PBS Feeds

[TV_Ken]

@babsonnexus

I was able to get PBS through a TVE option.

What option is that?

[babsonnexus]

That option from 2021 is no longer available. Do this instead:

PBS Feeds

@miibeez, after consulting with @tmm1 to verify its safety, I went ahead and installed your solution. Have to say, it appears to be working fine after a bit of tweaking, so thanks for that! For transparency and safety reasons, I'd still ask that you make the code public on the Git. For everyone else looking to get their PBS back, here's the command I recommend: docker run -d --restart unless-stopped --name VLC_Bridge_PBS -p [PORT YOU LIKE]:7777 registry.gitlab.com/miibeez/vlc-bridge-pbs:late…

[Ahwman]

Thanks so much, that did the trick!

[miibeez]

vlc no work drm

[mjitkop]

Thank you

[babsonnexus]

@babsonnexus

I think what @djw noted is the how. If I understand what I'm seeing correctly (and I might not, so don't quote me on this), I would say it is playing in something like a headless Chrome and then starts to parse the stream out as little .ts files.

A little follow-up from another thread:

ESPN+ & FOX Sports with Custom Channels via EPlusTV

Okay, looking at the PBS and UK containers I can see that there is a compiled executable in there that looks to play the original feed and rebroadcast it or something. It's using widevine library I'm guessing that's ripped out of ChromeOS (and why they aren't publishing their code for these two projects). That's just my guess. I'm sure @miibeez could clarify for us. The issue with this solution for E+ is that I'm guessing Google doesn't like rehosting the widevine.so files, and on top of that …

[djw]

Nonetheless, this seems to be a clever solution packaged (compartmentaized) in an externally developed container for those who can choose to make use of it. A template would be a great help.

I hope this idea continues to grow as a potential solution to sunsetting TVE resources.

[mtnbkr60]

Is there a way using the milbeez solution to have the channel numbers be the actual OTA numbers, instead of starting at 9000?

[Jay1987]

Specify start channel number

Starting channel number for a source

Another example is a custom 10 entries source with channels say 9001-9010 followed by other sources. When another channel is added it doesn't get 9011. This one is already taken. It gets 9734. Now you have to travel through a few hundred entries to find another channel from the list.

[jcharr1]

You can specify it with the channel-number tag in your m3u. Here's mine with the Baton Rouge station as an example.

#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:-1,channel-id="WLPBDT" channel-number="27" tvc-guide-stationid="24958" tvg-logo="https://image.pbs.org/stations/wlpb-color-single-brand-logo-YwxZbmQ.png" group-title="Local",WLPBDT
http://localhost:7777/pbs/watch/WLPB

Also, turns out you can manually specify your station too. Due to my IP address being in another state it was using the wrong station.

[mtnbkr60]

@jcharr1

#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:-1,channel-id="WLPBDT" channel-number="27" tvc-guide-stationid="24958" tvg-logo="https://image.pbs.org/stations/wlpb-color-single-brand-logo-YwxZbmQ.png" group-title="Local",WLPBDT
http://localhost:7777/pbs/watch/WLPB

How do I get the id numbers for the station and the logo?

[jcharr1]

@mtnbkr60

How do I get the id numbers for the station and the logo?

They're optional. Just match it to the OTA station like you would any other channel in the web ui. It'll pull them for you. I just changed my logo because it was pulling the generic PBS logo instead of the station logo. To find the image link, go to https://www.pbs.org and choose your station. The logo should appear in the upper right. Right click on the logo and copy the image url (in Safari Copy Image Address). Paste it into your m3u and delete ?resize= and everything that comes after it. Then make sure Prefer channel logos from M3U is selected in your custom channel settings. Not sure if that's on by default or not.

[mtnbkr60]

Im doing something wrong. I entered this.
#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:-1 channel-id="WNPT" channel-number=“8”,WNPT
http://localhost:7777/pbs/watch/WNPT
#EXTINF:-1 channel-id="WCTE channel-number=“22”,WCTE
http://localhost:7777/pbs/watch/WCTE
#EXTINF:-1 channel-id="WKYU channel-number=“24”,WKYU
http://localhost:7777/pbs/watch/WKYU

but I get this, only the first station takes the correct channel number

[slampman]

Check your quotes.

[jcharr1]

You're missing a " between the channel ids and the channel numbers for the second 2.

[mtnbkr60]

Success!!! Thank you

[raggededge]

Stupid question, but where is the m3u file located?

[jcharr1]

You don't have to have a file. Just choose Text as the Source for your custom channels entry and put the m3u contents directly in the box there.

Personally, I like to use files so I can use a text editor with them and so I can back them up. I just made an m3u folder inside my DVR folder, and put them in there, but you can put them anywhere as long as Channels can access it locally. Then in my custom channels settings I can put the path to the file I created, like /volume1/NAS/DVR/m3u/wlpb.m3u on my Synology NAS for my PBS station. But all of that is completely optional.

[GTFan]

So dumb question because I saw what looked like multiple answers, are these streams recordable or not?

[jcharr1]

With @miibeez’s docker container yes, it’s recordable.