Question for UK Users regarding UK Music Channels

[ClemFandango 13]

I appreciate this may well not even be possible but no harm in asking I suppose

Has anyone been able to get any of the UK Music channels working in Live TV with EPG data ?.   I'm thinking the likes of Now 80's and Clubland specifically but anything in general.

I did find a couple of M3U files a few nights ago that have allowed me to add Now 80's/Now Rock/Trace Urban/Vevo 80's/Vevo Country and Vevo Pop which all work nicely but all have zero in the way of EPG data and even Channel Logos (which I added manually).

My old guilty pleasure was recording a lot of the one-off shows and countdowns on these channels so it would be nice to be able to do that again through Emby.

[emveepee 117]

Many UK stations are available from Gracenote, I see them on Scheduled Direct GBR-1000193-Default not sure how Emby lists them but they probably are there.

[ClemFandango 13]

3 hours ago, emveepee said:

Many UK stations are available from Gracenote, I see them on Scheduled Direct GBR-1000193-Default not sure how Emby lists them but they probably are there.

You can't use schedules direct on Emby as far as I'm aware.  There's another thread on this forum where someone had their SD account terminated and refunded because they'd detected he'd used it with Emby.

Clubland isn't on Freeview either, it's a FTA channel on Astra

Edited June 30 by ClemFandango

[Spaceboy 2560]

use epg123 with your schedules direct subscription and use the resultant xmltv file with emby. use iptv boss as a middleman for easier configuration

[ClemFandango 13]

11 minutes ago, Spaceboy said:

use epg123 with your schedules direct subscription and use the resultant xmltv file with emby. use iptv boss as a middleman for easier configuration

Interesting, thankyou.   I did actually (stupidly) pay for a year of schedules direct when I was trying Live TV on Jellyfin on my old DS118 so I'll dig in to this and see what I can come up with.

Do you know if it's available on Synology devices ?.  Docker image even ?.  I'm googling at the moment but if you know off the top of your head that would be handy.  Thanks.

Edited June 30 by ClemFandango

[Spaceboy 2560]

14 minutes ago, ClemFandango said:

Interesting, thankyou.   I did actually (stupidly) pay for a year of schedules direct when I was trying Live TV on Jellyfin on my old DS118 so I'll dig in to this and see what I can come up with.

Do you know if it's available on Synology devices ?.  Docker image even ?.  I'm googling at the moment but if you know off the top of your head that would be handy.  Thanks.

i think its windows only

[ClemFandango 13]

2 minutes ago, Spaceboy said:

i think its windows only

Ok thanks.  I've just installed it funnily enough to have a look.  While I'd prefer an automated solution, I suppose if it works it wouldn't kill me to squirt it on to the NAS once a fortnight

[Spaceboy 2560]

5 minutes ago, ClemFandango said:

Ok thanks.  I've just installed it funnily enough to have a look.  While I'd prefer an automated solution, I suppose if it works it wouldn't kill me to squirt it on to the NAS once a fortnight

epg123 includes a task scheduler. i think its required my attention twice since emby stopped working with SD, that must be five years minimum.

[ClemFandango 13]

2 minutes ago, Spaceboy said:

epg123 includes a task scheduler. i think its required my attention twice since emby stopped working with SD, that must be five years minimum.

I don't leave my PC on all the time though.  That's why I would have preferred it to be setup on the NAS directly as I do leave that on 24/7.   

[ClemFandango 13]

It's just dawned on me that this will never work.  While I might be able to get EPG data from EPG123 and Schedules Direct, the HD Homerun that I use in the UK is Freeview only and the likes of the Now music channels, and especially Clubland, are not on Freeview.

[Spaceboy 2560]

[emveepee 117]

I wasn't suggesting Schedules Direct, you should be able to find the UK lineup in Emby.  Sorry I don't have a license to  Emby anymore so I can't check where.

[Luke 38498]

2 hours ago, emveepee said:

I wasn't suggesting Schedules Direct, you should be able to find the UK lineup in Emby.  Sorry I don't have a license to  Emby anymore so I can't check where.

Hi, if you send ebr a pm we can give you one for testing. Thanks.

[ClemFandango 13]

3 hours ago, emveepee said:

I wasn't suggesting Schedules Direct, you should be able to find the UK lineup in Emby.  Sorry I don't have a license to  Emby anymore so I can't check where.

If you do have the time to take up Luke's offer for a testing licence then I'd be extremely grateful.  

I've tried adding a new guide data source of "United Kingdom (extended) National" as I know that that one does include the Now channels and Clubland but I'm pretty sure I still need a source to actually be able to record those channels and the HD Homerun certainly isn't it.

[ClemFandango 13]

The alert for the above reply actually woke me up because it was around 4:45am in the UK.  I read the post on my phone and decided to come into the living room where my PC is to mess around with the EPG data to see if I could get to what @emveepeewas hinting towards.

And an hour later, at 5:55am (*groan*), I think I've actually got half a solution.

I've used the M3U file I found the other night as the source, as it has two working streams for Now 80s and Now Rock, and I added a new Emby Guide source for "United Kingdom (extended) National" again and mapped the two channels accordingly and it worked.  Sort of

The EPG data doesn't match up with what's actually showing on the channel at the moment, but that might mean selecting another data source.  At the moment it's got "Magic Moments! The 80s" on the guide but when I tuned in to the channel, the program was "Ghostbusters 1980-1989".

Anyway I've set a recording on Now Rock for 7am to see what it does and I'm going back to bed .. hah

[scourgebg 2]

I use xmltv.host for epg source. I started with them only for channels of which i didn't has other EPG source, but now I use them for all channels. It is not free but is very, very useful and the user interface is very comfortable and easy to manage.

[ClemFandango 13]

Appreciate that, thankyou.

It's not really about the EPG data any more I think as it's more about having the actual source to record from.   As I said, the HD Homerun is Freeview only in the UK and the likes of the Now channels and Clubland are all on the Astra Satellite as FTA channels.

My experiment earlier actually worked though.   With the combination of the M3U file I put together with streams for Now 80s and Now Rock, the EPG data from Emby's Guide Data worked perfectly and recorded the program I set through the EPG.

There was a slight glitch in the playback but I can either put that down to recording directly from a stream or the channels themselves as they're fully automated and have been known to have the odd hiccup late at night.

Still, I'm very happy to have half a solution.  It's obviously entirely dependent on how long these various streams remain available though.

Clubland would be the icing on the cake but I think I'd need some kind of Satellite USB tuner device I could plug in to the NAS to get the channel sources from that and I'm not so sure one actually even exists.

Edited July 1 by ClemFandango

[scourgebg 2]

26 minutes ago, ClemFandango said:

Appreciate that, thankyou.

It's not really about the EPG data any more I think as it's more about having the actual source to record from.   As I said, the HD Homerun is Freeview only in the UK and the likes of the Now channels and Clubland are all on the Astra Satellite as FTA channels.

My experiment earlier actually worked though.   With the combination of the M3U file I put together with streams for Now 80s and Now Rock, the EPG data from Emby's Guide Data worked perfectly and recorded the program I set through the EPG.

There was a slight glitch in the playback but I can either put that down to recording directly from a stream or the channels themselves as they're fully automated and have been known to have the odd hiccup late at night.

Still, I'm very happy to have half a solution.  It's obviously entirely dependent on how long these various streams remain available though.

Clubland would be the icing on the cake but I think I'd need some kind of Satellite USB tuner device I could plug in to the NAS to get the channel sources from that and I'm not so sure one actually even exists.

Even there will be a USB tuner device i think it will not be a good solutions as it will be one more hardware bottleneck. I prefer to keep everything simple, especially if the Emby server is on some device like home storage(s), routers etc.  These are limited devices and when they do some stuff there is always a performance drop. They are perfect for direct streaming of the content, but not so good in transcoding or for example when EPG is refreshing (big IOPs and CPU usage).
I am from EU and actually a couple of months ago i found that there is a good number of IPTV subscrptions services in EU - good amount of them are UK based. So you can just make some google search as i don't want to make an advertisement (not the point  ). 
This way you can have a stable streams and the recording in Emby will go flawlessly. The problem for now is the managing of the channels as this is something that is not very comfortable in Embys interface... But as Luke says in some posts here and there, they will work on that in the future updates.
Anyway, if you want to consider that as an option I can point you by my experience so far, and the things i do wrong at first.

[emveepee 117]

On 6/30/2024 at 10:53 PM, Luke said:

Hi, if you send ebr a pm we can give you one for testing. Thanks.

Thanks Luke working again and I can confirm the Emby has the UK National Extended lineup and the ID shows GBR-1000193-DEFAULT as I suggested earlier once it is selected.

Anyone trying to map the UK stations and don't know where to start this is a great lineup to use, not just for music.

 

Edited July 2 by emveepee

[ClemFandango 13]

Apparently support for USB tuners was removed from DSM 7.0 onwards so this literally will never work.  It'll have to be the HD Homerun and that's it.