There's also pluto tv, xumo, etc that have live channels that basically run content throughout the day.
this post was submitted on 03 Apr 2026
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Jellyfin has an iptv addon you can install
Tunarr
ErsatzTV is great for this, but it just entered maintenance mode and I don't think any forks are currently continuing the work. Still, it'll probably continue to work without issues for a long time.
Dang. Yeah, that's exactly what I want. Shame to see it's unmaintained, but I'll have to give it a shot anyway.
Ive tried ersatz and a couple of other things it was cool
if you're needing this channel on multiple devices at once (synced-ish) then ersatz is the way to go.. but it uses some hardware/horsepower and it bugged me seeing the metrics spin up on that server for me to wanna have some background noise
instead, i found out kodi can do smart playlists!
I have jellyfin/emby feeding several kodi installs, and made various playlists based around various rules (can be genre, folder, tags, or TV show titles etc), with one of the rules being playcount for episodes/movies being under a certain number.
added a script for starting each playlist to buttons in home assistant, and bam, poor mans channels.
when an episode gets finished, the playcount goes up, keeping us from seeing the same episodes.
i know we're getting crazy here but i even created a variable, so when the house knows i put it in "TV mode" like that, it maps my channel up and down buttons to the skip foward, skip previous buttons, making it feel more like channel surfing. which is a little much, but puts a smile on my face.
in the home assistant script, you could add a "skip 3 minutes" when "changing channels" so it feels like real TV, no need to see the first few minutes of speed! Where is Sandra Bullock!?
Your "poor man's channels" is a slick fix. I haven't messed with HA yet, but didn’t think about whether that could cue up specific playlists. That'd get me one bit closer.
I was just about to set up ErsatzTV for this exact thing, but the maintainer announced recently that he’s not updating it anymore and nobody is taking over. It’s probably fine for now, but I’m hesitant to start running it. He’s encouraging forks, but none are really the clear successor yet as far as I know. I don’t know if there’s anything else comparable.
Try just using digital TV. I get like 20 channels on mine with just a coax cable hooked to a VCR!
But then I'm tied to "normal" tv channels saturated with ads, yeah?
That's very much part of the experience you seem to crave /s
Maybe there is a FOSS self hosted solution for mixing good old tv ads into the mix!
It won't really feel like a tv channel until I put 5 minutes of prescription drug commercials between every cut in a show.
Indeed
ErsatzTV is what I use, but it's definitely overkill for my usage. I just want a channel that plays Friends, Seinfeld, The Office, Parks & Rec, all shuffled, all day.
ErsatzTV definitely works for that, but it's overkill for just that use case.