ATV - M3U8 - Working, but need some help

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1

I asked earlier in another regarding m3u8 files and the apple tv, and was told it may not work due to plex not supporting these files. But after reading the plex connect wiki, my understanding was that most of the heavy lifting was still done by the ATV with regards to playing back media. 

 

As the ATV can playback m3u8 via airplay I thought there must be a way, so i managed to edit the plex video extension file to accept m3u8 files, and then import them into the PMS. So far so good, they showed up under Plex Connect on the ATV, when i tried to play it, nothing happened, but after using the "Force Direct Play" option, bingo! it worked perfectly.

 

Only problem I have now is, that MKV/AVI will not playback as they need to go through PMS, is there a file/option somewhere either through Plex connect or PMS which I can add an exception to allow m3u8 files to be sent directly to the ATV instead of having to be transcoded? 

 

I am guessing there is a method in place which PMS tells plex connect and other clients such as iOS app to allow playback of certain files which the host can play natively?

 

Thanks for any suggestions and the awesome script.

2

There is a configuration on the PMS for the new transcoder, although at the moment we use the generic iOS one (this will get tweaked for individual ATV2 and ATV3 ones).

Why do you want to be able to play M3u8?

3

It’s a IPTV stream. Thanks will have a look.

4

There is a configuration on the PMS for the new transcoder, although at the moment we use the generic iOS one (this will get tweaked for individual ATV2 and ATV3 ones).

Why do you want to be able to play M3u8?

Sorry if this is a silly question, bit new to all this stuff, if I tweak the iOS profile xml found under program files....plex server, can I then add the m3u8 format for direct play?

The streams are h264 and aac audio hence they work on the apple tv

5

TBH i am not sure which one it is but try it! :)

One of the devs in the main Plex chatroom may be able to confirm.

6

No probs, i will just play around with it, maybe check in the dlna profile forum.

7

Hi mate, did you get any far with this? I am looking to achieve the same - play IPTV sterams on my ATV3 using PlexConnect. Thanks.