HDMI for Channels

Interesting. Does this cut down on animations and other superfluous things?

Yes

ChatGPT seems to think this would print the title but unfortunately it doesn't work - it simply prints a blank line and stops the currently playing media.

Maybe if someone knows Java/Android better it might be a simple fix?

EDIT: this might not even be possible as Android security apparently prevents reading this type of info from other apps.

If you want the Chromecast with Google TV 4K, Google has it on sale for $39.99 right now. https://store.google.com/product/chromecast_google_tv?hl=en-US&pli=1

Dang. I purchased one on the 29th for 49.99$ and the $%&^%& thing still hasn't shipped. No option to cancel, either.

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For the inactivity timer, what about sending a simple d pad up signal to the device every three hours? If a video is in progress the YTT playback osd should simply come on and then go back into hiding. I have not had the activity timer issue yet and I dont know how to simulate it to see if this would work.

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I am sending key events 224 and 221 every 1600 seconds. One is to wake and the other sets brightness. These do not appear to popup or change the running video and I was able to stream nonstop for over 5 hours yesterday so my initial thought is that it's working OK. Fingers crossed.

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I received my URay encoder today and was able to get a Windows 11 implementation working fairly well using .bat files instead of .sh and using an Onn TV 4K. A couple of things that I noticed: 1-if you don't have a station ID in the .m3u file, you don't get a TV guide (for example this text has to be on the line for the golf channel tvc-guide-stationid="14899") 2-the delimeter for entries in the .m3u file appears to be a space, except for the last item, which is the channel and requires a comma; 3-4 of the 14 channels from Fofer's .m3u file don't work for some reason - YTTV displays a message indicating the program is not available - these channels were NBC, Oxygen, MTV, Smithsonian - it's possible that I have something wrong in the .m3u file (perhaps a wrong station ID) 5-I get to observe the Google TV home screen for a bit while YTTV fires up and the channel tunes - but I am just using some basic .bat files for now and have yet to investigate techniques to speed up tuning

@echo off

set "myvar=%1"
set "myvar2=192.168.1.173"
if "%myvar%"=="" set /p "myvar=Enter Value: " || set "myvar=Default Value"
goto %myvar%



:155
rem Smithsonian 
adb -s %myvar2% shell am start -a android.intent.action.VIEW -d https://tv.youtube.com/watch/E7D0KRZIUso?onboard=1 -n com.google.android.youtube.tvunplugged/com.google.android.apps.youtube.tvunplugged.activity.MainActivity

exit

The part of the command that begins with "-n" is necessary for some devices. On a Nvidia shield it is not necessary. For the Onn TV and others it is.

A thorough wiki or sorts is needed. But for now we are all experimenting.

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My .m3u must have changed since then because all channels I’ve set up work fine. But you’re the second poster to report that, so I’ll probably just go back and edit any m3u text in my earlier posts with the current, correct info, so it doesn’t waste anyone else’s time.

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No worries - we appreciate you posting - it helps us to save time when attempting this

Thanks for that. I'm tracking your changes closely since my config is very close to yours. It's working for the most part but occasionally I get a misfire and wonder if I've missed a tweak that you have made to your scripts.

Update: I have all 14 channels working now - for the most part, I had to refresh the links by playing the channel on youtubetv in a browser, and I just completely forgot one entry in the tuning file - one issue though, I can't seem to get guide data for "E!" (which I don't really watch) -

here is the entry for E!

#EXTINF:-1 channel-id=E! Entertainment" channel-number="7003" tvc-guide-stationid="83739",E!
http://192.168.2.120:7654/play/tuner/e

It tunes properly - this entry does not work if I put a quote in front of the E!Entertainment" - any ideas on how to get the guide data?

Also, to get station ID's, I have been using the browser to connect to Channels DVR via (for example, for E!):
http://192.168.2.120:8089/tms/stations/entertainment
and then I pick the station ID that I think is the right one - is this the best method of doing this?

BTW, I am in the central time zone, so I watch the east coast channels

I can post my m3u and .bat files at some point in time when I figure out how to do that in this forum

Try this for E:

#EXTINF:-1 channel-id="e!" tvc-guide-stationid="61812",E!
http://10.0.250.69:7654/play/tuner/e!

One thing I noticed is the station id is the gracenote id. You can get a listing at this endpoint: http://:8089$IPOFCHANNELS/dvr/guide/stations

The only remaining hurdle I can see is getting surround sound to work. What's the limitation that is holding this back? Encoder? Android TV? Channels?

That works - thanks - I can answer the stereo sound only question - the limitation is that all of these IPTV Encoders only do stereo - I have yet to find one that would do surround sound

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Thanks for the info. If anyone comes across an encoder that supports surround please share. This IMO is the final piece to the puzzle.

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What about this device?

"5.1-ch surround sound from HDMI port, audio format PCM 2.0/5.1/7.1, Dolby 5.1, and DTS 5.1"

I think you can just manually map the channels to the correct networks in the Channels DVR web interface. That's what I have been doing at least, though I don't have a large list of channels to manage.

Well, I have only been actually playing with this for 12 hours even though I have been closely following this topic since it started. Currently using the URayCoder HEVC H.265 H.264 Live HDMI Video Encoder and an Amazon Firestick 4k Max. I am just testing this out with the 1 channel encoder in order to decide if I want to invest in the 4 channel encoder (I got 30 days to decide). And I am definitely switching off of the Fire device (getting a Chromecast tonight and an Onn tomorrow to compare).

Anyway, I have a proof of concept working with the Weather Channel app on the Firestick. So I want to link this topic to previous threads about the Weather Channel. So you don't even need to be a cable subscriber (the TWC app can use both provider credentials or a subscription).

I do not plan on using the TWC app in the end because I'll use Youtube TV's Weather Channel when I work on this further, but as a curtesy for anyone who is interested in the code I used (Windows system so using .bat files) here is my bmitune.bat.

set HOME=input keyevent KEYCODE_HOME; sleep 1
set OPENSEARCH=input keyevent 84; sleep 1
set SEARCHSELECT=input keyevent 20 20 20 66; sleep 1

rem TWC
if [%1] equ [twc] (
adb shell %OPENSEARCH%
adb shell input text "weather\ channel"
adb shell %SEARCHSELECT%
adb shell input keyevent 66
)

Again this is only a half day of trying things out (so please forgive the crude proof of concept) but did want to share with people who want the Weather Channel but don't want to go the Frndly method or use a provider other than Youtube TV that doesn't offer the Weather Channel. The app itself will work just fine.

Can you share your windows BAT files ? I have Scripts to record DRM from HDHR Prime units and also XFINITY Stream would like to set these up in Channels.