I'm no longer maintaining this repo and do not know if the youtube4tvh tool still works. For this reason, I'm now archiving the repo. See the note below for a reference to the latest guide.
The tutorial related to this program has been deprecated. There's a new tutorial about the integration between Tvheadend and Streamlink--called TVHlink: Livestreams as IPTV channels with TVHeadend and Streamlink--that greatly simplified the integration. More specifically, the youtube4tvh tool is no longer required to manage m3u playlists of Youtube livestreams. However, this tool still works just fine, so I won't archive this repo just yet.
- All files directly related to the new TVHlink integration, such as Docker container helper scripts and curated
m3uplaylists, can be found on my tvhlink repo.
youtube4tvh is a CLI program written in Python that finds Youtube live-streams and creates/updates m3u playlists for a TVHeadend server (TVH; https://github.com/tvheadend/tvheadend). The m3u file follows IPTV conventions that allow a TVH server to automatically create an IPTV network with them, and each stream is piped into TVH via a Streamlink (https://streamlink.github.io/) shell script.
This utility is part of a guide I wrote on how to create an IPTV network in a TVH server composed entirely of Youtube live-streams. You can read about it on my blog post.
-
Python 2.7 or higher (but recommend using 3.5+)
-
Python packages: Pandas (pandas) and Requests (requests) is all you will need to install (see requirements.txt)
-
A TVH server to feed the list to clients as an IPTV network
-
Streamlink to pipe the stream data into a TVH server
- A valid Youtube API key (https://developers.google.com/youtube/v3/getting-started). Be mindful of your request quota daily limits. You can check your API activity at https://console.cloud.google.com/apis/dashboard and will get a "quotaExceeded" msg when you've reached yours. API quotas are applied per project and you can create multiple projects, if necessary. [For reference, each channel add/update uses 200 quota points (see
searchresource cost in the Quota Calculator) and because the daily limit is 10k, I suggest using one API key for up to 50 channels (or similarly, update a .m3u file with 25 channels twice a day, or a .m3u file with 10 channels five times a day, and so on). Daily quotas reset at 00:00 Pacific Time, so configure your cron jobs accordingly.]
In general, this program is well suited for a TVH server that has the following layout:
That is, there's one or more client that accesses a single TVH server that reads an m3u playlist (output.m3u) that contains one or more muxes from Youtube live-streams. Such a playlist is generated and managed by the current Python program (youtube4tvh/main.py) and the live-streams are piped into the TVH server via Streamlink.
This program was created with the intention to be used with a TVH server. However, it's definitely possible to use it to simply create m3u playlists for other use cases. If you have a player that can read m3u files, you might want to change the --pipecmd to whatever command the player will accept to read the live-stream.
- Linux
# Open a terminal window with a sudo user
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install git python-pip
cd /opt
sudo git clone https://github.com/cgomesu/youtube4tvh.git
cd youtube4tvh
# Install required packages via pip
pip install .
# Test the program
cd youtube4tvh
python main.py --channelname="DW News"
# Now, there should be an output.m3u playlist on the same folder with the DW News channel live-stream.
# If you run into permission issues, then 'sudo chown -R YOURUSER:sudo /opt/youtube4tvh', changing YOURSER for your sudo username.
# If TVH is unable to run streamlink.sh, try 'sudo chmod +x /opt/youtube4tvh/streamlink.sh'.usage: main.py [-h] --apikey APIKEY [--apiurl APIURL] [--channelid CHANNELID]
[--channellogo CHANNELLOGO] [--channelname CHANNELNAME]
[--m3uinput M3UINPUT] [--m3uoutput M3UOUTPUT]
[--mode {add,update}] [--pipecmd PIPECMD]
optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
--apikey APIKEY your API KEY to use the Youtube API. see
https://developers.google.com/youtube/v3/getting-
started.
--apiurl APIURL base URL of the Youtube API. default uses the Youtube
API v3.
--channelid CHANNELID
for --mode=add. the ID of a channel with a live-
stream. if not provided, obtained from a channel name
query.
--channellogo CHANNELLOGO
for --mode=add. the URL of the channel's LOGO. if the
channel id is not provided, it will be obtained from a
channel name query.
--channelname CHANNELNAME
REQUIRED for --mode=add. the NAME of the channel with
a live-stream.
--m3uinput M3UINPUT REQUIRED for --mode=update. the /path/to/input.m3u.
used to import data from an existing m3u file.
--m3uoutput M3UOUTPUT
the /path/to/output.m3u. default is output.m3u.
--mode {add,update} mode of execution. choose add or update. mode=add will
add a single channel to an m3u file (default).
mode=update will update the URL of multiple channels
from an m3u file.
--pipecmd PIPECMD the command to pipe data to a player/server. for TVH
and streamlink, it is pipe:///path/to/bash
/path/to/streamlink.sh, for example. default is
"pipe:///bin/bash /opt/youtube4tvh/streamlink.sh".(In the examples that follow, I'll use an API key to request data from Youtube. If you don't have one, just omit it from the arguments.)
- Create a new youtube.m3u playlist with the live-stream from "France 24 English" using an API key:
python main.py --apikey=YOURKEY --m3uoutput=youtube.m3u --channelname="France 24 English"
# Output:
[INFO] Retrieving channel info using the NAME provided...
The channel ID is: UCQfwfsi5VrQ8yKZ-UWmAEFg
The URL of the channel's logo is: https://yt3.ggpht.com/-Qc-MGBq90YE/AAAAAAAAAAI/AAAAAAAAAAA/AAmrwHX7No0/s88-c-k-no-mo-rj-c0xffffff/photo.jpg
[INFO] Retrieving info from the channel's live-stream...
A live-stream was found! Extracting info from it...
Done extracting info from the live-stream!
[INFO] Did not find an input M3U playlist. Generating an empty data frame...
Empty data frame created.
[INFO] Appending stream info to data frame...
[INFO] Writing data frame to .m3u file...
Data frame was successfully exported to youtube.m3u!
[INFO] Done!
[INFO] We're all done here. Bye!cat youtube.m3u
# Output:
#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:-1 tvg-id="UCQfwfsi5VrQ8yKZ-UWmAEFg" tvg-name="France 24 English" tvg-language="" tvg-country="BR" tvg-logo="https://yt3.ggpht.com/-Qc-MGBq90YE/AAAAAAAAAAI/AAAAAAAAAAA/AAmrwHX7No0/s88-c-k-no-mo-rj-c0xffffff/photo.jpg" tvg-url="" group-title="",France 24 English
pipe:///bin/bash /opt/youtube4tvh/streamlink.sh https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJzSJlMwQcA- Append the live-stream from "ABC News AU" to youtube.m3u:
python main.py --apikey=YOURKEY --m3uinput=youtube.m3u --m3uoutput=youtube.m3u --channelname="ABC News AU"
# Output:
[INFO] Retrieving channel info using the NAME provided...
The channel ID is: UCVgO39Bk5sMo66-6o6Spn6Q
The URL of the channel's logo is: https://yt3.ggpht.com/-Eh3AwGhwPeI/AAAAAAAAAAI/AAAAAAAAAAA/QomvTf2lg_s/s88-c-k-no-mo-rj-c0xffffff/photo.jpg
[INFO] Retrieving info from the channel's live-stream...
A live-stream was found! Extracting info from it...
Done extracting info from the live-stream!
[INFO] User provided an input M3U playlist at youtube.m3u. Will try to parse it and create a data frame...
Validating the m3u file...
Did not find bad headers in the m3u file youtube.m3u.
Parsing the m3u file...
The m3u file was successfully parsed!
[INFO] Did not find the same channel on youtube.m3u. Will append the channel info to data frame...
[INFO] Writing data frame to .m3u file...
Data frame was successfully exported to youtube.m3u!
[INFO] Done!
[INFO] We're all done here. Bye!cat youtube.m3u
# Output:
#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:-1 tvg-id="UCQfwfsi5VrQ8yKZ-UWmAEFg" tvg-name="France 24 English" tvg-language="" tvg-country="BR" tvg-logo="https://yt3.ggpht.com/-Qc-MGBq90YE/AAAAAAAAAAI/AAAAAAAAAAA/AAmrwHX7No0/s88-c-k-no-mo-rj-c0xffffff/photo.jpg" tvg-url="" group-title="",France 24 English
pipe:///bin/bash /opt/youtube4tvh/streamlink.sh https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJzSJlMwQcA
#EXTINF:-1 tvg-id="UCVgO39Bk5sMo66-6o6Spn6Q" tvg-name="ABC News AU" tvg-language="" tvg-country="BR" tvg-logo="https://yt3.ggpht.com/-Eh3AwGhwPeI/AAAAAAAAAAI/AAAAAAAAAAA/QomvTf2lg_s/s88-c-k-no-mo-rj-c0xffffff/photo.jpg" tvg-url="" group-title="",ABC News AU
pipe:///bin/bash /opt/youtube4tvh/streamlink.sh https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pES1Zd_vyjU- Update all URLS from the youtube.m3u
python main.py --apikey=YOURKEY --m3uinput=youtube.m3u --m3uoutput=youtube.m3u --mode=update
# Output:
[INFO] User provided an input M3U playlist at youtube.m3u. Will try to parse it and create a data frame...
Validating the m3u file...
Did not find bad headers in the m3u file youtube.m3u.
Parsing the m3u file...
The m3u file was successfully parsed!
[INFO] Updating channel: France 24 English...
[INFO] Retrieving channel info using the NAME provided...
The channel ID is: UCQfwfsi5VrQ8yKZ-UWmAEFg
The URL of the channel's logo is: https://yt3.ggpht.com/-Qc-MGBq90YE/AAAAAAAAAAI/AAAAAAAAAAA/AAmrwHX7No0/s88-c-k-no-mo-rj-c0xffffff/photo.jpg
[INFO] Retrieving info from the channel's live-stream...
A live-stream was found! Extracting info from it...
Done extracting info from the live-stream!
[INFO] User provided an input M3U playlist at youtube.m3u. Will try to parse it and create a data frame...
Validating the m3u file...
Did not find bad headers in the m3u file youtube.m3u.
Parsing the m3u file...
The m3u file was successfully parsed!
[INFO] Found the same channel on youtube.m3u. Updating its url in the data frame...
[INFO] Writing data frame to .m3u file...
Data frame was successfully exported to youtube.m3u!
[INFO] Done!
[INFO] Updating channel: ABC News AU...
[INFO] Retrieving channel info using the NAME provided...
The channel ID is: UCVgO39Bk5sMo66-6o6Spn6Q
The URL of the channel's logo is: https://yt3.ggpht.com/-Eh3AwGhwPeI/AAAAAAAAAAI/AAAAAAAAAAA/QomvTf2lg_s/s88-c-k-no-mo-rj-c0xffffff/photo.jpg
[INFO] Retrieving info from the channel's live-stream...
A live-stream was found! Extracting info from it...
Done extracting info from the live-stream!
[INFO] User provided an input M3U playlist at youtube.m3u. Will try to parse it and create a data frame...
Validating the m3u file...
Did not find bad headers in the m3u file youtube.m3u.
Parsing the m3u file...
The m3u file was successfully parsed!
[INFO] Found the same channel on youtube.m3u. Updating its url in the data frame...
[INFO] Writing data frame to .m3u file...
Data frame was successfully exported to youtube.m3u!
[INFO] Done!
[INFO] We're all done here. Bye!
- Update all URLS from the /path/to/youtube.m3u everyday at 6am via a cronjob:
crontab -e
# Go to the end of the file and add the following,
# changing /path/to to your absolute path:
0 6 * * * /path/to/python /path/to/main.py --apikey=YOURKEY --m3uinput=/path/to/youtube.m3u --m3uoutput=/path/to/youtube.m3u --mode=update
# Save and exit (ctrl+x)
React
Typescript
Django
Laravel
Facebook
Microsoft
Google
Alibaba
D3
Tencent