Cool. Would be interested to hear how the DirecTV integration works for you multi-tuner guys. Wonder if my technique allows for multiple streams (thought I read the Prism way only allows one or two streams concurrently).
I got my hands on a single port LinkPi and the cheap Amazon usb encoder too. The tune time on the single usb encoder is pretty quick.
It's pretty quick (~4 seconds) with ah4c on a network encoder too:
@KineticMan In fact, it's quick enough that I'm changing my tune on putting my sticks to sleep. Here's what I'm thinking for a revised check on adb authorizations, and whether sleep has been disabled (PR coming soon):
@KineticMan per your FC player setup docs you state the following are supported:
FastChannels Player currently supports these sources:
Do you have any plans to support ESPN Unlimited, ESPN Plus, native Fox One app? I know PrismCast already does these but they are 10+ second tunes for me in docker.
PrismCast is indeed limited to a single DTV stream. DTV doesn't allow multiple streams in multiple tabs. ch4c, which uses a Chrome instance per virtual tuner proves that, even on a single PC multiple DTV streams are fine -- as long as they're not sharing a browser. Long story short, I'm not anticipating issues with DTV Stream using your method.
My thinking is we need more contributors to this project. What @KineticMan has done with the ah4c bridge, I believe represents the closest thing we've seen in a while to a cable box experience, without resorting to "dark-side" solutions.
Hmmm. The current “linear channels” model of the whole project doesn’t fit great with the “event only” style channels. But let me think about that one. Maybe a separate tab or something? Or just tie in support with my old ESPN4CC4C app?
Fox One works as a TVE scraper so I can tie that into the bridge too.
But in short, it’s simply a matter of me finding out how their Widevine license requests are setup. I just forward it all to the Android app and it passes it along pretty to the built in Android/Firestick app.
@KineticMan I'm not usually one to chase tune times, but the ah4c bridge has me thinking about them once again. What's the scoop on force closing your Android app after each tune? We might be able to pick up ~1 second if it could be left running. Any hope of that, or is it not likely?
The other thing I've been thinking about with ah4c, is having a set of "warm" channels. These channels would be streaming during designated hours, if tuners are available. I'm thinking football season, NBA Playoffs and the like. That way, channel switching can be really, really quick when one moves between one "warm" channel and another. Just a concept, and wouldn't need anything from you, but I don't think it would be overly difficult to implement.
I’m still trying to wrap my head around this new FC player project. For example for Philo, is the Philo app even installed on the android stick or does the player just receive a web url and starts playing it. I’m sure I missed it in the documentation but I’m missing the general overview of what happens when tuning a channel. I’m guessing select a channel in channels, ah4c sends a url to the android stick, stick plays it in FC player, hdmi out is captured by usb capture card, channels ingests via capture://v4l2/ , channel dvr plays from that. Is this way off base?
My problem with Fox one is I don’t have a subscription to a tv provider to use TVE creds for the Fox channels. I have a Fox one subscription but for example you can’t use Fox one creds to authorize in the eplus tv container. You have to have a tv provider TVE login so I was hoping for a program that can actually use Fox one subscription creds to watch the Fox one channels. Again I’m a little fuzzy of the basics of what happens to tune a feed in FC player, is it like PrismCast in that you send a url to it, your player outputs in via hdmi and then the capture ect.
I know right?
No Philo app required. Authorization is via FastChannels.
The tune is initiated by ah4c, but the ah4c scripts trigger FastChannels to send the appropriate adb commands to play the stream through the FastChannels Android app -- complete with appropriate licenses.
You could use a USB Capture Card, but then the encoding has to happen on your local machine. Much better to capture the output with a multi-port encoder, which handles the re-encoding, and scales much better than USB Capture Cards.
No need to use ah4c with a single USB capture card. ah4c is all about virtual tuner management, with multiple tuners.
No doubt but I can’t bring myself to drop that kind of cash on one. I picked up two usb capture cards for $6 each along with my original card listed in the first post of that thread. I’m soon going to test using multiple cards at the same time since using a single card has been reliable for me using ADBTuner, I was waiting for him to release this project to mess with it. My machine has gobs of cpu power to handle a triple encode from the sticks but not everyone’s machine will and no doubt a linkpi would be a great choice but with usb capture cards and Onn sticks I bought for $20 I have a triple tuner for $80 all in.
Would ah4c be the way to go in a triple usb card scenario?
Channels DVR asks FastChannels to tune a DRM-protected channel.
FastChannels looks up the channel and obtains a fresh live-stream URL from the provider.
FastChannels also creates a local DRM license endpoint, such as /play/philo/license.
Using ADB, FastChannels instructs the Android or Fire TV device to:
The Android app opens the DASH stream using the device’s built-in Widevine DRM system.
When Widevine detects encrypted video, it generates a license challenge to verify that playback is authorized.
The Android app sends that challenge to FastChannels instead of directly to the provider.
FastChannels adds the provider-specific information required for the license request, including:
FastChannels forwards the completed request to the provider’s official license server.
If the account, stream session, and device are authorized, the provider returns a Widevine license.
FastChannels passes that license response back to the Android device.
The Android device’s secure, built-in Widevine system handles all DRM validation and decryption.
FastChannels does not decrypt the stream, access the decrypted media, or handle any DRM keys.
An HDMI capture device captures the video normally displayed by the Android device.
Channels DVR receives that captured output as a standard channel stream.
In short: FastChannels only coordinates playback and relays the authorized license exchange. It performs no DRM decryption. All protected playback and decryption happen securely on the Android device through its built-in Widevine system.
Probably. We just did a test using a single USB Capture Card with ah4c, and it worked fine. There's detail in the ah4c thread about that.
I don’t even remember now why I did that. I’ll experiment.
Thanks, I’ll check it out when I get home after the holiday.
Dang you guys! Once I get something going, you come up with something else that might be better! 
And of course I'm running into a problem.
I'm running ah4c without problems now, so adb debugging is on and the firestick is working. But when I try to install the FastChannels Player I get the same message as @rpaulmerrell and the firestick does not show the adb confirmation box.
I've entered the correct ip address for the firestick without the port and even tried with the port specified.
Did you add the additional Docker Volume for the adb keys, as shown in the updated yaml file in the FastChannels repo? The FastChannels adb authorizations are separate from the ah4c authorizations.
looks like that'll work - shaves a half second or so. will add to next version.
Test: Cold launch → playing
Result: 1,717 / 1,225 / 1,165 ms
Test: Warm stop → retune → playing
Result: 996 / 788 / 875 ms
Average: 1,369 ms cold vs. 886 ms warm
Average improvement: ~483 ms faster
Sweet! BTW, I just added my Sling premium movie channels via the FastChannels ah4c bridge, and they're tuning just as fast a Philo. I'd say you're really on to something -- but I think you know that. 
