Pipe and switch to next service

JiRo

To receive Live TV channels, I use the pipe method in Tvheadend. It runs a script that gets the stream URL from the relevant source (server) and then passes it to ffmpeg. In some cases, I have multiple sources for the same TV channel, whose services have different priorities. And I would like to ensure that if I find in the script that the source (server) is unable to provide me with the URL, the script is terminated in such a way that Tvheadend switches to another service. The same way it is done, for example, when the given network has no more free streams/adapters.

I tried, for example, to insert an error return code (exit 1) into the script, but that doesn't work.

Cutter

Hello JiRo
Please post your script here.

You should have a condition in your script that checks the exit code of the URL retrieval command before passing it to the URL.

Example in bash

Cutter

Edit: ** before passing it to ffmpeg **

JiRo

Cutter I don't think I need to send a specific script. The question and answer should be clear even without it.

Of course, I have the condition you are talking about in the script, but that is not important at all. What is important is how I should end the script so that the Switch to another service procedure is triggered. I tried to end the script using exit 1, but the switch to another service did not occur.

I am afraid that Tvheadend does not know how to do this at all, that it will only use the Switch to another service procedure if the Maximum # input streams limit of the given network would be exceeded by starting the stream.

Now it occurred to me that this could be related to the Mux settings in the Expert Settings section. Kill signal parameters and others. Do you have any experience with this? Budu zatím pátrat tímto směrem...

Cutter

What happens if you pass a bad or empty URL to ffmpeg and let if fail ?

JiRo

Cutter This varies, depending on other settings, but in no case will it ever switch to another service with a lower priority.

Hey, don't say that anymore. I see that you are just guessing and have no experience with the given problem. Everything that you will try here now and ask me what will happen if..., I have already gone through. Anyway, thanks for your effort.

Finally, I decided and solved it with my own selection mechanism with a quick test of the availability of streams stored in an external database. It works reliably, quickly and is adaptive. I have several stream addresses in the database for each service, the availability test runs as a multithread, the first confirmed stream is selected. In addition, for speed, the last used working stream is remembered for each service. The delay in switching channels is definitely shorter than it would be if I solved it in Tvheadend with multiple services for each channel (and if their switching worked).

The database service runs as a server application (daemon) on the machine where Tvheadend is also running, a simple client application is launched using the pipe:// method when selecting a channel. It sends the server application (via socket) a string identifying the service, and the server application returns (by the same way) a valid address of a working stream.

@chewitt This topic can be closed for me. I don't need to deal with it anymore.