No worries. Fubo seems to be easier (though I haven't tried it) to get the stream link. I have Direct TV Stream so I was hoping you had gotten the stream link a different way that might help me with Bally Sports Midwest.
Fubo is very easy. In a browser window you can click on a channel, and then copy the url shown. I've been able to setup channels that have never had TVE, and it works great. Although, if the channel has a show on, that you also have recording on Fubo, then the link is full of all kinds of other info and is not good for CDVR. I don't have any history with DirecTV, but I do recall from this thread that is does not work with CC4C.
I don't want to jinx it, but it seems Hulu seems to have fixed the authentication issues. I left for the same reason. only recently started it back up for testing purposes.
Just a question about Windows
Im currently running channels on an older Gen3 I3 3.2gz and 8gb ram 250SSD
im also running the chrome capture on it as well since the PC is only for Channels etc
Any 1 here ever try Tiny 10 and see any solid bump in performance?? I have a few of these i3 boxes laying around so they seem good so far BUT last night i was seeing some lag etc im USA via chrome cap was debating finding a gen5 i5 32gb if it give me a smoother chrome cap experience
1 Like
Is there a way to configure Chrome Capture for Channels so it will only tune 1 channel, and then pass on any subsequent requests to the next tuner in the stack if another channel is requested from another client?
My use case: I have 2 HDMI encoders (a 3rd on the way). One of them is only 720p, and the picture quality is very dull as well. My goal would be to have channels tune in this order:
1st - 1080p HDMI encoder #1
2nd - 1080p HDMI encoder #2
3rd - Chrome Capture for Channels
4th - 720p HDMI encoder
That would be all Iād need, as YouTube TV only allows 4 concurrent streams, iirc. I think I can split off the 720p encoder (and have Chrome Capture splitting them up in slot 3) by using one of the two HDMI encoder methods (described elsewhere in the forums) for the first two encoders, and using the other HDMI encoder method for the 720p encoder, but I havenāt tried this yet.
The last time I heavily used Chrome Capture for Channels, I had some glitches when tuning/stopping a second channel, so restricting it to one channel at a time might cure those issues.
1 Like
This is an amazing project. Iām running it on an older I5 processor than runs Channels. I really donāt use it for anything else other than that. But, Iām having fairly consistent buffering issues. Hoping for a way to kinda take care of that without requiring a new machine
Thanks for your feedback. That got me looking at a bunch of settings on the Firestick.
What I did realize is a couple of things.
Turns out the biggest improvement was when I used CC4C running on Ubuntu.
With CC4C running on Ubuntu I did not have nearly as many dropped frames (actually 0 in my initial testing) as I did with having CC4C running on Windows (testing had thousands of dropped frames)
Regarding Stream Type: Playing with the options on the Firestick 4K (my initial testing was on a Firestick model not a Firestick 4K so that proved the 4K version improved playback) running with a Quality Delivery set to Stream (resulting in HLS Local) improved audio lag issues experienced when using CC4C on Ubuntu over stream type of Direct. (As an aside I did notice that my AppleTVs with Quality Delivery set to Stream results in a stream type of HLS Remote - in either case Direct or Stream, AppleTV viewability is similar)
It's 3 on their basic package. Some more info on that: Watch YouTube TV on multiple devices - YouTube TV Help
However, the 4K upgrade allows for unlimited streams, on the home network at least:
https://support.google.com/youtubetv/answer/10383365?hl=en&co=GENIE.Platform%3DAndroid
And also this:
2 Likes
Thanks. We have the 4K upgrade because, before we got Channels, my wife wanted the ability to download certain shows. I followed your link and saw that one of the features of the 4K package is "Unlimited concurrent streams at home." I wonder if that means unlimited streams of the same show at the same time, or unlimited streams of any number of channels, so long as you're in your home? If the latter, this could turn into a very expensive hobby. . . 
I've settled on a headless i7-8700 PC with a GTX 1050 GPU, with a 4K HDMI dongle, running Windows 11. This low end GPU seems to do just fine encoding 4 streams. I also went thru the NIC settings and made sure to turn off flow control, and make sure the same optimizations that I have on my Channels server, are also on the CC4C machine. Have smooth playback, and several days worth of recordings that have no playback issues on my nvidia shield clients.
Again, I will say that the recordings have audio PID issues that require passes thru ffmpeg to correct, so commercials can be trimmed when I'm archiving some files. Not sure if this is a Channels DVR issue, or a CC4C issue, or the way the Chrome encodes it?
No playback issues with CC4C/Windows on AppleTV, only seems to be Firestick 4K and the CC4C/Windows. CC4C is running on the same Windows machine as my CDVR so same NIC settings there. WIll continue to play/troubleshoot but enjoying having this option available.
Interesting, so the Firestick doesn't like something about the CC4C stream. 
I didn't know if the CC4C machine needed the optimized NIC settings, but figured it couldn't hurt.
I had terrible stuttering/lag with the Firestick 4K Max when playing a CC4C stream, that wasn't present with the Apple TV. I replaced the Firestick with a cheap Onn 4K box, and the CC4C stream plays fine. So it seems like something is going on with the Firesticks.
1 Like
It could be an issue with the H264 profile/level being used by the encoder in Chrome.. maybe you can check with mediainfo.
You can also try changing what chrome produces by altering main.js as so:
- mimeType: 'video/webm;codecs=H264',
+ mimeType: 'video/webm;codecs="avc1.424028"',
1 Like
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?
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.
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
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 frustratingā¦
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?
Did you get this up and running, or still struggling? Happy to help.