8 ms·

I added ErsatzTV to my Plex setup about a month ago and we honestly love it so much. I've got 2 sitcom channels, British panel shows, Taskmaster, all Star Trek

I added ErsatzTV to my Plex setup about a month ago and we honestly love it so much. I've got 2 sitcom channels, British panel shows, Taskmaster, all Star Trek all the time, British sitcoms, cartoons, and a few others. Its really nice to just sit down and watch "whatever is on" (even though I could switch over to the main library and watch any episode I want). Sometimes I just want a 0-effort/0-decision background noise while I work on something else or browse on my phone.

hadrien01 2y ago
I've done the same thing with dizqueTv for my grandmother. On her Android TV, I was able to integrate the IPTV channels on the same channels list, so she can simply use the remote to navigate between the digital channels and the IPTV channels (30 for Hercule Poirot, 31 for classic B&W movies, etc.)
- archon810 2y ago
  dizqueTv, ErsatzTV... these are the "Chinese company names on Amazon" of TV app names.
  - universa1 2y ago
    No clue about dizqueTV, but ErsatzTV is German for tv replacement/substitute :-) so it has a little more meaning then the Chinese Amazon names ;-)
    - vijayr02 2y ago
      Ersatz is also a perfectly cromulent English word [0] [0] https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/ersatz https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/ersatz
l72 2y ago
I've also been using ErsatzTV with my jellyfin setup. It can take a while to setup channels how you want them, but I love my sci-fi channel which is going through all the Star Treks, Stargates, and Twilight Zones. It is so much easier to flip it on to my Sci-fi Channel, animation channel, movie channel, or James Bond marathon channel then to decide what to watch. And since I've seen all this content, it is often kinda nice to start in the middle of an episode. I also found a ton of old Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, and Adult Swim bumps that I use as some filler content if I want episodes to start on the hour. I've been thinking a lot about setting up some kids channels with specific hours (like channel comes on at 7am, goes off during part of the day, comes back on in the afternoon, and goes offline at bedtime) for my siblings kids, as I think letting them just browser youtube kids is terrible.
- lackstein 2y ago
  > I also found a ton of old Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, and Adult Swim bumps Where were you able to find these? Recreating one of these channels has been a side project I’ve wanted to do for ages.
  - l72 2y ago
    I think it was mostly youtube and retrojunk.com Try searching for "$channel bump" Personally, I think Adult Swim had the best bumps, usually just some nice house music with a nice animation and some funny quotes.
    - ChadNauseam 2y ago
      I'm really interested in this but I'm having trouble googling. What is a bump? Is it referring to this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bumper_(broadcasting) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bumper_(broadcasting)
      - l72 2y ago
        Yup. Here's a playlist for adult swim ones. I just used yt-dlp and passed in the playlist URL and it will download all the bumps as separate files: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HS8kchdwFPM&list=PL075thqiB6t9FE4pyy-2omH_rZMVhnp77 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HS8kchdwFPM&list=PL075thqiB6...
enobrev 2y ago
I've been using Quasi TV (android app) to try out the concept. I remember having something similar back in the boxee / xbmc days. I especially liked that it "just worked" without having to set anything up besides pointing it at my plex. I'm not afraid of hosting something, but I didn't want to go through the trouble if it turned out I wasn't going to use it. I quite like it. Unfortunately, the app's been a bit buggy - not always picking up the stream at the "current time" and sometimes navigation gets wonky. But it was a good test run and that, along with your post, has convinced me to give Ersatz (or something like it) a try.

hadrien01 2y ago

I've done the same thing with dizqueTv for my grandmother. On her Android TV, I was able to integrate the IPTV channels on the same channels list, so she can simply use the remote to navigate between the digital channels and the IPTV channels (30 for Hercule Poirot, 31 for classic B&W movies, etc.)

archon810 2y ago
dizqueTv, ErsatzTV... these are the "Chinese company names on Amazon" of TV app names.
- universa1 2y ago
  No clue about dizqueTV, but ErsatzTV is German for tv replacement/substitute :-) so it has a little more meaning then the Chinese Amazon names ;-)
  - vijayr02 2y ago
    Ersatz is also a perfectly cromulent English word [0] [0] https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/ersatz https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/ersatz

l72 2y ago

I've also been using ErsatzTV with my jellyfin setup. It can take a while to setup channels how you want them, but I love my sci-fi channel which is going through all the Star Treks, Stargates, and Twilight Zones. It is so much easier to flip it on to my Sci-fi Channel, animation channel, movie channel, or James Bond marathon channel then to decide what to watch. And since I've seen all this content, it is often kinda nice to start in the middle of an episode. I also found a ton of old Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, and Adult Swim bumps that I use as some filler content if I want episodes to start on the hour. I've been thinking a lot about setting up some kids channels with specific hours (like channel comes on at 7am, goes off during part of the day, comes back on in the afternoon, and goes offline at bedtime) for my siblings kids, as I think letting them just browser youtube kids is terrible.

lackstein 2y ago
> I also found a ton of old Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, and Adult Swim bumps Where were you able to find these? Recreating one of these channels has been a side project I’ve wanted to do for ages.
- l72 2y ago
  I think it was mostly youtube and retrojunk.com Try searching for "$channel bump" Personally, I think Adult Swim had the best bumps, usually just some nice house music with a nice animation and some funny quotes.
  - ChadNauseam 2y ago
    I'm really interested in this but I'm having trouble googling. What is a bump? Is it referring to this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bumper_(broadcasting) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bumper_(broadcasting)
    - l72 2y ago
      Yup. Here's a playlist for adult swim ones. I just used yt-dlp and passed in the playlist URL and it will download all the bumps as separate files: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HS8kchdwFPM&list=PL075thqiB6t9FE4pyy-2omH_rZMVhnp77 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HS8kchdwFPM&list=PL075thqiB6...

enobrev 2y ago

I've been using Quasi TV (android app) to try out the concept. I remember having something similar back in the boxee / xbmc days. I especially liked that it "just worked" without having to set anything up besides pointing it at my plex. I'm not afraid of hosting something, but I didn't want to go through the trouble if it turned out I wasn't going to use it. I quite like it. Unfortunately, the app's been a bit buggy - not always picking up the stream at the "current time" and sometimes navigation gets wonky. But it was a good test run and that, along with your post, has convinced me to give Ersatz (or something like it) a try.