Merge Duplicates

The merge_duplicates rule combines channels considered duplicates (e.g., "CNN HD", "CNN 4K") into one logical channel with fallback sources.

It is similar to the remove_duplicates rule, but instead of removing duplicates, it treats duplicates as fallback sources when a channel is unavailable for some reason, such as upstream errors or concurrency limits for the playlist.

YAML Structure

merge_duplicates:
  patterns: []
  selector: ""
  final_value: {}
  condition: {}

Fields

Field	Type	Required	Description
patterns	[]regex	Yes	Priority order (first has highest priority)
selector	Selector	No	Use attribute or tag to identify groups
final_value	FinalValue	No	Use for modify result channels
condition	Condition	No	Only apply if condition matches

Examples

Prefer the best quality:

# Input: CNN HD, CNN 4K
# Output: CNN HQ

playlist_rules:
  - remove_duplicates:
      patterns: ["4K", "UHD", "FHD", "HD", "SD"]
      final_value:
        template: "{{.BaseName}} HQ"

Restrict deduplication to specific clients:

# Input: CNN HD, CNN 4K, CNN SD
# Output: CNN SD

playlist_rules:
  - remove_duplicates:
      patterns: ["SD", "HD", "FHD", "4K"]
      condition:
        clients: ["kitchen", "office-lite"]