Have you tried it with the Pluto for Windows app? Pluto is notorious for ad insertion issues.
Samsung is the only source I don't do a native scrape. I use Matt's data, but i'm pretty sure he already gets all the country sets?
nope he only gets the ones from the mobile app which isnt all the country versions like nz and australja and singapore and various others
Iwas watching the people's court and noticed sync issues actually doing it now as we speak.
I bet it is a bit rate conflict.
Sports are at one bit rate and shows are at other bit rates.
When channels starts to play back the default loop with the noise, i will stop and re-launch the channel.
i like my pluto to have a smooth experience.
good news-- figured it out. I had a hardcoded old version of Pluto in FC... The old version of Pluto combined the audio & video into one stream. The new version of Pluto seperates them out. When they started playing some new ads that had only seperated A/V tracks, it made the stream go out of sync. I'll push new version shortly with fix, and some other stuff I've been working on.
thanks for the reports! @Jim_FL @rpaulmerrell
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FastChannels 5.7.1 - 5.8.0: What's New
5.8.0
Update FastChannels Player to 5.2.13 (Bridge → FastChannels Player devices → Update). It fixes a crash that could drop the Fire Stick to its home screen after a tune.
Free Networks: four more networks, about 150 more channels
- OG Network: 84 live channels, 50 of them not carried by any other source (CaribVision, Nigbati TV, ToonOvation, Colorized.TV, ZAZ Gamers, Americana Television and more).
- Cineverse: 22 channels from Cineverse, RetroCrush and JoySauce (AsianCrush, MidnightPulp, Screambox, Bob Ross, Dove Channel, Lone Star, Dog Whisperer, Real Madrid and more).
- BeOND TV (19 channels) and Mansa TV (20), including Health Hero Network, Adrenaline TV+, Manifest TV, HBCU and Stingray 90s.
- CBS: the free Judge Judy, Hot Bench and Car Chase channels from cbs.com.
All clear HLS up to 1080p. Channels Free Networks already had from another network are skipped, so you won't get duplicates. If Free Networks is already on, the new networks show up on the next scrape; you can switch any of them off on the source card.
The Guide and Channels pages now have a Network dropdown when Free Networks is the selected source, so you can narrow nearly 300 channels down to one network. Bulk enable/disable on the Channels page stays inside the network you picked.
Pluto: audio out of sync after ad breaks
If Pluto audio drifted ahead of the picture in Channels DVR, getting worse after each ad break until you re-tuned, this is the fix. Pluto added a short bumper before paid ad breaks around October 24, and in the stream format we were asking for it had no audio track. Channels DVR's live player closed the gap by pulling the audio 15 seconds forward, once per break. FastChannels now asks for the stream format with Pluto's separate audio track, which covers the bumper. Tested through four ad breaks with no drift. Recordings were only affected by a brief silent gap, not drift.
Other new features
-
Optional admin login: Settings → Advanced. Playlists, guides and playback stay open so DVRs and IPTV players keep working. If you forget the password,
FC_AUTH_DISABLED=1gets you back in. (#75) - REELZ: new TV-provider source. You sign in once in a browser and paste the link it gives you. REELZ+ subscribers can use email and password instead. I accidently left this default ON - will fix next version.
- Multiple HDHomeRun devices. (#76)
- Bridge audio setting (Bridge page): if your capture card clicks or drops out on Dolby channels (DIRECTV, ESPN, CNN), set it to Stereo or Decode to PCM.
- Adult Swim: Off the Air, Mr. Pickles, Squidbillies and Check It Out! with Dr. Steve Brule.
- Preview errors you can read: when a stream fails in the admin preview player, it tells you why (HTTP status, which request failed) with a Details button and full error text to copy into a bug report.
Changes
- Warner TVE (TBS, TNT, truTV, TCM) and SundanceTV no longer need the DRM bridge. They now play clear HLS in any client. You don't need to sign in again (may need to run stream audit on source to catch update).
- TiviMate and other IPTV players pick up the guide from the native playlist automatically. (#79)
- Sources page: Bally, Adult Swim and Hallmark grouped under Free Networks; enabled sources listed first. (#80)
- Bridge audio details in the log when Debug logging is on.
Fixes
- YouTube custom channels that played for about 30 seconds and then dropped work again. If YouTube breaks one client again, FastChannels moves to the next one by itself.
- Guide: short shows show their titles again; Bally Sports guide working again; gaps filled for several Free Networks (KSL/BeOND, Tastemade), Zeam, PBS and Disney channels, including ABC-owned local news streams and local ABC stations missing from the community map. (#80)
- Spectrum: no more failed first license request on quick re-tunes.
- Free Networks: History's FAST channels no longer drop out when history.com loads slowly; Stingray channels on Mansa no longer fail the stream audit on first tune; OG Network channels with nothing to play fail right away instead of hanging.
5.7.2
- Spectrum renews its session in the background, no browser or password needed. New Renew session button on the Spectrum source.
- Open in VLC hidden for bridge-only DRM channels.
- Sources page fixes, including phone layout. (#78)
5.7.1
- CNN TVE, NBC TVE and PBS: fixed segment errors in ffmpeg-based clients.
- TV provider lists trimmed to providers our networks actually accept.
- Playlist and guide files nobody uses are no longer rebuilt after every scrape.
Upgrading
docker compose pull && docker compose up -d, then update FastChannels Player on each device. The database updates itself.
4 Likes
If a station tests as dead, does it allow it from another network, then? Similarly, if it is dropped from one network, but had been ignored from another, will it now be allowed?
I just skipped them during the scrape. I’ll probably refine that - but wanted to keep list somewhat clean for now.
The History Channel should do an episode of Modern Marvels about you.
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I have a possible UI enhancement request, now that @KineticMan has been nominated for the 2026 emmy awards from the history channel modern marvels special.
Ive been playing around with parallel instances of fast channels on several different networked machines, and have many windows open at the same time. For quality control during my eliminating old image files and regression testing, I noticed I was jumping around a bunch between several instances of fast channels, as well as the channels dvr UI.
It would be extremely handy, and im not sure if this can be accomplished in Fast channels or not, would be for some kind of active stream status icon inside the fast channels UI, much like what channels dvr does with its activity monitor.
This way at a quick glance one could tell if a particular instance of fast channels has a live stream going to channels dvr. I.e. an actal tuning connection is made.
Is something like this possible, or perhaps it already exists? . I know the logs show activity, but its buried down in the UI. An activity monitor could be really useful if possible to implement.
Thanks for all the great work, and I hope that history channel modern marvels special works out for ya. I can see the kaloopy opening credits already
I'm getting this message in my dashboard:
1 TV-provider sign-in needs redoing: DAZN (YES, MSG and DAZN's free channels). Their channels won't play until you sign in again — use "Sign in" on each (signing in on your phone works too).
I had briefly signed into and configured DAZN, then realized it was just sports (not my interest), so I turned it off in Sources. Is there a way to turn off the warning, given that the source is turned off or could there be a "don't show this again" button?
Will do. Thank you for looking into this. Really love FastChannels. Other than this hiccup, it has been a major upgrade to my live tv viewing for me and the family.
Maybe you can help Pluto fix their Apple TV app too. It was happening yesterday a lot on the Star Trek original series channel - it was the worst I ever seen it. Commercial visuals with Star Trek audio, then cut back to Star Trek video that was out of sync by 10 minutes.
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yes but it should have done it automatically - will fix next version, tnx for note.
half possible... the problem lies that alot of the channels FC plays is a simple redirect. Meaning, once your client requests the stream, FC looks up the stream info and does a simple forward to CDVR, then it's out of the equation. A few sources DO proxy and we'd know if stream was still active.
so in short, all i could really show is a log/display of "last play events" but it wouldn't show live data accurately.
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Just a FYI, no action needed:
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I saw in my new channels this morning Pluto added Star Trek marathon channel.
RIP Jean-Luc (or Professor Xavier). I know quite a few of you Star Trek fans on here. @babsonnexus for sure.
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Eh? I only see "Star Trek: The Motion Pictures" which is a channel that comes and goes a few times a year.
And yes. Big Star Trek fan myself.
When I'm adding from this to channels how do I control the stream format? Everytime I update channels it resets to HLS, then I have to go into channels, set the stream format to MPEG-TS and save, and how do I set the player in FAST to MPEG-TS?