What Is Tunarr and What Can You Do With It?

Tunarr is a self-hosted tool that turns media already on your Plex or Jellyfin server into live TV channels. You configure channels, programs, commercials, and settings in a web UI, then watch them by adding Tunarr's spoofed HDHomeRun tuner to Plex, Jellyfin, or Emby, or by loading a generated M3U file into a third-party IPTV player. It fits best if you already run a media server and want scheduled, channel-style viewing rather than on-demand playback.

What Tunarr actually does

The core idea is that your existing library becomes the source for continuous channels. Tunarr does not replace Plex or Jellyfin; it sits alongside them and presents your media as a tuner source that other apps can consume.

How you watch the channels

There are two supported paths, and the right one depends on your player:

• Plex, Jellyfin, or Emby: add the spoofed Tunarr HDHomeRun tuner to the server. This is the native route if you want channels to appear inside the same app you already use for your library.
• Any third-party IPTV player: use the generated M3U files. This is the flexible route if your player of choice is not one of the three servers above.

Both paths come from the same channel configuration, so you can set up channels once and expose them in either form.

What you can configure

Tunarr's documentation organizes configuration into several areas, which gives a sense of how far the tool goes beyond a simple playlist:

• Media sources: Plex, Jellyfin, Emby, and local media, covering movies, shows, other video, music, and music videos.
• Channels: properties, Flex/EPG, transcoding, and watermarks.
• Programming: library content, filler (with its own rules for how filler is chosen), custom shows, smart collections, and trash.
• Scheduling: concepts, slot editor, time slots, cyclic shuffle, block shuffle, mid-roll breaks, replicate, and consolidate.
• System: backup, logging, and miscellaneous settings.

If your goal is just "play my files in order," much of this is optional. The scheduling and filler features matter when you want channels that behave like real broadcast TV, with breaks and recurring blocks.

Where it came from

Tunarr began as a fork of dizqueTV, which itself was a fork of earlier projects, and has since evolved into a near-complete rewrite. The stated goals are to modernize the backend and frontend, stabilize the program, fix bugs, improve performance, refresh the web UI, and add new features. Practically, that means documentation and behavior reflect the rewritten project rather than the older dizqueTV lineage, so setup instructions should be followed from Tunarr's own docs.

Is it the right tool for you?

Tunarr is a good fit if:

• You already have media organized in Plex or Jellyfin.
• You want scheduled, channel-style viewing with commercials, filler, and time-based programming.
• You are comfortable running a self-hosted service, since installation is offered via Docker or standalone binaries.

It is probably not what you need if you only want on-demand playback of your library, or if you do not already run one of the supported media servers. Before committing, check the Getting Started and Install sections of the documentation for the current setup path, and the Common Issues and Stream Troubleshooter pages if playback does not work as expected.