TVHeadend Live Channel for Android TV

Kiall Mac Innes

Hey all,

We've build a Live Channel add-on for Android TV, it's pretty beta, but would love some wider testing, feedback, and ideally contributors (it's open source ;)). It should work on the Nexus Player, Sony Android TV, nVidia Shield, etc.

The github repo at the end of the post has some screenshots..

1. Join the beta community (required!) https://plus.google.com/communities/102705346691784371187

2. Join the beta on Google Play: https://play.google.com/apps/testing/ie.macinnes.tvheadend

3. Download from Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ie.macinnes.tvheadend

Code is up at https://github.com/kiall/android-tvheadend

We'll keep an eye on this thread, and the Google play community for any issues, suggestions, rants etc :)

Here's some notable TODOs:

1. We currently require you have a streaming profile called "to" defined in TVHeadend.
2. We plan to move from the JSON API to HTSP.

3. We've seen some cases of the app opening an seemingly endless number of connection to your TVHeadend server, which appears to be a bug in android 5.x triggered by bad connectivity to the server.

Anyone looking to contribute, which can be anything from helping test releases to writing code, please reach out :)

Kiall Mac Innes

Derp, typos :)

1. We currently require you have a streaming profile called "tif" defined in TVHeadend.

Kiall Mac Innes

Looks like a bunch of folks are having success with the app, with some good feedback on the G+ community, awesome :)

Sometime this week or next, we'll publish a "production" version on the play store with open access. In the meantime, more feedback is welcome!

Some screenshots attached...

Dietmar Konermann

Just noticed your new app being mentioned on IRC.

Absolutely awesome news, have an Sony Android TV set and will test and provide feedback asap.

Thanks, :)
Diddle.

Iam Nague

I have a 2015 android sony tv. This is what I was dreaming of !

I'm joining the beta right now.

Thanks a lot.

Kay R.

I also have a 2015 Sony Android TV. I thought this was an "APP", but it integrates into the TV like any other source. Unfortunately it did not work that great for me. All channels give sound, but channels with 1080i played in slow motion/dropping video frames and channels in 720p has no video at all. Same channels works fine when played on integrated tuner, so has to be something with the way tvheadend stream the media ?

Kiall Mac Innes

Choppy HD channels is something we're aware of, and working towards fixing. However, I've never seen slow motion on my Sony 2015 TV, during anything HD that's fast paced it's a little "juddery" - but just about watchable. We're hoping to switch to HTSP before spending too much time on HD video issues, as I'm suspecting video over HTTP just isn't keeping up..

David Quintana

Hi, fantastic job.

No conect to server, error network in AndroidTV 7. NEXUS PLAYER.

Thanks.

Saen Acro

Is there a chance to have APK for non so "tv" android aka android stb's

p.s.
any chance to be exported project as branch to this request
http://tvheadend.org/issues/3992

Kiall Mac Innes

No, the app relies very heavily on Android TV specific functionality, unless google release these bits publicly and the STB manufacturer you bought from includes it in a update, it won't be usable something we can support.

Kiall

Anonymous

Hi, I just found this application and I have a few questions.
Right now I use an app called Perfect Player together with my IPTV service.
I would like to use the Live Channels app with my Mi Box (official Android TV box). And I like this solution.
From what I understand TV Headend supports IPTV M3U8 URL's?
Will it automatically pull updates from my URL? And can I sort and remove channels from this URL?

Thomas Sweden

This app is working great on my Sony Android TV for everyday use, it integrates well with the TVs UI and functions. When I want timeshift or recording I need to use Kodi due to lack of capabilities in this app (at least running on Sony TVs).

No problems at all so far, watching SD and HD channels.

Marce Castro

Hi,

Any news on the app status? I just installed it on my Xiaomi Mi Box. I come from TVheadend for Kodi on a Raspberry Pi 2:

- TV is unstable. Sometimes it loses connection or channel gets stuck
- No channel grouping available (you can do that on Kodi). My IPTV provider gives me 200 channels, and it's really inconvenient not to be able to group them or change order.

- No options to record or schedule program recordings. Or I have not been able to find the proper shortcut...

Anyway, thanks for the app and keep up the good work!

Carl Bap

Use the server timeshift features with the app. It helps smoothing the playback. Also enable passthrough from app.

Works pretty well for me with these changes.

Dominik W

Marce Castro wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Any news on the app status? I just installed it on my Xiaomi Mi Box. I come from TVheadend for Kodi on a Raspberry Pi 2:
>
> - TV is unstable. Sometimes it loses connection or channel gets stuck
> - No channel grouping available (you can do that on Kodi). My IPTV provider gives me 200 channels, and it's really inconvenient not to be able to group them or change order.
> - No options to record or schedule program recordings. Or I have not been able to find the proper shortcut...
>

> Anyway, thanks for the app and keep up the good work!

You can get develop builds here for testing DVR, but there are currently some upstream limitation on the DVR database handling from android tv. its a very early preview of the DVR functionality.
http://jenkins.macinnes.ie/job/android-tvheadend/job/develop/

Channel grouping has also upstream limitation to android tv. But we can do genre import if your EPG source supports it. Maybe there will be a workaround in the future.

Kiall has some deadlines at work, so developing currently stucks a little bit. But he did a very good job at all :) - wish someone would join the project too.

Simon Russell

Thanks for this - great app!

Rap Tor

Thanks for the great work!

One question, is the TIF profile still needed? If yes, what kind of profile should it be? Information about this is very lacking.

Thanks!

Dominik W

Rap Tor wrote:
> Thanks for the great work!
>
> One question, is the TIF profile still needed? If yes, what kind of profile should it be? Information about this is very lacking.
>

> Thanks!

Since 0.3.x TIF isn´t needed anymore, switched to htsp.
<<

Rap Tor

Thanks for answer. For some reason the reply went to spam on my gmail :/

Randy M

Recently switched to Nvidia Shield and using TVHeadend Live channel for Android TV but i'm missing the Radio channels, is there a alternative for Radio channels?

Only issue with the addon currently is that sometimes the picture stops for a second or 2 (audio doesn't).