Automap Emby LiveTV Guide Data to custom .M3U

[dberg 6]

I have a custom .m3u I use as my LiveTV source which consists of channels in the DirecTV national lineup (USA-DITV-X).  The channels in this playlist are organized in an order that is different from DirecTV's lineup and I'm looking for a way to automap these channels in Emby when I apply a Guide Data Source to them.  Currently, if I apply the DirecTV Guide Data Source to my custom .m3u, it auto populates EPG data based on the channel order from DirecTV which gives me a ton of incorrect channels in the Guide.   

The only way I can get it to work is if I don't map my playlist under Guide Source Data and I manually configure the guide & channel in Emby channel manager for every entry in the playlist.  This is a very long and tedious process and I'm concerned if I need to change hosting providers or if something happens to my Emby instance and I'm unable to restore from backup I'll need to go through this entire manual channel config process again.

TVHeadend manages this with the tvg-id field.  I set the SchedulesDirect ID for every entry in my .m3u and it maps the correct guide data to each custom channel. 

#EXTINF:-1 tvh-chnum="100" tvg-id="I58646.json.schedulesdirect.org" group-title="News",CNN
http://tvprovider/user/pass/channel1

#EXTINF:-1 tvh-chnum="101" tvg-id="I64241.json.schedulesdirect.org" group-title="News",MSNBC
http://tvprovider/user/pass/channel2

#EXTINF:-1 tvh-chnum="102" tvg-id="I58780.json.schedulesdirect.org" group-title="News",CNBC
http://tvprovider/user/pass/channel3

Is there a way to utilize the tvg-id or tvg-name fields in a .m3u playlist to get Emby's SchedulesDirect guide data to automatically map correct EPG data to custom channels?

[Luke 37229]

HI, yes Emby also supports tvg-id. if you are using xml guide data then just make those those values match up with the channel id's in the xml data.

[dberg 6]

Thank you for the quick response!  Do you have an example of how the tvg-id field should look in order to map to Emby's guide data?

All I see under channel manager is

Mapped to 202 CNN - USA-DITV-X

 

[Luke 37229]

Right now I don't. Emby Guide Data comes from gracenote. I don't know if there's any predictable pattern to their channel id's.

[dberg 6]

I found a way to extract the data I needed using the API:

1. Manually map one channel in your custom .m3u under LiveTV > Channels using the Emby guide data source you wish to use
   (I'm using DirecTV (USA))
    
2. Using the Emby API, get the ListingsProviderId from /LiveTv/Manage/Channels
   (for USA-DITV-X this was 9390bbe3a61b49bea1987c897bc077c6)
    
3. Use the Emby API and the ListingsProviderId to pull the full list of channels and their Gracenote IDs from /LiveTv/ChannelMappingOptions
    
4. Populate the tvg-id fields in your custom .m3u with the Gracenote IDs
   (for CNN in the USA-DITV-X linuep the Gracenote ID was 10142)
    

   #EXTINF:-1 tvh-chnum="100" tvg-id="10142" group-title="News",CNN
   http://tvprovider/user/pass/channel1

    

Edited April 5 by dberg

[lawm0500 0]

I have this same issue. I have two channels I need guide data from, BBC Three / CBBC, and BBC Four / CBeebies. I know what the tvg-ids are for each channel, but I can't seem to populate the guide data for the channels even though they exist on platforms such as Channels DVR and on Stremium, which both use Gracenote. I need a way to grab the data and pull it into Emby, but I am having a hard time with it. If I can get any help with it in my m3u file, I would appreciate it.
BBC Four / CBeebies guide ID: 97275
BBC Three / CBBC guide ID: 122508

[Luke 37229]

On 5/13/2024 at 1:54 PM, lawm0500 said:

I have this same issue. I have two channels I need guide data from, BBC Three / CBBC, and BBC Four / CBeebies. I know what the tvg-ids are for each channel, but I can't seem to populate the guide data for the channels even though they exist on platforms such as Channels DVR and on Stremium, which both use Gracenote. I need a way to grab the data and pull it into Emby, but I am having a hard time with it. If I can get any help with it in my m3u file, I would appreciate it.
BBC Four / CBeebies guide ID: 97275
BBC Three / CBBC guide ID: 122508

Hi, what data is in your m3u and what data is in your xml?

[emveepee 112]

On 4/5/2024 at 3:41 AM, dberg said:

I found a way to extract the data I needed using the API:

For the US and Canada if you go to zap2it.com the icon link for the channel should have the channel's TMS ID, might be easier.  Here is CNN https://zap2it.tmsimg.com/h3/NowShowing/58646/s58646_ll_h15_ac.png?w=55 I don't know why you need 10142?

Edited Wednesday at 02:51 PM by emveepee

[lawm0500 0]

16 hours ago, Luke said:

Hi, what data is in your m3u and what data is in your xml?

What data is in my m3u? I am trying to add the data manually. Both Channels DVR and Stremium both have data for both channels through Gracenote. Which means Emby does have data for the channels as well, but the problems are hidden with each UK guide I tried. So, I don't know what XML you are talking about as Emby already has the data that is necessary, it's just not listed.

[lawm0500 0]

38 minutes ago, emveepee said:

For the US and Canada if you go to zap2it.com the icon link for the channel should have the channel's TMS ID, might be easier.  Here is CNN https://zap2it.tmsimg.com/h3/NowShowing/58646/s58646_ll_h15_ac.png?w=55 I don't know why you need 10142?

10142 I believe refers to what Gracenote has for the HD feed of CNN on DirecTV. 58646 refers to the SD feed of CNN. My two IDs are for BBC Four / CBeebies, and BBC Three / CBBC. Both of those channels time-share with each other. I have to lookup the names for both channels on Channels DVR and Stremium to add them because guide data for both channels are hidden from users. Users have to search them manually to add them, which Emby does not have an option for.

Edited Wednesday at 03:28 PM by lawm0500

[emveepee 112]

3 hours ago, lawm0500 said:

10142 I believe refers to what Gracenote has for the HD feed of CNN on DirecTV. 58646 refers to the SD feed of CNN. My two IDs are for BBC Four / CBeebies, and BBC Three / CBBC. Both of those channels time-share with each other. I have to lookup the names for both channels on Channels DVR and Stremium to add them because guide data for both channels are hidden from users. Users have to search them manually to add them, which Emby does not have an option for.

Got it, although it looks like 10142 is the SD ID on zap2it.com, so my approach still seems to work (in the US and Canada).  I'd try for CBBC (SD and HD are different too) 29324  or 83281 and CBeebies 29325 or 83283.

[lawm0500 0]

1 hour ago, emveepee said:

Got it, although it looks like 10142 is the SD ID on zap2it.com, so my approach still seems to work (in the US and Canada).  I'd try for CBBC (SD and HD are different too) 29324  or 83281 and CBeebies 29325 or 83283.

I think I got confused with SD and HD when it loaded, but I stand my point. I don't need the separate channels. I need the combined channels for BBC Three / CBBC, and BBC Four / CBeebies. Emby has the data, but it's hidden. Channels DVR has the data, but it's hidden from its users as the data for the UK channel lineups don't have it. They have it when you search for all of the channels. I have the IDs, I just need to hopefully implement it into the m3u, and Emby should grab the data automatically. If not, then Emby does not allow it's users to add streaming EPG data Gracenote has.