HDHR Quattro. Stop auto-discovery?

[GeoffT]

Background.(skip to question at bottom if easily bored!)

I am using Channels DVR with 2 HDHR Quattros as my feed for FTA TV in the UK.

They work great but I don't like the channel numbering imposed. Channels 1-7 are the SD versions of the HD channels which are at 101-107. I want to switch them over, and move another couple of channels too to make a much more sensible line-up.

I was able to do this in Channels by taking the m3U list from the tuners, editing the channel numbers accordingly and putting that into Channels as a custom source. It works up to a point. Channels 1-7 do tune correctly to the HD Channels (I can see that in the HDHR WebUI) but the channel name is showing as the old ones.

Because Channels does not currently have a method of fully disabling or ignoring any HDHR tuner anywhere on the network, their method to "disable" them is to just remove the provider which I have done. However even in that state the tuners are still somehow overwriting the new channel names with the original ones. This isn't so bad if the Channel is basically the same one (ie Ch 1 display shows BBC ONE South W instead of BBC ONE SW HD) but on the ones where I have switched channels around I get completely the wrong name (ie Ch11 shows Sky Mix, but is actually ITV1 SW).

I did find a curl command to deleted the tuners on Channels using their device ID and they disappeared for a while and the channel names were correct, but they just get auto-discovered again and the problem came back

I have asked the Channels team if they can have an option to properly disable the HDHR tuners, but then I thought maybe there is a way from the Tuner end to stop it being auto-discovered?


Question

So after all that background, my question is - Is there any way (API command etc) to stop an HDHR Quattro from being auto-discovered? I understand Port 65000 is used for auto-discovery and that is what Channels looks for, so can that port number be changed somehow so that Channels can't find it?

Thanks in advance.

[jasonl]

There isn't. I would think that the most straightforward way would be to add a firewall rule on whatever is running the Channels server to block that traffic.

[GeoffT]

There isn't. I would think that the most straightforward way would be to add a firewall rule on whatever is running the Channels server to block that traffic.

I have just tried using iptables on my Channels DVR Server linux instance to block UDP port 65001 which I believe is the port used for tuner discovery. That hasn't worked though and the tuners have been rediscovered.

Is that the correct port to block, or is there another port than needs blocking?

Thanks

[jasonl]

You would need to block outgoing traffic from any source port to destination port 65001/UDP, and/or block incoming traffic from source port 65001/UDP to any destination port. Most incoming iptables rules are either blocking or allowing any source port to a specific destination port, so this is backwards.

[GeoffT]

With the help of other users on the Channels forum, I think we have now found the correct iptables command to stop the auto discovery by the Channels server.

My tuners still get auto discovered on all Channels clients though where I don't need or want them as I am accessing them directly via M3U from the server. Fortunately they don't seem to override the channel names on the clients when they are disabled like they do on the server.

It would be a very helpful feature if each HDHR tuner had a toggle in its WebUI to turn off auto discovery. It could default to on so as to retain simple set up for standard use cases, but it has been a real pain trying to ignore/disable them when they are being used via direct M3U links only. I have asked for the same thing at the Channels side, but it would be much better if it could be done at source on each HDHR.

It doesn't seem as if it should be difficult to implement a simple "send out UDP" on/off toggle. Or just make the UDP port user selectable.

[signcarver]

That won't happen... there is no "auto discovery" as far as the device is concerned, something must be looking for it (thus it is "manual" discovery not auto) and to turn that feature off breaks hundreds of apps. In other words the app (channels in thus case) is periodically trying to detect tuners from time to time thus to you it may seem to be auto but that app is what is doing it. The discovery you referred to is only caused by that app sending out such request.