Importing m3u files for Live TV

[dvesely 3]

I've spent the last couple of days trying to figure this out and even with years of IT experience, this is confusing!

I have an IPTV provider.  They give me a m3u file with a zillion channels and it KILLS emby if I import it directly.

I've tried Thread fin and it can't handle it either. So I finally went to PlaylistLabs | Online M3U & XMLTV Playlist Editor  and was able to crunch it down to just about 10K live tv channels only.

They gave me a URL for that filtered list and I was instructed to bring that into Threadfin first and feed that into Emby.

 Is there an easier way to do this?  I'm a tech and can't figure out!

 Thanks for your help.

 Dan

[Luke 43374]

Hi, does it have groups? try importing it directly into Emby and specify the groups that you want. This will limit how many channels get imported into emby server.

If you look at the contents of the m3u, look for tvg-group or group-title

[Uncle_Frank 16]

15 hours ago, dvesely said:

I've spent the last couple of days trying to figure this out and even with years of IT experience, this is confusing!

I have an IPTV provider.  They give me a m3u file with a zillion channels and it KILLS emby if I import it directly.

I've tried Thread fin and it can't handle it either. So I finally went to PlaylistLabs | Online M3U & XMLTV Playlist Editor  and was able to crunch it down to just about 10K live tv channels only.

They gave me a URL for that filtered list and I was instructed to bring that into Threadfin first and feed that into Emby.

 Is there an easier way to do this?  I'm a tech and can't figure out!

 Thanks for your help.

 Dan

10K live tv channels only.   What you can do is download your m3u to your computer and open it as a text grabbing only the channels you watch save them to just a simple txt file that emby reads from. You want emby to have all the correct guide data and posters right? so why put yourself through all that just add what you use instead of 10k channels. Just a thought is all

[mwongjay 94]

Try Dispatcharr, it's more feature rich and intuitive than xteve, threadfin, or IPTVBoss. You can then filter the iptv groups by activating a subset of them, apply regex filters if needed to filter a subset of channels within a group. You can then keep each group synced automatically or manually create channels from streams to create a playlist. Once you have a curated m3u playlist you can import it into Emby. 

You'll likely realize you need to also manage EPG data in Dispatcharr because many channels won't have corresponding EPG data from Gracenote (what Emby uses) and is only available via your iptv provider or by creating dummy EPG data (which uses metadata in the stream title to create EPG data). The base dummy EPG implementation allows for complex use cases and the Event Channel Managarr addresses live event visibility for the m3u playlist.

Beyond m3u and EPG, Dispatcharr allows you to create many stream profiles to control ffmpeg/vlc flags when streaming channels. I've generally found this necessary to clean up/handle upstream network issues separately for iptv vs OTA stream from HDHR tuners. 

[dvesely 3]

I guess what I am learning here is that the channel list is STATIC and once I edit it to the channels I want, the list only needs updating if I want to add or remove channels from my list.

Then I just need to update the EPG which is easier if you don't have to start with 100k channels.

Let me know if this is correct please.

I will give Dispatcharr a try and appreciate the suggestions.

Dan

[mwongjay 94]

2 minutes ago, dvesely said:

I guess what I am learning here is that the channel list is STATIC

For linear channels (such as CNN, Fox News, programs with 24/7 programming), yes, they should be static. For example, I activate USA - News group, but I don't auto sync the group because I only want a 5 or 6 of the 100+ streams. I use the UI to manually create a channel from the stream for only those streams. Do this across all activated groups.

By now you'll have a concise, consolidated playlist across your m3u sources, for me this includes iptv and HDHR OTA tuners. Mine consolidated m3u is ~100 linear channels. Next, you'll want to create an EPG source from either (iptv provider, SchedulesDirect [gracenote], or various free sources). If you don't have any dummy EPGs, select all channels to bulk edit then auto-assign EPG then view the TV Guide in Dispatcharr and review the results. Fix up any missing or incorrect mappings. If you have dummy EPGs, bulk edit the by group(s) only so you don't unintentionally overwrites dummy EPGs until the next refresh.

For OTT/PPV channels (such as ESPN+) those are dynamic and you need to create dummy EPGs that map to the groups so rules are automatically applied for every stream. Due to the dynamic nature you'll want to enable auto sync the group then filter channels that aren't airing anything - this might be a regex rule that filters "NO EVENT" in the stream title (you'll want a more complex regex rule as that's a simple example). 

Emby will then fetch the concise m3u playlist which is ~3-400 channels. 

VOD is a separate matter and will require additional Dispatcharr plugins/configuration to manage .strm files.