Multiple Locast accounts

Would like the ability to add multiple locast accounts. Is this possible @tmm1?

Since Locast is geo-restricted and based upon your broadcast market area, what purpose would multiple Locast accounts serve?

If you bounce between locations

I guess I'm not seeing the real use case here. If that's the case, then the only real way around that is to delete and re-add the Locast account. This would be necessary because it would then need to re-check your geolocation in order to serve you the proper feeds.

I would just like to add multiple should be easy for devs to do

Install the Channels DVR on multiple computers.

The Locast lineup is not based on account, it's based on location. If you added two accounts they would get the same channels.

The DVR is set up to connect to only one Locast account and it's not something that's easy to change.

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ok just thought I would ask

I think what is being said is that if your DVR 'bounces' between locations, your channel lineup will change if you rescan.

Iā€™m getting a locast stream limit message adding a second account should solve that, any possible way to make this happen?

Since Locast accounts are generally tied to your location, I can't really see a reason to support multiple accounts. (This thinking being: your DVR server is stationary, its location is used for geolocation for Locast, therefore multiple accounts would be superfluous.)

My personal feeling about this: Locast is a non-profit whose goal is to ensure that people cannot easily receive their OTA broadcasts because of geographic issues can do so over the internet. Their resources are limited, and overly taxing them so you can abuse their service is a bit disingenuous.

Also consider this: if you are in an area that can receive the same stations that Locast is rebroadcasting, then it is much moreso in your interest to use an antenna as Locast's quality is barely par ... and subpar to OTA.

he literally said he wanted to use a second account to get around their stream limit. that's not abusing anything, it's paying extra for extra connections.

exactly, sometimes I'm recording a show and i have my kids watching on the other TVs in the house and i get the stream limit message, I'm able log in in the locast app with my second account and get an additional stream but I'm not able to do it with channels since I'm restricted to the one account. I'm not sure how difficult it would be to allow that but it would be nice if it can be done.

There are possible workarounds. You can use locast2plex to create a virtual HDHomeRun device on your network for your second Locast account.

It's not exactly the same as having multiple Locast accounts in Channels via first-party support, but it will do exactly as you want. Put it after your Locast source in your DVR and clients, and it ought to handle stream limit failover as you are requesting.

(Caveat: I have not used this software. I cannot vouch for its stability. On the SD forums it was discounted because it does not offer a valid DeviceID, and therefore cannot get guide info from SD. However, since Channels does not rely upon an arbitrary DeviceID, I imagine it ought to work.)

Ok. Thanks I will give it a try..

How many streams are you using that is causing you to hit a limit?

based on my conversations with locast support, their limit is 4 concurrent. i am pretty sure i've gone over that in the past though, so unless something has changed recently they are pretty loose with enforcing it.

@tmm1 They allow 4 streams, I've run into this as well. Even someone's switching channels too fast can cause me to hit the limit.

I would love it if I was able to add another account. Between sharing my server with family members I hit the limit often. +1 from me

for the record, the fork of locast2plex that turns it into a fake HDHR works really well for this except for the minor problem that it causes the stream to skip all over the place when you use it to feed channels as a source. i sent an e-mail to the devs hoping they can help make whatever change is necessary to ffmpeg to correctly feed this into channels...but if any assistance can be provided here, have at it.

here's a link to the fake hdhr fork:

anyone have any ideas on this? this really resolves a bunch of potential issues for some of us (allows more than one locast account, allows you to use OTA channel numbers for locast)...but it's pretty much unusable right now until i figure out why it's causing the stream to skip all over the place.

all it does (or is supposed to do, anyway) is use ffmpeg to take the locast stream and remux it to mpeg-ts, which is what the HDHR outputs...but it's clearly doing something wrong and i haven't yet been able to figure out what it is.