BETA: Chrome Capture for Channels

Playground Hacks
#348

Directv stream doesn't work with this I tried myself. The stream lags and even if you get it working it doesn't capture whole screen properly. stream.directv.com/player just redirects to stream.directv.com/watchnow which is very not useful in this case. The issues arise from both links regardless.

Have yet to try Fubotv but since the cubs are going direct to consumer I plan to drop directv stream and pick up youtube tv because the darn white sox, bulls, and blackhawks don't have a direct to consumer option yet. Never expected the cubs to get it so soon.

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#349

Can someone tell me what the minimum requirements to get smooth streaming. I have tried 3 different computers and laptops with no success. Only way I can high quality stream is with HDMI but I don't know how to setup the service to just open chrome browser to stream thru the HDMI. Plus is the stream format to be set to HLS or MPEG-TS.

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#350

See:

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#351

Fubo appears to be relatively easy to setup.
For example this is the url for Marquee:

https://www.fubo.tv/watch?channelId=1283550001

I’m using a free trial at the moment so trying to determine whether to go Fubo or YTTV. Was hoping DirectTV stream would be an option as well but doesn’t appear to be and Hulu is getting stuck on its 2FA implementation for TVE now.

#352

Cool. My Fubo account is paused at the moment and I have been using DirecTV Stream. If Fubo works this way, I think I know which way I'm going. I liked Hulu, but their constant authorization for TVE is why I left.

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#353

Just an update FYI.
I installed the improved dummy HDMI adapter, and as expected the video is much improved, in fact, it is great. As good as the Spectrum app on the ATV. The text crawl is now smooth and the refresh is consistently spot on with audio in sync. The video fills the screen with no noticeable border automatically, with no need to manually go to full screen in the browser.

The audio experiment was also a successful improvement. Increasing the bit-rate to 320kbps improved the sound very noticeably. Some A/B testing (not perfect due to the time it takes to make the change and reload) showed the increased bit-rate provides a fuller, more pleasing sound. Makes a big difference to my ears. My test tv does have a decent audio system, it may not be as noticeable on standard TV speakers, but have not tested.

Bottom line:

  1. Confirm what others have said re: video card recommend > 1920x1080 with 60hz refresh rate.
  2. Recommend increasing audio bit-rate to 320kpbs
  3. Even at this early stage, the results are good enough to roll-out to the family for a more robust test

Question for those smarter than me. Could this be run as a service, with say "forever" or similar?

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#354

When I tried running it as a service, I was not able to interact with the browser to set up authentication. YMMV

#355

Question for those who may know....Ive got this all running fine at the moment BUT Im having audio issues when going to Watch | YES Network which is the online viewing page for YESTV The page loads fine and resizes nicely after a moment or 2....I can not get audio to play automatically I notice the viewer window has it muted in any instance of chrome...if i click on the volume button i have audio AND if im remoted in to the dvr server and im quick enough before it auto resizes i can click the volume button and get audio via the custom channel. any way to force chrome to NOT mute this page??? first pic is the vol button 2nd is the full screen seen on the TV
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#356

You could check the settings and or try to whitelist the website sound at
Chrome://settings/content/sound

#357

Ive tried quite a few "ideas" found via "google" nothing so far auto clicks that volume button

But thanks for the suggestion

#358

In main.js there is code that searches for the <video> tag and calls video.play() etc on it. I posted earlier on how you can copy/paste that into the web console on a website to test the behavior.

For the mute issue you would similarly figure out the commands in the js developer console to find the mute button and call button.click() on it.

#359

How are people getting this to reliably file the screen as 50% of the time, I get a small extremely cropped window and the other 50% it’s almost full screen with a small border. I simply cannot rely of any of my recording as there is a very good chance the it will be severely cropped and unwatchable. I’m running this on my MacBook Pro (latest OS)…

#360

uh oh maybe getting above my level....where do i find this js console thing??? ill search this thread for this stuff when i get back tonight or tomorrow......thanks for the info

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#361

Here's something new to play with. Looks like these URLs would work well:
https://www.redbox.com/stream-free-live-tv?channel=amc_thrillers

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#362

Have you tried it? let us know how it works.

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#363

Cool, more channels here: stream free live tv

I especially like providers like that that don't put a big bug (channel logo) watermark in one of the corners over the content 24/7.

But we've had an M3U for Redbox free content specifically for awhile now:
https://www.apsattv.com/redbox.m3u

What would be a great new addition here is the XML guide data to match. Without that, sources like this aren't indexable or searchable, so not nearly as useful inside Channels DVR.

#364

What is the display resolution on your Mac that's running this? Try increasing it and see how it affects this workflow.

#365

I have not tried it other then in an incognito window.
I uninstalled Chrome Capture because my TVE channels started failing with unable to open chrome.

#366

Watchmarquee.com is a strange case. If you load watchmarquee.com with no adblocking the screen doesn't get fullscreen it just fails. However with pihole dns (I cant install extensions with this locked down browser there has to be a way to fix this it would be very useful on certain legal sites like watchmarquee without having using pihole. I dont think this will work for illegal sites though since you need to unmute audio portion of the players manually for 90% of the sites) it works fine since the ad gets blocked and goes fullscreen.

2 Likes
#367

F12 or right click on the page and click inspect

Good luck!

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