[mythtv-users] Recording IPTV?

[Stephen Worthington]

On Sun, 2 Feb 2020 00:42:52 +0100, you wrote:

>On Sat, Feb 01, 2020 at 03:24:06PM +1300, Stephen Worthington wrote:
>> On Fri, 31 Jan 2020 23:49:50 +0100, you wrote:
>> 
>> >I was in contact with the IPTV provider today but according to them
>> >the only available option to watch TV on a computer was to use a
>> >browser and use their Play service.
>> 
>> That could be made to work in MythTV as long as the credentials are
>> sent as part of the URL, rather than negotiated separately.  If they
>> are separately negotiated, then you would probably need to write code
>> (eg in Python) to create an external recorder for mythbackend.
>
>That sounds encouraging.
>
>I did a quick test with curl and it seems to work to provide the
>credentials in the call.
>
>Do you have any pointer to where I can read up on creating an
>external recorder for the mythbackend?

If it works with curl, then there is no need for an external recorder.
But just in case, here is the documentation on external recorders:

https://www.mythtv.org/wiki/ExternalRecorder

and here is an example of one written in Python 3:

https://github.com/garybuhrmaster/mythhdhrrecorder

To use MythTV directly with IPTV URLs, the documentation I worked from
for my SAT>IP URLs is here:

https://www.mythtv.org/wiki/IPTV_Encoders_as_a_Capture_Device

Basically, you just create a .m3u file in the correct format for
MythTV and load it in a new IPTV video source.  That sets up all the
channels.  There is no automatic scanning to create the .m3u file -
you have to do that yourself, and keep updating the channels as things
change in the future.  Here is an excerpt of my playlist.m3u file, to
show you exactly what a working one looks like:

#EXTM3U

#EXTINF:0,4004 - PRIME HD
#EXTMYTHTV:xmltvid=prime.freeviewnz.tv
#EXTVLCOPT:program=1211
rtsp://satip.jsw.gen.nz:554/?src=1&freq=12295&msys=dvbs&plts=off&fec=34&pol=h&ro=0.35&sr=22500&mtype=qpsk&pids=0,307,1007,1107,1907

#EXTINF:0,4091 - CNBC
#EXTMYTHTV:xmltvid=cnbc.sky.co.nz
#EXTVLCOPT:program=1095
rtsp://satip.jsw.gen.nz:554/?src=1&freq=12394&msys=dvbs&plts=off&fec=34&pol=h&ro=0.35&sr=22500&mtype=qpsk&pids=0,310,1010,1110

#EXTINF:0,4110 - MTV Hits
#EXTMYTHTV:xmltvid=mtv-hits.sky.co.nz
#EXTVLCOPT:program=1180
rtsp://satip.jsw.gen.nz:554/?src=1&freq=12421&msys=dvbs&plts=off&fec=34&pol=h&ro=0.35&sr=22500&mtype=qpsk&pids=0,302,1002,1102,1902

#EXTINF:0,4071 - Crime & Investigation
#EXTMYTHTV:xmltvid=crime-investigation.sky.co.nz
#EXTVLCOPT:program=1049
rtsp://satip.jsw.gen.nz:554/?src=1&freq=12421&msys=dvbs&plts=off&fec=34&pol=h&ro=0.35&sr=22500&mtype=qpsk&pids=0,303,1003,1103,1903

#EXTINF:0,4104 - Nick Jr
#EXTMYTHTV:xmltvid=nickjr.sky.co.nz
#EXTVLCOPT:program=1184
rtsp://satip.jsw.gen.nz:554/?src=1&freq=12421&msys=dvbs&plts=off&fec=34&pol=h&ro=0.35&sr=22500&mtype=qpsk&pids=0,304,1004,1104

#EXTINF:0,4074 - BBC Knowledge
#EXTMYTHTV:xmltvid=documentary.sky.co.nz
#EXTVLCOPT:program=1059
rtsp://satip.jsw.gen.nz:554/?src=1&freq=12421&msys=dvbs&plts=off&fec=34&pol=h&ro=0.35&sr=22500&mtype=qpsk&pids=0,306,1006,1106,1906


Your URLs would presumably be normal http or https, where mine are
rtsp, but any URL that mythbackend can use will work.  I put in the
#EXTVLCOPT:program= lines with the service ID values for my channels,
even though they are not used when tuning via my SAT>IP server, so you
would not have those lines.  The xmltv ID values used have to match
your source of XMLTV EPG data.  In my case, I get that from scanning a
DVB-S2 multiplex using a modified version of tv_grab_dvb_plus, so I
have control of the values used to create the EPG data.  If you are
able to use Webgrab+Plus, then you will need to match the XMLTV IDs it
outputs for the channels.  To create my playlist.m3u file, I wrote
some Python code to extract the data from scanning files I created by
scanning my satellite channels.  You could do the same from the XMLTV
data from your EPG source, and then add the URLs to that data.