So after going down a new rabbit hole of information on home servers like JELLYFIN have found a tool called DISPATCHARR. From what I gather it will take stream sources and help you stabilize them. Assume lots of different streams can come in from a variety of random sources, and need some serious control and buffer monitoring, plus remapping for EPG information.
Please correct if you understand this different. If this tool exists there must be a lot of serious stream sources issues that need to be corrected and improved. This also helps explain why reliable DVR saving of shows is not allways possible, as streams are very easy to corrupt in connections. It’s not the local software like TIVIMATE that is having issues. It’s the steam source. Speculate? Or true?
I was trying to figure it out also, seems it runs in Docker and I know nothing about docker except I have some issue with it not working on my computer. I am wanting it because my understanding is I can edit TV service playlists.
If you look at the DISCORD group the discussion history is pretty interesting. Seems everyone is happy to use this tool. To make it work in win11 workstation I have to create a docker box, and put this software in there. Else completely convert over to UBUNTU Linux on my server, for a headless server. Know enough about Linux to get in trouble and not sure I want to monkey with it.
Am a cheapskate Alibaba user for service. So my DVR reliability might be better served by finding a one month test provider with better IPTV and two or three streams simultaneously (which I have found maybe). Such a rabbit hole hobby for time. Lol.
Everything is getting more and more aggressive with shutdowns. Can see this all going away in six months with blocking at the major INTERNET PROVIDER level, like YOUTUBE does for video. Pure speculation and rumer on my part.
I installed this in docker on my NAS and I’m very happy with it. If you’re familiar with docker it’s pretty easy to get running. Takes some time to get the channels lined up with epg data and if you use hardware video decoding you have to set up a custom stream profile for ffmpeg in the settings but once you get that going it just works. Their discord is very friendly and helpful as well.
One cool thing is that if you run your tv service through dispatcharr you can play the same feed on multiple tvs and it only counts as one stream.
EDIT: I should also say that I’m running Dispatcharr behind a VPN on my NAS so no issues with privacy and I haven’t noticed any latency. I haven’t tried out the dvr functionality because I just use it for direct streaming but folks on the discord server seem happy with it.
I’m using it. Works great for streaming on LAN, I use it to stream content to each of my TVs just going from dispatcharr. I’m still a beginner user though, there’s a lot to it.
I know this is an old post, however, with all the changes happening with providers, streams, etc. does anyone have a solid working setup using dispatcher? I have 2 service providers and have loaded all their feed urls and dispatcharr cycles thru when a feed is slow or dead so (technically) never have channel not playing. Granted depends on provider (sources). To be honest there is a slight delay, before switching 5-10 seconds, but I’m good as long as channel works, plus connection slowest happens, right. Then in tivimate I point to dispatcharr locally. I do not keep all countries loaded. So I’m only pushing 4-5k channels.
Just wondering how others might be using this and share setup, etc. great tool though. No issues in about year.
You can probably reduce the delay by tweaking your stream profile on your Dispatcharr setup. Are you using proxy, redirect, or ffmpeg? 4-5k channels is a lot! I’ve got it down to about 300ish including all the NCAA, NFL, and MLB games. If your not on the discord let me know and I can send the invite or you can find it on the github.
hi @sonnybonds i think i mis-spoke some. My actual list (channels) is actually 210, but the lists from the providers (groups, categories, etc…) i have reduced down to 2-4K instead of the overwhelming 60K+. No i am not on discord yet. will see how to join. I am ffmpeg proxy. the whole reason i began using dispatcharr, which might be the wrong idea or approach, was for more stability. I find that watching streams through dispatcharr buffer less it at all. Plus i use a separate VPN that dispatcharr is behind as well. please send invite. What are you referring to i can find on github?
thank you for the insight and ideas.
Ahh. Gotcha. I’ll put the links for the github and discord below. In the discord under stream profiles there will be some ffmpeg flags that may help with your delay. Let me know if you have any questions, but everyone on the discord is super friendly and helpful. GitHub - Dispatcharr/Dispatcharr · GitHub
Thank you @sonnybonds just joined via discord. Goodness a bunch of things happening there. . Will do some searching. Still learning the app itself, happy with it and how it performs. Once I figure out differences between groups, profiles, filtering etc.. and other settings hope to have a smooth system. Does not take any resources either at least on my system.
Actually, yeah, I do like that I created a few plug-ins to work with it. One helps with channel logos (mainly for Plex users) but it does help with other apps where logos are not loading correctly as logos from repos can be used and load via https url, and one that I and m sure many struggle with is Plex and playing vod content. Now I’m able to import into Plex and play vod (movies for now) in plex from dispatcharr, not just live streams any more. Not sure about posting or promoting here, but if you are on their discord look under plex, and the plug-in groups.
