A working example of how to add channels.

Ok, so many posts are asking how do you add channels, many people are not able to do that. So I decided to walk you through adding a real life working channel and access it through your POD.

The channel we will work with is from NASA Tv. As you will notice it's format is *.asx. As most of you know or will find out is that ZAAPTV POD requires a *.wmv file. The *.asx file is a pointer file (metadata) that points to the actual media file. I don't want to get into much details about that, but the bottom line is that this file points to a windows media file, therefore will suffice the requirement of ZAAPTV of being a *.wmv.

First of all you must register your POD, if you have not yet go to : https://myzaaptv.zaaptv.com/member/register.php and register your POD.

Now sign in to MyZaaptv at: https://myzaaptv.zaaptv.com/ .

Once in, you will see four orange buttons on the right. Click on "Add New Channel". The Add Channel page will open up. So far so good.

Now input the following information:

Add in Category: Select "Demo" from the pull down menu.

Channel URL: copy and paste the following URL:

http://www.nasa.gov/145590main_Digital_Media.asx

Channel Name: "NASA TV"

Country: Select "United States" from the drop menu.

Description: Type in "This is a working demo of a live tv, compliments of Masrawy ;)" (It will not work without this description…lol).

Who can see this? Select "Only Me".

Click on Save, a new page should open up titled "NASA TV", and informing you that you have successfully added a new channel, and will even show you a preview of the channel under Channel Video.

That's it you are done. Now we want to see the fruits of our labor.

Go to your POD's Main Menu, select MyTv, select My Channels, Select Demo and you should see your new channel called NASA TV in the lineup. Select it and enjoy it.

You can change any of the information I just gave aforementioned, so experiment and see what happens. If you create new links, let us know so we can add them and enjoy them too.

Salam

P.S: One question I am sure I will get is where I got that URL for the video from? Simply I googled it and found it in a forum for NASA. To actually go through a web page and find the URL of a stream is a very technical issue, and I will not go into actually explaining how it's done on this blog. There are many resources online for doing that. I just don't want to deviate away from the goal of this blog.

Another thing is the format of the files, I have not experimented with anything else yet. I just used what they asked for, just for the sake of getting this post ready. If someone has experimented with other formats and are sure they work please let us know.

Buffering Issues

***Disclaimer: Try at your own risk, I have not tried any of this, so I really can not say if it will work or not, brought to you from the ZAAPTV Knowledgebase website.***


If you have Buffering issues please see this Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0W2KRaVoUc and change the DNS to 8.8.8.8.

Notice you should only change the DNS to 8.8.8.8 not the IP Adress.

Update 2011-12-01: If the above is not working try to replace DNS with the down listed, (DO NOT CHANGE THE IP ADRESSES).

Google

8.8.4.4

Level 3 Communications (Broomfield, CO, US)

4.2.2.1
4.2.2.2
4.2.2.3
4.2.2.4
4.2.2.5
4.2.2.6

Verizon (Reston, VA, US)

151.197.0.38
151.197.0.39
151.202.0.84
151.202.0.85
151.202.0.85
151.203.0.84
151.203.0.85
199.45.32.37
199.45.32.38
199.45.32.40
199.45.32.43

GTE (Irving, TX, US)

192.76.85.133
206.124.64.1

One Connect IP (Albuquerque, NM, US)

67.138.54.100

OpenDNS (San Francisco, CA, US)

208.67.222.222
208.67.220.220

Exetel (Sydney, AU)

220.233.167.31

VRx Network Services (New York, NY, US)

199.166.31.3

SpeakEasy (Seattle, WA, US)

66.93.87.2
216.231.41.2
216.254.95.2
64.81.45.2
64.81.111.2
64.81.127.2
64.81.79.2
64.81.159.2
66.92.64.2
66.92.224.2
66.92.159.2
64.81.79.2
64.81.159.2
64.81.127.2
64.81.45.2
216.27.175.2
66.92.159.2
66.93.87.2

Sprintlink (Overland Park, KS, US)

199.2.252.10
204.97.212.10
204.117.214.10

Cisco (San Jose, CA, US)

64.102.255.44
128.107.241.185

OpenNIC

202.83.95.227 (au)
119.31.230.42(au)
178.63.26.173 (de)
217.79.186.148 (de)
27.110.120.30(nz)
89.16.173.11 (uk)
69.164.208.50 (us)
216.87.84.211(us)


---------------------------------------------------------------
Nick Danielsson (09 March 2011 07:16 PM). Buffering Issues. Retrieved from http://zaaptv.kayako.com/Knowledgebase/Article/View/1/0/buffering-issues

Loosing Channels

Salam everyone,

For the last couple of weeks ZAAPTV has been loosing some Arabic channels. The latest ones we lost are Al-Haya (Egyptian channel) all three of the them. I noticed that while I was searching through the channels a message would pop up saying something in the lines of " Please be patient we are updating our services and we will be adding another 200 channels soon" !!

So I am not sure if that's what's causing these problems or not! Maybe they are just working on adding new channels and in that time taking down some of them. I will send them an email today and let everyone know what their response is.

Here are a couple of tricks to help out, if the icon disappears and the channel is still broadcasting.

If you lost some channels from the front menu, and you recently watched them, try looking through your history and open it from there. Another trick is to Favorite all the channels you like, this way if the icon disappears and the channel is still broadcasting, you can still pull it up and watch it.


Salam

Coming Soon... A tutorial on how to connect ZAAPTV to a Windows 7 Media Server

I will be talking in this tutorial on how you can connect your ZAAPTV to a Windows based media server, where all your movies, songs and photos from that computer can be streamed and viewed on your TV using ZAAPTV, very beneficial for those who do not have a computer hooked up to their TV's.

Stay tuned...

Update on ZAAPTV

Salam everyone,

So far ZAAPTV has been good (mashallah, and allaho akbar ;) )

Some channels have been dropped and others added, it really depends on what you like to watch and what you follow. Someone commented about Quds, Arabiyah and Dubai have disappeared, and I can not find them either. The thing with ZAAPTV is that some channels could disappear and not come back, this is random. For example Alhayat once disappeared and then 2 weeks later it showed up again !! I think it has something to do with licensing issues, because Dream 2 was on ZAAPTV then all of a sudden it disappeared and found it on Dish network !!

Like I mentioned in previous posts you can add your own channels if you know the link for them, plus the software is picky on what kind of format it uses.

Overall I am happy with it and rarely flip over to watch regular cable anymore.

I could see that the service could be improved a lot in many ways but that is another post I will create inshallah.

Anyways I hope to hear from everyone, don't be discouraged if I don't comment right away, I will do my best to help and give out info as much as I could.

A commenter asked about parental controls, there are none I know of, and as far as inappropriate channels, honestly I don't know since I don't look for them. There are a few kids channels, inshallah I will list all the available channels on a post one day.



Salam for now.

Restting your ZAAPTV

**Disclaimer: Please do the following at your own risk, I will not be held responsible for any data that may get lost. This is information from my experiences that I am sharing with you, either take it or leave it, and I am not responsible for anything that happens.**


Now after this lengthy and wordy disclaimer is out of the way, I received several inquiries on how to reset ZAAPTV to your factory settings, I don't remember if the user manual that came with the device covered that or not but here is what I have done and it worked. This usually solves a lot of problems associated with the device not acting up correctly.


Press your "Home" button.

At the main menu, select "Settings", then select "Factory Defaults". From here you have 2 options either a "Soft Restore", which reset's your settings and does not delete your favorites, bookmarks..etc. and there is the "Full Restore" which technically should return the device to the same condition it was bought and that will delete all your favorites, bookmarks..etc.

That should hopefully fix your problems.

Using either restore option will erase your network information and you have to set it up again.

I recommend if you have a USB disk to eject it first, by going to the the same "Settings" screen described previously and selecting "Eject USB Disk".

Different devices may have different menus, so look around and you will find it.

Let me know if this info helps or not, and so others may learn from our experiences.

Salam.

ZAAPTV Hiccups....

Sometimes, ZAAPTV just refuses to work nicely and starts messing around with the channel line ups, or in one instance my entire "My TV" category was not working and I was instructed to contact support.

An easy solution that I discovered to most problems is to reset the device to the default settings of the manufacturer, this should eliminate most problems.

ZAAPTV IPTV Review

Hello everyone, 

Let me give you a brief review of the ZAAPTV IPTV device.

The device is small in size and so is the remote control. Setting it up was a breeze at least for me. Connect the RCA cable to the device and the other end to the TV. I did not purchase the USB Netgear adapter from ZAAPTV, I bought my own, it was also a Netgear model number WN111, I got it from CompUSA for $20 Refurbished !!! Hooked it up, and powered the device. The device immediately noticed the wireless adapter was connected, and detected my home network. It picked up an automatic ip address and I was able to enter the password for my home network. Within a few seconds the device was online and displayed the TV channels available.

There is about a 108 channels, and I tested a few channels, and the quality was pretty good. One note when you first select a channel the video will be centered and small in size. But if you zoom in the picture will be full-screen and the quality is almost tv like. Dont forget you are streaming over ip so its not High Def !!! There are a few good channels that we enjoy watching, Mehwar, Al-Yoom, Al-Haya, Melody, Alarabiya, MBC...etc.

Also, If you know the web address of a TV channel you can add it from the ZAAPTV website and it will be seen on your device, and you can watch that station on your TV. Also on the website there are many channels being updated and simply subscribing to these channels will add them to your device.

I have not had a chance to go through a lot of the other features but after I do , I may update my posts later.

Oh I almost forgot there is a bunch of old movies on demand, and the quality is excellent. They are old movies up to the 70's or so. I found a couple of movies I enjoyed watching.

The device works very well on a big screen tv, the quality is almost tv like. I have not tried the wired connection, but the tv has worked well with my 6Mbps high speed internet, with both my router and wireless usb adapter being "N", also both devices are Netgear. From the settings screen I saw, any device can be configured very easily.

If you have any other specific questions please don't hesitate to let me know by posting a comment.