telesfor

Live TV from streaming services, in Plex

telesfor turns streaming channels into a virtual HDHomeRun tuner. Watch, pause and record through Plex's Live TV & DVR, with a TV guide built in. No tuner hardware is needed.

Get it on GitHub Quick start Free and open source

The channels

Poland

TVP
TVP 1, TVP 2, TVP Info, TVP Sport, TVP Kultura, the regional TVP3 stations and more
WP Pilot
Polsat, TV 4, Telewizja WP and more

Brazil

Globoplay
TV Globo, Futura and ge tv
EBC
TV Brasil, TV Brasil Internacional, Canal Gov and Canal Educação
TV Cultura
TV Cultura and Cultura Fast

France

france.tv
France 2, France 3, France 4, France 5 and franceinfo
TF1+
TF1, TFX, TF1 Séries Films and LCI

What you need

  • Plex Media Server with a Plex Pass Live TV & DVR is a Plex Pass feature.
  • ffmpeg The packages and the Docker image include it. For the archives, check that ffmpeg -version works.
  • A connection in the channels' country Most TVP channels and WP Pilot need a Polish connection, Globoplay a Brazilian one, and most of France Télévisions' and TF1+'s channels a French one. From abroad, give the provider an HTTP proxy with an exit in that country.
  • An account, for some providers Globoplay, WP Pilot, and TF1+ for TF1, TFX and TF1 Séries Films. EBC, TV Cultura, france.tv and LCI work without one.

Paid and DRM-protected channels are not supported.

What you get

  • Watch, pause and record

    Everything Plex's Live TV & DVR does, with channels from streaming services.

  • A 48-hour TV guide

    Programme listings come straight from the providers, fetched ahead of time and refreshed through the day.

  • Original stream quality

    Up to 1080p without transcoding, in the best quality your connection keeps up with.

  • One list of channels

    Each provider is a tuner with its own guide. Add them all to one DVR and the channels appear together in Plex.

  • A settings page

    Each provider's addresses ready to copy, its sign-in and its channels, and a switch to turn it off.

  • Linux, macOS and Windows

    Install a package, run the single binary or start the Docker container.

Quick start

  1. Download telesfor

    Get the archive for your system from Releases and unpack it, or install a package from the list below.

  2. Start it

    Open a terminal in the unpacked folder and run:

    ./telesfor

    If you need a Polish proxy, start with its address instead:

    ./telesfor -tvp-proxy 'http://<proxy-host>:<port>'

    On Windows, use .\telesfor.exe. telesfor listens on port 5004.

  3. Connect Plex

    In Plex, open Settings → Live TV & DVR and set up a DVR. Add a provider's tuner manually by its address, then choose an XMLTV guide and enter its guide address. Add each other provider to the same DVR as another device.

    A provider's tuner address is http://<telesfor-host>:5004 followed by its path, and its guide address is the tuner address plus /xmltv.xml. For Globoplay, they are http://<telesfor-host>:5004/globo and http://<telesfor-host>:5004/globo/xmltv.xml.

    ProviderPath
    TVPnone
    Globoplay/globo
    EBC/ebc
    TV Cultura/cultura
    france.tv/francetv
    TF1+/tf1
    WP Pilot/wppilot

    The settings page at http://<telesfor-host>:5004/ lists every address in full, ready to copy. Step-by-step guide.

Other ways to install

Each package installs ffmpeg too. On Linux, the packages run telesfor as a systemd service.

Arch Linuxtelesfor-bin from the AUR
Debian, UbuntuThe .deb from Releases
FedoraThe .rpm from Releases
macOSbrew install --cask combor/tap/telesfor
Windowsscoop bucket add combor https://github.com/combor/scoop-bucket, then scoop install combor/telesfor
Nixnix-env -f https://github.com/combor/nur/archive/main.tar.gz -iA telesfor

Or run the Docker image, ghcr.io/combor/telesfor, or build from source.