BETA: Custom Channels via M3U Playlists

We have an example of how to setup the DVR server inside Docker using QNAP Container Station: https://getchannels.com/docs/articles/troubleshooting/wont-run-on-qnap/#alternative-install-channels-dvr-server-inside-container-station

The process for other containers will be similar. You can skip steps 5, 6, 7. Instead you would set the port mapping from 8080 to 80

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I haven't done it yet, allow me to have a little sleep, it's middle of the night in Poland.
I put the list tomorrow here

Also I see in your m3u list Stingray Channels, they are music channels hiding as video stream.
It is the same story as Music Choice. There is possibility to extract only audio from them using ffmpeg and putting them to some Icecast server as radio - I tried this once however then the name of the artist and song is lost and I don't know how to preserve it.
That would be intresting add-on to Channels - radio stations :slight_smile:

Once upon a time there was a reddit post of a guy who created bunch of own channels and even created own EPG for that and even downloded some commercials aired long time ago on Boomerang and put them between episodes :slight_smile:

Are you planning to do a Windows version? I am getting the no manifest error when I try it.

Rob

I'm not sure what are you refering to. My web server is up and running.

Hmm, you may be on to something there, and now my thinking is that it might have something to do with a change in the latest betas and not just these custom channels that we've recently added. I have started to see the "Connection Lost" error, after a period of time watching regular TVE channels, on my AppleTV's Channels DVR client. I never saw this error before, and I've been using Channels for very many hours daily for a few months now. I'm just got the error watching MSNBC for example. Yesterday it happened on ABC. It happened a few times over the past few days and it's not only happening to me with custom channels.

My Channels DVR server is on an always-on, hard-wired iMac and I'm able to resume watching on the client app by exiting to the guide, and selecting the channel again, without changing anything else.

So what could explain this "Connection Lost?" I note that when this happens by LAN is still up and running, I can ping my server, access the web, use other apps on my AppleTV, etc. It's just the Channels client that (for some reason) now intermittently loses connection.

Sorry, I meant for Docker on Windows, for the Pluto app.

Rob

I updated the list on the server. Now someone try to find EPG source or should we pay Gracenote?

You need to replace 127.0... with whatever up address your docket server is.

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Thanks. There was actually something causing the pi docker version to crash, but he fixed it. All good now.

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Is anyone having issues with guide info being wrong for clients that are not channels?

I am using the docker for windows 10. I have successfully added the PlutoTV channels and guide data to channels. From what I can tell it all looks good there.

Added an M3U tuner to Emby using a file (added channel numbers and removed a lot of channels) and pointed Emby to the Docker for guide data. It is all working but there are some channels that are listing wrong guide data.

Ideas?

This is working great! Installed Docker on Ubuntu 20.04, pulled the hello-world container, then pulled the latest maddox container, and created the new stream. Easy peasy. Can’t wait to find other .m3u playlists now. Thanks!

Are you guys aware of the channels app crashing?

Thank you so much for adding this feature. It's a real game changer.

I am trying to add my SAT>IP. Do links like these work?

http://192.168.1.50/?freq=10847&src=aa&pol=v&msys=dvbs2&fec=34&rolloff=35&pilots=auto&sr=23000&mtype=auto&sid=6941&pmt=260&pids=0,5400,5401,260,5403

I have them working currently with Telly. I have set MPEG-TS but the links from my SAT IP box does not use a .ts extension. Thanks.

as promised: here's my writeup on remapping channel numbers...disclaimer: this process is pretty long and not necessarily easy to do. it's easy for me, but i'm a programmer by day and used to dealing with this kind of stuff.

please let me know if you run into any issues and i'll do my best to help figure them out. the code is up on github, feel free to fork it and make changes / put up pull requests with any improvements.

i created a thread in the playground to keep track of any issues with this too, seemed like a better idea that intertwining it with this discussion...

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I tried to download EPG guide for Stirr. I picked X-M3U option because link to the EPG is inlcuded in M3U file. However it looks like other EPG for Directv taking precedence and I cannot map the channels because they are not listed in EPG while I know they are.

Great, I was thinking about the same, it's good someone other is skilled with PHP and have enough time.

Hmmm. My Pluto EPG from the docker had been working perfectly for a few days, but today I can't get it to load at all. I can see it when I type in 192.168.1.XXX:8080/epg.xml, and the docker log shows that the EPG was created, but nothing showing up on Channels. I have also re-entered it on my Pluto Source and refreshed. Any ideas? Thanks!

Weird. I just re-entered it again and working.

Yes, it should work.

See Sat>IP support

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