Edit: Darn it, looks like I spoke too soon. What I am advocating below does work for NBC. Once I noticed that, I got carried away and assumed my prayers had been answered for the other channels as well. Not so, apparently. Please take the below with a grain of salt, and label this post "For Experimentation Purposes Only". Ai Yi Yi. At least I can't be blamed for lack of enthusiasm. :-/
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The Microsoft Edge browser is able to direct play videos from the Channel Directory. This puts Edge up there with other supported clients, which are often specifically named in the following bit of code:
Edit: Not all of them, and I can't figure out why. The containers seem to be the same: MPEGTS with AAC audio...
if not Client.Platform in ('Android', 'iOS', 'Roku', 'Safari', 'tvOS', 'Samsung'):
Kindly consider adding Edge to this list, or better yet, remove this blocking code altogether, and include a pinned Announcement at the top of this forum about which clients these channels support.
For my own personal use, I have gone into each of the following channels and commented out the blocking code: ABC, Freeform, NBC, SyFy, The CW, and USA Network. Until I realized Edge could play these channels, I was watching them using Kodi with the PleXBMC addon. (Please see https://forums.plex.tv/discussion/213395/code-hack-for-viewing-american-netwotk-channels-on-kodi)
Since whenever I reboot the PC, or restart Plex Media Server, these channels revert back to their original state, I keep copies of my hacked versions so I can easily copy them back into the Plugins folder.