What to replace DVBLink with for Sat-IP and IPTV sources?

[breakingdad]

Greetings, new user here.

For many many years, I've been using DVBLink as an aggregator of all my TV sources, which is a mixture of SAT-IP and IPTV streams. It has worked pretty well. I stick all my tuners and sources behind DVBLogic, and it presents to WMC as one simple BDA-tuner. With epg123 handling the epg, it's a pretty sleek setup. But now DVBLogic is no more. I can't even activate another instance should my PC fail. So I gotta look for an alternative.

Is there another aggregator that can present as a compatible tuner? There's been a few HDHomeRun emulators where you could feed an m3u8 playlist for Plex and Emby. But the emulation doesn't go far enough to fool WMC/HDHR-BDA as a real HDHomeRun tuner.

Anyone on the same boat as me, using WMC with IPTV sources?

thanks!

[Jacoats]

I’m in the same boat. Did you have any luck finding anything ?

[breakingdad]

No, I haven't found a replacement for DVBLink yet.

We have 2 TVs in the house. The main TV is attached to a Win7 PC running WMC + DVBLink + epg123 server. The DVBLink server talks to my Xoro Sat-IP box. Then the bedroom TV is attached to a Win10 PC running WMC + DVBLink client + epg123 client. Either TV can tune, record and watch simultaneously. But should anything happen to my main room PC, there's no way to recover because it's no longer possible to reinstall/reactivate a new DVBLink server instance.

I want to keep WMC as it's the most uncomplicated, spouse-friendly frontend there is. Thanks to garyan's work, WMC and EPG are solid. So the only alternative route I see is to get a separate box to run Tvheadend, then run HDHRProxyIPTV on our main room PC. I haven't crossed that bridge yet, but I may have to this year.

[boxcar32]

Hi all, give this a try, https://kevinchalet.com/2023/07/05/conn ... o-dvblink/. I just did this with the help of Kévin. I now have WMC working with my cable channels and some Pluto TV channels.

[prsa01]

Hi all, give this a try, https://kevinchalet.com/2023/07/05/conn ... o-dvblink/. I just did this with the help of Kévin. I now have WMC working with my cable channels and some Pluto TV channels.

Have you tried recording /watching/timeshifting the pluto stuff yet? Pretty much everything I've tried and read (with possible exception of channels dvr) has had mixed to disappointing results with pluto depending on channel and even show within channel.

To be clear, this has nothing to do with Kevin's iptv/wmc solution. This is using multiple different dvr solutions with pluto.

[boxcar32]

I only have a few pluto channels that I watch through WMC. Some play fine but others don't play at all. I am using tvheadend where I have to pipe some of the channels to get them to stream. I will test recoding a series and let you know.

[prsa01]

I only have a few pluto channels that I watch through WMC. Some play fine but others don't play at all. I am using tvheadend where I have to pipe some of the channels to get them to stream. I will test recoding a series and let you know.

Streamlink seems to help, but not solve, some of these issues. There are discussions both in n NextPVR and Channels dvr forums about the many things people have tried to get pluto to play nicely with other apps. In Npvr/kodi I can watch live (mostly) fine and record some shows/channels after transcoding ok. Other shows pretty much are a mess after recording. One of the knowledgeable people said the time indexes need to be rebuilt but Npvr stopped putting effort into it awhile ago. It's possible Channels dvr solved it. I haven't tried their solution but don't see current problems discussed. That could be because they gave up on it too, though.

Anyway, if you find something that works, please share it.