One m3u with multiple connections (subscriptions)

[scourgebg 2]

Hi,

I want to get Live TV working in my setup. My IPTV provide send me m3u list and it is working great - channels are fast, quality is exceptional and no connections issues at all. Now I want to pay for more devices, as I want to add the LiveTV to all TVs in the house. The IPTV provider has no issues with that but they told me that every device can use this m3u but has to have different MAC address. If second connection is made from the same MAC address their system will block the account.

So i suppose that as Emby make the connection to channels, the IPTV provider will see only one MAC address for all connections to that m3u? I know that this is very custom situation, so can i aks if  anyone can think of some way to deal with it?
And one more question - if i get second m3u url from the provider, how will Emby react when I add it? I think that will be possible by using the tags in Emby to point a user to channels in the specific m3u. This can be a workaround but i am not sure how Emby will import the channels as they will be with same names, groups (all tags) etc. The only difference will be the m3u URL and channels links. So will Emby will import as second channels or will make 1 channel with some 2 urls. In Emby nowhere i can see the URL for the channel which Emby take from the m3u list.

This IPTV provider changes the URLs of the channels every couple of hours and I was surprised to see that Emby has no problem with that at all.

Best Regards and nice week.

[scourgebg 2]

I did not see any option to edit the previous post, so i will update in new message.

After talking again today with the IPTV provider, the only solutions is with two different m3us. They provide me with one more and I add it in Emby. The m3u and EPG which are provided are like this:
For m3u: http://xxx.yyyy.com/m/AA:BB:CC:DD:YY:XX
For EPG: http://xxx.yyyy.com/x/AA:BB:CC:DD:YY:XX

So, for two devices I have two of this. When add them in Emby I have every channel twice ... which is not a bad thing, because now I can set custom tags and in this way to point m3u to specific user. That is good ... but, can you add some more ways for filtering the Channels tab. At the moment there are only 4 filters and they don't work for me at all!
Can I ask if it will not be so difficult to add at least some more filters. Maybe it will be good if there is an option for pagination in the Channels tab also because with the two m3us now there are lot of channels (300+) and it is very uncomfortable.

One more thing .... for now i managed but for the moment Emby provide content to 5 TV at the house, and i will need 5 m3us from the IPTV provider .... and then the management will be really difficult. The only way i can think of now is to add them one by one and to set one by with some tags (and then filter users with these tags). And how will Emby process so many channels?

BTW, for now the only way I see to manage to see which channel to which m3u is associated is by the EPG link - i set different EPG url source for every m3u url because if i use the only one EPG source (i want to point that all channels in all playlists have absolutely the same tags because they are from same provider), it will almost impossible to tell which channel to which m3u belongs.

I see the options "User agent http header" and "Referrer http header" and as I am not familiar with them I suppose they may be used in some cases for similar (same) situations, but no in my case with these IPTV provider. They are no flexible and the only way they can give me streams is from the way above (m3u) or their own app ....

[Luke 38525]

11 hours ago, scourgebg said:

Hi,

I want to get Live TV working in my setup. My IPTV provide send me m3u list and it is working great - channels are fast, quality is exceptional and no connections issues at all. Now I want to pay for more devices, as I want to add the LiveTV to all TVs in the house. The IPTV provider has no issues with that but they told me that every device can use this m3u but has to have different MAC address. If second connection is made from the same MAC address their system will block the account.

So i suppose that as Emby make the connection to channels, the IPTV provider will see only one MAC address for all connections to that m3u? I know that this is very custom situation, so can i aks if  anyone can think of some way to deal with it?
And one more question - if i get second m3u url from the provider, how will Emby react when I add it? I think that will be possible by using the tags in Emby to point a user to channels in the specific m3u. This can be a workaround but i am not sure how Emby will import the channels as they will be with same names, groups (all tags) etc. The only difference will be the m3u URL and channels links. So will Emby will import as second channels or will make 1 channel with some 2 urls. In Emby nowhere i can see the URL for the channel which Emby take from the m3u list.

This IPTV provider changes the URLs of the channels every couple of hours and I was surprised to see that Emby has no problem with that at all.

Best Regards and nice week.

Hi, yes everything goes through the server so they're only going to see one mac address.

[scourgebg 2]

You should really make possible for users to edit their own posts ... 

That part was clear already but thanks for the reply.

Can you make it easy in Server - LiveTV - Channels (at least to add more usable filters)?

In my situation it is difficult to manage them as my IPTV provider will not change their tags in m3u list just for me ...

Best Regards

[Luke 38525]

On 6/18/2024 at 4:56 AM, scourgebg said:

You should really make possible for users to edit their own posts ... 

That part was clear already but thanks for the reply.

Can you make it easy in Server - LiveTV - Channels (at least to add more usable filters)?

In my situation it is difficult to manage them as my IPTV provider will not change their tags in m3u list just for me ...

Best Regards

Hi, what filters would you like?

[pwhodges 1717]

On 18/06/2024 at 09:56, scourgebg said:

You should really make possible for users to edit their own posts ... 

I think that like in most forums, you gain the ability after a certain number of posts.

Paul

[scourgebg 2]

8 hours ago, pwhodges said:

I think that like in most forums, you gain the ability after a certain number of posts.

Paul

Thanks Paul. I didn't know that.

 

11 hours ago, Luke said:

Hi, what filters would you like?

It will be best for me if I can filter channels by m3u and/or Tags.

With my local IPTV provider I have to have a different m3u for every TV in the house and because of that in channel management I have every channel multiple times. For now I limit the m3us connection to 1 and direct the channels via tags (Parental control) to a specific TV (user).

The service provider is constantly making changes to the channels - sometimes they may add a channel, sometimes they may remove it, etc. For this reason, I have to change tags from time to time or add tags (for a new channel).

[Carlo 4459]

@scourgebgwe just added a feature that should help you a lot with managing the use of different tuners for your users.
 

We have pushed out a change to M3U functionality that can be very helpful and used by admins in a few different ways.

When setting up or editing an M3U tuner, you will see a new option to use.  "Auto-add tags to channels" shown above.
This will do exactly what it sounds like. Every channel loaded from the M3U source will be tagged with the entry you set in the config.
Each M3U source can have a different tag associated with the channels from that source.

USEFUL USES

Many IPTV providers limit the number of simultaneous streams in their service. If you need additional streams, you could purchase another plan adding a 2nd m3u tuner to your system, you end up with an unmanaged set of channels, having duplicate channel entries of every channel. Not only does it make using LiveTV harder to maneuver with double the data, it looks far less clean and becomes confusing to users.

With the new auto-tagging functionality, you can set a tag like IPTV1 and IPTV2 to each tuner.  Every channel will now be tagged according to what tuner it's associated with. With the help of Emby's Parental Controls you can add a tag assigned to a tuner's channels in parental control in the section that blocks items with these tags.

Setting Up Tags for TV Users

• Split Users: Set up half your TV users with one tag and the other half with another tag. Each group shares one tuner and only sees one set of channels.

• Multiple Subscriptions: Use 3, 4, or more IPTV subscriptions to spread the number of tuners/streams across your users.

Tagging for Different Uses

• Split Subscriptions: Have one IPTV subscription split among your users while keeping a second subscription for your use. This way, you can provide LiveTV and recording abilities to users, while reserving a subscription for your own private use.

• Curate Channels: If your m3u file doesn’t use grouping, move multiple channels at once to category-based m3u files (e.g., sports.m3u, news.m3u, kids.m3u, premium.m3u, network.m3u, local.m3u). Set these up in Emby LiveTV with each file having a tag to match the content.

• Multiple m3u Files: If you have multiple IPTV m3u files from different sources, tagging helps you know what source a channel is from by looking at the channel's tag.

These are just a few of the creative ways this new functionality could be used.

If you don't see the new tag option when adding or editing an M3U tuner, it may not have updated on your system yet. You can manually upgrade this easily by upgrading the M3UTUNER plugin to 1.0.32 or later in the Plugin Catalog.