Scan stopping at 500 Channels?

When I scan my source, it's limiting me to only 500 channels?

Can this be adjusted?

I'm assuming you're using an M3U playlist as your source? It's documented that playlists are limited to only 500 channels.

Limitations:

I understand that the limit is 500 channels. There are some online playlists that have more than 500 channels and that limits the whole experience. To go around the limitation the playlist needs to be split into 500 channels sections manually and fed from my own web server which is a lot of work and the lists cannot be updated automatically as opposed to pointing to just a single online playlist.

Is there a reason for the 500 channels limit?

This is to protect performance. The system was not designed to support 10,000 channels. 500 channels is already beyond a rational amount of channels to begin with and certainly beyond the amount that any legal service provides.

This is to protect against people adding m3u playlists with thousands of channels that are almost 100% coming from illegal sources, which we do not support anyways.

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Thank you for your quick reply. I understand everything you are saying, but I am not talking about illegal content and I don't need 10000 channels. For example, I am using a playlist from the GitHub iptv-org and it says "Collection of publicly available IPTV channels from all over the world." That doesn't sound illegal to me. Unless GitHub is hosting illegal content now...

In that case, seems the first sentence addresses the question:

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This is not protecting performance in anyway. You just mentioned that there is no guide so no performance issues in that case. It's just a list of channels.

As to your point about the experience, there is reason why I am paying for Channels DVR. It is a beautiful app and it works great on all my platforms iOS, iPadOS, and AppleTV.

I cancelled my subscription to Channels DVR when my TV cable provider stopped serving TV market (Internet only now). I tried an antenna for OTA channels, didn't work well. When Channels added an ability to do Locast I subscribed back again. Now Locast is dead I don't have local channels. I use Pluto, Stirr and FrndlyTV (paid service) with Channels. The only thing is missing - local channels which I can get a few of them from a list on GitHub. The damn list like 1800 channels. I think it includes Pluto channels as well. I only need a few local channels. That is why the limit of 500 is not making me happy. Other IPTV apps don't have such limitations.

I removed my comment about "no EPG" once I discovered there actually is one, at least for the M3U I think you're referencing:

I understand what you're saying about the rest, but I also understand and respect the position of the developers, with regards to the 500+ limit. I appreciate the line they're walking on.

That being said, if all you want is a few channels from that list, why bother with the whole M3U in the first place? Why would you want to add 1800 channels only to exclude 1785 of them? Why not just paste the few channels you do want, into a Custom Channel source of your own personalized curation? You don't need to host your own M3U. Just paste in this text field:

CleanShot 2021-11-03 at 09.43.22

I'm offering this as a potential solution for this specific issue as you've described it, as its pretty easy and works well for me. Hopefully it works for you too.

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There are a million tools out there to prune M3U playlists. http://m3u4u.com/ for example.

This is the way.

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Thanks for the suggestion. I didn't know you could do that. It helps but just a little. You still need to go to the list find the channel you need copy and paste it. And the main problem is that the URLs get changed sometimes and you need to go back and download the list, find the channel, copy/paste, etc. Compare this to just pointing to the source URL, add a few channels to Favorites and done with that.

Again, I don't believe increasing the limit to say 2000 will cause any issues. But I understand the devs have set their minds to what is good and what is not. In this case I wish there would be like an Advanced or Dev mode where you could go and customize that number to your needs. Or the easiest way is put it under the Experimental section of the Server settings and make a note to something like "Setting the limit higher than 500 channels may affect your performance." It's that easy :wink:!

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If my memory is correct when the m3u feature was first added there was no limit, and several users completely froze their DVRs by adding tons of m3u sources with thousands of channels. So there’s a bit of history for you. It can actually impact performance so badly that the entire thing breaks. Guide data or not.

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Thank you for suggestion. It turned out this is great tool to manage long external playlists. But, of course it adds a few extra steps as oppose to just have an ability to manage it in Channels DVR. Thanks anyway!

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I am glad the limit is not 5(five) in order not to overheat the CPU. :innocent:

There is probably some O(n²) code (or worse) somewhere which I would encourage the devs to optimize.

I realize this is an old thread, but this reasoning has no real weight. Make it a check box and note "may effect performance". And if there is a performance issue, why tell customers to use other tools to prune or break it up, which effectively gives them what they asked anyways. If a customer can add 8 additions at 500 channels each, how does that not affect performance? If performance will be effected either way, who cares? And not all devices are created equal - so some devices will likely be fine; just note it.

While I am not condoning the use of illegal streams, the paying customers expect this to work without artificial limitations, not for someone to use policing excuses which have no merit or prevent them from still doing so with additional tools. Be devs, not mall cops.

I dislike the 500 channel limit. I understand the Devs reasoning. I would love to be able to use any m3u file I want. I think its a silly thing.

That being said. I respect the reasoning

  1. Potential performance problems. Which may/not be issue on all hardware. But they need to make sure all features work on all platforms they allow

  2. Legitimacy. I have yet to find a M3U thats over 500 stations and is legit. Pluto, ss, plex etc are all under 500. If you show me a legit, legal use case for over 500 channels i will become a huge advocate of this feature and harass thevdevs on your behalf.

Reminds me maddox response to supporting VOD contentbin M3U files

Respectfully, it's not up to anyone to verify anything for any reason. "Paying" customers requested it. If they can not provide such features, people will move to other platforms. If this gives them some form of warm fuzzies thinking they have a false more high ground...fine; it's their product and they can do what they like. But it does not stop illegal behavior and only cost them money in the long run for legitimate use cases - which may end up effecting the products long term viability.

There are thousands of IPTV streams from all over the world that are legal and legally collected. I myself process well over 500 and use a bash script to collect the steams, sort them into groups and update local xml and m3u files. None of this should be required and most people who use this product lack those skills. This is simply one group of people thinking they know what is best -- its elitist arrogance that would make even PRC leaders blush.

How does anyone have time to view over 500 Channels ? of IPTV.

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This question has been asked and answered. The topic has been discussed ad nauseam, and those dissatisfied and their comments have been noted.

The horse is dead; it no longer needs to be beaten.

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I think this is HUGE niche case here. Majority of their target customer base use OTA and TVE for simple home use. The simple fact is most folks that want 500+ IPTV channels are not simple home users.

The other thing is performance. I work for a software company and sometimes customers complain that we don't support over X clients. The simple fact is we don't because we cant guarantee the performance will be the same what we declare support for.

The other thing is that it is their product and if that's the direction they want to go, you either take it or leave it. You can either pay the subscription and deal or go find something that better fits your needs.

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