Overview/Summary of URLs offering tvheadend services?

Digard · 2024-06-24T17:23:11+00:00

I refer to https://tvheadend.org/d/439-how-to-play-tvheadens-streams-in-vlc. It is 10+ years old, but made me aware of some features that can be obtained fro...

HD

I'm using a little trick by only enabling the channels I like to see in tvheadend and
selecting them in VLC as a stream with:
http://yourtvheadendservername:9981/playlist/channels.m3u?enabled

Prerequisite is a distinguishable channel name, but I suspect you know how to do this in tvheadend.
Let VLC automatically expand the list ( see Preferences All ) as to easy channel selection.
If changing channels is slow, consider saving the stream as VLC playlist.

DeltaMikeCharlie

HD I'm using a little trick by only enabling the channels

Perhaps you could also create a 'Channel Tag' containing only the channels that you want to use in VLC.

Digard

HD
Looks almost good to me. In the background the playlist is building up, but there is a"HTTP authentication" in the way, that wants me to enter credentials "for realm tvheadend". I tried my non-privileged tvheadend login, and the admin user of tvheadend. Neither makes this pop-up go away.
Would you know what I am doing wrong?

HD

DeltaMikeCharlie Checked your suggestion to use a tag, and yes it works. Thanks.

HD

@DeltaMikeCharlie - Nice, even simpler.

And connect with "?tagname" instead of "?enabled" ? Haven't tested it yet.

HD

Digard - Haven't encountered this problem myself.

My hunch would be this is an issue not directly related to your question.
I would try deleting the regular user of tvheadend and let everyone use tvheadend.
Just place * in the field for username and leave the one for password empty.
This should get rid of the login form, as is the case in my environment.

Jonas Lang

Chances you are having a character recognition issue when supplying your name and password. Are all the characters you are using plain English, no spaces, no caps and no protected characters.

Jonas Lang

Also read this https://tvheadend.org/d/7834-solved-client-authentication/13

HD

I should have added that configuring a VLC playlist form the m3u will let you bypass the query
and connect with the channels directly. This is OK for performance but when a rescan changes
the inner tvheadend identification of channels, this playlist will no longer be valid.
You will then have to use the link again to create a renewed playlist that points to the channels new identity.

Crazy thought:
It must be possible to circumvent this "feature" with some scripting that at load of the m3u auto generates
the playlist and shows this playlist in VLC instead of the m3u. It would only slow the initial load a bit.
Let me know when that's done 🙂.

HD

Couldn't resist acting on my own suggestion to write some code that creates a
VLC playlist from the tvheadend m3u. It's made in powershell and works both in
my Windows and Linux machines (yes, powershell can be installed in Linux).
Lots of these scripts are available online you say, sure, but examining and
adjusting one of these is way less fun for me than creating one afresh.
Not sure if this forum allows attachments, but if anyone interested I will post.

I use a hotkey code to start my TV watching and added a call to this script.
It's now followed by a call to the VLC playlist instead of the channels url.
A change of channelid's by tvheadend still results in a broken and invalid VLC playlist.
It's because of the update just before VLC-TV startup this can't bother me anymore.

On the subject of my little trick to set channels on "enabled" in tvheadend and
then use "...?enabled" this: on closer examination the second part is unnecessary.
"http://tvhserver:9981/playlist/channels" will get you all enabled channels anyway,
and anything added seems to be ignored when generating the m3u playlist.

A filter on channel or tag name in the web-gui will not change that, I tried, only
a channel setting of enabled or disabled affects the playlist generation.

HD

Jonas Lang suggested this thread on your question.
I took note and also had a look at this one.
This is my little summary of both, good to know if ever I choose to setup a regular user.
Q:
-I'm being asked frequently for user credentials when switching channels using this url:
http://user:pass@ip:9981/playlist/channels
A:
-Add persistent authentication to the user in Configuration>Users>Passwords
-Use this url: http://user:pass@ip:9981/playlist/auth/channels

Digard

HD
It does everything that I was hoping for.
(And that VLC is a tad boring, for having to select 'Playlist' instead of showing Picons or so, is a problem of VLC.)

HD

Digard
VLC is a bit spartan compared to Kodi, and the latter is probably more suited as
a stand-in for regular TV watching. But I'm with you, I used both Kodi and VLC for
a while on my computer and tend to only use VLC now.

If VLC could -like Kodi- also collect the channel guide info from tvheadend, it
would compete even better. No mandatory need for it on a computer though, channel
guides can easily be found elsewhere on the web.

To slightly enhance VLC usability you could generate several channel playlists
as to your wishes, just by selectively enabling/disabling channels in tvheadend
and using the standard url as a base. Changing the default playlist and node name
into a more informational one is also easy, as playlists are editable text files.

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