For the android users out there, change the above url to codec=aac in order to get playback to work in Chrome!
ie: https://xxx.channelsdvr.net:8089/devices/ANY/channels/6003/hls?vcodec=none&acodec=aac
New build going out now makes this easier with /devices/ANY/channels/6003/hls/audio.m3u8
That link will now work on both iOS and Android devices, letting them pick between aac and mp3 depending on what is preferred on the platform.
There is also now a link on the web UI in the watch now dropdown, called Audio Only. You can click that, or right-click copy it.
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That’s great!
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When I click the "audio only" option in the web player it gives me the option to download a m3u8. That m3u8 doesn't play in vlc when I click on it, although it does bring up vlc?
When I drag and drop from the "audio only" option, to vlc, it does play the audio portion. Is this the expected behavior.
I also have 2 new options in the drop down along with "audio only", "VLC" and "Roku Device". Both options do nothing useful when I click them. VLC opens a new tab that doesn't do anything. Roku Device doesn't seem to do anything.
I get the same thing when I try it on my PC but it works on my iPhone. Very nice, even the playback speed works. Only problem is that when the phone goes to sleep, the audio stops.
With the next build you can load the saved master.m3u8 file into VLC.
To make the VLC links work, you have to install some helper programs. See Allow alternate player app from DVR web UI - #25 by tmm1
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Thanks for this info, I was able to add internet radio streams.
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One question, I have my internet radio and 4 day weather working great on Channels DVR but curious to know about curl -s -XPUT http://192.168.1.73:8089/dvr/lineups/XMLTV-FM. I have this in a script but it does not seem to do anything to refresh the Channels DVR FMRadio.xml on the server. I can manually refresh from the webpage and only then I am able to see artist and title of the song. Can someone answer if curl -s -XPUT supposed to refresh the xml file on the Channels DVR server?
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When you do it manually does your Log show XMLTV-FM or XMLTV-FMRadio
Good question. I have googled Channels DVR logs but had no luck finding it on a Windows PC.
Support > Logs on the dvr web UI
I found it. Will look through it.
It says FMRadio. Fetched guide data for XMLTV-FMRadio in 0s
Im proposing an enhanced audio only feature, for those of us who want to be in a car an hit one button on our phones to access those audio only talk channels as described earlier in this thread.
Channels client have evolved to do audio only, but i still
prefer to use audio only mode with channels through a homescreen direct url bookmark, which still works today - unless you are accessing channels using tailscale remotely
As of today im still able to use this:
http://x.x.x.x:8089/devices/ANY/channels/6166/hls/master.m3u8?acodec=mp3&vcodec=none
as a direct url in ios safari as long as im on my home network. if desired i can create a safari homescreen link with that url for single button operation.
When in the car now, remote operation using tailscale is still clunky, and actually dangerous to use.
In the beta client, under debug, with tailscale active. In order to get things to work reliably you have to.
1: first shut of the channels beta with the app switcher
2 open channels
3 hit the “at home” selection
4: wait for the guide to load in the background
5: hit cancel on the ios pop up prompt to enter the channels dvr tailscale ip (which was remembered from the last session)
6: select the channel from the guide - either full video or audio only.
This is too dangerous in a car. Too many things to be able to get an audio only feed from a news station. Or a video feed for that matter.
If you use the direct url method its much better, but still clunky.
You still have to
1: open the ios tailscale app
2: hit the tailscale radio button to turn it on
3: get to homescreen
3: use the hard coded url with the channels dvr tailscale ip homescreen bookmark
That is much closer and safer when driving, but clunky
What would be awesome to accomplish, would be able to use our channels dvr tailscale address with no intervention - ie without having to first enable tailscale separately in the tailscale app.
The client already has the ability through the debug menu in settings to store the dvr tailscale ip.
Could there be a similar method used so we can generate a direct tailscale url without having to enable tailscale on our phones first?
Then it could be a lot safer when driving with one button operation?
Thanks
Just create a shortcut on your iOS device with two steps:
1-Connect to your Tailscale network
2-Open URL's (then insert the URL you posted above)
Select the "Add to Home Screen" option in the shortcut details. One button start.
Thanks @cyoungers .
I wound up automating this process using a combination of shortcut automations and focus mode, so that when im driving the tailscale connects, and when i leave my car the tailscale disconnects without any prompting. I didnt want the tailscale connected on my iphone unless i was using channels, and i didnt want to forget not to turn it off.
Now while im driving I can use the hard coded link (as described above) to the tailscale dvr on my ios homescreen
This is much cleaner as the tailscale connection automatically shuts off without me having to remember to disconnect.
For others interested, i had to kludge this to work, because ios shortcut automations dont let you run without the notification prompt under certain conditions like location or connecting to your cars Bluetooth.
However, if you use focus mode (in this case the driving focus), you can have the automations look for the driving focus, and that automation shortcut will run without asking.
I have two automations. The first looks for driving focus on, and this makes the tailscale connection. The second looks for driving focus off, and this disconnects the tailscale.
So now I don’t have to think about it and just have one button press in the car.
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Thanks for mentioning this @mnwxman132 . A while back I tried automating the enable and disable of Tailscale and quit doing that because I was annoyed that shortcuts kept prompting when I left the house. I was using geofencing to determine when Tailscale enables/disables. I never though of using focus modes to get around this prompt.
Same here.
When the tailscale iOS automation support first came out i was stoked and tried to geofence but couldn’t deal with the prompt to run it every time. .
Before iOS 16, you had the same problem with running geofenced shortcuts on the Apple Watch. It was driving me nuts. At that time i saw a post on Reddit how to use focus modes to get around the “run without asking” problem. Clever idea which i can’t claim as my own lol
I have different watch faces with different complications depending on whether I’m at the gym or swimming etc. - all automated
So I’m using the same technique for tailscale now. Need to try it out in real life tomorrow but it seemed to work in my garage in the car lol
I was just trying it and while the Tailscale connect shortcut worked fine, the Tailscale disconnect did not work for some reason. Interested if you have the same issue.