FastChannels - FAST Channels aggregator/manager

@alai The above script is working for me on an ONN 4K Plus, so I think we'll be good -- but do let me know. This bug would also affect other non-ah4c non-FireStick users, so I'll need to get with @KineticMan for a broader fix.

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I've only tuned a few stations but so far the new script fixed the bmitune errors and the black screens. Thank you!!

Sorry for the accidental misdirect; I swore I was seeing the black screens in the old FastChannels build but maybe I was mistaken.

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You weren't mistaken. The same logic is present in the Python code for evaluating whether playback is active for single encoder/virtual encoder setups. So same bug, in 2+ different places, one in Bash and the other Python.

Thanks for confirming the fix.

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@KineticMan

PR#49 submitted to address issues with playback detection in both ah4c and single encoder setups. In both Bash and Python, the string matching used didn't work for non-FireTV devices:

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I seem to be having the same problem, namely that I can see the tuning on the Fire Stick but not in Channels. The problem is only for the Amazon channels. The PBS ones seem to be working just fine. I haven't tried Roku channels via the Android bridge yet.
Amazon Prismcast also works (to the extent that Prismcast works).

I tried your recommendations to @sbuchart but it doesn't seem to be helping. Maybe I'm missing something?
Following your directions, I copied the M3U provided by Channels and got this string, which is different from yours.

http://192.168.2.160:8089/devices/M3U-FastChannelsAmazonAndroidBridge/channels.m3u?format=ts&codec=copy

I also tried saving the resulting .m3u and opened it with a text editor to find several entries that include some similar text, but instead of "ANY" I have what looks like the feed name:

http://192.168.2.160:8089/devices/M3U-FastChannelsAmazonAndroidBridge/channels/9701/stream.mpg?format=ts&codec=copy

I lopped off everything after "stream.mpg" and pasted it into the browser, which gave me a 503 error. It also failed when opened via VLC.

To try to see what relevant differences might explain why PBS works & Amazon doesn't, here are some URLS from Channels, under "manage" for the different sources:

FC PBS (non-bridged): http://192.168.2.160:5523/feeds/fc-pbs/m3u/gracenote
Works fine
FC PBS Bridged: http://192.168.2.160:5523/feeds/fc-pbs/m3u/fc-player/gracenote
Works fine
Amazon Bridged: http://192.168.2.160:5523/feeds/amazon/m3u/fc-player/gracenote
http://192.168.2.160:5523/feeds/amazon/m3u/fc-player
Fails (I can see the tune in the fire stick, which is opened on the server PC in PotPlayer, but it doesn't come through to channels; for the PBS channels, which work, I also see the tune via PotPlayer and it does come through).
Prismcast Amazon: http://192.168.2.160:5523/feeds/amazon/m3u/prismcast
works

(All of the PBS channels are Gracenote; only 1 of the Amazon channels is, just to explain why there are no non-Gracenote PBS channels listed).

The Android bridge channels are MPEG-TS, and the non-bridge channels are HLS. Otherwise they look the same.

Server: Windows 11. Fire Stick 3rd Gen, Generic HDMI-to-USB.

I just got a new Fire TV Stick, finally got it into dev mode (much different process than in the FC docs), and went to push FC Player to it. Got this:

Performing Streamed Install adb: failed to run abb_exec. Error: closed adb: retrieving the default device installation mode failed: closedadb: failed to run abb_exec. Error: closed adb: connect error for write: closed

Any thoughts?

Never mind. It seems that the latest models run vega, and do not support side loading. I'll find one that does, and try again!

I am running on a Mac, so this might be a little different since you are running on Windows.

After configuring using the attached screen shots, the ONLY way I could get the video to come back to channels was by launching the Channels DVR via a command line instead of as a background service. That command was posted a while while back in this forum, and I am very thankful for that post because without it, I just could not get video to return. From what I understand, Apple locks down the camera feed from automatic background launches, thus I had to launch Channels DVR via a command line.

That command to launch Channels DVR on a Mac Mini is: ~/Library/Application\ Support/ChannelsDVR/uninstall.sh && ~/Library/Application\ Support/ChannelsDVR/install.sh —system

So I then used the Automator app that is part of the Mac OS to run that command as an app, and then put that app in my login items so that the Mac runs that "app" (which is just the command above) when rebooting the Mac. Perhaps you won't need to run Channels DVR with such a command on Windows, but that was the fix that works.

Here are the screenshots of my configuration:





Are there a full set of scripts for onn/fastchannels? I know they haven’t made it into the repo, yet. I think I am ready to fire is all up, but just need the scripts to drive my onn

Use scripts/firetv/fastchannels for now. We'll, probably change it to scripts/all/fastchannels, once we know the scripts work across all devices. For now, FireSticks and ONN streaming sticks should work fine.

None of what you described that was required for Channels DVR on MacOS really applies to Windows -- so hopefully no Windows users will go down that rabbit hole. :slight_smile:

There's still an issue with the way you're formatting your "virtual encoder" URL:

If you look just below the CAPTURE/ENCODER STREAM URL, you'll see there's even a description of what that URL is supposed to look like. So yours should be:

http://192.168.1.10:8089/devices/ANY/channels/1000/stream.mpg

Well, I’ve got great video from my onn -> Ip encoder, through ah4c. What’s NOT working is the adb channel control. I get a load of log statements, before the log shows it is giving up. The FC Player loaded with no errors. Any ideas what to check?

Thanks for the URL recommendation. Fortunately either format works, but I have switched to yours since that is the recommended format.

I began my comments with "I am running on a Mac, so this might be a little different since you are running on Windows." since I saw that others on a Mac are also struggling with some of this, and with your help and others, I was able to get it working very well, so hopefully this can provide some insight as needed.

Thanks for writing great software that is truly needed these days!

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I think that's a good call. I'm not surprised the other URL worked, but it's the kind of thing you'd have to mention if you needed support in the future -- as it's a deviation from the specified/tested approach.

Let me see if I can step through this with you, though if PBS works, that would suggest your basic virtual encoder configuration is correct.

Apologies if I'm repeating what you already know, but stage one of the HDMI Capture bridge is to setup your virtual encoder.

What you need for that is one CDVR Custom Channels Source to act as nothing but a way to encode what would otherwise be a very large capture stream. That's the whole capture://dshow part in Windows.

When you setup that source, there are two things you need, the first is what channel number is that single "virtual encoder" channel using? You can either assign it in that custom source (by stating a starting channel number for this single channel source), or you can simply use your EPG to go that source, and find the channel number there.

The EPG method is nice because, you can also tune to this channel, and see what your capture card is capturing at that moment. This tells you your virtual encoder is working. Now you need to know what the URL is to reach that encoder. There are are a number of formats that will work, but I suggest this:

http://channels:8089/devices/M3U-Capture/channels/90474/stream.mpg?format=ts&codec=copy

Where my "channels" value would be the IP (or resolvable hostname) of the Channels DVR server that hosts your virtual encoder.

The "M3U-Capture" value you can change to "ANY", or use the name you gave to your Virtual encoder's Custom Channel Source (with spaces removed).

"90474" would be replaced with channel number your virtual encoder uses, which you would have seen in the EPG when you did the test mentioned above.

Everything else should be left as-is. This is the URL for your virtual encoder.

Armed with that and the IP (or resolvable hostname) of your streaming stick, you have what you need to fill in the values for the HDMI Capture section of FastChannels.

Next, for Amazon, I'd start simple (and in fact I did to do a test), and just enable a single channel that has a Gracenote ID. Then grab the Gracenote compatible M3U, from the FastChannels Feeds section, and setup another Custom Channels Source along these lines:

Once you've saved that, and guide data has been updated, go to the EPG for that source and try it out:

Circling back to the part of your post I quoted, if PBS works, and everything I described above is what you've already done, then an issue with your Amazon Source seems the most likely. We know this is unlikely to be an overall issue, since I set this up myself just a few minute ago with no drama.