TSDuck Cheat Sheet

tsp -I file in.ts -P plugin1 -P plugin2 -O file out.ts

Order matters. Filtering before analysing answers a different question from analysing before filtering. And plugins like analyze, history, stats and pcrverify pass packets through untouched — so you can instrument a live pipeline without changing what it delivers.

The number to look at first is Unreferenced. Non-zero means PIDs carry data no PMT declares — bandwidth you are paying for and nothing can play. Second is Scrambled: check it before troubleshooting a CAM.

188 vs 204 bytes: the same stream with and without Reed-Solomon parity. Quote 204 for a transponder, 188 for an IP link.

tsp -I http 'http://host:8875/?freq=12606&sr=35300&pol=V&msys=dvbs2&mtype=8psk&fec=23&isi=5&plsc=131070&plsm=gold&t2mi_pid=auto&t2mi_plp=all&pids=all' -P analyze -P until --seconds 5 -O drop

⚠️ Quote the URL — this is the number-one mistake. A SAT>IP URL is full of &, which is the shell’s background operator. Unquoted on bash the command is split at the first &: tsp receives only ?freq=…, the rest become shell variables, and the command is backgrounded so your prompt returns as if it succeeded. The server gets a frequency with no symbol rate or polarisation and cannot tune — so it presents as a signal fault that never left your shell. On zsh it is a loud parse error near '&' instead. Prefer single quotes: a $ is still expanded inside double quotes.

Also: -O drop is not optional — without an output plugin the packets flood your terminal. And -P until is what makes a live input terminate so analyze ever prints its report; --seconds is wall clock, --packets is deterministic.

Reading a live report: Unreferenced should be 0. Fewer PCR PIDs than services means services share a PCR — normal. Several services at exactly the same bitrate means those carry only signalling, not content. And use --europe if service names come back with mangled accents (it is --dvb --default-charset ISO-8859-15).

When table XML will not compile, read the shipped schema rather than guessing: find / -name tsduck.tables.model.xml. It is generated from the same definitions the compiler uses, so it cannot be out of date.

Always pair svremove with rmorphan. Removing a service leaves its elementary PIDs orphaned — still carried, still costing bandwidth:
tsp -I file in.ts -P svremove 'OLD SVC' -P rmorphan -O file out.ts

Forget regulate and you transmit a file as fast as the disk allows — hundreds of times real time. The receiver’s symptoms look exactly like a network fault.

Losing exactly 16 packets is completely invisible. Zero discontinuities, zero duplicates, no indication at all. And a loss of 15 is reported as a duplicate, which a monitor treating duplicates as benign also misses. Continuity counting detects loss only when the count is not a multiple of 16 — useful, never sufficient. Byte-accurate accounting has to come from PCR jitter, bitrate deviation, or an RTP sequence number.

Repairing bad counters: tsfixcc in.ts fixes in place. Run tsfixcc --no-action in.ts first — many corrections means the real problem is upstream, and rewriting hides it.

--fast-switch is what makes failover seamless rather than merely automatic. Without it the backup only starts once the primary is declared dead, so the gap includes the backup’s startup time.