HOW: Restrict IPTV stream to a max. bitrate...?

[Pete (NZ)]

I loaded http://i.mjh.nz/nzau/kodi.m3u8 into an IPTV device (NPVR 5.14), and am playing channels via Kodi v19.1

Similar to what Matt Huisman seems able to achieve with his various kodi addons for streaming providers, I'd like to be able to restrict the max. bitrate of the streams to 5Mbps (so a max resolution of 720p).

This is because I'm setting up a TV system for my elderly parents who live in a rural area and tend to have the Sky box on all day, every day, so would chew through gigs... and often their mobile internet isn't always up to scratch. I've found that setting Matt's addons to a max 5mbps bitrate for my parent's setup creates the optimal reliability for them.

I'd prefer to use NPVR for its wonderful ability to record FTA IPTV streams -- a feature that Kodi does not seem to officially support (I'm presuming due to it's avoidance of anything that could potentially be associated with piracy)

So any way of setting NPVR so that it only ever gets (so sources, as opposed to serves to a client) a 720p-max stream, or is it all dependent on the URL in the .M3U file? Or is it purely dependent on the client (kodi) to ask for a different stream?

Thanks for any help, and education, in advance!
Pete

[sub]

Unfortunately you can't currently select from which quality stream to use. It's defaulting to the highest quality stream.

I'll add this to the todo list though.

[Pete (NZ)]

Wow, thanks Sub! That might help me minimise those "There's something wrong with the TV picture, Pete!" phone calls from them.

It would also ease my conscience a lttle too, as their internet is via a 4G mobile modem, so clogging up the locally-shared, rurally-precious bandwidth with constant high-def TV consumption (while my folks are asleep half the time too while it's on!), is something I'd like to minimise.

I have another question, re some odd 100% CPU behaviour that I noticed today, while watching the aus ABC stream. I'll post that separately now...

[mvallevand]

I could actually do this with an extra pretty easily if you could identify the specific channels that are problems.

Martin

[mvallevand]

I had a go at writing the Extra which actually is pretty easy but resolution may not be what you'd be interested in bandwidth streams seem to be the concern. Many streams (from Melbourne were I was testing) don't have a 1920x1080 feed anyway.

For 720p there might even be a choice

PROGRAM-ID=1,BANDWIDTH=2745864,AVERAGEBANDWIDTH=2745864,RESOLUTION=1280x720,CODECS="avc1.64001f,mp4a.40.5"
PROGRAM-ID=1,BANDWIDTH=4321568,AVERAGEBANDWIDTH=4321568,RESOLUTION=1280x720,CODECS="avc1.640020,mp4a.40.5

Here is an another example with high bandwidth low resolution feed.

PROGRAM-ID=1,BANDWIDTH=4128000,RESOLUTION=720x404,CODECS="avc1.77.30, mp4a.40.2"

Then question becomes what if the required bandwidth cannot be satisfied, would you want higher (like this example) or it.

Some of the mjh links are ts files too so you don't get a choice.

Martin

[sub]

I didn't give an entirely complete answer when I replied yesterday.

I did infact add the ability to set a preferred bitrate, which it'd try to stay under if possible, like in this situation where multiple bitrate versions of the stream are available. However, there some special case logic for the the TVNZ channels through http://i.mjh.nz, which forces them to go through an ffmpeg remux, which would mean this logic wouldn't apply to these specific channels. I'm guessing these were probably the key channels your parents would be interested in, so I thought it probably wasn't worth saying I'd added it.

[sub]

FYI, that change I referred to above works by adding a preferred bitrate to the m3u when you import

http://i.mjh.nz/nzau/kodi.m3u8|preferred...te=1000000

[Pete (NZ)]

FYI, that change I referred to above works by adding a preferred bitrate to the m3u when you import

http://i.mjh.nz/nzau/kodi.m3u8|preferred...te=1000000

Thanks Sub... I take it that I need to wait for the next release until I re-import the m3u like this?
As an example, if I wanted a max bitrate of 5Mbps, then the URL would become http://i.mjh.nz/nzau/kodi.m3u8|preferred...te=5000000 ...?

[Pete (NZ)]

Then question becomes what if the required bandwidth cannot be satisfied, would you want higher (like this example) or it.

Some of the mjh links are ts files too so you don't get a choice.

Martin

Thanks Martin! I really appreciate your thoughts and efforts on this, and yet again marvel at how helpful and generous this forum is. 
I'm not sure how relevant it is for you now -- as it seems Sub may have done a solution -- but to answer your question.... yes, it's more of a preferred_maximum_bitrate, rather than an absolute_max_bitrate value, so if the only available streams are above the preferred max, then choose the next lowest bitrate stream above the max_bitrate.

Pete

[mvallevand]

That makes sense.  Here is a extra of the profiles in the Melbourne list (that weren't blocked) to help you consider your limit.

Martin