has effectively erased the geographical limitations. Just ask Netflix...
If you're able to add xteve to the DVR, you can probably assign a guide location to that source and then use the pencil icon to fix guide mappings accordingly.
Did you do anything special in your xteve configuration to get the streams working with Channels? I made a playlist with HLS streams from YouTube livestreams (I confirmed the m3u8 addresses work when directly accessed), added to xteve, added the tuner to Channels, and couldn’t get them to stream. “pipe:: could not find codec parameters” is shown in the Channels log.
Edit: adding that I’m running everything on a Synology DS718+. Channels is directly installed via DSM while xteve is in docker.
The DVR expects mpegts streams like the HDHR provides. It won't work with m3u8 HLS streams.
If you use Telly instead of xteve, they have a mode where they'll convert the HLS stream into mpegts.
Nothing special, just confirmed that my IPTV provider was providing mpegts streams, as tmm1 said. That's the default with the few IPTV providers I've tried.
Could you please add a link to Telly
Telly: https://github.com/tellytv/telly
You'll want to use the v1.1 branch, and setup a config similar to this:
[Discovery]
Device-Auth = ""
Device-ID = "TELLY"
Device-UUID = ""
Device-Firmware-Name = ""
Device-Firmware-Version = ""
Device-Friendly-Name = "Telly TV"
Device-Manufacturer = ""
Device-Model-Number = "HDHR-TELLY"
SSDP = false
[IPTV]
FFMpeg = true
Streams = 4
Starting-Channel = 9000
XMLTV-Channels = true
[Log]
Level = "info"
Requests = true
[Web]
Base-Address = "x.x.x.x:6077"
Listen-Address = "0.0.0.0:6077"
Got Telly working with this template config and it works great with HLS streams! Just one question, is it possible for some of my Telly channels to be organized in the "HD channels" category within Channels? Is there anything I can add to the config file to make that happen?
It looks like Telly requires channels have "HD" in the name.
Yeah, this is an issue with Telly. Campaign to get them to let Telly users define if channels are HD or not outside of just checking the name of the channel.
You can open an issue here: https://github.com/tellytv/telly/issues
Thanks! That did the trick, although I agree their implementation should be better.