Pluto TV is no longer available on this device.

[kidshare2]

I have managed to get this "old" plugin to work perfectly for recording. Haven't had a single problem yet. No hangs at commercials, the entire show records and plays back just fine  and commercials are totally adios.

Streamlink patched the Pluto plugin in late Feb. Manually, you can stream Pluto content with the new version (8.3.x) and the plugin will filter out commercials. Neat. Now let's get it working with this EXTRA plugin.

Please note this ADVICE I'm posting here will *not* work for live streaming, only recording (live streaming still hangs at commercials, boo). And this ADVICE is for Windows, but I think linux is very similar and if you are using linux you can follow because you are smart, this is really simple.


I am assuming you already have the plugin, since it is not publicly available anymore for a good reason (ask for help on this if you don't have it). This took some hours (actually days) of hit-and-miss to get it to work right since I'm not an expert on plugins nor reading and writing in python. (grok and gemini helped a bit on syntax)

The plugin works great for retrieving the schedule and channel list via the API so don't worry about that.


First, obtain the newest version of Streamlink, 8.2 or 8.3 will work, anything past the date that Pluto broke things in late Feb. Make sure your OS knows where this install resides (for Windows I put it in c:\computer\utilities\media\video\streamlink, but that's me, you might like to use the program files folders)

Also update ffmpeg to latest (I use gyan.dev) and put in NPVR/Other directory (might not be totally necessary but what the heck) and for the  pluto plugin for NPVR  put a copy in c:/program files (x86)/streamlink/bin the plugin seems to want ffmpeg   in there

I did the above but received a "no errors but no data received" error in the NPVR nrecord.log so this is where my trial-and-error began. Let's tweak code.

Open "pluto.py" from your extra installation folder (for Windows it's in Public\NPVR\scripts\plutotv) in your favorite text editor (I use Notepad++)

**do not edit pluto.py anywhere else, streamlink has its own library named the same**

Ditch references to "slugs" since using a slug in the URL for streamlink results in a redirect, which might be one source of the hanging. (i.e., "the-first", don't do that, use  the 24-character scrambled-egg vod instead,  you will see it when you actually open pluto.tv  in your browser)

In pluto.py:

Use '_id' instead of 'slug'  wherever  you see 'slug'

Make an adjustment to whatever url you are using, here in the USA this would be https://pluto.tv/us/live/tv{}

(search around, you will find this line around line 290-ish)

On the same line change {}  best -o to best {} --stdout

changing -o to --stdout seems to have made the difference for me, before that I would get in the log "no errors, but no data"

This will send your new streamlink version output to the ffmpeg version you put in NPVR/Other

if you see .format[(station['slug'])  change slug to _id


Now in the command line of your pluto scripts plugin directory (such as \npvr-data\scripts\plutotv),  when you're comfortable with the changes you made,   type python pluto.py  install

This should retrieve the up-to-date channels and schedule and make you a recording beast.

You should see a number of channels in the "devices" list  in your browser. Auto-map the channels to xmltv if it hasn't done so already, or use SD if you are subscribed (I am  but not using it for pluto).

Test! Let me know what you find.  This should make new directories in your recordings directory of choice as before when you record something.


Enjoy! At least till Pluto breaks it again...

I have found it useful after recording the *.ts to remux with ffmpeg using -c copy to rewrite the timestamps, but the *.ts should play fine by itself in your player of choice, at least that's my experience with mpc-hc.

I tested this on short replays such as Cheers+Frasier, and three movie channels, and two live "podcast" channels (Blaze and The First) without any errors at all.













 

What percentage of the time would you say this results in a viewable stream and doesn't miss-identify stream sections and remove elements that are not ads? Ballpark, how many pluto channels have you successfully implemented this on? Any of the various movie or music/concert video channels?

Thanks again!

I plan on implementing this today and will report back.

before the Pluto tv change, I was mostly only recording a news channel and just 1-2 shows per day and it was 99.9% effective.

I would have a failed recording maybe once every 3-4 months.

BAD NEWS:
The bad news, none of my test recordings have worked, I had one that claimed it recorded the 3 hour show, but it only contained the first 54 minutes. and then all other test recordings failed with no content - error: 

Code:

[Failed: One or more errors occurred. (Response status code does not indicate success: 401 (Unauthorized).)]

and if I try to play any of the pluto tv channels I get a different error:

Code:

No tuner was available for the requested channel.

I wasn't able to tell when this error started occurring, I believe it happed before I tested recording multiple episodes hence why I didn't have any content with those recordings.

I double checked that the docker container was up and running and it is, I had to go to NextPVR > Settings > Devices > Pluto TV Tuner 1 > Update channels > Save and then I could play Pluto TV channels. so I'm not sure if there is a fix to make this useable.

if I watch pluto TV, commercial breaks end the stream (hang, like you described), so that hasn't changed either.