Am I the only one who thinks it’s weird to protect “public” television with DRM? Doesn’t sound that public to me. If they ever decide to cut the budget, I have a suggestion.
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I don't think Apple would let them stream Peanuts/Snoopy/Charlie Brown w/o DRM.
I used to work at a PBS affiliate. No offense, but broadcast rights are contractually important, so that producers and distributors can be paid a fair amount, just like in commercial TV.
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I get it. But the end result isn’t actually “public”. Everyone has a right to preserve their IP but that restricts access and defeats the purpose of public television. Probably why freer access like YouTube is kicking PBSs ass.
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I added the PBS paths you listed, and even though 9 is not as bountiful as 200, I was pleased to immediately have the guide and channels for PBS stations in 9 other cities (screenshot). I began adding shows to my schedule, but ran into trouble. The shows appeared to be scheduled (see screenshot), but all failed to record, and shows a peculiar error message which is on another screenshot. I wonder what I may have done incorrectly. Any ideas are appreciated.
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They're still geo-restricted as they always have been.
Can you stream all those stations from the PBS website, no, only your local station.
PBS Live Streaming FAQ and Troubleshooting : PBS Help?
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Just curious, are you able to DVR any of the 9 PBS stations?
Actually, I have tried to record any of the programs. I'll do a test record and report back the results.
Was unable to record any of the PBS channels. Got a 403 error code.
I'm able to get PBS through this feed. Not sure if it might work for you
#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:-1, channel-id="KUONDT" channel-number="1", PBS
https://kuondt.lls.pbs.org/out/v1/91d8b5ffc5c1453c8a621508a07749a6/index.m3u8
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Nebraska Public Media (KUON) is the last one from the original list that is still working. But that will change soon enough, so without a wholesale solution to get around DRM it is best to move on.
#EXTINF:-1 channel-id="pbs-KUON" tvg-id="KUON" tvg-logo="https://image.pbs.org/stations/kuon-color-single-brand-logo-XlBmNqx.png",Nebraska Public Media
https://kuondt.lls.pbs.org/out/v1/91d8b5ffc5c1453c8a621508a07749a6/index.m3u8
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I can't imagine contributing to them after knowing that they did this.
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Gotta admit that I'm very curious to try this, but I'm very nervous that your code base is private and can't be reviewed.
So, risk from a random person who in the past 6 weeks has registered new accounts here, Emby, Reddit, and elsewhere and is opening up threads that haven't been touched in a year+ to push this solution? Too high for my tastes.
@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:latest
Once it starts up, you should be able to go to that port on your localhost or server name and see something like this:
Copy the playlist and create a new "Custom Channels" in Channels with these settings:
CRITICAL: Be sure to change the Stream Format to MPEG-TS!
Now, edit the lineup and map the stations by searching under "All Lineups":
To be clear: you will only get the PBS stations that you can receive in your local market based upon IP address geo-fencing. I live in the middle of two markets and hence get the option of having multiple choices.
Once the guide downloads, you'll be all set!
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This is working for me! Also, really appreciate you vetting the source and putting in the docker command for us newbies. I had to play around with it a bit but got xxxx:7777 working. This is the third docker container I'm using for Channels.
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Will this work if my DVR is running on a Mac?
When @babsonnexus @dschaper and others expressed concerns a few weeks ago, I set up a firewalled sandbox with a few of these containers. I ran it for a couple days with logging of all the dns queries, tcp/udp connections, and graphed CPU/memory usage. We suspected they might be mining bitcoin or something, but it looks legitimate.
I also made it clear to @miibeez that we would ban and delete all posts unless they were more transparent and published source code. I believe all the recent dockers have included sources and others on the forums have vetted the code.
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I set up the docker for pbs and it seems to work well enough so far.
When it is streaming, the vlc-bridge consumes about 5% of my little cpu.
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WOW This is amazing. I now get three PBS stations. Better picture than I was getting OTA being on the fringe of the stations signals. How does this get around the PBS walled garden?