An unofficial, modified build of Dispatcharr that adds faster channel switching, a Channel Manager for your whole lineup, diagnostics, recordings that work on every install, and a lot more. It installs over the Dispatcharr you already have and takes itself off again with one button.
Tip
Use it together with arrTV, the Android TV app built for Dispatch More. Many features only work, or work much better, when both are used together: see Better together with arrTV.
Warning
Dispatch More is not made, reviewed or supported by the Dispatcharr developers. Before reporting a problem, uninstall Dispatch More (Settings → System → Modified build → Uninstall) and try the same thing on stock Dispatcharr. Do not report Dispatch More problems on the official Dispatcharr GitHub or Discord; report them in this repository's issues.
This is what I wish Dispatcharr could be. Because of the size of the changes, and because a lot of it was written with the help of AI, I did not try to add it to the official project. If you test it, please share what you find: maybe some of these features can make it into Dispatcharr itself one day.
Contents: What it is · Better together with arrTV · Features · Install · Install arrTV · Update · Uninstall · Good to know · Screenshots · License
- A layer over stock Dispatcharr. It replaces a set of Dispatcharr's files and keeps the originals, so going back to stock is one button (or one command).
- Safe to try. It adds no database tables. Everything new is off, or only suggests changes, until you switch it on or press Apply. With its features off, Dispatcharr behaves as stock.
- For Linux, LXC (including the Proxmox script) and Docker. Each release is built for one Dispatcharr version; the installer picks the right one for you.
arrTV is an app for Google TV / Android TV (and phones) that works with any Dispatcharr, but talks to Dispatch More directly. Using both is highly recommended:
| With Dispatch More + arrTV | What you get |
|---|---|
| Each TV is its own device | Switching channels on one TV never cuts off another TV on the same provider login, and each TV gets streams it can actually play. |
| Faster channel switching and failover | A stream that does not start is replaced by the next one sooner, and a stuttering stream is reported so the server can switch. |
| Report a problem from the TV | One press on the remote sends what went wrong with a channel to the server, where you see it under Settings → arrTV. |
| Wrong guide? Choose another | From the player, pick the right guide for a channel by comparing what is on each with the picture; it changes for everyone. |
| Instant updates | New channels, Show Groups and guide changes reach the TV within seconds, without restarting the app. |
| Recordings with ad skipping | Commercial breaks marked on the server are skipped during playback; the recording itself is never cut. |
| Away from home | Viewers outside your home network get a quality your connection can carry. |
| Watch together, in the house | Chosen users can join each other's arrTV devices in the same house, asked first; the one joined leads, the other changing channel asks whether to follow. |
| Pictures compared | Stream Check's "Compare pictures" watches a channel's streams side by side for a minute and a half and says whether they show the same thing, with the delay between providers. It only tells you. |
| Stalling streams left | A stream that keeps stopping and coming back (three stalls in five minutes) is left for the channel's next one, for viewers and recordings alike (Settings → Proxy, off by default). |
| Recordings checked | Each recording is checked when it ends: missing picture or sound and its length, shown on the DVR page (Healthy, Minor gaps, Damaged). |
| Watch together | A second TV on the same login can join the first: from then on, whichever changes channel, the other follows. |
| One TV at a time | Logins you choose watch live TV on one TV at a time: starting a channel on a second TV stops the first, which says which TV took over and offers Watch here. |
Every one of these has its own switch in Dispatch More (Settings → Streaming → arrTV) and in arrTV (Settings → General → arrTV optimizations).
- Channel Switch Overlap (per provider account) — on a provider that allows one stream, switching channels no longer waits for the old stream to close: the new channel may use one extra connection for a few seconds.
- Force Close on Identified Traffic (per provider account) — when a player asks for a new channel, the one it was watching is closed straight away, so its connection is free at once. Only for players Dispatcharr can tell apart (see Good to know).
A new page with everything for keeping a big lineup tidy. Nothing changes until you apply it.
- Lineup — merges every copy of a channel, from every provider and in every quality, into one channel, and suggests new streams as new channels (in the right group, on the next free number, with a logo and your fallback stream last). Each row shows what an apply adds. Optional: Remember matched streams (a stream the provider renames goes back on its channel) and Dispatcharr's language model (finds matches whose names differ, like "DE| DISCOVERY CHANNEL" and "┃DE┃ DISCOVERY"). It is worked out when you press Preview, not every time you open it.
- Guides — finds channels with no guide, an empty guide, or a clearly better guide, and shows what is on each guide now so you can pick the right one.
- Guide Layout — drag channels into order, group by group; the numbers follow.
- Logos — logos from public collections, your playlists and your guides, side by side.
- Stream Check — finds streams that no longer play (dead, refused, black, frozen, or the provider's "no stream" picture). It checks one provider at a time (two when it only runs while nothing plays), so your other providers stay free for watching, and keeps a viewer on the provider they are on while it runs. It never touches a provider someone is watching, and can put dead streams aside automatically. It also records each stream's resolution, codec, frame rate and audio, which the Stats page shows even on the Proxy profile. A channel that ended on its fallback slate (the "Could Not Dispatch" screen) keeps trying its real streams and is stopped after 15 minutes there, instead of streaming the slate for as long as a TV stays connected.
- Show Groups — groups by what is on right now: Cooking, Travel, Movies, Documentaries, Sport, Kids and more, plus groups you add. A group holds every channel airing that kind of show and lets it go when the show ends (never while someone watches). Channels can be kept in a group for good. Uses your guides and, optionally, TVmaze, Wikidata, Wikipedia, TMDB, TheTVDB, Trakt and OMDb to recognise shows.
- Subtitles — which subtitles every channel carries (teletext, DVB subtitles, closed captions) and the language it speaks, as Stream Check finds them in its streams. For channels without any, an optional caption worker (speech to text with faster-whisper) can be installed from the tab: it looks at your server's graphics card, processor and memory, measures each model there, and proposes the one that fits. Nothing is installed until you ask. Installed, arrTV offers Generated captions in its Subtitles menu: text made from the sound of the channel you watch, in step with the picture, without an extra provider connection -- translated into the TV's language if you like (DeepL, a model in Ollama, or small Opus-MT models the worker fetches itself), once per channel and language for every TV.
- Server rewind — while a TV watches a channel, the server records it to its own disk (no re-encoding, no extra provider connection) and arrTV pauses and rewinds on that recording instead of its own: a pause of hours resumes where it stopped, even on a TV with little free space. Keeps the last hour (and up to 4 h behind a paused TV), within a disk budget you set on the arrTV page; off records nothing.
- EPG Grabber — runs iptv-org's guide grabber on a schedule (when it is installed on the server) and only replaces your guide once the new one is complete.
- Recordings work on Linux installs. Stock Dispatcharr never starts a recording on a Linux/LXC install (only Docker has the worker for it). Dispatch More fixes that and adds a worker of its own for recordings, up to 20 at once.
- Commercial breaks marked, not cut. With Comskip in Mark mode, the breaks are stored with the recording so arrTV can skip them; nothing is cut out, so a wrong guess costs nothing.
- Comskip when the recording asks for it, even with the server-wide switch off.
- Channel starts and switches — where the time goes when a channel starts.
- Channel health — what each running channel plays, from where, to whom, and how stopped ones ended.
- Logs — every log Dispatcharr writes, filtered and downloadable.
- Memory — how much memory each part of Dispatcharr uses, and (switched on) a history kept on disk for 14 days, through reboots and crashes: a chart with what happened marked on it, and for any moment every process and what each web worker was doing.
- Media Servers — Plex and Jellyfin in one place: who watches what, stop a session, and manage Dispatcharr's HDHomeRun tuners and guides on them. Plex and Jellyfin no longer keep streams open too long.
- Service keys (Settings → System) — keys for TMDB, TheTVDB, Trakt and OMDb in one place, with a Test button.
- Modified build (Settings → System) — what is installed, and the button back to stock.
Important
Make a backup first: Dispatcharr → Settings → Backup & Restore.
Dispatch More goes over a working Dispatcharr. The installer checks your version and changes nothing if no release was built for it. On a Linux machine or LXC without Dispatcharr, the same command installs the Dispatcharr version the release is made for first, with Dispatcharr's own installer (it asks you to type "I understand" under its warning), then Dispatch More.
Run on the Dispatcharr machine (or a new Debian/Ubuntu machine or LXC, as root):
curl -fsSL https://github.com/ckegels/dispatch-more/releases/latest/download/quick-install.sh | sudo bashRun on the Docker host (use your container's name instead of dispatcharr):
docker exec dispatcharr bash -c "curl -fsSL https://github.com/ckegels/dispatch-more/releases/latest/download/quick-install.sh | bash" && docker restart dispatcharrA restart keeps Dispatch More, but recreating the container (a new image, or a changed
compose file) brings back stock Dispatcharr. To have it put back at every start, add this to
the Dispatcharr service in docker-compose.yml:
entrypoint: ["/bin/bash", "/data/dispatch-more/docker-entrypoint.sh"]With separate Celery containers, give them the same entrypoint and
environment: DISPATCHARR_ENTRYPOINT=/app/docker/entrypoint.celery.sh.
- Finds your Dispatcharr and its version, and downloads the Dispatch More release made for it.
- Checks that every file it replaces is the stock one, and stops if one is not.
- Keeps the originals, installs the new files (the web page comes ready-built, so nothing is compiled on your server) and restarts Dispatcharr.
- On Linux only: adds a worker for recordings (
dispatcharr-celery-dvr). Leave it out with--no-dvr-worker. - On Linux only: a watcher that lets the Subtitles tab install the optional caption worker when you ask for it (nothing is installed until then). In Docker the tab shows a container to add to your compose file instead.
Download dispatch-more-<release>-dispatcharr-<version>.tar.gz from Releases,
unpack it and run sudo bash dispatch-more/install.sh (add --app /path/to/dispatcharr if
Dispatcharr is not in /opt/dispatcharr).
Open Dispatcharr: Settings → System → Modified build says which release is installed. New pages: Channel Manager in the menu, Diagnostics and arrTV under Settings → Streaming. Switch on what you want to use; the rest stays off.
On a Google TV / Android TV:
- Install Downloader (by AFTVnews) from the Play Store.
- Enter
https://github.com/ckegels/ArrTV/releases/latest/download/ArrTV.apkand install the app (allow Downloader to install apps when asked). - Open arrTV. It finds Dispatcharr on your network by itself; pick it and log in.
- In Dispatch More, switch on what you want under Settings → Streaming → arrTV.
Phones, tablets and other ways to install are in the arrTV instructions.
Run the same install command again: it replaces the installed release with the newest one. arrTV updates itself (Settings › App Updates).
A new Dispatcharr version: a Dispatch More release only fits the Dispatcharr version it was built for. When Dispatcharr updates, a new Dispatch More release follows. Until then, keep your Dispatcharr version, or uninstall Dispatch More first and update to stock.
- From the page: Settings → System → Modified build → Uninstall and go back to stock Dispatcharr. On Linux it happens right away; in Docker at the next restart of the container.
- By hand (Linux):
sudo bash /var/lib/dispatch-more/uninstall.sh - Docker: recreate the container (
docker compose up -d --force-recreate), without theentrypointline if you added it.
Every file is put back as it was. Your channels, streams and settings stay; stock Dispatcharr ignores the settings only Dispatch More uses.
- Telling devices apart. Force Close and the per-TV features need each device to be recognisable. arrTV identifies itself; other players are told apart by their address, so on your home network add your local network in the provider account's settings, and away from home give each device its own login.
- One Dispatcharr version per release. See Update.
- AI-assisted. Much of the code was written with the help of AI and tested on one large setup. Report what does not work in the issues.
Dispatcharr is licensed under the GNU AGPL v3, and so is Dispatch More. This
repository is the complete source: the feature/probation-slots branch is Dispatcharr's code
with Dispatch More's changes, each explained in its commit message. The installed build names
this repository under Settings → System → Modified build.
For people working on it: fork/HANDOVER.md and CLAUDE.md.