Self-Hosted Live TV PVRs

Emby is a self-hosted media server used for organizing and streaming personal movies, music, and photos to various devices across local and remote networks. It functions as a central hub for media library hosting, incorporating a DLNA media server for device discovery and a remote media gateway for secure external access. The system features a GPU-accelerated transcoder that converts video formats on-the-fly to ensure compatibility across different playback devices. It also includes a live TV DVR capable of streaming live television signals and scheduling recordings for later viewing. The platform provides metadata-driven library organization, parental content controls, and offline media downloading. It supports extensibility through a plugin architecture and offers synchronization options for cloud and external storage. The server exposes a REST API for client communication and integrates with vehicle interfaces and voice playback controls.

aptv is a cross-platform m3u IPTV player and multi-platform media client designed for streaming live television channels. It functions as a cloud-synced media manager that stores playlists and application settings in the cloud to maintain consistent configurations across different devices. The application provides a native viewing experience across mobile, desktop, television, and automotive interfaces. It includes an electronic program guide to display scheduled broadcasts and channel information, alongside support for live television catch-up to play back previously aired programs. The system manages media ingestion through m3u and m3u8 playlist imports and utilizes dynamic stream resolution to fetch live video feeds. It also incorporates asynchronous media loading to handle network fluctuations and remote guide integration to map scheduled content to specific channels.

This project is a cross-platform media center, player, and digital media library manager. It serves as a centralized home theater hub for organizing, managing, and playing digital audio and video files across multiple operating systems. The application features a skinable media interface designed for remote control and ten-foot interface optimization. This is supported by a skinning engine that separates visual layout from application logic, allowing for custom user interface designs. The system provides automated media library organization by scanning folders to generate structured databases with metadata, descriptions, and cover art. It supports multi-format media playback and network content streaming from local storage or internet sources. The codebase utilizes a cross-platform build system to generate executable binaries and supports a plugin-based architecture for loading external extensions.

LunaTV is an IPTV streaming web application and progressive web app media aggregator. It functions as a dockerized media server that aggregates video sources and metadata from multiple external content management systems into a single searchable interface for streaming live television and on-demand video. The project distinguishes itself with a video stream ad-skipper that identifies and removes sliced advertisements from video feeds. It also features a remote configuration distribution system that delivers application settings through encoded links to automate the setup of clients. The application includes capabilities for cross-device watch synchronization of playback timestamps and favorites, custom content categorization, and aggregated content search across multiple resource providers. Performance is managed through virtualized list rendering for large media collections and in-memory session state management. The system is deployed using a multi-container orchestration model with multi-stage container builds to minimize production image size.

TV is a media streaming management application used to organize and play on-demand videos and live television channels from various web sources through a single interface. It functions as a hub for IPTV channel organization and media discovery. The project utilizes a modular system of crawler scripts to aggregate content and extract metadata from external websites. It manages network connectivity through encrypted DNS, proxy rules, and domain-based routing to filter traffic and bypass regional content restrictions. The application supports hardware-accelerated video decoding, electronic program guide integration for live channels, and DLNA casting. It includes a REST API for remote playback control and synchronization across devices, including integration with vehicle head units. Configuration is managed via remote URLs or local files, allowing site lists and application settings to be updated without recompiling the software.

Jellyfin is a self-hosted media server that organizes digital media collections and streams content to various client devices over a local or remote network. It utilizes a client-server architecture that separates media processing and storage from user interfaces, communicating through a standardized web-based application programming interface. The platform is designed for cross-platform hosting, running consistently across Linux, Windows, and macOS through native binaries or containerized environments. It features a hardware-accelerated transcoding engine that offloads intensive video conversion tasks to dedicated graphics hardware, optimizing playback performance and reducing processor utilization. Additionally, the system includes a modular plugin architecture that allows for dynamic feature expansion by integrating third-party extensions. The software supports a range of administrative and deployment capabilities, including database-backed state management for user preferences and media metadata, as well as discovery-protocol-based networking for automatic client identification. It provides tools for monitoring server health, managing network port configurations, and organizing connected devices. Installation is supported through various methods, including pre-built container images, automated scripts for Linux distributions, and binary packages for Windows and macOS.