Nice. Does that help with the "are you still watching" messages?
Slightly different use case to the main conversation above, has anyone considered using this for game consoles? We have 3 xboxes and a nintendo switch which I'm thinking I might be able to put in a central location in the house (to take controller range out of the equation) and then setup each with it's own dedicated 'channel'. I would then be able to have the kids access any console they want from their room via their channels app on their apple TVs (even their iPads!). Could latency be a problem?
1 Like
Yes, absolutely, unfortunately
That’s a really cool idea. Please share with us what you find if you end up trying it.
How can we restore NBC, Bravo, Syfy back into the guide so we can map and record via HDMI?
With a Custom Channels M3U source, like so, with the channels mapped appropriately. This is what I cobbled together, working for me on the west coast of USA. You'd need to edit for your ingredients:
#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:-1 channel-id="NBC",NBC
http://10.0.1.21:7654/play/tuner/nbc
#EXTINF:-1 channel-id="MSNBC",MSNBC
http://10.0.1.21:7654/play/tuner/msnbc
#EXTINF:-1 channel-id=E!" tvc-guide-stationid="61812" tvg-shift="+3",E!
http://10.0.1.21:7654/play/tuner/e!
#EXTINF:-1 channel-id="Bravo" tvc-guide-stationid="58625",Bravo
http://10.0.1.21:7654/play/tuner/bravo
#EXTINF:-1 channel-id="Oxygen"",Oxygen
http://10.0.1.21:7654/play/tuner/oxygen
#EXTINF:-1 channel-id="USA", tvc-guide-stationid="58452" tvg-shift="+3",USA
http://10.0.1.21:7654/play/tuner/usa
#EXTINF:-1 channel-id="SyFy" tvg-shift="+3",SyFy
http://10.0.1.21:7654/play/tuner/syfy
#EXTINF:-1 channel-id="CNBC",CNBC
http://10.0.1.21:7654/play/tuner/cnbc
#EXTINF:-1 channel-id="Golf",Golf
http://10.0.1.21:7654/play/tuner/golf
#EXTINF:-1 channel-id="NFL",NFL Network
http://10.0.1.21:7654/play/tuner/nfl
#EXTINF:-1 channel-id="NewsNation",NewsNation
http://10.0.1.21:7654/play/tuner/newsnation
#EXTINF:-1 channel-id="MTV Classic" tvg-shift="+9",MTV Classic
http://10.0.1.21:7654/play/tuner/mtvclassic
#EXTINF:-1 channel-id="BBC News",BBC News
http://10.0.1.21:7654/play/tuner/bbcnews
#EXTINF:-1 channel-id="Smithsonian" tvg-shift="+3", Smithsonian Channel
http://10.0.1.21:7654/play/tuner/smithsonian
1 Like
Excellent. Thank you!
My encoder is out for delivery - excited to get this going tonight!
1 Like
I'd like to see a demo of how this actually works. Anyone care to put together a YouTube video of this in action?
1 Like
Not really much to see. It just opens the selected channel.
3 Likes
How slick is that!? 
1 Like
That's exactly what I wanted to see... how fast it is and responsive. That isn't very fast. Is it fast with channel changes?
That demo shows the channel change launching YouTube TV each time? I started out that way too. Then @boukmandutty's super helpful write-up guided me to handle it differently, never exiting or re-having to relaunch the YTTV app, shaving off a few seconds from each channel change.
Regardless, from where I'm sitting, even having to wait a few seconds for these particular channels to tune in, is still galaxies better than Channels DVR not having access to the channels at all.
2 Likes
To compensate for the speed you can start recording with a buffer a minute or so before the start time of the show
I currently have it setup to close and restart YouTube TV with every channel change as I find it more reliable that way. I've had weird situations where it tried to reload the same channel and ended up with a paused black screen or other glitches when I leave the app open on the device.
I would rather have a small delay instead of a recording that is just a black screen.
If you prefer fast tuning you can allow the YouTube TV app to stay open and it will tune almost instantly.
That being said, that video is loading the channel when the android device is off and represents the worst case. It's normally 4-5 seconds to tune.
That makes total sense @turtletank and thanks for explaining. I'm testing various scenarios myself and figuring out the best way to dial it in for my setup. I agree that I'd rather channel changes be slow and more reliable than fast and flakey. If I am live TV channel surfing, I'm content practicing patience, as it's still just an experimental project and I don't mind trying a channel again (and again,).
But what I'd like to avoid ever happening, as much as possible, is missing a scheduled recording, because the AndroidTV dongle didn't get tuned properly to the right YTTV channel. Because that show might not air again, and that'd just be super annoying to discover, after-the-fact, sitting down on the couch, expecting it to be ready to play.
I'l check this again when I get home but are there any "sleep" or "never sleep" settings we should be looking at, on the Android TV side of things?
Absolutely. This whole thing is a work in progress and with continued collaboration with the group here I'm sure we will eventually lock down some best practices to maximize reliability and tuning speed. We definitely aren't there yet.
I think there might be a path forward in which we can do things like query the android device to verify that the currently playing media is what we expect it to be. There are definitely things we can do to make this more reliable.
I don't even have a huge need for this. I'm just going to use it to "place shift" a few channels so I can watch them away from home, but the project itself has been a fun distraction lol.
Thank you for that. I feel like I'm getting close, with the ability to send commands manually to change channels, but I've got empty guide data, and my source doesn't give me any channels to add. I've hit a wall and I'm not sure what to tweak next. I've done the whole "go build", have a little exec app that I run, but still nothing.
Remove the space after your first #.
2 Likes