Guidance about using IPTV

[mkcat787 0]

Understood, thanks for the reply.

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[BrianJFox 18]

Check out the newly released Dispatcharr on Github.  

https://github.com/Dispatcharr/Dispatcharr

It's similar to Threadfin, and I find it very stable for only being a 0.5.2 release.   I find this to be a much cleaner solution to managing the various stream sources outside of Emby, and then just point my Emby instance to this 'cleaner' M3U file and EPG.   Allows merging of multiple sources, establishing channel groups with fallback (killer feature), implements smart connection limits between providers, and can proxy one stream to multiple local clients.  Lots more features implemented as add-ons or future enhancements.    WAF (wife acceptance factor) with Emby LiveTV went up drastically when she didn't need to find the 'right' channel because a stream was down.  

[BensonWright 7]

Dispatcher looks cool. Thanks for the tip! For those running VMs, if you have the space in your RAM, run your differencing disks on a RAM drive. I have increased the database cache and row analysis limit and the load times are really good. Live TV is working better than ever, still wishing for a better buffer/reconnect. M3U4U is really helpful since it sets up a dummy guide; it goes straight into Emby sources. I wanted Threadfin to work as well as an HD Homerun and finally gave up and started using Channels DVR. The subscription is pretty cheap, You can setup new M3U/XML files on your local network for some cable provided streams, other M3Us up to 750 channels on each list. It's working pretty well with Spectrum. You can  also pay for a Hulu subscription that lets you use Channels DVR to record from the streaming service.  If I try Dispatcher, I'll report back.

Edited June 19, 2025 by BensonWright

[Apotropaic 75]

5 hours ago, ClemFandango said:

It's similar to Threadfin in that neither has any form of idiot guide or help

It really is ‘security through obscurity’

I’ve messed around a bit with both so let me know if you want a quick run down

[Apotropaic 75]

16 hours ago, ClemFandango said:

My main problem with all of those packages is that I've been trying to use my linux based satellite box as a source and all of them seem to want an M3U file first and I don't know how to get my box to do that.  It's set to auto update the EPG every day at 1am, which it does,  but that's about as far as I can get.

I was hoping that the part of dispatcharr that lets you input a URL to create a stream would take that box as the source and let me manage the channels but it doesn't.

Same thing with threadfin and stream master.  TVheadend doesn't even recognise the box at all.

Interesting, so you want to be able to manage the streams that your Linux satellite box provides.

If you know the format of the stream URLs your satellite box provides then you could just create your own M3U file manually. Then import that into dispatcharr as a local file.

[Luke 43214]

 Hi, our new WebStreams plugin can help with this:

 

[BensonWright 7]

I am having a lot of success with 4.9.3.0 and how I set up the M3Us to create the strm files as Luke suggested a while back. I'll give the webstreams plugin a try too. The M3U tuner is working well and very stable with the IPTV sources that I have been using. M3U4U is the other helper that's filling up any empty EPG data. Sometimes when the IPTV stream freezes, if I click on the end of the timeline the stream might restart. If not, I back out to the guide and restart the IPTV stream from the channel in the guide. I've wondered if the importmap for the play channel could be called to the videosd playback page and save us on some of the extra clicks. Cheers folks! It's working better than ever. 

[BensonWright 7]

Checking back in running 4.10.0.40 now. It finally dawned on me that the reason I have had issues with Live TV is due to the fly by night cable stealers that I have been signing up with and paying in crypto currency for the xtream codes panels. Lol. They are stealing cable, so that means I am stealing cable too by supporting them. I have a couple of reliable partners since I am a history channel addict and I speak other languages. I have justified getting the content and have a couple of services that have been decent and do drop streams regularly. Be careful out there. I tried a service recently that worked great for the trial period. I signed up and they never honored my payment and did not respond to my support requests. They are criminal enterprises. Maybe not sign up for unlimited accounts or year long subscriptions, go month to month or quarterly instead so you don't get robbed as badly. The IPTV providers will come online and go offline, switch urls, try to stay in business for as long as they can until they rebrand and come back online as a completely different shell company.

The HDHomeRun works great. The Emby Guide data for it works great. I have channels DVR setup with its TV Everywhere integration that works with my local cable provider, directv, slingtv and a bunch of other legitimate providers some of them offering free services of basic cable programming. Also helpful is the m3u4u.com that parses the huge M3U lists for Live TV and presents the updated M3U without series and movies making the lists consumable by the media servers and VLC. There are a couple of curated lists supported on github that can be used and there are rogue streaming servers in those lists and many of the channels are spotty so I have stopped using them.

The Hyper-V VMs are set up with differencing disks on a  256GB RAM drive on the server. I also convert the M3U to strm files that sync to a mounted samba share on the virtual machine and it brings in the media library store over the network. Curating multiple m3u lists from multiple providers can add up to millions of strm files to manage. I just added a new batch and am watching Emby closely to see how if performs fully loaded with the series strms folder containing over 1 million strm files, 100000 movie strms, 30000 tv strms each a dedicated library mount. The iphone and android apps work really well on the connected devices, works great on a Pi connected to a TV using the browser... the nginx reverse proxies and serves the app on port 80, really solid over the VPN. Hours of fun plowed into this so thank you guys for building it. 

My wish list for Emby is simple, a dummy guide that fills in the missing epg time slots and a go to live edge like clicking on the timeline to restart the streams that drop. Also it would be great to not use the channels dvr separate machine, if Emby could have its own TV Everywhere like interface for Live TV so we would not need the secondary services at all. Thanks so much! I hope this helps.