Okay... crisis apparently averted!
I checked the Z7+ ~ 15 minutes later, and the connection was indeed finally cancelled. MOL opened to the menu, and I was able to edit the URL for that portal/provider (my back-up) and we're back in business. 
Phew! 
Greetings all.
This is an odd one, and infuriating. 
... for the moment only, hopefully! 
I have a provider/portal I haven't used on the Z7+ for a while, and I'd forgotten that I needed to update the URL. When I tried opening it, needless to say, it wouldn't connect, and when I hit exit on the remote, it showed "cancelling connection" as expected. Unfortunately it hangs at this point.
If I try force stopping MOL in Android settings, when trying to reopen MOL, it tries connecting to this portal again, and hitting exit results in it hanging at "cancelling connection" again... so you can see the problem: I can't use MOL at all at this point! 
Any suggestions? Restarting the box results in the same issue as force stopping it in Android settings, so right now I'm SOL with MOL... 
Needless to say, the Z7+ is updated to the latest firmware and version of MOL.
Thanks in advance!
It's true.
Thanks for the confirmation!
Greetings all.
I currently have a Z7+ which does many things well, but I'm considering upgrading to a Z8, which should do a few things better, along with a few things which MOL on the Z7+ can't. 
My first question is regarding recording. With MOL on the Z7+, you can schedule a future recording and it happily starts MOL from stand-by and records the appropriate stream. The annoying limitation is that after the recording, MOL stays open with the stream continuing to run, chewing up bandwidth on my internet connection.
It was suggested in another forum that MOL2 on the Z8 shuts down after recording and puts the Z8 back in stand-by. Is this the case or was I misinformed?
Many thanks in advance.
That is not what I wrote. I only wrote about my personal experience.
Both functionality you mention there is working for me with Z8.
If it does not work (on whatever hardware model) I don't think you/we should first try to find a problem in Formuler hardware/software.
Thanks again, and for the additional info. 
As for the issue being with Formuler or not, that's why I originally asked what providers might be doing differently, or need to do differently, if regular catch-up is working fine, but this newer feature isn't!
If anyone with deeper technical knowledge of the Z7+'s firmware and MOL has any insight into this, I'd appreciate it so it can be passed along to the providers.
For the channels that have the timeshift icon it works fine for me on Z8/MOL2 7.5.6.
I would say it works because the provider is doing a good job and the Formuler software is already stable in this functionality area for a long time.
Thanks ddd ... so the issue is that while it works on the Z8, it's not working on MOL on the Z7+. Correct?
Just to confirm, it's not catch-up in general that's working well for you with a Z8 (replaying programs in the guide that have already finished) but rather what Formuler calls 'cloud timeshift': starting playing a stream and being able to 'rewind' to the beginning of the program using the provider's catch-up stream to augment the live stream?
"Cloud Timeshift" or better known as "Server side Timeshift" is possibility to watch last 24h stream at once .
Is on channels possible to watch with catch up icon.
Problem is, before the XC fiasko last year, many servers offered this and after IPTV Panel changes on server side, this option is on many providers not more supported or not activated. I have one test provider, he just stopped 3 Months ago to offer catch up and Cloud Timeshift
Thanks SAM, but that doesn't answer my question: what is it that providers need to do/change with their catch-up implementation in order for cloud timeshift to work in MOL (or MOL2 for that matter)?
As mentioned, many providers, including the 4 or 5 I've tried over the past year still offer catch-up that works... but not cloud timeshift on MOL. I'm using 2 at the moment with catch-up that works perfectly for programs that have ended... just not Formuler's cloud timeshift.
A better question is: does it work any better on MOL2?
Greetings all!
I was excited to see that cloud timeshift was added to MOL last autumn after reading about it for a while being included in MOL2 on the Z8.
Unfortunately, I've tried it with 4 (or 5? Hard to remember! ) providers since it was implemented - all providers that have catch-up as part of their service, varying from pretty good to excellent - and none seem to support cloud timeshift!
Thus my question... previous discussion suggested it needs to be supported by the provider, but what do they need to do differently from regular catch-up to support this feature? 
It's the kind of thing that would make a Formuler box the perfect TV solution... but at the moment, it's not quite there...
Thanks in advance.
*****needs to use the new mag.*****.tv address, you need to set UTC in the settings, and you need to clear EPG data in settings. You should also login to the *****web portal and choose your groups in the settings, as those are now being used in the Mag portal.
Groups selection used to be available through the web portal, but no longer... not sure why?
Mind you, the only ***** web portal I know of is minihosts, so perhaps there's another that still has groups editing... which would be great, as there are a lot I'd like to remove!
tinyurl is working for m3u + xmltv epg URLs
Thanks. It should work in the case of the provider I haven't gotten around to adding yet...
If you have an android phone you can download the formuler app and copy/paste the urls. Saves you a lot of time instead of typing via remote !
Do you mean Air Sync Remote-Z or another app?
Sorted now .....don't use tinyurl when entering XML TV EPG info
Cr@p... I was going to add another provider that only has an M3U for me to use... and they're looooooooooong URLs for both the M3U and EPG... I was glad we could use tinyurl, but apparently not! 
Display MoreI personally do not know, but my guess is that it would be pretty common.
A typical ****live TS url looks like...
http://vapi.****.tv/play/2480.m3u8?token=SOMETOKEN
A typical ****catch-up TS url looks like...
http://vapi.****.tv/play/dvr/${start}/2480.m3u8?token=SOMETOKEN&duration=3600
${start} is replaced with the current Unix timestamp -- `duration` is the "chunk" of TS to receive is milliseconds. Depending on the the client handles catch-up, they might receive the program in hundreds of little chunks (this is how Live TV is delivered), or request one giant chunk. Either way, the client should have complete control over requesting an additional X minutes at the end of any program.
Thanks again.
The "dvr" tag in the catch-up url is telling. The separate archived stream tends to be a lot more compressed than the (almost) live stream... in my limited experience!
Regarding Catch Up...
For services such as Vader Streams, the Catch Up uses the same protocol as live TV (in other words, catch up programs are not a pre-generated file, but rather a live TS stream with an associated timecode parameter that is generated from the EPG timecode). Therefore, for Catch Up, all we're requesting is that instead of queueing up 4:00:00 to 4:30:00 for a show -- just add ~5 minutes and queue up 4:00:00 to 4:35:00 (or whatever number the user has configured). Knowing this, the post-recording setting that you are developing for recordings would be the same value that you would want to use for Catch Up.
As far as starting Catch Up earlier, I'm not sure this would be needed as the provider should never be ahead of schedule. If you still plan on developing it, I would make that feature a very low priority.
I also think the autoplay feature is a great idea! Keep up the good work!
Thanks for the additional info.
Do you know if this protocol (a live TS stream for Catch-Up) is common for other providers using TS or (fairly) unique to Vader?
Manual recording should be implemented in the late Fall/Early Winter update.
There is a possibility it could be implemented sooner, but I don't want to over-promise anything.
Again, thanks!
I believe so yes. That’s how he worded it in his original post. Although this could cause an issue if you have back to back recordings (on different channels), it’s a start!
True, but it's a huge step forward in terms of no longer missing the last minute or two or three of a recorded show!
Of course, now I'm repeating myself redundantly... 
There are 2 separate issues/features that are being requested here
<snip>
Hope that clears things up
Thanks!
Is there a timeframe for implementing #1 (extra time/manual recording)? As I mentioned earlier in this thread, the Z7+ and MOL are outstanding in most other ways, and NOT having the endings of nearly every program cut off would make this the most nearly-perfect solution for IPTV.
175n ... any chance this is already in the development roadmap for a (hopefully very near!) future release?
Fingers very crossed!
This is incorrect. The catch-up offset can be handled by the box in the same vein as you are suggesting with recordings.
How is this the case? The start and end times of catch-up are determined by the provider, not by the box. That is, if I select a previously shown program to play, I get whatever the provider sends, and it's whatever they've recorded.
That is, of course, unless I'm missing something obvious... or well-hidden! Am I?
One thing I’ll say, is if you’re watching TV and you press record, press record again and an option will come up where you can add time to the end. But this only works in this exact scenario. If you’re scheduling a recording in the future or setting up a recording via the EPG guide, I don’t think you can add time.
Next best thing is to just record the show after also
Well... umm... I'm sure I thought at one point "Heck... in a pinch, I'll just record the show following the one I want!" but somehow it subsequently completely disappeared from my (apparently) overworked brain!
Simple solution to a simple problem... since it would only cause an overlap problem with another channel on rare occasion.
Thanks for the gentle reminder!
I tested a few recordings again last night, and I really feel this should be a high priority item... in my oh-so humble opinion, of course!
Seriously, though... most streams have a delay, so cutting off the end of (nearly) every recording really reduces the value of being able to record.
I guess my perspective is that the Z7+ and MOL are such outstanding pieces of kit in most other ways, it's unexpected that we'd run into such a significant limitation.
I think there’s a reason this is unlikely to happen. There’s what, ~2 boxes out there that run android TV OS ? Shield and MiBox? There’s gotta be a reason all these ‘android boxes’ run the phone OS, and I’m sure it’s a good one (I just don’t know what it is!)
I believe there are significant license requirements (and fees!) for Android TV in comparison to vanilla Android.
I could be wrong on this, tho'!
seanns32 ... Agreed on all points!
Basically asking for the same thing here...
Thanks! I thought something similar had been mentioned somewhere before, but implementing it with catch-up would be at the discretion of the provider, as they set the time of recording a program for their subscribers to watch later, no?
In any case, both catch-up and local recordings both need this option.
Because of the overhead involved in streaming, what we're watching is usually a minute or two behind the original broadcast. In fact, something I was watching tonight was a bit over 3 minutes behind!
It would be extremely helpful to be able to add a minute or two (or three ) to recording times in MOL in order to ensure we don't miss the end of a show. Perhaps this could be added to the queue of wishlist items for future updates!
It's possible this has been suggested elsewhere on the forum, but a search turned up nothing relevant.
Just remove the .gz from the EPG URL and it should work
We'll try to add automatic .gz decompression to MOL in the August update
Well... it didn't work. Thanks again for looking into it, though!
Still got a "Data load failed" error after ~ 90% on the "Connecting..." progress bar.
Just remove the .gz from the EPG URL and it should work
We'll try to add automatic .gz decompression to MOL in the August update
Thanks for the suggestion... I'll give it a try tomorrow!
And thanks also for the info about the potential change in the August update... hopefully it will make things even easier/more straightforward.
Hey Rob,
Thanks for the info.
If the EPG doesn't work, there's kind of zero point to trying to access "V" on the Z7+ it seems.
Looks like I wasted some serious $!
Shame on me, I suppose... 
Greetings.
I recently picked up a Z7+ and it works well using a MAC address connection.
My current issue is with with attempting an M3U/Playlist connection. I'm sharing an account for a popular provider (whose name starts with "V") with my brother. He has a MAG box, so is using the MAC address connection. I've tried various versions of the Playlist and EPG URLs for this provider that are online, particularly the ones that seem to work for Perfect Player, and no joy.
The best I can get is the "Connecting to V..." progress bar getting to ~ 90% and then an error from MOL about "Data (something... something...) not loaded".
I'm presuming it's appropriate to ask permission here before posting the URLs I've tried as they're provider specific, so please let me what further info I can provide in order to help you fine folks help me.
Thanks in advance!
Edit: I didn't make the connection earlier although I'd read those threads, but is it possible that the error occurs because this provider uses a .gz for its EPG URL?
