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Live TV Channel Groups


mickeyfinn

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chrismc76

I understand that I am arriving pretty late to this party and thank god for that.. 4 years+ and this seems to be getting further away.

I would estimate that 80%+ of people that sign up for Premium do it for the live TV functionality.  I have read through this epic thread and it seems like its gone off track dozens of times.  all m3u playlists have the option to embed categories and 99% of the IPTV playlists come with the category info embedded, e.g.

http://myiptv.server:80/email/password
#EXTINF:-1 tvg-id="dave.uk" tvg-name="UK: Dave FHD" tvg-logo="http://myiptv.server/images/channels/DaveHD.png" group-title="UK: | Entertainment",UK: Dave FHD

So, the idea of users having to create their own groups is a non-runner.  Why put users through that nightmare when a small bit of coding from Emby would enable the app to read the groups from the m3u the same as every other m3u player on the market.

Here is a great little open-source script that I used with Linux & enigma 2 boxs.

https://github.com/su1s/e2m3u2bouquet/releases/tag/v0.8.5

All the hard work is done, it is just a matter of Emby Devs incorporating it into Emby.

If I had a financial interest in Emby, I would be getting the Devs to drop everything and focus on this reasonably simple implementation.

Live TV (in my opinion) is your biggest selling point, by a long way.

In my scenario, I upgraded to premium solely for the Live TV feature.  I set it up and 3600 channels came in and the only sorting option on the Roky device is by channel number.. ha ha, come on guys, It would take 15 mins to swap between channels..

 

Please have a look in on suls github project above, it could make this modest job even easier.

Edited by chrismc76
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Robsta86

I'm done waiting. Like you said, iptv is what pulled me to Emby, but it is not user friendly the way it is.

I'm back to Plex for my main usage and am now using the android tv app Tivimate for the iptv part and it works like a charm. 

It accepts the tv groups making it easy to navigate the epg, you can reorder and hide channels, and tuning into a stream is instant instead of all the loading taking place with Emby.

Too bad Emby developers think it's a good thing to hold back on releasing basic functionality in small increments and instead are aiming for packing things in a big release every now and then.

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8 hours ago, chrismc76 said:

So, the idea of users having to create their own groups is a non-runner.  Why put users through that nightmare when a small bit of coding from Emby would enable the app to read the groups from the m3u the same as every other m3u player on the market.

The large majority of Live TV use in Emby is not from m3u but from tuners and plugins where groups don't exist.

I would like to be able to create a News Group a local group as well as sports & network groups to break down and make some cable & OTA channels easier to find.  The new version of Live TV in development does exactly this.  If you can read this info right from an M3U file all the better for those using them as well but GROUPS will be more than just for m3u people.

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5 hours ago, Robsta86 said:

I'm done waiting. Like you said, iptv is what pulled me to Emby, but it is not user friendly the way it is.

I'm back to Plex for my main usage and am now using the android tv app Tivimate for the iptv part and it works like a charm. 

It accepts the tv groups making it easy to navigate the epg, you can reorder and hide channels, and tuning into a stream is instant instead of all the loading taking place with Emby.

Too bad Emby developers think it's a good thing to hold back on releasing basic functionality in small increments and instead are aiming for packing things in a big release every now and then.

If you like Tivimate you will like the new Live TV when released.  Things are done differently but nearly anything TiviMate can do, can be done in Emby only lots more. TiviMate does have one killer feature that won't be in Live TV but could be added down the road is MultiView. TiviMate is also not very good at recording either which is a big component of Emby Live TV

We would love to release this in pieces or sections but it's not possible in this case as Live TV is a total rewrite of the core while still honoring the API of the existing Live TV so all basic Live TV functions will work with existing clients.

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40 minutes ago, cayars said:

The large majority of Live TV use in Emby is not from m3u but from tuners and plugins where groups don't exist.

I would like to be able to create a News Group a local group as well as sports & network groups to break down and make some cable & OTA channels easier to find.  The new version of Live TV in development does exactly this.  If you can read this info right from an M3U file all the better for those using them as well but GROUPS will be more than just for m3u people.

One little addition: Group, Country and Language fields from M3U are automatically imported as channel tags, so that information won't get lost and you can easily use that information for creating your own groups as desired.

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9 hours ago, chrismc76 said:

I would estimate that 80%+ of people that sign up for Premium do it for the live TV functionality.

I just want to note for the casual reader that this is a random conclusion :).

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chrismc76

The large majority of Live TV use in Emby is not from m3u but from tuners and plugins where groups don't exist.

8 hours ago, Robsta86 said:

I'm done waiting. Like you said, iptv is what pulled me to Emby, but it is not user friendly the way it is.

I'm back to Plex for my main usage and am now using the android tv app Tivimate for the iptv part and it works like a charm. 

I prefer Emby, it seems to be more of a home grown community but I will test Plex again for these features.  Serviio had a similar issue years back where the developers did not listen to their punters on a few features that everyone requested and unfortunately (because i loved serviio) they lost the majority of their paid users.

 

3 hours ago, cayars said:

The large majority of Live TV use in Emby is not from m3u but from tuners and plugins where groups don't exist.

I would like to be able to create a News Group a local group as well as sports & network groups to break down and make some cable & OTA channels easier to find.  The new version of Live TV in development does exactly this.  If you can read this info right from an M3U file all the better for those using them as well but GROUPS will be more than just for m3u people.

 

2 hours ago, cayars said:

If you like Tivimate you will like the new Live TV when released.  Things are done differently but nearly anything TiviMate can do, can be done in Emby only lots more. TiviMate does have one killer feature that won't be in Live TV but could be added down the road is MultiView. TiviMate is also not very good at recording either which is a big component of Emby Live TV

We would love to release this in pieces or sections but it's not possible in this case as Live TV is a total rewrite of the core while still honoring the API of the existing Live TV so all basic Live TV functions will work with existing clients.

I agree cayars, I use a tvheadend server for local DVB-T & S2, so local tuners are also part of my setup.  I just dont see the problem with implementing an update that can keep both of us happy.  You have the option to create groups if you desire.  But... if you just want to plug & play, Emby should be capable of using all the info within the m3u to generate the groups that were encoded into the .m3u file.  That should be the default action with the customisation you describe being an alternative option for more advanced users.

 

2 hours ago, softworkz said:

One little addition: Group, Country and Language fields from M3U are automatically imported as channel tags, so that information won't get lost and you can easily use that information for creating your own groups as desired.

I am excited to test the the new Live TV when released..  I hope my comments are not been taken as negative, they most certainly were not intended to be.  I love this project & promote it highly on many forums, one of which as admin.  I am very aware of of feature requests, I understand that every media server on the market cannot be taylored to every single users requirements but there is always (as you know) a base feature list that is the minimum requirement to compete at the top.  I would argue that this feature is in that list.  Also, softworkz, have you had a look at the suls open source plugin i linked above?  You should test it if you have some spare time, it generates bouquets & subsections from the raw playlist and I think it would do everything you need.

 

2 hours ago, ebr said:

I just want to note for the casual reader that this is a random conclusion :).

ebr, I agree.  I should have said 80% of the people who go to the effort of posting within the m3u/iptv topic.  In the overall picture, 100% of the people posting in that topic might only represent 4%  or 5% of your userbase but they are all advanced users coming from satellite hobbyist community and (in my opinion) they are far more likely to purchase the the Premium upgrade than the vast majority of basic users.  This is just a suggestion guys, a suggestion that I believe is in Embys interest.  I have seen the satellite community evaporate since the explosion of IPTV.  So, don’t miss the boat..

Edited by chrismc76
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13 hours ago, chrismc76 said:

So, the idea of users having to create their own groups is a non-runner.  Why put users through that nightmare...

You won't say this anymore once you get to see it.. 🙂 

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Yes, super simple to use and I bet some of the guys that have wanted groups from M3U files will still use it to change the "default" groups to personalized groups that fit their own use vs what a provider decides is a group. :)

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chrismc76
2 hours ago, softworkz said:

You won't say this anymore once you get to see it.. 🙂 

Excelent, looking forward to it m8..

1 hour ago, cayars said:

Yes, super simple to use and I bet some of the guys that have wanted groups from M3U files will still use it to change the "default" groups to personalized groups that fit their own use vs what a provider decides is a group.

Cayars, I dont doubt that.  I just thought the provider grouping was a good starting point rather than 3600+ channels in a single bouquet.  I would deffo prefer sorting the few channels I use into a group if that option was available.  To get around my problem for now, I have recreated my m3u with only the few dozen channels that I actually use and that is managable until this new Live TV release.  As mentioned above, I think this is a great project, I appreciate all the effort going into it so keep up the good work.  If you need any build testing etc, I have a rack of servers at my disposal and I could give up a few evenings to help out if required..

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5 hours ago, chrismc76 said:

I just thought the provider grouping was a good starting point rather than 3600+ channels in a single bouquet.

3600 channels is painful!  I've stripped my channels down to about 200 in total from m3u, OTA and Cable and that represents at least 15 different OTA markets as well.  Way too much noise for me in that many channels. :)

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No matter how good the channel management UI might be designed - having channel amounts like that, would be painful to work with.

That's why a good TV application should allow some pre-filtering, avoiding users having to do that manually... 🙂 

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Emby does so much more than typical "TV" apps like our What's on views with sections in Program to find upcoming Movies, TV Shows, Sporting Events, etc.

Having the same movies showing up 10 times because it's listed for different regions or even languages can turn out to ruin things.  Same with TV Series Recordings.  You can easily setup up series to record missing episodes but if you have a dozen languages in your listings you'll be recording the wrong episodes.

These are things people new to PVR don't even think about because they're used to using 3 or 4 groups from the m3u as a way of keeping the list manageable but that's just the GUIDE view which is one of many in Emby.  Sure we'll have that too but but you want to narrow down your channel list for starters to only channels you can use and eliminate ones that are of no use.

For me personally, if it's not English it's out. If it's an infomercial or shopping channel it's out.  If it's a religious network it's out.  Nothing against religion but I'm not personally a fan of religious TV so they are out. Except for one or two channels if it's SD it's out of my list.  I have many channels for additional markets than my main market but I only include the ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox channels as those are the ones that carry sports I watch and will have unique local sports content.

Then depending on time of year my Racing, American Football, Baseball, Soccer, Basketball, Hockey channels will be in my lineup on not as I'll shuffle them in/out depending on season.  I don't need reruns during off times of the year when there are no live games/matches.

For me, if it's channel none of watch it's fluff and taking up space so even channels like the different MTV, VH,nickMusic1 are out as well as Bounce, CourtTV, BET channels, etc

Is this type of management for everyone? NOPE but works really well for my family as the Guide is the channels we use without fluff channel. On my system the Movies and TV Show libraries are the center of the system but Live TV is used for recording and some live sports

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  • 2 weeks later...
Pseibold
On 1/26/2021 at 12:20 PM, Luke said:

Channel groups coming in Emby Server 4.6:

 

YIPPIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Any guesstimate when 4.6 will be released?  Approx Month?

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pir8radio

Oh, look at that!   You abide by the m3u groups without me having to create a bunch of stuff... nice.....    

image.thumb.png.459ab3c84190de9e03c944d2bd62dc89.png

image.thumb.png.a4a84caf16b763673521af484b26a964.png

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Pseibold

No one shoot me.  But how do I install the beta copy?  I see it online for windows x64...  but I don't seem to see how to install/run the beta?

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Dibbes
21 hours ago, pir8radio said:

Oh, look at that!   You abide by the m3u groups without me having to create a bunch of stuff... nice.....    

image.thumb.png.459ab3c84190de9e03c944d2bd62dc89.png

image.thumb.png.a4a84caf16b763673521af484b26a964.png

I absolutely love this!!!!! Great! Thank you!!! @Luke @ebr @softworkz and any other who may have worked on this!

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Dibbes

A question: Do these channel groups have to be part of the overall collections as well or can those be removed?

 

image.thumb.png.431897bbca37705cd5deb45ca5c36de7.png

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For me on my system they have to be there.  I made my collections names start with "TV-" so it's a bit more obvious what they are.

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pir8radio
6 hours ago, Dibbes said:

A question: Do these channel groups have to be part of the overall collections as well or can those be removed?

 

image.thumb.png.431897bbca37705cd5deb45ca5c36de7.png

where are you seeing this?   I'm not seeing it...    just looking in a web browser under collections. 

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