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Live TV with Categories


uthall

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uthall

Hello,

 

Im looking for a system like Emby to take my M3U Playlist, and display it in a guide and allow the categories in the M3U to be used to filter the channels.

 

Ive looked and cant seem to find a way to do this?

 

Thnx

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maegibbons

Hi

 

Emby does not do this as yet.  It has been requested several times by myself and others.

 

Hopefully, it will be looked at this year.

 

Krs

 

Mark

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CBers

Im looking for a system like Emby to take my M3U Playlist, and display it in a guide and allow the categories in the M3U to be used to filter the channels.

Hopefully one day.

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  • 9 months later...
zombiefly

this feature is still missing. the guide limitations are forcing me back to kodi as i have so many iptv channels to manage. The groups/categories from the playlist allow me to filter the guide in kodi. i'm going through a mouse a week scrolling in emby  ;)

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  • 2 weeks later...
maegibbons

You've been saying this for quite some time - its getting boring to hear.

 

It would be good to have a roadmap so that we can see when things are slated for.

 

I KNOW resources are limited and there are 101 things to do.

 

It would be good to know where this is in the list.

 

Krs

 

Mark

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I'm hoping to start getting into new channel management as soon as we iron out the new release.

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  • 2 months later...
gbanks2

Hi All

 

Is there any movement on this?

 

Since the death of card sharing in the UK I think the majority of users have turned to IPTV to fill the gap.

 

I appreciate the requested features list is a never ending beast but like most IPTV users, my m3u list has around 6,000+ links so without channel / category management it is unusable in Emby.

 

I've been an Emby premiere supporter for years but more than happy to support with additional donations, an IPTV sub or as a tester if it means we can push forward on this.

 

Cheers

Gareth

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maegibbons

"its a good idea for the future"

 

"better channel management will appear in a future update"

 

krs

 

Mark

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gbanks2

"its a good idea for the future"

 

"better channel management will appear in a future update"

 

krs

 

Mark

 

 

Would be good to get an update from Luke as from looking around on the boards, this has been requested for some time.

Edited by gbanks2
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Channel management is probably where we will go next, resolving the shortcomings there. Then we can consider something like this after that. 

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  • 2 months later...

my m3u list has around 6,000+ links so without channel / category management it is unusable in Emby.

6,000 channels will pretty much be unusable on a real system.

Having channels is one thing.  Getting proper EPG for said channels is quite another thing to use Emby for all it's glory like scheduling recordings.

 

You should take some time and curate that list down to usable channels.  Forget about "free lists" as you want reliable channels that always work and don't need changing daily.  

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EODCrafter

6,000 channels will pretty much be unusable on a real system.

Having channels is one thing.  Getting proper EPG for said channels is quite another thing to use Emby for all it's glory like scheduling recordings.

 

You should take some time and curate that list down to usable channels.  Forget about "free lists" as you want reliable channels that always work and don't need changing daily.  

I'm not sure about OP but I would guess to say most those Channels are VOD as with most Modern IPTV providers.....EPG is not required but "Grouping" these channels as VOD-Series-ECT instead of being scattered throughout the Guide Randomly is. M3U lists are updated daily so Manually editing the list is really not a Option.

Edited by EODCrafter
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6,000 channels will pretty much be unusable on a real system.

Having channels is one thing. Getting proper EPG for said channels is quite another thing to use Emby for all it's glory like scheduling recordings.

 

You should take some time and curate that list down to usable channels. Forget about "free lists" as you want reliable channels that always work and don't need changing daily.

As pointed out by another user, the m3u contains a significant proportion of video on demand. A lot of the dedicated iptv apps do split these out into their own categories. Most premium iptv providers supply an epg xml file to accompany the m3u so as long as we can pick up the relevant tags from the m3u, channel management is relatively straight forward.

 

@@Luke the best iptv app I have come across is one called IPTV Smarters Pro. The way they display the channels and EPG etc is excellent.

 

I would be more than happy to buy an IPTV subscription for you guys to use and be involved with the testing. I made quite a few suggestions to the iptv smarters devs and so far they have included all of them within their releases. Even though I haven't coded for years, this is an area I know a lot about so would be more than happy to assist in any way that I can.

 

If it helps, I can do a write up on how I think channel management should work?

 

Drop me a pm if you would like my help on this or for me to donate a subscription.

 

Cheers

Gaz

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I'm not sure about OP but I would guess to say most those Channels are VOD as with most Modern IPTV providers.....EPG is not required but "Grouping" these channels as VOD-Series-ECT instead of being scattered throughout the Guide Randomly is. M3U lists are updated daily so Manually editing the list is really not a Option.

Sort of what I thought.  Emby really isn't built to handle this type of thing.  It's best used when the IPTV list is similar to what you would get from a OTA or Cable TV tuners and the functionality AS IS right now treats it that way.

 

It most certainly could handle things differently to accommodate these super large lists but I can't help to wonder if this wouldn't be better as a plug in to make use of the VOD channels where you don't need the overhead of the EPG that isn't present.

 

A better approach might be to write a small program to read each entry in the IPTV list and create a text STRM file with an accurate name such as "South Park" with the URL in the file.  Then just setup these STRM files as a VOD library.  You could then use the navigation built into the library as well as use the search feature.  In cases of specific shows or movie VOD you would even get the proper meta-data.

 

Something to think about.  I might be willing to help with this as it should be quite simple to test.

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Sort of what I thought.  Emby really isn't built to handle this type of thing.  It's best used when the IPTV list is similar to what you would get from a OTA or Cable TV tuners and the functionality AS IS right now treats it that way.

 

It most certainly could handle things differently to accommodate these super large lists but I can't help to wonder if this wouldn't be better as a plug in to make use of the VOD channels where you don't need the overhead of the EPG that isn't present.

 

A better approach might be to write a small program to read each entry in the IPTV list and create a text STRM file with an accurate name such as "South Park" with the URL in the file.  Then just setup these STRM files as a VOD library.  You could then use the navigation built into the library as well as use the search feature.  In cases of specific shows or movie VOD you would even get the proper meta-data.

 

Something to think about.  I might be willing to help with this as it should be quite simple to test.

 

If we get the channel management which includes picking up the channel grouping then viewing the channels lists or EPG within Emby becomes simple and more akin to how you would navigate a set top box.  Also if the EPG is only populating for a small subset of channels held within a channel group then it should make load times nice and fast.

 

I'm not sure about the rest of the world but in the UK, I haven't come across a single IPTV provider that doesn't bundle the subscription with a large VOD selection and over the last couple of years I have bounced around most of them.

 

The majority of the UK providers also use the Xtreme codes panel ( https://xtream-codes.com ) so the m3u is pretty standardised but from looking around the internet, i know that there isn't a universally adopted standard that all providers comply with.

 

I think the most powerful feature would be to allow the user to map the m3u tags.  For example, I select the m3u file or URL that I want to use then Emby downloads the file and presents me with a list of the tags found in the m3u and allows me to map them m3u tags to specific Emby fields.  (with some kind of on screen visual of what data is going into what column, a bit like the examples shown when setting up file renaming rules) and that importing mapping is saved against that playlist.

 

That way IPTV would work fine for any provider without the constant posts from users about data not being imported or displaying.  It would also make future updates easier as the new tags could just be added in Emby when required and the user updates their import mapping to make use of them.

 

Below is an example of a channel from my m3u.  As you can see it has a 'group-title' tag that is then used be several of the dedicated IPTV apps.

 

tvg-id="BBCOneHD.uk"
tvg-name="Uk* || BBC One HD"
group-title="UK: Entertainment"

 

The workflow is then:

 

select VOD (movies or series) or Live TV with EPG

 

post-30764-0-30559100-1538071102_thumb.jpg

 

when selecting the EPG you then see the groups / categories first so you can make your selection

 

post-30764-0-90417000-1538069874_thumb.jpg

 

then after selecting a group, it will show you the EPG for the associated channels within that group

 

post-30764-0-31569300-1538069889_thumb.jpg

 

This makes the entire user experience significantly better and cleaner.

 

The ultimate addition to this would be to add an additional grouping on the tvg-id when rendering the EPG.  The reason for this is the majority of IPTV providers will have multiple versions of the same channel (different qualities or backup streams etc but they all link to the same EPG entry).  If we could group the EPG by the tvg-id then it would reduce the amount of duplicate data on the screen and improve the user experience further.  Then when you click on the channel you want, if there are multiple streams available it should let you select the one you want to play.

 

Regarding VOD, the xtreme codes panel defines it in the URL to the stream (all other tags remain the same except it doesn't link to the EPG data)

 

E.g.

 

Live TV:

http://IPTV-provider.com:8080/live/user/password/001.ts

 

Movies

http://IPTV-provider.com:8080/movie/user/password/54633.mkv

 

Tv Series

http://IPTV-provider.com:8080/series/user/password/14633.mkv

 

Apologies for the brain dump, i'm just keen to spark debate on this matter and hopefully get the wheels turning on development.

 

Cheers

Gaz

Edited by gbanks2
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EODCrafter

@Luke Is there any update on this topic or timescale?

He has mentioned they are gonna start working on this as soon as the "After the Next Release", which was 2 days ago....So I hope soon! I'm stuck using Kodi for the time-being cause Emby Live TV, for me, is just unusable. :(

Edited by EODCrafter
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@@Luke, it would be great to get some more information? Would this be the next release? I want to buy premier in the future but if this will not be implemented for another year then it would not be suitable.

Edited by FuthubUK
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