Feature Request. Add ability to toggle selection for all channels

[jamessouth 1]

I currently use a channel list generated via URL from a 3rd party. There's over 6000 channels in this thing and unfortunately no way to filter them at the source. Parsing the episode guide for this many channels is obviously a costly enterprise and when the server is doing so this negatively affects performance making the server, at times unusable. 

I know I can individually disable channels in the current administration screen but for that many channels it's a very tedious and time consuming process. I'd love to be able to uncheck all of them in a single operation and then check individual channels as I see fit. 

Would it be possible to add a toggle-all selector for lists?

[Luke 37248]

Hi, yes this is something that needs to be improved. Thanks for the feedback.

[Carlo 4331]

I can tell you a far easier method.  Setup an account at https://m3u4u.com/ which is free.  What you do is add your m3u URL to their system and import it.
Then you use their tools to mass remove channels you don't want.  You can reorder the channels you keep. You can create groups (will be imported by Emby as tags) and move your remaining channels into those groups such as News, Sports, Entertainment, Kids, etc.  You'll get the hang of it.

They give you a link to pull the adjusted m3u file back. So what happens is you set the import time they should pull your m3u every day. Then in Emby you setup your tuner with their m3u link about 30 minutes later.  So 2am to import for them and 2:30 am for you to pull it.  Now Emby gets a nice clean list of channels that you have organized by groups/tags.  This will load a lot faster and make searches for things quite faster as well.

You can adjust what time Emby imports your TV info from the Schedule Task menu.

One word of caution.  Do not keep pulling your m3u file from their system to look at it.  They will complain and/or ban you for that.  Get it exactly how you think it should be before you pull it.  If it's not correct or you want to make and adjustment go ahead but wait 30 minutes to an hour before you pull it down again.  A little patience is needed with this during your initial setup.

Once you're done, you will wonder how you ever handled TV previously.

[EODCrafter 180]

On 12/12/2021 at 8:55 AM, jamessouth said:

I currently use a channel list generated via URL from a 3rd party. There's over 6000 channels in this thing and unfortunately no way to filter them at the source. Parsing the episode guide for this many channels is obviously a costly enterprise and when the server is doing so this negatively affects performance making the server, at times unusable. 

I know I can individually disable channels in the current administration screen but for that many channels it's a very tedious and time consuming process. I'd love to be able to uncheck all of them in a single operation and then check individual channels as I see fit. 

Would it be possible to add a toggle-all selector for lists?

There's also some scripts to assist if you want to explore. Let me know, I'll upload a example. (They use python or Bash)

Edited December 22, 2021 by EODCrafter

[Carlo 4331]

What do the scripts do @EODCrafter?  strm related?

[EODCrafter 180]

Download the m3u and allow you to select groups by group title.

[jamessouth 1]

On 12/16/2021 at 4:42 AM, cayars said:

I can tell you a far easier method.  Setup an account at https://m3u4u.com/ which is free.  What you do is add your m3u URL to their system and import it.
Then you use their tools to mass remove channels you don't want.  You can reorder the channels you keep. You can create groups (will be imported by Emby as tags) and move your remaining channels into those groups such as News, Sports, Entertainment, Kids, etc.  You'll get the hang of it.

They give you a link to pull the adjusted m3u file back. So what happens is you set the import time they should pull your m3u every day. Then in Emby you setup your tuner with their m3u link about 30 minutes later.  So 2am to import for them and 2:30 am for you to pull it.  Now Emby gets a nice clean list of channels that you have organized by groups/tags.  This will load a lot faster and make searches for things quite faster as well.

You can adjust what time Emby imports your TV info from the Schedule Task menu.

One word of caution.  Do not keep pulling your m3u file from their system to look at it.  They will complain and/or ban you for that.  Get it exactly how you think it should be before you pull it.  If it's not correct or you want to make and adjustment go ahead but wait 30 minutes to an hour before you pull it down again.  A little patience is needed with this during your initial setup.

Once you're done, you will wonder how you ever handled TV previously.

I must be missing something because can't see any evidence of the ability to mass remove channels in M3u4u nor any reference to the ability to do so in their wiki. 

[EODCrafter 180]

Just Add the groups you want......

#!/bin/sh
#M3U Grab
cd ~/Documents/M3U/
#1)m3u login and download
wget "http://my.tv/get.php?username=xxxxx@gmail.com&password=xxxxxx&type=m3u_plus&output=ts" -O iptv_download.m3u
#2)grabbing specific catagories by "Group-Title"
for i in "Sports" "News" "Movies" "General Streams" "Documentaries" "Kids" "S" "Music" "NCAAF" "NFL" "RADIO" "VOD - Action" "VOD - Animation" "VOD -  BOX SET" "VOD - Comedy" "VOD - Drama + Crime" "VOD - Family" "VOD - Horror" "VOD - KIDS TV" "VOD - Fantasy - SciFi" "VOD - Superheroes" "VOD - Western" "Music"
#3)creating the new m3u
do
<iptv_download.m3u grep --no-group-separator -A1 'group-title="'"$i"\" >"$i.m3u"
sed -i '1i #EXTM3U' "$i.m3u"
done

Typical m3u entry looks like this....

#EXTINF:-1 tvg-id="nflnet.us" tvg-name="NFL Network" tvg-logo="https://imgx.fubo.tv/station_logos/nfl_network_c.png" group-title="NFL FOOTBALL", NFL Network
http://192.168.1.8:9003/live/test/test/1059329.ts

 

Edited December 23, 2021 by EODCrafter

[Carlo 4331]

3 hours ago, jamessouth said:

I must be missing something because can't see any evidence of the ability to mass remove channels in M3u4u nor any reference to the ability to do so in their wiki. 

Yes, your missing it.

Left side is group management, right side is channel management for group selected.  You can do all kinds of things from bulk removal, bulk renaming, sorting, editing, changing graphics, adding lineups they may have that you don't, etc.

The docs might be old, don't know, but the UI they have is quite easy to use and allows you to do things quickly.  You can end up with a perfect m3u file exactly how you want it.
It's something best tried vs reading about it.  It will take an hour or two of trying things to fully make sense but then it becomes a powerful tool.

[jamessouth 1]

I must have been tripping last night or something. Found the options immediately this morning. That tooling is AWESOME! Thanks for the suggestion.

[Carlo 4331]

Good trip at least? LOL

Yea, it's quite simple to use with powerful results.  One of the things I really like is creating your own Groups like News, Kids, Premium, Local, Sports, etc and move the channels into your own groups.

Emby imports the groups as tags and allows you to filter or show only the tags/groups you want to see.  This is useful when you don't want to see Reality TV or Kids channels, Wife doesn't want to see Kids or Sports channels and the kids nothing but their Kids channels.  Each person can setup the guide their own way with groups and sorting.
Not sure if this is available in all Emby client apps yet but it's on most.

[EODCrafter 180]

4 hours ago, cayars said:

Good trip at least? LOL

Yea, it's quite simple to use with powerful results.  One of the things I really like is creating your own Groups like News, Kids, Premium, Local, Sports, etc and move the channels into your own groups.

Emby imports the groups as tags and allows you to filter or show only the tags/groups you want to see.  This is useful when you don't want to see Reality TV or Kids channels, Wife doesn't want to see Kids or Sports channels and the kids nothing but their Kids channels.  Each person can setup the guide their own way with groups and sorting.
Not sure if this is available in all Emby client apps yet but it's on most.

Can you answer one simple question though? What's in it for them? I've always been afraid they "use" your playlist since you give them your login information.

Even my Malwarebytes gives me a stern warning when going to that site. I've also read some IPTV Providers will ban you for using them.

Edited December 24, 2021 by EODCrafter

[Carlo 4331]

I had built a stream relay that I use for something else. When I saw their site I too wondered what the catch was and figured I'd setup a little honey trap with an m3u file using streams that ran through my system that was already in place.

Logs always clean of IPs except the ones I expect to be there.  That of course proves nothing but I've not had any issues with any of the services I've ran through them either. What I mean by that is if they were doing something like reselling your streams it would be cause problems when you're over the limit and get cutoff, etc.

I think they do it because they needed that for themselves and just made it available to others with a donation.

I know some providers do not like them and probably for good reason.  They can convert the "unspoken" format that has become popular back to m3u/xml files which makes them ok in my book.

But like anything else when you put a bit of trust in someone you don't know, keep an eye on things and stop using them and immediately change your provider password if something is wrong.  Personally, for the value they add to my m3us vs what I'd actually be out if something was wrong is a no brainer for me.

[EODCrafter 180]

On 12/23/2021 at 11:26 AM, cayars said:

Yes, your missing it.

Left side is group management, right side is channel management for group selected.  You can do all kinds of things from bulk removal, bulk renaming, sorting, editing, changing graphics, adding lineups they may have that you don't, etc.

The docs might be old, don't know, but the UI they have is quite easy to use and allows you to do things quickly.  You can end up with a perfect m3u file exactly how you want it.
It's something best tried vs reading about it.  It will take an hour or two of trying things to fully make sense but then it becomes a powerful tool.

@shdwkeeper