Hello Plexworld,
I’ve been monitoring the LiveTV and DVR situation of Plex with IPTV as input stream for a while and have just finished a marathon of (trying to) getting it to work . I think its time for a little sumup of the situation.
Since I dont have any option here for a decent TV signal input stream I need to use IPTV. Zattoo is an excellent service provider that I have signed up with for many years and I finally managed to generate an m3u file that I could indirectly feed into Plex. I used https://github.com/Seji64/PleXZattoo to make it work.
My original topic https://forums.plex.tv/t/zattoo-input-stream/235715 is outdated now.
Obviously Plex won’t let us use direct IPTV input streams and hence we need to walk the long way using Xteve or Telly as an input proxy emulating a HD homerun. A really good guide on how to set things up can be found here: https://www.smarthomebeginner.com/plex-iptv-guide/
Since tuning some channels with the generated m3u file from Zattoo didn’t work with Plex (it worked without problems in VLC) I ended up looking out for other IPTV providers. I think I cannot give links but I found one that was iconic and works really well.
I never managed to get things working in Telly but Xteve worked out of the box. I have to say though, this is where things are getting weird with Plex.
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when configuring your DVR you have to ignore all “Device not found” errors. When you enter the IP where Xteve is hosted (I am using a docker setup) the device will sometimes be recognized, sometimes not, you just have to click “next” to get to the channels editor. Once setup the device will always appear as “not found” even though you can watch TV and record shows.
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The Plex channel editor is a nightmare. Lets say you selected 180 channels out of 2k or 3k channels by carefully configuring filters in Xteve you will have to map each one using a drop down of unsorted channels. There is no filter or search option. I went through this once which took hours, I then ended up having assigned one channel twice by mistake and there was no way of correcting my mistake. Even worse, I couldnt even save my work. Unselecting the channel or reassigning it with a different one did not make the error go away. I was stuck in the channel editor and ended up having to close it and start all over.
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If you dont want to use the channel editor there is the option of giving plex an EPG source. Luckily my IPTV provider provides one and the channel assignment is perfect. Unluckily Plex will then ignore the specific metadata in the XMLTV file that contains info about reoccuring series. So no series recording - deal breaker. I had to use the built-in EPG source of plex and map channels the nightmare way (see above). I know this is a Plex specific problem because the EPG source works perfectly including series and new detection in Emby.
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When using the TV interface you can only use the self hosted version on http://[serverip]:32400/web/index.html# . All other versions (plex.tv app.plex.tv etc) will crash as soon as you click on the browse menu button. (Chrome Version 79.0.3945.130 64bit on Linux 5.3.0-45; Plex Server Version 1.19.1.2630)
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Editing channels or adding some more channels at a later time is not possible in Plex because of the “device not found” error. In rare occasions when Plex sees the device in the configuration menu a button with assigned channels will appear. At this moment I dont even want to touch it because I fear it will break.
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For some reason some channels of which I know that I configured them are entirely missing. I cannot investigate further at the moment. Like I said I just fear to break things.
I looked over the horizont a little bit to see how its going on the other side and fired up a docker container with Emby and even signed up for their premium service just to see if it works better. What can I say? Direct IPTV input streams and EPG source that work out of the box. It was a thing of less than 10 minutes to get it all working and it was absolutely flawless including chromecast support.
With that said I see that the overall UI/UX approach of Plex in that matter seems to head into a better direction in my opinion and I would like to wait a bit to see if it can catch up.
The main problem in my opinion is that Plex doesnt support direct IPTV input streams and the Xteve/Telly solution is considered sort of as the unoffficial / half legal thing to do. It makes things complicated because whever there is a problem the source of it can not always be identified to be coming from Plex or Xteve/Telly.
I think that Plex should aknowledge that not all IPTV streams are illegal and that there are many out there that are free or ones that users have paid for legally. Just look at https://github.com/iptv-org/iptv for example. It would be a great great and needed addition to Plex if we opened up to that world. Escpecially knowing that TV antennas and TV satellite dishes may be considered as a technology of the past.
My understanding is that there is currently a lot of work being done in Plex around the TV/DVR world. I am eagerly waiting for Chromecast support and hoping that IPTV is to come as well…
