IPTV and SageTV

[tomdomm]

Need to update my SageTV to record IPTV. My Ceton InfiniTV 6 PCIe and M-card is failing me big time! My cable company “Cincinnati Bell” is taking weeks to repair or replace their cable card. My InfiniTV won’t copy Basic Cable that my TVs see no problem. Need to time shift some programs to preserve the peace.
Configuration is: Windows10 Pro latest build, Ceton InfiniTV PCIe (HW Ver. 6252 Firmware V15.1.13.152 PCI Dvr 1.0.24 NO Tuner Drvr installed), OpenDCT 5.32_x64 installed, Java 8 Update191 64bit, SageTV(x64)v9.2.2.. All fresh installs. Have HDHomeRun PRIME on pre-order, maybe divorced before shows up:
I have multiple FireTV(Amazon) and Android IPTV devices to play with. Used mostly to view HBOMax and Prime Video. Have tried the IPTV via VPN in past but cable had been more stable. Now looking at using for video recording / time shifting TV. The wife has not taken to Kodi playback, have HD300s and HD200 on TVs. Have a Roku on her TV.
I see online instructions for IPTV and EPG for FireTV. Anybody know which IPTV aps/api work with Schedule Direct?
See some instructions for OpenDCT using streaming sources, but do not understand all the language as I am not Linux literate.
I think I can load, maybe configure APIs on FireTV or Android box. Which one (API) has SageTV had best performance with? Willing if necessary to subscribe to IPTV service.
Do I need to load FFmpeg to stream IPTV into SageTV?
HDMI Encoders (BM1000, BM3000,…) do I need these? Where do I learn more about?
Can I tune /record IPTV through SageTV? Does OpenDCT assign <unique_id> for IPTV device? If so how do I point the app to the device?
I would like to know more before spending to much buying the wrong things. So any pointers or links appreciated!

[Carlton Bale]

Wow, lots of questions.

To my knowledge, there is no way for SageTV to record IPTV.

Based on your description, Channels DVR with TV Everywhere may be your best option. https://getchannels.com/tv-everywhere/

[tomdomm]

I do not think my provider offers sign on internet access. Cincinnati Bell Fioptics.
So first look says Channel Plus not an option. Thank You for the suggestion. I see that OpenDCT allows IP addressed devices to work as tuner cards. I'm thinking FireTV Stick/Cube or Android boxes to feed IPTV media to SageTV. Trying to figure out how to do it, with what apps and subscriptions before investing to many $$$. I see IPTV DVR boxes out there, but why buy another device if I can do it with what I already have. I know many IPTV providers seem to have short life spans. Do not need the ripped channels. Mostly watch the channels commonly offered in the basic cable subscriptions, ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS. Or looking for providers who have the proper licenses. I'll do most of that research. looking for the technical info here and suggestions for whats worked for others..

[egeller]

I agree that Channels DVR looks like the easier path to take. I hesitate to answer with my alternative, because it goes down a rathole with a lot of twists and curves. There are a lot of moving parts, and points of failure. However, I do have a setup for IPTV that includes SageTV that works, mostly.

My setup is with an IPTV source, with lots of channels, on a test instance of SageTV. I do not run it on the same instance as my Comcast source, because of the stability issues in IPTV. I do not want the one confusing the other.

From the source, I get a m3u file which defines the channels and the streams. I use the m3u file as input to a TVHeadend docker. I use TVHeadend, because of it's ability to aggregate sources, and define channels and load their EPGs. I do the set up, from stream to channel list, in TVHeadend (TVH). That includes the channel numbers. It is a lot of manual labor to map streams to channels, set up EPG mappings or correct the automated mappings that TVH assigns. This is because I also use Schedules Direct, WebgrabPlus, and Zap2it as EPG sources. TVH builds the guide data on a schedule, daily, and handles multiple sources well.

I can also view content in TVH and use it as a DVR there. I have also been able to watch live TV using TVH with Kodi as a front end. This is not something I have done in a while, because I did not stop there.

From TVHeadend, I output / export its EPG daily and use that as input to SageTV, as an XML source. With that, SageTV knows how to tune the streams, and the EPG for the channels. Using TVH allows me to have one source of guide data in SageTV.

I use OpenDCT to stream the input to SageTV, using the generic pipe setup. It requires a tuning executable as input, and I use FFMPEG as the executable to perform a clean-up and pipe it to stdout for OpenDCT. I was using the HTTP provider, but had stream issues with that. When a stream stopped and restarted, SageTV had the tendency to go into cardiac arrest.

Owing to the unstable nature of IPTV sources, there is another trick I found and implemented. I use another docker to process and stabilize the stream before it gets to TVHeadend. It is node-ffmpeg-mpegts-proxy. It requires that the m3u file be converted to a JSON file for its configuration. Within my internal network, I refer to the ffmpeg-mpegts-proxy server for the streams and not the raw stream, defined by the IPTV provider. The result is a more stable stream into TVH, as ffmpeg-mpegts-proxy seems to work magic on stream stops and starts. It is not perfect, but is better than it is without it.

I realize that this is a lot to think about. I will try to answer any questions you might have.

[pjpjpjpj]

I don't have any answers for you but I just wanted to say "hi" from another Cincinnatian. There's a couple of us here (no idea how many still active but there used to be at least two others I knew of).

[NetworkGuy]

Here are some interesting articles that may help you.

Plex IPTV Guide: 2020 Working method to watch IPTV on Plex

Channels DVR as PLEX tuner

xTeVe - M3U Proxy for Plex DVR and Emby Live TV

TellyTV - IPTV proxy for Plex Live written in Golang

If ChannelsDVR can be a PLEX tuner, we should be able to use it as a SAGETV tuner.

[nyplayer]

Originally Posted by NetworkGuy

Here are some interesting articles that may help you.

Plex IPTV Guide: 2020 Working method to watch IPTV on Plex

Channels DVR as PLEX tuner

xTeVe - M3U Proxy for Plex DVR and Emby Live TV

TellyTV - IPTV proxy for Plex Live written in Golang

If ChannelsDVR can be a PLEX tuner, we should be able to use it as a SAGETV tuner.

Channels DVR requires another APP like XTEVE or Telly as Plex does not support M3U.

[tomdomm]

Thank You for all the input. experimenting has shown that the WAF not ready yet for IPTV PVR.
More background on situation. I am in a black hole as far as my cable provider is concerned. Our corner of network infrastructure is cable not fiber optics, hence not in the current century. The techs tell me they do not support M-cards anymore. Yet all their boxes use them?
I'm using a FiveTV cube to access IPTV movies. rebuilding system to use newly purchased Hauuppauge WinTV-quadHD PCIe card. Hoping to get same channels my TVs are seeing from cable company.

[nyplayer]

Originally Posted by tomdomm

Thank You for all the input. experimenting has shown that the WAF not ready yet for IPTV PVR.
More background on situation. I am in a black hole as far as my cable provider is concerned. Our corner of network infrastructure is cable not fiber optics, hence not in the current century. The techs tell me they do not support M-cards anymore. Yet all their boxes use them?
I'm using a FiveTV cube to access IPTV movies. rebuilding system to use newly purchased Hauuppauge WinTV-quadHD PCIe card. Hoping to get same channels my TVs are seeing from cable company.

The only thing that come close to being able to watch and record some of your Cable Stations is ChannelsDVR using TVE ... you can try a 30 day trial.

https://getchannels.com/docs/channel...rywhere/about/

[tomdomm]

WOW a ton of learning to do. 1st glance won't have the Schedules Direct ECG to work from when choosing what to record.
Have to figure out the functional differences between Channels DVR and PlayOn. Fortunately have spare system to play with while experimenting / learning. Have ordered Hauppauge tuners and HDhomerun Prime (pre-ordered from Silicon Dust??). Not giving up on SageTV for house media center.
The Better-half is familiar and happy with Sage menus, teaching her a new system is not a chore I'm looking forward to
Time to bury myself in learning the future Just wish I was as talented as the responders to my enquiries.

[nyplayer]

Originally Posted by tomdomm

WOW a ton of learning to do. 1st glance won't have the Schedules Direct ECG to work from when choosing what to record.
Have to figure out the functional differences between Channels DVR and PlayOn. Fortunately have spare system to play with while experimenting / learning. Have ordered Hauppauge tuners and HDhomerun Prime (pre-ordered from Silicon Dust??). Not giving up on SageTV for house media center.
The Better-half is familiar and happy with Sage menus, teaching her a new system is not a chore I'm looking forward to
Time to bury myself in learning the future Just wish I was as talented as the responders to my enquiries.

Cghannels DVR has its' own EPG.

[btrcp2000]

Originally Posted by pjpjpjpj

I don't have any answers for you but I just wanted to say "hi" from another Cincinnatian. There's a couple of us here (no idea how many still active but there used to be at least two others I knew of).

Yep, I'm still here. Just chiming in to say I do believe that Cin Bell would work with Channels DVR. I just signed up for TV again to see, and they scheduled a "self install" for me to pick up a box, which I may not even do. In any case, I am able to log into the Fox Sports Go app and can view Fox Sports Cincinnati. If you try the Fioptics app, you have to be on a CB internet connection such as your own home wifi, but my understand of TV Everywhere is that the channels' individual apps work on any connection (hence the name)

At least I hope so, because Channels DVR is my likely future, as Sage is getting more and more labor intensive given how little we use it anymore. I don't think TVDB going down is a huge crisis for us, but it doesn't help.

[tomdomm]

Still working the kinks, but Channel DVR does work with Cincinnati Bell with a limited channel lineup. Have the Channels DVR server on a Win10 PRo 64bit box and TV Everywhere/Channels DVR installed on Fire TV Cube, Fire TV Stick, Android X96 Max box. It is not SageTv!!

Finally got a working cable card from CinciBell to work in a HDHomerun Prime. Fighting getting full channel ECG downloaded from Schedules Direct.
The cable card still shows a missing CVV signal in Ceton Infini TV 6 diagnostics. Unless someone tells me that’s the new normal, I’m guessing my Infini crd is Kaput. And I like having 6 vs 3 tuners.

Thank You for the help
And God Bless the Developers and SageTV enthusiast

I now have several OTA devices that do not work for me because my lot has to many trees. Even without leaves the signal is -40 dB or worse and I'm 25 miles from the towers.