Sat>IP support

[alex_m]

Hi,

I do use Sat>IP with Channels, channels by far is the best interface with all the familiar features and a good few more. I was worried about de-interlacing and thankfully the developers have great support, for me it looks better than any set top box I've ever used.

Regarding channel listings, I tried with the one you mentioned however I had issues with channels not working so I spent far too much time gathering my own data and making my own channel listings and matching the format I found from @imx (thank you!) m3u I found on GitHub:

iMiMx/Sat-IP-UK-Freesat-M3U/blob/main/channels-satip.m3u

I found the channels and PIDs required on https://en.kingofsat.net
I did use the satip:// method and it's working very well for me.

[imx]

Yep - using channels for almost 3 years now with Sat>IP, the box sits in the loft and ‘does its thing’. Very few issues generally, hence the lack of activity from me here

I’m still using TVHeadEnd (which I’ve been using for 5 years probably, with OSMC front ends before Channels) as the Sat>IP interface, then export the m3u from there into channels. TVHeadEnd gives me a number of advantages, easy channel scanning being one.

[alex_m]

I would love to use TV headend. Correct me if I’ve got the wrong idea of the software - I got the impression it could be the server for multiple SAT>IP interfaces (say if I had more than one tuner unit?) and it would serve to the client, plus the ability to scan and export an m3u quickly - is this right @imx ?

I’ve found the software very powerful but in my limited time I had to setup I wasn't able to work it out to do the above - did you have a play or have any good references you’d suggest?

[imx]

@alex_m

I got the impression it could be the server for multiple SAT>IP interfaces (say if I had more than one tuner unit?)

TVHeadend can aggregate multiple sources, yes. You can map the different sources/inputs to the same 'physical' channel, then set a priority. All of this is transparent to Channels, because it's just reading the m3u - the tuner allocation, sharing etc is controlled in TVHeadend.

My Sat>IP box exposes 8 tuners, by connecting 4 cables to the dish it can run a 'regular' 4-cable Quad LNB as a Quattro LNB - so it can record from 8 different muxes at once. TVheadend will also do Mux sharing, so for example BBC 1 and BBC 2 are on the same mux so this only uses 1 tuner to record/play/view both of these channels at once.

You cadd the Freesat/Astra 'Network'

Assign the Network to one/all of the tuners in my first screenshot:

The muxes/services should then populate, after the scan completes.

To get a basic channel setup, you can use the 'Bouquet' option - enabling the required Bouquet, all the Freesat bouquets start with 'England HD: xxxxx' the 'BSkyB' are paid-for-sky. The correct regional channels and a (reasonably full?) channel list should be generated.

.... to be honest I then disabled at least 50% of the various channels, changed the numbering/ordering to make more sense. Along with adding in Channel 4HD, which is not (still?) available on actual Freesat.

Then add the TVHeadend m3u export to Channels:

http://x.x.x.x:9981/playlist/channels.m3u

Although you do need to create a '*' access entry, to disable authentication in TVheadend. I don't consider this to be an issue, as everything runs in a dedicated Media VLAN, but you can restrict this by IP/subnet anyway if you wish.

...but it gives you a start anyway.

[alex_m]

Thank you, that’s amazing I will give this a go.

Which tuner do you use?

[imx]

One of these:

https://www.megasat.tv/en/produkt/sat-ip-server-3/?lang=en

I think they are EoL, I picked up a spare some years ago on eBay. Although someone else (perhaps on this thread?) had one that they had issues with, but mine has been rock solid.

Any issues, I think, usually come down to the network and in some cases the NIC on the TVH/Channels server, as it's UDP by default.

On an old box I used to run it all on, I had dropped packets when the CPU scaled

[tdw197]

That’s great - even better as I have already fully setup tvheadend and have it in a sleeping docker. I’ve used it for years with kodi but it never was truly accepted by the family - channels is.

Will spin it back up and add the URL into channels

[alex_m]

Let us know how you get on

[tdw197]

Blimey - that was easy!!

Took about a minute to get setup, tuning is fantastically quick and rock solid. Tvheadend is definitely the way forward. Needs to work on my channel list (will probably merge my hdhomerun in there too). But this is great!

Thanks to @imx for the amazingly useful reply.

[imx]

What TVH 'does' I've always thought it 'does it' fantastically well - the issue was always the frontend and as you pointed out family acceptance of the options (Kodi, OSMC, etc) was always pretty low.

With all the various benefits TVH brings, for me at least and especially for Sat>IP (tuning speed, Mux sharing, channel scanning, etc, etc) I don't see the need to remove/replace it. When combining it with Channels for the frontend, recording, EPG etc, I don't think there is a better combination

[alex_m]

Thanks for your instructions, they were great!

Only issue I'm having is when using the http://x.x.x.x:9981/playlist/channels.m3u URL in Channels the channel numbers I assigned in TVHeadend don't seem to pass through, is the a trick you know to get that working?

[tdw197]

See second item in options within channels:

[alex_m]

Yep, that is certainly enabled. (Prefer channel numbers on m3u).

I’ve opened the m3u hosted by tvhesdend and it doesn’t seem to have any channel numbers on the playlist. Yours obviously does?

[tdw197]

Yes its in the channel, example:

#EXTINF:-1 logo="http://192.168.0.109:9981/imagecache/379" tvg-id="6c49b3a7f06afadafdb6cacd5c5f2e52" tvg-chno="101",BBC ONE HD
http://192.168.0.109:9981/stream/channelid/666061164?profile=pass

I assume all your services are mapped to channels using a bouquet?

[alex_m]

Not sure about the bouquet, I think I started with it by manually mapped others. Mine looks like this:

#EXTINF:-1 tvg-id="342f20a7bf8cc5375ced45102c8dbad7",BBC One HD
http://192.168.1.23:9981/stream/channelid/656420660?ticket=ED623D74B239271B7967D35C283B8BF9F835211D&profile=pass

Is this because I seem to have multiple services for one BBC One?

EDIT: added screenshot

[tdw197]

I also have multiple services per channel. Seems to me you are missing this in your channel:

@tdw197

" tvg-chno="101"

[alex_m]

Yes, I know, as per my OP, how do I get this to pass through to the playlist?

[tdw197]

I did not do anything special, its possible a bug in tvh - which version are you on? I'm on

HTS Tvheadend 4.3-2025~gfbc94aee8

[alex_m]

Hmm... 4.2.8 - I was lazy and used snapd to install, that maybe why it's slightly older.

[tdw197]

I was lazier - its all on Unraid