IPTV Import muxes from M3U file?

Diego Rivera

Hi, all!

Given that there are some (many?) IPTV services out there that expose their channels (muxes) via M3U file, are there plans to support importing such a file into TVH and having the streams listed therein be imported as muxes/services?

This would greatly simplify the setup for some IPTV services. In fact, it's entirely sensible that one would define the IPTV "network" as pointing to the source of that M3U file, such that mux scanning implies simply reading that M3U and re-generating the individual muxes/services.

Is something like this plausible or even desirable? Please excuse my complete lack of indepth knowledge of IPTV here. If I'm proposing something nonsensical, please set me straight (and with information :) ).

Thanks!

TV TV

It's plausible.

m3u8 files contain url to .ts files that it has mpeg-ts data streams like in a IPTV service (or DVBT/DVBC/ATSC).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_Live_Streaming

If you read .ts files and send .ts raw data by UDP, you will see the channel like a IPTV channel.

Diego Rivera

Correct!

However, currently I'd have to manually add each URL in that m3u8 file into TVH in order to create a mux (and, subsequently, a service) for it. Evidently every URL in the file would lead to a TS stream (pipe://, http://, udp://, etc.).

The goal here would be to allow for "bulk import" of muxes from such an M3U file, hopefully also making use of the #EXTINF and #EXTTV information that might be included. This would greatly simplify addition of customized IPTV setups, as well as integration with internet-based setups (i.e. IPTV services on the internet).

Ideally, one would be able to do this at a network level, so that when this "IPTV-M3U" network does a MUX scan, it would instead get the M3U list (pointed to by the URL in the network definition, which would need to be added), and parse the list to generate muxes. It can then scan each MUX normally and create services accordingly.

Also, periodic scans can reveal new services, or remove expired ones, etc., just like all other networks/dvb inputs.

Thoughts?

Torbjørn Brekke

Tvheadend supports m3u importing of IPTV mixes.

Diego Rivera

How? I've not found the means to do it. What is the discovery mechanism? If not discovery, how is it specified?

Torbjørn Brekke

I don't remember right now if its in the network or muxes you add the path to the m3u file in the URL section.
If I'm not wrong its the IPTV automatic network you have to use in the network tab.
Put this in the URL field and the path after it: file://
So it should look like this:
file:///path/to/m3u.m3u