The HDMI device has 4 channels. You'd need one of these and 4 cheap Android boxes with HDMI out. Pretty clever. I might have to look into this when Spectrum DRMs the channels on my cablecard and TVE loses too many channels.
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I don't get this comment, none of the channels being recorded here are available over ATSC3.0?
For an equivalent capability you'd need a Prime and..... actually, Prime won't do this - it's all DRM.
Go buy this and 4 of these, and you've got a 4 tuner solution that if it has an App, channels can record it - independent of DRM, for ~$500. I know lots of folks who'd find that both practical and compelling considering the price differential to a basic cable streaming plan will pay for itself (over time)
EDIT: Cheaper - HDMI for Channels - #44 by boukmandutty
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I’m looking for similar solutions for Xfinity STB (HDMI) to IP encoder or VeCOAX and how do I control the cable box using Custom Channel, using IR Blaster?
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For 4 streams you would also need the 4K Plus plan on your subscription, as without it, YouTube TV will only stream concurrently to 3 devices.
With the 4K Plus plan you’d be able to have unlimited streams but only on your own home LAN.
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If you are using ChannelsDVR it will always appear as if you are on your home Lan even while away from home. ... I would assume or am I wrong.
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There was some discussion on this thread:
And some recommendations here: Build your own Slingbox Alternative/Replacement DIY
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That's correct, but it would require some careful configuration of Channels to ensure it was always true. Think always "tuner sharing", for this source.
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Those of us that come from SageTV have been using HDMI for a long time to bypass DRM. I guess everything comes back into fashion.
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Ugh, IR is so flakey. This is where enabling adb on the Android box and allowing Channels to configure to the channel will bring you guys $$$$ 
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I tinker a lot, and can see the value in a “TVE failsafe”, but I’ll sit this one out
- cost of even a 1 port device is pretty rich
- Google has a bad depreciation habit, so relying on ADB gives me pause.
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I agree I just downsized my PC footprint to return to the days of having devices hooked up to an encoder is not for me that is going backwards.
But others might find this to be a great solution.
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I've done this using EventGhost to drive a USB-UIRT, and I think it can control an IR-Blaster as well. EG can also receive network commands so it's easy to send commands with curl or wget such as the desired channel number. Development on EG looks like it's dead but the most recent version works well enough.
In fact, I'm doing this now using an Intel NUC with the Spectrum web player, to "tune" a channel, and the output goes to an H.264/IP encoder similar to what's mentioned in this thread. I use a script to tail the log file to parse out my custom channel numbers and to stop the browser playback. It's a bit crude but it works well enough to give me back my NBC channels.
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Yes of course, it would be based on wherever the HDMI devices are located. My point though was that without the 4K Plus add-on, concurrent streams from YTTV would be restricted to 3 and a 4th wouldn’t be allowed.
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You guys need to find away for Channels to send network command to the cable box using network IR blaster or HDMI-CEC control when tuning using custom channel.
Android Debug Bridge
You put the Android TV device in developer mode and then a computer can connect to it and send commands. You can open links (like the stream links used by Channels itself) and even send instructions to specific apps.
For the androidhdmi-for-channels prototype, I used scripts that @boukmandutty wrote which issue voice control commands via the virtual keyboard interface, to do things like "watch USA in YouTube TV".
Using adb you can send specific key codes:
and input text:
and when you're done it can quit the app and put the android device to sleep:
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How hard would it be to do the same thing with the Spectrum TV app?
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each channel on this hdmi encoder would be set for a certain station.
Channel 1 ASX TV
Channel 2 Local station
Channel 3 USA
Channel 4 extra channel
Am i understanding it righrt?
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Each channel/HDMI port is connected to an Android box that would normally connect to your TV. The Android box runs your TV app. In this case YouTube TV. You use those commands up top to change the channels on your TV app on the Android box.
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On the DVR side you end up with a Custom Channel that looks like this:
#EXTINF:-1 channel-id="usa",USA
http://x:7654/play/tuner/usa
#EXTINF:-1 channel-id="nbc",NBC
http://x:7654/play/tuner/nbc
The androidhmdi-for-channels program runs on 7654, receives the request for say the USA channel, picks an available hdmi tuner, then sends adb commands to the android device connected to that hdmi tuner to tell YouTube TV to launch and open the USA channel. The video output from the Android device is sent to Channels DVR which sends it to the Channels player.
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