German Cable Experience

A_User_of_Plex · September 13, 2016, 8:51am

Hi, I would like to hear from German Users who set up Plex DVR with Vodafone Kabel or other German providers.
For roughly 180€ the HDHR is quite expensive to just try out.

Some questions:
-Did the set up work?
-Where did you buy your HDHomeRun?
-How many channels are available / what’s your provider?
-…

Wiidesire · September 13, 2016, 8:58am

I use it with Kabel Deutschland in Germany. The channel data for Kabel Deutschland is almost completely wrong. Instead I had to use Telekom and manually match! (what a pain to set up, channel names are not always clear, I used a Telekom channel number guide from the internet) nearly all of my channels (only like 5 matched with Telekom automatically).

I did buy the HDHomeRun at Amazon, was at 170€ when I bought it, now it got up a little bit.
If you choose Telekom all channels are available, even encrypted ones (but ofcourse HDHomeRun won’t recognize and decrypt those), almost like 300 channels.

See also here:

I’ll try it now with the second beta and report back, maybe Gracenote updated their data for Kabel Deutschland.

A_User_of_Plex · September 13, 2016, 9:05am

Thanks for the quick reply. Looks like Ill be waiting for a price drop and try it out myself…

Are all unencrypted channels (also the private ones) working for you?

Wiidesire · September 13, 2016, 9:08am

Yes, everything unecrypted is working. Private ones in SD and if available the public ones in HD.

lauridsd · September 13, 2016, 10:25am

I’m getting my HDHR this evening, will try it with TeleColumbus and post the results here.

lauridsd · September 13, 2016, 8:23pm

This is how it looks like with TeleColumbus. Not a single channel is mapped correctly, and as you can see the names of the gracenote channels are really hard to read.

elan · September 13, 2016, 8:28pm

We’re definitely looking into usability issues with the mapping screen, as well as ways we can improve mappings for everyone via community contributions.

lauridsd · September 13, 2016, 8:34pm

Sounds great, i’ll try to get it sorted for now

elan · September 13, 2016, 8:35pm

Yeah, the one good news is you should only have to figure out the mapping once

lauridsd · September 14, 2016, 7:07am

@elan said:
Yeah, the one good news is you should only have to figure out the mapping once

Yeah, didn’t take as long as i expected, everything is running now. Huge props to you and your team, the way the guide is displayed is fantastic, it’s a different approach but everything looks so good already even if everything is just in beta. Thanks!

justme1968 · September 14, 2016, 8:29am

the mapping for unit media is also completely missing/wrong. i had to try to use the most complete list and map manualy. quite tedious als the abbreviations in the telekom list i had to use are not all self explanatory.

iPhonedation · September 14, 2016, 9:48am

@elan - how about storing user generated mappings centrally ?

A_User_of_Plex · September 14, 2016, 11:26am

Thanks for the further input. @iPhonedation
I like that idea. Doesn’t have to be hosted on plex.tv but a shared “community mappings” repo would be awesome!

@elan
Where are the mappings stored right now? Would be super simple if we could share mappings right now!

iPhonedation · September 14, 2016, 11:31am

@Wiidesire said:
Yes, everything unecrypted is working. Private ones in SD and if available the public ones in HD.

I guess that is because HDHR is not offering CI+CAM options, right? Which is a bit of problem from my point of view in our German cable networks. Another good reason for implementing more sources/providers than HDHR in the mid term.

Wiidesire · September 14, 2016, 11:49am

@“Jonathan Vogelbusch” said:
Where are the mappings stored right now? Would be super simple if we could share mappings right now!
The mapping is stored under http://localhost:32400/livetv/dvrs?X-Plex-Token=YYY

YYY needs to be replaced with your Plex-Token. Go to Plex Web, click on any item, then Info and then “View XML”. There you will find the Plex-Token in the URL.

The mapping above is used with Kabel Deutschland as the provider but Telekom Deutschland GmbH (Telco - Premium) - Digital used in Plex. Channels missing from Telekom in comparison to Kabel Deutschland (at least what I noticed) are ORF 2 Salzburg, Zee One and 1-2-3.tv.

I also enclosed some screenshots showing the missing channels for Kabel Deutschland (those who are there are also “wrong”, Kabel Deutschland doesn’t even have them + the completely wrong mappings).

Wiidesire · September 16, 2016, 1:08pm

Any update on how we can contact Gracenote to correct these issues (or if we should not and let Plex handle the communication) is appreciated @elan.

iPhonedation · September 16, 2016, 1:41pm

I am not sure if gracenote is really wanting to hold every little small Cable Companies channel setup in their database … That is totally stupid, but hey. They will know what they do.

From the vdr epg daemon configuration I know this can be painful, but once you sorted it, it is really good. Why not just take gracenote as source for the channel-data and their mapping as a suggestion, so that we are not so much depending on what they think might in our paid packages … basically every channel they have I should be able to map, right?

Wiidesire · September 16, 2016, 2:05pm

@iPhonedation said:
I am not sure if gracenote is really wanting to hold every little small Cable Companies channel setup in their database …
Um what? They already do. But the listed channels themselves are completely wrong (they either do not exist on my provider or they are encrypted stuff). The mapping is not even the big problem, I could manually fix that. But only when the channels are listed/available.

Do you call 18 million households “small”? That’s how many households watched TV over cable companies in 2013 in Germany. 7 mllion of those are from Kabel Deutschland.

I don’t think it’s too much to ask for correct channel listings.
As a workaround I’d love to be able to choose from multiple provider listings (one in theory should be enough but not when the channel listings are wrong) so I can correctly map all of the channels I need.

justme1968 · September 16, 2016, 5:12pm

unitymedia and kabeldeutschland are not some small providers but share probably about 90% of the german kable market. and both are missing.

elan · September 17, 2016, 6:44am

@iPhonedation said:
@elan - how about storing user generated mappings centrally ?

Longer term, I agree this would be awesome.

@“Jonathan Vogelbusch” said:
Where are the mappings stored right now? Would be super simple if we could share mappings right now!

You could share mappings via copying a PUT HTTP command, but that’s sort of a terrible way to do it.

@justme1968 said:
unitymedia and kabeldeutschland are not some small providers but share probably about 90% of the german kable market. and both are missing.

I’m annoyed, and will be talking with Gracenote about this. Where do Germans usually get their EPG data from?

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German Cable Experience

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