REQUEST - Extra for Discovery+ channels

[kevwag]

Could someone make an extra to add the 13 live channels from Discovery+ into NextPVR please?
I'm currently using the D+ Kodi add-on by Dis90 which is very good but it does not record or timeshift. You can pause the stream but when you un-pause, playback resumes from the current point in time - there is literally no point pausing it whatsoever!

Another reason I'd like this functionality within NextPVR is that it would resolve channel group and channel numbering conflicts that arise when trying to use more than one PVR client addon in Kodi. Syncing Kodi channel groups with the backend causes Kodi to ditch any groups you might have created yourself - if the channels all come from NPVR then I can create my custom groups on the server and Kodi won't keep deleting them!

[2leftfeet]

Could someone make an extra to add the 13 live channels from Discovery+ into NextPVR please?
I'm currently using the D+ Kodi add-on by Dis90 which is very good but it does not record or timeshift. You can pause the stream but when you un-pause, playback resumes from the current point in time - there is literally no point pausing it whatsoever!

Another reason I'd like this functionality within NextPVR is that it would resolve channel group and channel numbering conflicts that arise when trying to use more than one PVR client addon in Kodi. Syncing Kodi channel groups with the backend causes Kodi to ditch any groups you might have created yourself - if the channels all come from NPVR then I can create my custom groups on the server and Kodi won't keep deleting them!

I wasn't aware that Discovery+ had "live" TV shows, just VOD and several "streaming now" channels, but not live.  Where or how does one access the "live" channels that you describe?  Is there an EPG associated with these live channels?  I have been using Discovery+ since its launch, but have not run across this feature.

[kevwag]

Could someone make an extra to add the 13 live channels from Discovery+ into NextPVR please?
I'm currently using the D+ Kodi add-on by Dis90 which is very good but it does not record or timeshift. You can pause the stream but when you un-pause, playback resumes from the current point in time - there is literally no point pausing it whatsoever!

Another reason I'd like this functionality within NextPVR is that it would resolve channel group and channel numbering conflicts that arise when trying to use more than one PVR client addon in Kodi. Syncing Kodi channel groups with the backend causes Kodi to ditch any groups you might have created yourself - if the channels all come from NPVR then I can create my custom groups on the server and Kodi won't keep deleting them!

I wasn't aware that Discovery+ had "live" TV shows, just VOD and several "streaming now" channels, but not live.  Where or how does one access the "live" channels that you describe?  Is there an EPG associated with these live channels?  I have been using Discovery+ since its launch, but have not run across this feature.

Well, I guess that comes down to how you define "Live", Nothing Discovery broadcasts on ANY of their channels is truly live, they're all pre-recorded shows. The "streaming now" channels you mentioned are as close to live as Discovery gets. The streaming channels are exactly the same channels you get if you're watching on cable or satellite and yes, there's an EPG directly on the discovery+ website - click the "What's on" link at the top of the page. Clicking on a show / channel in the guide will launch the streaming version of whatever channel you chose. There's no trickery - the streamable Discovery channel is exactly the same as the Discovery channel available on cable / sat etc, give or take a few seconds latency to account for stream buffer etc.

If you use Kodi, Dis90 has created a really good add-on that has all the VOD content, plus it also integrates the live channels via the IPTV manager and IPTV simple client addons which integrates the channels seamlessly into Kodi's EPG and live TV channels section. Once you've done the initial addon setup, it automatically updates the EPG data in the background so you never have to worry about doing anything to maintain it.

As Kodi addons go, it's one of the best I've seen. It's certainly way better than most of the thrown-together barely-working addons in the "Official" Kodi repo!

[2leftfeet]

... "The streaming channels are exactly the same channels that you get if you're watching on cable or satellite and yes, there's an EPG directly on the discovery+ website - click the "What's on" link at the top of the page" ...

Interesting that you would say that the "On Now" channels are exactly the same as if you were watching on cable. It might be the case in the UK, but not here in the states. After ready your post earlier in the day, I did a comparison between the "on now" and actual respective cable channels in the same time slot - the comparison showed, at least here, that there was absolutely no correlation.

And again, here in the states, the discovery+ website had no "What's on" link at the top. I guess Discovery does something different here compared to the UK.

[mvallevand]

I had a look at the kodi source and one thing of note is this line

# discoveryplus.com (US) doesn't have EPG so we use channel name as show name

Looking at the well-documents source it is hard to tell if DRM is involved, but there is a proxy server and it does use inputstreamstream.adaptive which supports Widewine.

It might be possible to write the extra if someone had the interest there is a lot of good stuff, but without Live TV and and EPG (I am assuming the Canadian server is the same as the US) and it is $7 a month it is not for me. The best I could do is explain how to play those links via NextPVR in Kodi with all the shortcomings you have explained.

Martin

[kevwag]

... "The streaming channels are exactly the same channels that you get if you're watching on cable or satellite and yes, there's an EPG directly on the discovery+ website - click the "What's on" link at the top of the page" ...

Interesting that you would say that the "On Now" channels are exactly the same as if you were watching on cable. It might be the case in the UK, but not here in the states. After ready your post earlier in the day, I did a comparison between the "on now" and actual respective cable channels in the same time slot - the comparison showed, at least here, that there was absolutely no correlation.

And again, here in the states, the discovery+ website had no "What's on" link at the top. I guess Discovery does something different here compared to the UK.

Yes, our D+ is significantly different to yours. To a certain extent, that is to be expected - licencing dictates which shows they're legally allowed to air on a per-country basis. It's also in their interest to tailor the line-up for each country because you American customers don't want to see endless British shows about antique restoration any more than us Brits want to watch American Pickers for more than say 12 seconds.

It's a bit odd that the streaming channels in the US don't match the cable ones. Did you take into account the various different time zones in the US, which could have meant they were an hour or two adrift of each other? It makes no sense for them to manage and curate two different versions of the same channel, in the same country, it would cost them more money to do and they would effectively just be competing against themselves!

Discovery do seem to like doing things that increase their overheads whilst defying any rational explanation:- The Discovery+ service launched here in November last year and the two main selling points they pushed in the ads were that you get the main channels without needing cable or a dish and that we get new episodes of Gold Rush the same day as they're released in the US. We actually get those episodes about 8 hours ahead of you guys thanks to the time-zone difference but for reasons best known to Discovery, they completely ruin the show by removing Paul Christie's awesome commentary and replacing it with a guy who has the most irritating regional British accent they could find... well... So I thought, but this latest season they've replaced him with a guy that's even worse! He sounds like he gargles battery acid for an hour before he records the show, it's actually painful to listen to!

It's kinda ironic that I paid for the whole year up-front (Introductory offer that worked out 40% cheaper if you pay annually) but to be able to enjoy one of my favourite Discovery shows in its unmolested form, I still have to use illegal Kodi addons forked from Exodus!

[kevwag]

I had a look at the kodi source and one thing of note is this line

# discoveryplus.com (US) doesn't have EPG so we use channel name as show name

Looking at the well-documents source it is hard to tell if DRM is involved, but there is a proxy server and it does use inputstreamstream.adaptive which supports Widewine.

It might be possible to write the extra if someone had the interest there is a lot of good stuff, but without Live TV and and EPG (I am assuming the Canadian server is the same as the US) and it is $7 a month it is not for me. The best I could do is explain how to play those links via NextPVR in Kodi with all the shortcomings you have explained.

Martin

I just tested the theory by VPNing to Canada and attempting to open www.discoveryplus.ca but that just redirects to www.discoveryplus.com/ca so I think it's safe to assume that there is no Canadian server, they run the Canadian service off the back of the US service and it's inflicted with the same restrictions. According to this Nasdaq post, Discovery+ launched in Canada literally two days ago::
https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/discover...2021-10-12

2leftfeet is correct about the live channels - https://help.discoveryplus.com/hc/en-us/...y-Channels describes them specifically as "Discovery+ channels" and says that they're basically 24/7 streams featuring one show per channel. It's notable that they've been careful not to mention any of the mainstream channels by name on that page.

I think the reason for this is probably that Discovery signed long-term contracts to supply their channels to cable operators in the states at a time before streaming services were a thing, so they signed away the right to provide their channels by other means thinking it wouldn't be an issue. Now they have to wait for those contracts to expire or try to renegotiate the terms before they can provide the mainstream channels on D+. It'll be interesting to see how things play-out next year after they complete their purchase of HBO - the new company will be the second biggest media company in the world, and that tends to get you a louder voice at the bargaining table. Discovery's CEO referred to launching D+ as "a substantial business model pivot" so everything points to the live channels becoming available online eventually for you guys.

If you are able to suggest a way of getting NPVR to relay these channel streams to Kodi I would be eternally grateful. I think you're right about the DRM, when I launched one of the channels after a clean install of Kodi it triggered widevine installation before playing the stream. Is that likely to be an issue? The way I'm thinking about it is fairly logical (I think): Surely widevine only needs you be present on the device that's actually playing the stream? As long as NPVR is set not to transcode the stream then it should be able able to forward the stream much the same as a proxy server would. Widevine is only needed to decrypt the DRM so it can be played and since the client I'd be using to watch the content is a Kodi box, Widevine is already there.

I'm more that expecting you to tell me I'm completely wrong because there's some major factor that I don't know about that complicates things but I thought it's still worth explaining my thought process - if you know how I arrived at my conclusions you'll probably be able to instantly spot where in the process my theory falls apart lol

[mvallevand]

The way the "LiveStreams" process is designed to work (in theory ) is when the channel is opened live in Kodi, instead of going back to NextPVR for playback, there will be a simple redirect to the plugin:// URL which does the actual playback. Looking at the Discovery addon's python source you could probably get an XMLTV listing for use in NextPVR too if you are interested. I have only tested this with YouTube.

Assuming you can get the plugin:// URL for one channel I could explain how to continue. I don't really see the value for this, I mainly use it for playing internet radio via NextPVR.

Martin