Chrome Capture for Channels

Playground Hacks
#582

About to start on this journey and it seems there are mixed results on hardware specs (I've been following all the awesome work being done here).
My Channels DVR and a couple Docker channels run on a Win 11 box with a Core I5-9600T CPU @ 2.2 GHz with 12 GB of ram. CPU averages 45% and memory hovers around 65%. This is a dedicated box.
I use Fire TV devices.
My sole goal is to record NASCAR on USA using cable company credentials.

  • Do I need to buy better hardware to make this work? If so, recommendations?
  • Is there a way to enter my cableco creds?
#583

If you're already at almost 50% CPU you're definitely going to notice a hit when you start one of these channels in Chrome. But yeah to enter your credentials all you have to do is remote into your box and set up your creds within Chrome at nbc.com/live.

I have mine setup for the NBC sports channels like USA CNBC NBC etc. to get all the racing but the PQ is not as good as a hardware HDMI encoder. I'm only using it as a backup when IndyCar is running at the same time as NASCAR etc.

#584

To make this work well, the CC4C machine needs to have a monitor greater than 1080p. Otherwise, you will get black bars around the video. If you don't have a monitor connected to the PC, greater than 1080p, then you can buy a cheap 4K HDMI dongle, and have the Chrome capture window run on the virtual monitor. Of course you can start with a 1080p monitor, get it working, and live with the black bars until you can increase the resolution. On my setup, Chrome does take advantage of my old GTX 1050 graphics card. Seems to help relieve stress on the CPU.

It's pretty easy to get the .exe running, configure your Channels source, and see how your hardware performs. If you see really high CPU usage, then you most likely have your answer about your setup. Follow babsonnexus' instructions, BETA: Chrome Capture for Channels - #130 by babsonnexus

Seems people have been struggling to make this work as a Docker, so I would start with the .exe in Windows and see how you do. Good luck.

2 Likes
#585

Scheduled a recording this morning, sat down to watch it and after approximately 2 minutes, the video froze and never restarted, however the audio continued to play. Very frustrating…

#586

I had seen this issue, occasionally, as well. Seemed like it always happened with NBC as the source. I'm not sure what others have done to troubleshoot it. Since I have a Fubo subscription, I changed everything to Fubo as the source stream, and have not seen this problem, again. I was also tweaking my setup for other issues, so it's possible it went away because of something else? Hopefully, someone else can give some advice?

#587

Did you get this up and running, or still struggling? Happy to help.

Writing dockers for Philo and other services
#588

I think the "docker struggling" this is mostly because most of the keystrokes required to perform an authentication (nbc, yttv), as noted in prior posts in this thread, do not make it through when connecting through the CC4C docker in debug mode. Once that is past we can see how it works.

#589

I've also seen the frozen video with audio continuing on more than one occasion.

It's not a Chrome specific bug, because I've seen it on the PBS feed.

1 Like
#590

Thanks for confirming. I hope this bug can be squashed, otherwise I can’t depend on my recordings.

1 Like
#591

Using this procedure to record shows so many things can go wrong ... The HDMI Capture devices though extra cost is more reliable.

#592

I'm still using the Docker container, and it's working beautifully with one exception. When multiple episodes are back to back and being recorded (notably from Oxygen. We record a lot of the "whodunnit" shows.), the NBC window will timeout due to "inactivity" and the recordings will be an hour of the rainbow background screen with that error message.

I doubt there is a way around this, but I thought I would throw it out there in case anyone has any ideas.

1 Like
#593

I’m trying desperately to get the Docker working, however I can’t get past the YTTV authentication screen for NBC using the diagnostics URL. Would you please share how you got this to work?

Thank you :grinning:

1 Like
#594

I used the workaround that @KompilerDJ posted (#85) to connect to the container with VNC, then used that VNC connection to log in to everything. I couldn't get the web browser "debug" method to work. It wouldn't accept any input to the captured browser.

1 Like
#595

So where do you put the “ x11vnc -display :99” command? Is this a terminal command or does it go into a VNC client?

Thanks :grinning:

#596

It goes into the Docker container. You'll need to connect to the container and run that command there. I do it through Portainer's "console" option, but you should be able to do it by running docker ps -a to get the container ID, then run docker exec -it <containerID> x11vnc -display :99 & to run the command within the container.

#597

Yep. I'm noticing this on recent recordings along with the issue I previously mentioned

#598

Thank you. I was able to get the container ID and run the Docker command you provided in a terminal window and I now see that the VNC desktop with the Docker ID is running. How do I proceed from here?

I am very thankful for your help… :grinning:

#599

Additionally, you may have to also expose the port that the VNC startup shows in the original docker run command (in my case "-p 5900:5900 -p 5589:5589"). Then you will be able connect to the host machine and container that is running the cc4c with a VNC client successfully - VNC shows a blank black screen when you connect in. When you run the channels client and select one of the CC4C stations you have set-up, you will see the chrome browser session launch in the VNC client and you are able to interact with it - and authenticate. HTH

I am guessing that (as the docker is configured by default), if you stop and delete the docker container you will may have to go through the same re-authentication credential validation process.

#600

I think the only real option is to burn the subtitles into the original video. If you try to match an .srt (subtitle) file to the video after the fact, you will almost certainly run into sync problems, particularly if the source has commercials. It can be done, but it would be a lot of work in many cases.

#601

I tried changing the Chrome capture Docker port to 5900 and was able to connect via VNC, however when I tried to tune a stream, it failed. I then changed it back to the default port 5589 and I then tried add -p 5589:5589 to the command “ docker exec -it 4f9078eb7420 x11vnc -display :99”, however that failed. I think I’m close but still missing something. Any thoughts?