Chrome Capture for Channels

[Fofer]

@raulcard17

Run the other file (chrome-capture-for-channels-macos-arm64), it worked for me on an M1 mac mini.

Yep, that did it, thanks.

@raulcard17

You will have to deal with the security settings.

For any Mac users wondering, if you double-click the chrome-capture-for-channels-macos-arm64 you will see this dialog:

However if you hold down the control key while double-clicking (or control-click and choose "open" from the contextual menu) you will see this:

Click "Open" and that's it. Another way to handle this is under System Settings > Privacy & Security:

I didn't have to change anything in System Settings > Privacy & Security > Screen Recording or anything else like that. I'm now up and running with Weatherstation streaming. Very easy. Now I'lll go in and set up the custom channels I set up previously for web pages like Home Assistant. And a bunch more! I'm going to set up some channels I'd set up via HDMI and see how the experiences compare.

This is awesome. Thanks everybody! What a fun team effort!

[Fofer]

@Ahwman

Also, is it possible to run the Mac app as a service?

Might this help? Platypus - Create Mac apps from command line scripts |

[Jean0987654321]

Its very sluggish for me the my main machine (maybe because its running a lot of stuff in the background). On the mac, its way smoother. Gonna have to mess around with this in order to make it work. Worst case scenario, I'll grab a capture card and just use an old firestick

[ert]

@babsonnexus I’ve not had a chance to try any of this yet but can I just say: that’s some awesome documentation. I need you do document all of my work stuff and my life stuff this well.

I usually either over-document or don’t document at all because once you document something, you have to keep it updated.

[Fofer]

Really excellent work @babsonnexus, thanks so much. Extremely helpful.

@babsonnexus

In the text field you will create the Stations as they will appear in Channels. You can copy and paste this for all of the built-in stations:

One thing I'd recommend including is this:
/stream?url=<url> for adding other arbitrary URLs

[daldana7296]

This is great work! Running the executable nicely on a Win 11 machine with minimal additional CPU load.

I'm only setting up four of the NBC channels ( Golf, Oxygen, Syfy, and USA) and I was seeing some locking up on the Golf channel, but that seems to have gone away, hopefully. The one thing is with the other three channels, I had set them up for west coast feeds and I get the west coast guide, but the feed stays on the east coast feed. I followed the instructions from post #128 so I'm wondering if anyone else has seen this. I'm also seeing the letterboxing with the latest version v0.1.4.

Thank you for this feature!

[Fofer]

I'm having a blast with this! The possibilities feel endless.

One site/channel that's not going fullscreen for me is KTLA5. How do we make that happen?

#EXTINF:-1 channel-id="KTLA",KTLA
chrome://localhost:5589/stream?url=https://ktla.com/on-air/live-streaming/

FWIW this is the same as TVE channel LA-KTLA 6973. Based off channel 5.1 on Los Angeles OTA in and 105.1 on ATSC 3.0, which my antenna doesn't pick up well. I'm experimenting with the Chrome page to use as a backup, and learning along the way.

[tmm1]

I made some changes to hopefully mark the macOS binaries as coming from Fancy Bits so you don't have to go into settings

[khaosnmt]

Running Ubuntu 22.04 LTS: doing "node main.js", I'm getting an error when opening any NBC streams. I've logged in, but I'm getting an error. "Sorry! We're having some trouble." It appears to be that the snap version of Chromium that installed with npm doesn't have Widevine support, and I have been unable to get it to install.

Disregard all of that. I solved this issue by setting the CHROME_DIR to my “normal” Google Chome instance.

[rpaulmerrell]

The file came up great on my system.
Trying to get Philo to work so I can bring in stuff not on TVE.
Glad everyone is having some good success on YTTV. I'm wondering what happens to the browser when you drop the stream?
Great work and thank for the nice option.

[Fofer]

Earlier today, channels I added via NBC.com played fine when switching between them, now all of them are requiring a click of the play icon, on the server.

I'm not sure what's changed or how to fix/automate this. Any ideas?

I'm also playing around with channels on tv.youtube.com, those are playing fine.

[Absenm]

I have this working with the NBC channels, weatherscan and Youtube. However, none of them are going over 628kbps. My chrome-capture-for-channels-win-x64 Windows 11 PC is a 12th Gen Intel Core i5-1235U with 10 cores and 32gb memory and only SSD drives. All my lan is 1gigabit and my Internet connection is 500 Mbps. So I am pretty sure it can easily handle transcoding. In fact my performance levels in taskmanager while using chrome-capture doesn't go above 25% utilization. My ChannelsDVR server is on a Synology 220+ with 10gb RAM and SSD drives.

In comparison, my androidhdmi-for-channels channels are transcoding at 10mbps and my HomerunConnect at around 9mbps. The TVE channels are remuxing on average at around 2x+.

So is the much lower transcoding rate on chrome-capture expected or is there something I should be looking at that is causing a bottleneck? Or is that rate I am seeing perfectly acceptable.

[turtletank]

For what it's worth, I see this when playing via the Channels DVR web interface, but not in the dedicated Channels App. Edit: This also happens when using Channels DVR as a M3U source.

This is from a short DVR recording:

Format                                   : MPEG-TS
File size                                : 70.0 MiB
Duration                                 : 1 min 55 s
Overall bit rate mode                    : Variable
Overall bit rate                         : 5 082 kb/s

And not a criticism at all as obviously this is very early in development, but even at the full bitrate there is a noticeable drop in picture quality relative to other streaming sources (traditional TVE, HDMI).

Another edit: Not sure if related to the PQ issue, but after the video loads (running in macOS) the browser window is resized to a rather small size. 580x281 as per "stats for nerds" in YouTube TV.

[babsonnexus]

@ert

that’s some awesome documentation. I need you do document all of my work stuff and my life stuff this well.

I usually either over-document or don’t document at all because once you document something, you have to keep it updated.

Thanks! You should see my 600-page design and admin documentation from my prior life!

@Fofer

One thing I'd recommend including is this :
/stream?url=<url> for adding other arbitrary URLs

You got it! I'll make a few updates from things that came in overnight. A guy sleeps for a few hours and all this happens!

[kennyb3653]

I notice that after stream is closed from client the Chrome Capture Tab goes to white page but does not close and when new stream starts it starts a new Chrome Capture Tab, while the older tab remains. I noticed I had 5 of these recent tabs still open. How to close these tabs when stopping a stream.

[Ahwman]

The latest macOS build seems to be crashing as soon as I open it. (macOS Intel).

[cyberskier]

I think that's what I'm seeing with the latest Mac arm64 version, too. I get a "killed" message in Terminal when I try to open it, both by right-clicking and selecting "Open", and by using the command prompts given earlier in this thread.

[Fofer]

@Fofer

Earlier today, channels I added via NBC.com played fine when switching between them, now all of them are requiring a click of the play icon, on the server.

I'm not sure what's changed or how to fix/automate this. Any ideas?

Looks like giving it all a rest resolved it for me, because I tried again this morning, and now all of those same channel selections are playing automatically again when I tune in, no extra clicks on the server required.

@tmm1

I made some changes to hopefully mark the macOS binaries as coming from Fancy Bits so you don't have to go into settings

FWIW, I tried this, but once again got the "can't be opened because the identity of the developer cannot be confirmed" dialog. I was able to bypass it easily via the instructions I shared above.

@Ahwman

The latest macOS build seems to be crashing as soon as I open it.

Same here with ChromeCaptureARM64 0.1.4. Downgraded back to 0.1.3, now it's working fine again.

[babsonnexus]

@GTFan

where is the main.js kept in a Win10 Docker install if you want to add channels?

You no longer need to do this. See:

@babsonnexus

More so, you can add any station you want that is not built in. Just add another record that looks like this:

#EXTINF:-1 channel-id="{YOUR STATION NAME}",{YOUR STATION NAME}
chrome://localhost:5589/stream?url={LINK}

Replace the {YOUR STATION NAME} and {LINK} fields to the ones you would like, so something like this:

There is no limit to how many of these you could to add!

[babsonnexus]

@tmm1

endpoint /debug where you can do some basic clicking and keyboard entry

Can you get some additional keystrokes added? Namely, the space bar and backspace.