Tvheadend

Tvheadend only supports MPEG-TS streams as IPTV sources. The link you are attempting to setup as an IPTV source is not an MPEG-TS stream, and therefore Tvheadend cannot add it as a service.

Thank you Robert.. An Chance to do it with a workarround with my Setup?

It's possible, but requires a workaround or two, and depends upon your setup and what other packages are installed, and how the build you are running of Tvheadend was compiled.

In general, it equates to this:

First, you need to have ffmpeg (or similar software) installed on your Tvheadend server. Also, Tvheadend needs to be compiled with pipe/spawn input support. (Chances are both are true.)

Next you need to create a separate M3U playlist for your VOD streams. Your playlist should be formatted like:

#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:-1 tvh-chnum="NUMBER",NAME
pipe://FULL_PATH_TO_FFMPEG OPTIONS -re -i "URL TO VOD STREAM" -c copy -f mpegts MPEGTS_OPTIONS pipe:1

You then repeat the last 2 lines for each VOD stream, replacing the options in all caps with the relevant information. For example:
NUMBER – This is the channel number you want Tvheadend to assign this stream by default
NAME – This is the name that will be assigned to the Service and Channel by default
FULL_PATH_TO_FFMPEG – This is the full path to the ffmpeg program, usually /usr/bin/ffmpeg
OPTIONS – General options for ffmpeg, such as logging level. (Personally, I've used -log fatal -v quiet -hide_banner -nostats in the past. Check ffmpeg's for the full list of options.)
URL TO VOD STREAM – This is pretty self-explanatory
MPEGTS_OPTIONS – These are additional options to modify how Tvheadend interprets or reads the stream. Some common options are -flags +global_header -metadata provider_name="Stream's Provider Name" -metadata service_name="Service name for Tvheadend UI"

So your M3U could end up looking like:

#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:-1 tvh-chnum="501",Awesome VOD Movie 1
pipe:///usr/bin/ffmpeg -log fatal -hide_banner -re -i "http://vod.provider.com/movies/1234.mp4 -c copy -f mpegts -flags +global_header -metadata provider_name="VOD Provider" -metadata service_name="VOD1" pipe:1
#EXTINF:-1 tvh-chnum="502",Awesome VOD Movie 2
pipe:///usr/bin/ffmpeg -log fatal -hide_banner -re -i "http://vod.provider.com/movies/5678.mp4 -c copy -f mpegts -flags +global_header -metadata provider_name="VOD Provider" -metadata service_name="VOD2" pipe:1

After you've created your new M3U, you need to create a new Automatic IPTV network in Tvheadend. Point it to the URI of your M3U (either hosted somewhere, or on your filesystem referenced with a file:// protocol scheme), and once you scan the muxes, you should see new services representing your new VOD movies.

Thank you for the detailed explanation!!
i have installed it from the repo and did not compile it on my own..
where can i check if pipe/spawn input support is enabled?

I guess there is a way to do the creation of the "new" m3u scriptbased. because of course this library is updated every day. without a script it is not possible to handle it

is there a way to just export several channel tags?
Since my provider have the movies in different channel tags.

so my thought is to export the 2 desired the channel tags. run the script and import this new m3u to the tvheadend server..

is this possible?

ün mentex wrote:

Thank you for the detailed explanation!!
i have installed it from the repo and did not compile it on my own..
where can i check if pipe/spawn input support is enabled?

I guess there is a way to do the creation of the "new" m3u scriptbased. because of course this library is updated every day. without a script it is not possible to handle it

is there a way to just export several channel tags?
Since my provider have the movies in different channel tags.

so my thought is to export the 2 desired the channel tags. run the script and import this new m3u to the tvheadend server..

is this possible?

Of course you could script the creation of the m3u, but it'll cause you issues. Tvheadend scans M3Us every 24 hours (or less) to check for changes. If a link has changed, it will create a new mux to match the new link, and delete the services from any links that changed. This means that you'll have to manually rescan your network for services everyday, and also then map the new/changed services to channels.

(In general, Tvheadend does not deal well with dynamic sources. It's best when you have a stable/static configuration.)

this sounds like i will now work very good.
I have another idea, maybe this could work..

is it possible to export certain channel tag per script?
e.g. all the german vod are in the channel tag "german video". so if that would be possible, i could export this channel tag with the url to the rpi and acitve the pvr iptv simple client an point that to the local m3u.

ok.. I start working on it..
unfotunately not working..
syslog says:

Feb 11 01:19:45 srv01 tvheadend²⁵¹⁶⁵: spawn: Executing "/usr/bin/ffmpeg"
Feb 11 01:19:45 srv01 tvheadend²⁵¹⁶⁵: spawn: Unrecognized option 'log'.
Feb 11 01:19:45 srv01 tvheadend²⁵¹⁶⁵: spawn: Error splitting the argument list: Option not found
Feb 11 01:19:45 srv01 tvheadend²⁵¹⁶⁵: iptv: stdin pipe unexpectedly closed: No data

Ah, the option is -loglevel. My mistake, sorry. Check ffmpeg's documentation for the proper listing of options and their use.

Postings and howtos online should be a guide and basis for your own work, not something to copy-and-paste blindly. Software often changes, and posted howtos are often out of date.

this is much to hard..
I now build a script which downloads the mp3.
cut of all the entries which are not used for VOD and copied it to my rpi.

there are enabled simple iptv addon an point to that m3u.
here I had no pause, rewind, ff ..
but that is ok for now..

is there any chance that further releases will have that feature?

Robert Cameron wrote:

It's possible, but requires a workaround or two, and depends upon your setup and what other packages are installed, and how the build you are running of Tvheadend was compiled.

In general, it equates to this:

First, you need to have ffmpeg (or similar software) installed on your Tvheadend server. Also, Tvheadend needs to be compiled with pipe/spawn input support. (Chances are both are true.)

Next you need to create a separate M3U playlist for your VOD streams. Your playlist should be formatted like:
[...]

You then repeat the last 2 lines for each VOD stream, replacing the options in all caps with the relevant information. For example:
NUMBER – This is the channel number you want Tvheadend to assign this stream by default
NAME – This is the name that will be assigned to the Service and Channel by default
FULL_PATH_TO_FFMPEG – This is the full path to the ffmpeg program, usually /usr/bin/ffmpeg
OPTIONS – General options for ffmpeg, such as logging level. (Personally, I've used -log fatal -v quiet -hide_banner -nostats in the past. Check ffmpeg's for the full list of options.)
URL TO VOD STREAM – This is pretty self-explanatory
MPEGTS_OPTIONS – These are additional options to modify how Tvheadend interprets or reads the stream. Some common options are -flags +global_header -metadata provider_name="Stream's Provider Name" -metadata service_name="Service name for Tvheadend UI"

So your M3U could end up looking like:
[...]

After you've created your new M3U, you need to create a new Automatic IPTV network in Tvheadend. Point it to the URI of your M3U (either hosted somewhere, or on your filesystem referenced with a file:// protocol scheme), and once you scan the muxes, you should see new services representing your new VOD movies.

Thank you very much for your explanation on how to use this for "VOD", it works very well!

Only small updates from your original example so others can copy and paste:

I use this method for local files, I use "file:///home/mydir/myvideo.mp4" instead of "http://vod.provider.com/movies/1234.mp4" and remember that you need to scan your transponder. Pause works in Kodi this way too, even if you don´t have it setup like that.

If you have file locally, why not just add it to the Kodi library instead of messing around with TVH?

Hiro Protagonist wrote:

If you have file locally, why not just add it to the Kodi library instead of messing around with TVH?

To use it remote on the go on Android.

Digi Hoe wrote:

Hiro Protagonist wrote:

If you have file locally, why not just add it to the Kodi library instead of messing around with TVH?

To use it remote on the go on Android.

vpn can do same.