HDMI for Channels

themediaguy · November 22, 2023, 1:25am

This is sick! What is the deep link for the Spectrum app? I have HA and working just was curious about this setup never thought of this.

chasut · November 22, 2023, 1:50am

Here is the link for USA: spectrumTV://watch.spectrum.net/livetv/58452?linkorigin=sirilivetunein&idtype=tms

mnwxman132 · November 22, 2023, 5:54am

Wow. Too bad i cant get homekit to control a spare iphone i have lying around. May have to pick up a used apple tv now. This looks very iteresting for my use case.

tmm1 · November 22, 2023, 6:03am

@turtletank do you think this is in scope for ADBTuner or do we need to fork off an ATVTuner

https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/apple_tv/#media-player

https://pyatv.dev/development/apps/#app-deep-links

Jim_FL · November 22, 2023, 2:11pm

Quick update on LinkPi. Blacks are a little gray compared to JTech. However the JTech will only reach 1080 at 50FPS. At 720 60FPS is perfect. LinkPi drops a frame every few minutes but is nearly perfect. JTech never drops frames. Running GOP at 2 seconds on LinkPi. Will send an email to LinkPi support today.

chasut · November 22, 2023, 11:22pm

Woohoo, I am up and running. Works great. My modified version of HDMI-for-channels running on my M1 Mac mini that hosts CDVR. ~2-3 second tune time right now, I think I can do better but that is more than acceptable. Now just need to go map all of the other channels.

The picture I am getting is very good. It is far better than the CC4C method. Tested on sports, shows, and movies. I did not have issues with blacks, but the deep ones do get crushed a bit. Probably not a great way to watch the Dark Night. But they are certainly at least on par with anything I have seen through TVE. I have not experienced any dropped frames, but then again not really detailed testing yet.

My current settings on the LinkPi below for reference. Note the GOP dropped to 1 from the default of 2. doing A/B testing is hard, but I think it did help with sports. No issue on CPU load.

spammedeeper · November 22, 2023, 11:46pm

Awesome! If you are on local LAN, I would try upping the bit rate on your encode. I started at 20mbit for testing and it worked great. I then dropped down to 8mbit, and where the picture was fine, but I liked the look of higher rate.

EDIT: The original inventory of LinkPi ENC1-V3 went quick for $103.99. They have been out of stock since Monday, but are now showing (for me) ability to back order at Black Friday sale price.

https://www.amazon.com/WayPonDEV-ENC1-V3-NDI-HDMI-Encoder/dp/B0CDLHX36Z

Jim_FL · November 23, 2023, 2:58pm

LinkPi ENC1-V3 update. Turning on NTSC compatible seems to have resolved the muddy blacks. Running 1080P 60FPS 12000KBPS (12M) GOP 1 Sec-- CBR. Got a note back from their support advising this. One of my encoders was failing at about 3 or minutes into a stream. Bad box. Have a new one coming next week. FYI, 720P 60FPS looks as good as TVE. With the exception of the failing box, all is good. Running ADBTuner.

mnwxman132 · November 23, 2023, 3:23pm

Im curious about your config. I just purchased the Link Pi.
I dont have a silicon mac mini, but have considered taking the plunge.

Im curious if you have tried running any of the “walled garden” cable provider apps for ios or ipados on the m1 mac mini , and then piping the hdmi output from the mac mini into the link Pi, and then of course piping the network stream back into channels - as opposed to using a web browser on the mini to tune the individual channels.

Or are you using ADBtuner with a separate android device and tuning that way

mnwxman132 · November 23, 2023, 3:41pm

@tmm1

Would it be theoretically possible to run one of the cable providers native ios or IPADSOS app on a silicon based mac mini, then pipe the hdmi output of the mac mini into an encoder?

Then if we could figure out a way to come up with a clever way of having tuning profiles for the stations that run on the mini, but control the ios app running on the mini, it could be another way to deal with some of the cable providers that are more locked down behind the walled garden.

For instance keyboard meastro or some other keyboard “macro” program could possible run button or mouse gestures to tune the ios app on the mini.

I dont have a silicon mac to try this out with my cable providers app. . My provider notoriously has to re-authenticate when using a browser, and if there was a way of controlling their native app it could be very slick.

My provider doesnt have an android app that supports hdmi or id go in that direction using adbtuner.

Alternatively, some kind of ATVtuner via home assistant could work, but that would require a second apple tv (which of course is a lot cheaper than a silicon mac mini).

Just throwing ideas against the wall to see if anything sticks.

mnwxman132 · November 23, 2023, 6:33pm

I just set up the Link Pi. Got it yesterday. This is a very cool device!
Im watching NFL football on channels through the device, with a spare iphone as the source feeding hdmi through a lightining to hdmi adapter.

Video quality is very very good in my opinion. I did use the “main” profile, and used the rate settings @chasut shared

Thanks everyone for sharing. This is cool..

But for now i can play pause record manually.

Gonnal play around with adding tuning control next. But for now its working with channels very smoothly.

Love it. Thanks for recommending this, and i got the black friday price

spammedeeper · November 23, 2023, 8:48pm

That's super exciting! I'm glad people are enjoying the LinkPi as much as I am.

chasut · November 23, 2023, 9:33pm

If anyone is interested below is what I came up with for my bmitune.sh. The M3U passes in the tmsid, so nothing else is needed. Once I figure out how to parse the response, I intend to add some additional error handling. Below the script is a sample of my M3U text.

#!/bin/bash

curl \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer [Insert long-lived token here]" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"entity_id": "media_player.tuner0", "media_content_type": "url", "media_content_id": "'"spectrumTV://watch.spectrum.net/livetv/${1}?linkorigin=sirilivetunein&idtype=tms"'"}' \
  http://xx.xx.xx.xx:8123/api/services/media_player/play_media

#EXTM3U

#EXTINF:-1 channel-id="SN1AUSH",Spectrum News Austin HD
http://xx.xx.xx.xx:7654/play/tuner/70612

#EXTINF:-1 channel-id="KTBCDT",FOX (KTBC) HD
http://xx.xx.xx.xx:7654/play/tuner/31222

#EXTINF:-1 channel-id="KVUEDT",ABC (KVUE) HD
http://xx.xx.xx.xx:7654/play/tuner/33585

#EXTINF:-1 channel-id="KXANDT",NBC (KXAN) HD
http://xx.xx.xx.xx:7654/play/tuner/25147

#EXTINF:-1 channel-id="KEYEDT",CBS (KEYE) HD
http://xx.xx.xx.xx:7654/play/tuner/33424
...

mnwxman132 · November 24, 2023, 2:09am

Pulled the trigger on this one. Black Friday $10…

I’ll report back if it’s compatible with the link pi firmware

edit: It’s MONO audio only. Yuck!

Edwin_Perez · November 24, 2023, 2:29am

The Problem with a lot of those USB devices is that they are mono.... but It seems to be a good one to get you started with capturing.

spammedeeper · November 24, 2023, 2:34am

Indeed! I did catch that spec in my research. Many of the previous cheapo USB devices were based around the MS2109 chip, which was USB 2.0 and, as mentioned, mono. I specifically selected devices with the "new" MS2130/2131 chips. Even though I can't use USB 3.0 on my LinkPi ENC1, I can capture stereo.

mnwxman132 · November 24, 2023, 3:27am

Oh good catch!! Thanks
Canceling this one it’s mono.

The other one previously mentioned says it supports stereo.

spammedeeper · November 24, 2023, 4:17am

I feel I should point out using the WebCam feature to capture a second stream on the ENC1 is not fully tested yet. It does work, and if you are okay spending about $20 on an encoder to essentially play, go for it. Just keep in mind it has some limitations. Things I've learned so far:

The USB 3.0 capture devices that have a MS2130 (single HDMI input) or MS2131 (second HDMI for loop out), are the newest, best featured devices in this price range. All kinds of info here.
The LinkPi ENC1 V3 USB 2.0 means you will only be able to do a max of 1080p50 using MJPEG compression. The quality is.. okay. The same devices on USB 3.0 can do 1080p60 YUV and it looks great, hardware is pretty amazing for the price.
The highest res you can use to get 60 FPS is 720P, still using MJPEG compression. If you want no compression using USB 2.0, you'd have to pick a res of 640x480 to get YUV.
From my research, the USB Webcam can stop responding on the LinkPi if left running for a long period of time. I have not had time to experience this yet, limited testing time. I already schedule LinkPi reboot every night for maintenance.
Long term reliability of such a cheap device is not known.
There are limited options for the device using the native UVC driver on part of the LinkPi. Everything I've said so far are default settings (plug device in, work). There is info here on installing v4l2-ctl for better detail and control of this "webcam".

Not trying to scare anyone away, just being honest. But if you are looking for a cheap cost to continue play with the LinkPi, there is interesting uses for the USB capture, even when limited by USB 2.0.

A. Even thought it is not the best quality, it does create a second stream on the same device. Not too shabby if it proves reliable.

B. The MJPEG compression is not as noticeable as much on small screens. If you were to stream to a phone, tablet or small display, 720p60 would be fine.

C. It would work well as a capture of low frame rate or static capture feeds into Channels. What would you want to view as a TV Viewable stream in Channels DVR? Anything that can't make it's own stream, but has HDMI out. Older Security Camera or DVR maybe. You guys tell me.

Happy streaming!

chasut · November 24, 2023, 4:45pm

I just tried these settings and think it is the best yet. Was hoping that I could have it set to match the framerate on the input. Reading through their manual on line and there was a reference to a similar setting for the network stream (which is an interesting concept all its own) for a -1 setting for framerate that attempted to match the stream.
So I tried it for the HDMI encode, and while I don't think it is framerate matching (e.g. 24fps on movies) I do think it does improve the overall quality. But I don't have a way to properly compare side by side and it could be just wishful thinking.

If you are still testing, give a try and see what you think.

spammedeeper · November 24, 2023, 8:31pm

Very interesting the frame rate would be -1. I will have to try that one out. Thanks for the tip.

I have two of the LinkPi's and will try to some side by sides.